Chapter 4 – The Night Before the Morning After.
A/N: Reviewers ahoy:
HHH (and Soulio!) – Yeah, that was a bit of a problem; I wanted to try and make it a bit less obvious but there wasn't really a way I could think of to disguise whose room it was – Jan was the only female guardian after all. Any ideas – oh and if being bopped on the head with an umbrella's the worst Thunderhawk has to suffer, he's been lucky.
ZZ – Up to speed on the plot so far? That's what I like to hear; this story arc is going to be huge when I've finished it – hope to see you at the finish line, but for now yes, you are going to see Knuckles and Shadow completely snookered.
TH – Good to hear from you once more, my little Red Bull fiend! Hope camp was okay for you, and as for your friend in Newcastle; six days is just nuts! Dan only managed four and a half – what's she made of! Anyhoo, hope this chappie's mad enough for you, and by the way, Penguins aren't just coming, they're already here, in my fridge, where mum keeps buying them for me – I prefer Kitkats on the whole but the oversized Artic birds are still pretty tasty.
After the realisation of what was to come later on in the night, Lara had simply thrown her hands up at it all and simply said they make themselves comfortable; Tails was quite sure the line of,
"They'll get here, or I'll hear they arrived at my work sometime tomorrow morning; either way I'll get my hands on them" would stay with him for the rest of his days. After taking a pew and investing in the liberty of another large mug of the strongest stimulant drink Lara had to hand, it was quite surprising how much actually to talk about and share with each other.
At first, Tails had done most of the talking; he had explained as much as he could about the many adventures he'd had with Sonic and the others, from the very start of his adventures with the blue hedgehog to the recent rescue of Rouge and placed particular emphasis on the role of her son in this extensive saga; he left out the involvement of the Dark Legion as he reasoned Spectre's talk to the council of Echidnopolis would be better able to inform the population of the danger they now faced from the technocratic faction. Reaching into his pouch, he thumbed the buttons on his phone and handed it over to his hostess,
"Press up and down to scroll through them; that'll let you know what we'll be up against later".
As he'd expected, Lara had been extremely interested in the pictures section of his phone; though he'd deleted several of the older pictures, it still held some images that put the guardian in a positive perspective. The echidna had looked over each one of the still images with something like reverence, as though the sight of her son behaving normally and, he noticed with interest, interacting pleasantly with the rest of the gang was a great relief to her.
"So you've know him nearly four years?"
"Give or take a few months", Tails agreed amiably, trying to keep her as good-natured as possible as Sonic's future health might depend on her temper, "like I said he was a little wild when we met him first off, but when he figured out we didn't want the Master Emerald he cooled off and helped us out". She smiled; yep, a guardian through and through;
"I'd expect nothing less; Locke was just the same when we first met; I thought he was rude and fairly conceited at first but, there was something there I couldn't help but love". Uh oh, dangerous ground; Tails cleared his throat – Knuckles had said his parents were divorced, but hadn't told any of them the reasons why and the fox was not going to risk treading on that thin ice for fear of offending the guardian's mother. He tried to change tack,
"Ms Le, believe me when I say your son's a hero; if it wasn't for his help Dr Eggman would have taken the world over and corrupted the Master Emerald for all time; maybe he'd have made it so Echidnopolis could never have come back".
"You think he could have?" Lara was shocked by this; though Tails had said the obese human was insane and done his best to highlight his megalomania, she still had trouble believing he could have wrested control of the Master Emerald from the guardians, especially if the Brotherhood had been forced to come to Knuckles' aid. Tails nodded vigorously,
"I like Eggman about as far as I can throw him but I have to respect the fact he is a genius. I really couldn't tell you what he's capable of but if he'd found out you were in there, he'd have done whatever it took to hold you all to ransom, and if he ever discovered about the Chaos Siphon", the fox shook his head, trying hard not to think about Eggman with a machine capable of limitless Chaos Emerald production at his fingertips as it sent shudders down his spine.
They had lapsed into a few minutes silence after this, during which Lara had asked politely if he wanted a refresher for his drink and he had equally politely refused; too much coffee did bad things to the fox's nervous control and as a scientist he prided himself on his steady hands. As Lara re-entered the living room, the fox flicked his eyes to the clock on the wall and realised with a jolt that midnight was less than half an hour away.
"Where the heck are they now?" He didn't realise he'd spoken out loud until Lara laughed as she set her mug down,
"If Thunderhawk's anything like I remember him, probably on their hands and knees crawling to the next watering hole", her green eyes suddenly solidified to pure gems of mischief mixed with malice as she rubbed her clenched fist with a free hand, "oh, I'm going to make his life hell tomorrow morning". Tails let his own evil grin edge onto his face, shunting aside the brewing yawn with a grated statement,
"Just as long as you leave Sonic to me; after all his talk about people keeping him waiting and now this – Rouge is going to have a field day, and so am I come to that". Lara looked up in mild interest,
"Rouge and Sonic don't get on?"
"Huh, oh no", the kit tried to correct his mistake as it seemed Lara had taken the wrong end of the stick, "they get on fine, they just can't resist winding each other up whenever they can; Sonic managed to get one over on her at Christmas and I just know she'd going to be itching for a chance to get her own back on him".
"Oh I see, sort of a love-hate relationship", Tails nodded and smiled; Lara echoed the gesture before deciding it was time for her to take the lead in this conversation, making plain her own observation, "you're a very polite young man you know".
Eh?; Tails wasn't sure where that had come from; he glanced up to see Lara looking at his confusion with mild amusement,
"Sorry, what do you mean by that; I mean, thank you and all, but I don't…"
"You never speak ill of anyone, so far as I can tell", the echidna sipped her drink as the fox watched on, confusion now more evident than ever until she continued, "even that doctor Eggman, you said he was a genius despite the fact he's tried to take over your world on several occasions".
"Well, credit where it's due", Tails positively squirmed under her compliment as he tried to give his reasons, "I mean, some of the stuff he built was great and could have done a lot of good in the world; he was just mad with it". Lara raised an eyebrow before sighing,
"Strange isn't it – for every good person in the world, there's someone else to counter-balance them". Tails shrugged and, on a spur of the moment, took hold of his empty glass,
"Well, can't just be good in the world; imagine how boring that would be", Lara smiled reluctantly, infected with the light-hearted truth in the statement as the fox raised his mug and toasted, "to balance; keeping thing level between good and bad and making the world a fun place to live". The smile evolved into an all-out chuckle,
"I'll drink to that", Lara raised her cup before draining the contents; as the lukewarm coffee drained to her stomach, she giggled again, "what do you reckon Knuckles and the others are drinking to now?" Tails glanced at the clock again,
"If any of them can speak coherently I'll be amazed, but anyway I'd say probably about three or four in the morning as a rough guess".
The minutes slowly ticked by; gradually all avenues of conversation were exhausted and silence began to prevail more and more. Tiredness became more of an issue as both Tails and Lara-Le were forced to yawn more and catch themselves from falling into a cat-nap they might not have recovered from, each striving to maintain the vigil and await their wandering friends and family. The tension mounted with each slow turn of the clock hands; all the unused seconds and minutes ticking away behind a dam of reckoning that would, when the time was right, be broken and sweep away those who had sinned in a tide of retribution. To stave off the boredom and encroaching fatigue, the two waiters were bouncing ideas around as to how best deliver the punishment,
"It ought to be a bell", Tails sat up suddenly, a new idea fermenting in his sleep-deprived mind as he gabbled his plan, "they'll not be feeling a hundred percent in the morning, so we stuff a bell over their head and smack it with a hammer; whole new meaning to the phrase 'ringing headache'". He laughed at his own joke as Lara shook her head, the dreadlocks touching her skin and fur helping her to remain awake,
"Good idea, but nah – were we going to get a bell this time of night?"
"Ah, never thought of that", Tails conceded before smiling again, "now if we had an air-horn, that'd wake them up good and proper".
"An air-what? What's one of those?" Lara hadn't heard of this invention, something Tails cottoned onto a few minutes after he'd made the statement,
"Oh, never mind, nothing too fancy; just makes a lot of noise", Lara gave a soft 'oh' of understanding as the fox shook his head, defeated once more, "so, guess that just leaves us with your idea of an icy bath first thing in the morning".
"Yeah; I'll teach Thunderhawk the meaning of the phrase 'cold shoulder'", Lara assured herself before breaking out into a huge yawn; by the time her mouth closed fully she saw Tails had his eyes closed, though he couldn't be asleep as he was sat straight still, tense as a board.
"Tails, something wrong?"
"Shshsh", he held up a hand, not opening his eyes as other acute senses came into play; a slight smile curled his lips as he beckoned her forwards with two fingers; Lara staggered to her feet, eager to hear what her new friend had to say as he opened his eyes and grinned fully, "well, I reckon it's nearly time to put your plans into action; listen". Acting on the instructions, the echidna lady strained her ears; for a second there was nothing and she looked back questioningly,
"Keep listening; my ears are keener than yours"; okay, can't arguer with that...hmm, still can't hear anything, give it another, couple of…aha; Lara let free her own grin, tapping her fingertips together in readiness as it filtered through to her; very faint but certainly heading closer all the time, in very loud, very raucous and certainly very drunken voices, four people were singing.
XXX
They had their eyes fixed on the door, listening intently as the carousing foursome must have slowly approached the house and door they now sheltered behind. As the lyrics became loud enough to decipher, though they were admittedly slurred and mingled together to a degree most people would have been unable to untangle, the bawdy nature of the songs their respective friends and family were attempting to sing made them cringe; at a particularly long and warbled note, Lara lowered her head onto her hand, cheeks red,
"My neighbours are never going to let me live this down"; Tails patted her shoulder reassuringly as he recognised Sonic's voice; as best he could tell, the blue hedgehog was trying to yodel. Loudly. In a very off-key and high-pitched voice.
"Don't worry; if they come knocking, deny all knowledge and say the four strange mounds in your back yard are part of a flower display".
"Don't tempt me", she chuckled; this laugh curdled to a strangled grimace as there was a heavy thud and a tinkling crash, "alas poor date seeds, I knew you well; okay Tails brace yourself; that was my front gate so they should…" She was cut off by a heavy knock on her front door and a voice sloshed its way through the thick wood,
"Heloo mum; anyone home; thish is right right?"
"Yep, number tweven senty", a fainter voice answered; a second later the knocking resumed, possibly even louder as the two in the hall were caught between the impulses to laugh or cry and rendered temporarily immobile,
"Helllooooo; mum, lishen, got schum good noos; I'sh getting married – yippee!" Lara' shoulder heaved and Tails decided it really was better now than later; the echidna woman looked like she might make Rouge a widow before she'd even managed to walk Knuckles up the aisle if this carried on much longer. With his temper in check and his heart in his shoes, the fox stepped forwards, placed his hand on the door handle, bit the bullet and swung it open fully, already braced to spring aside should the inebriated guardian be leaning on it and collapse. Luckily this wasn't quite necessary, though he still needed to make a rapid exit as Knuckles tried to knock again twice before seeming to realise he wasn't making any more noise. As the echidna looked around blearily, Tails managed to recover his tongue and point a shaking finger at the sodden little bundle Knuckles had slung over one shoulder,
"What happened to Shadow?"
It's okay, I think he's breathing; that was about all the good news Tails was able to get before Knuckles, seemingly engaged by this question, pivoted his body around fully to look both to the left and right of himself; the fox winced as Shadow's head clunked twice against the doorframe due to the movement,
"Dunno, he washerea minute ago dough" Knuckles managed to slur as he took another half-stumbled step inside, thankfully putting the black hedgehog out the way of further cranial trauma as Tails tried once more,
"You're carrying him"; he pointed to the limp hedgehog's body as Knuckles tried to follow the finger with his eyes alone; he must have managed to catch a glimpse of a pair of black thighs as his glassy eyes widened in childish amazement,
"Oh yeah", he dropped his shoulder and Shadow was left to slump unceremoniously to the floor, Tails being too stunned to catch him as he hit the deck with a squelchy splat, "fought I wuz walking a bit lop-shided". Tails wanted to cry in frustration but was prevented even this luxury as Knuckles, now finally aware the fox existed, swayed forwards alarmingly and spoke again,
"Hey Mails, wherf you bin? You misched a helluva night"; Christ in Heaven above; Tails was forced back a pace by the echidna's breath alone; he couldn't just smell the alcohol there, he could virtually taste it! Luckily for his vastly insulted nose, all of a sudden Knuckles couldn't have cared less about him; he'd just seen something else that was much more interesting as he broke into a lumbering run, his arms flailing wildly and a stray spur scouring a gash down one of the strips of wallpaper,
"Mum!" Lara never stood a chance as all of a sudden her son was on top of her; she was wrapped up in a leather-clad embrace that stank of beer, smoke and BO and half-swung around like a rag doll as Knuckles hollered, "good to shee you gain, but lischen, you gotshta shay yesh; Roush shayed yes, well, I shayed it firstest, but den shee shaid yesh, so den dad said yesh, so if you shay yesh too, we'll all haz shayed yesh".
"It'sh true"; through the gaps between his fingers Tails saw with dread that the last two members of this little party were unfortunately both still conscious and making a concentrated effort to raise the dead; both Thunderhawk and Sonic tumbled over Shadow's sprawled form and went to the floor heads-first. I am never, ever going to drink in my life, ever; it was as he saw the hedgehog and echidna leaning against each other as they tried to stand up, looking for all the world like some kind of casualty in a three-legged race, that Tails swore that solemn promise; anything that makes you look that stupid has got to be a miss in my book. Sonic was up on one knee and supporting the sixth-father as he staggered to his feet; Thunderhawk managed to stay stable for a couple of seconds before seeming to be magnetically drawn to the wall; he slid down it and sank down to a sitting position,
"Ah, this'll do me good; nice'n'softly, thatsa way t'be".
"You pixshie", Tails formed his hands into a noose, murder sorely tempting his mind as his brother stood up tall; it was as he did so that the fox realised someone must have sprayed a can of something into his hair as his normally blue quills were flecked with brown, "I could go on all night; jush you ask Tiles, he'll sashso". Giggling, Thunderhawk pointed directly as the fox as he contemplated if there was any way he could feasibly make Sonic's untimely death look like an accident,
"Oaky, I will", the echidna looked to a point just to the left of Tails and spoke in what he must have thought was a serious tone, "Tiles, can Schonic go all night?" There was a cracked laugh from behind him; that was it – he wasn't going to take this any more,
"How the hell can you do this?" He let him have it with both barrels and no holds barred; he marched up to Sonic and prodded him hard in the chest with a strong finger, "You're in the house of a stranger you don't even know, blind drunk and staying the most stupid things imaginable; how the hell can you stand there and do it? Answer me that!"
For a second there was silence; Sonic actually looked a little abashed as he raised his finger to his lip, apparently thinking hard; Tails was still breathing heavily as he waited for the answer he could see being processed in the blue hedgehog's alcohol-addled brain. He didn't move as Sonic suddenly looked down at him, eyes still glassy as he raised his hand above is head and spoke, seemingly reminded of something,
"Schgud point bro; I asherly can't"; with that, his knees gave way. Right onto Tail's toe.
He held it in; the sudden pain had almost battered down his pain threshold and forced out a scream, but he managed to keep it bottled up, waving his arms and dancing around like a maniac as he screwed his face up against the pain. Thinking along completely the wrong lines, Sonic reacted to this development and caught his brother with a hug worthy of Amy in her heyday,
"I know; Knuckiz gonna get hished to Roush, enuf to make yoo wanna sching; Funderhawk, howsh it go again?"
"Dere onesh wash dis old man…?"
"Dashit; sching along Tailsh"; the hedgehog burst into song with Knuckles' sixth-father as the captive fox concentrated all his energy on trying not to breath; he really, really didn't want to know what bar Sonic must have dragged himself out of to get this bad, but by thunder he didn't want another lungful if Knuckles was anything to go by. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears in time with the terrible singing – he was sure he was turning blue in the face; great, I can see it now on my gravestone – 'Here lies Miles Prower, friend of all. Asphyxiated by his brother's beer breath'.
"…and de old man walksh for schome reason", Sonic warbled in his ear, trying to make it up as he went along due to Thunderhawk not keeping up, instead seemingly content to repeat the first line over and over like a stuck record, "and he found hisch missus waiting forim with a stic-ick!" Release from the nightmare; a red-orange blur had swept up behind the inebriated hedgehog and suddenly the awful singing had stopped, the constricting grip had loosened and, as he stepped back, Sonic fell forwards, attempting to inhale the carpet in his enforced slumber. Tails raced outside and blew out the breath he'd been holding, breathing in deep, sweet lungfuls of cold night air as he tried to dislodge the reek of roaring drunks from his nostrils. He fell into a crouch with his hands on his thighs as the last of the singing stopped; after a few seconds of silence in which the ringing of his ears had begun to disperse, he heard Lara again,
"Hey Tails, feeling all right out there?"
"I'll be fine", he gasped, still ventilating his blood again as he brought himself to his full height and stretched off, yawning again as those last few hectic minutes knackered him more completely than the long wait that had preceded them. Suddenly the few steps back into the house seemed a complete trek and he came close to collapsing when the doorway loomed and the carnage inside beckoned.
Well; the fox thought fatalistically as he stepped over the threshold and as a consequence Shadow's comatose form; at least they're not going to be making any more noise anytime soon. That was certainly true; Sonic and Shadow were both out, all he could see of Knuckles were his feet as they stuck out the entrance to the living room and Thunderhawk was slumped against the wall, now snoring away like a badly-tuned buzz-saw. In the centre of this Mobian wreckage, towering over all like a proud and wrathful god, Lara-Le stood with her hands clenched into her dreadlocks, threatening to rip them out from the roots as she gazed around the bodies. Her jade eyes met Tails and, by unspoken command, he shut the door behind him and covered his ears,
"NiiiaaaaaAAAARRRGGGHHHH!"
XXX
Tails marvelled as the echidna lady somehow released all that pent-up fury, anger and momentary urge to do unspeakably bad things in one long, echoing shout; he could virtually see the fury venting itself like lava from a violent volcanic eruption. Tempting as it was to join in, he knew he couldn't simply because he was too tired to muster the energy to do so; he simply waited placidly until the noise died away and Lara seemed to return to her body from the plane of anger she'd seemed to be recently inhabiting, seeming to almost physically shrink as the rage deserted her. She drew in a claming breath and looked down at the problem now facing her,
"Feeling better?"
"Marvellous", she admitted freely, a quirky smile on her lips as she pointed as where her son now lay flat on his back, half in and half out of the living room, "and I always thought Locke was exaggerating when he said Thunderhawk drank him under the table the night he proposed to me; I guess I was wrong".
"You must have been", Tails agreed, surveying the scene once more before a thought occurred to him, "by the way, thanks for getting Sonic off me; I never knew you knew self-defence". Lara smiled as she tried to look demure at the same time as demonstrate a head high roundhouse kick,
"What can I say; I took a few classes just in case".
"Was your dad called Bruce by any chance? Don't worry", he said to her look of slight confusion as he sighed in exasperation, changing the subject as he pointed, "so what do we do with them; if you need a hand with the digging, just hand me a shovel. After that little episode I can see there sometimes is a cause for fratricide".
"I don't think the EST would buy it though; come on, give me a hand with him", Lara bent down and rose with Knuckles' feet in her hands, grunting with the effort as she puffed, "we'll just dump them in the guest room for now; sorry but I only have two bedrooms". Tails dredged up some energy from an as yet untapped inner reserve as he gave her the nod; the two heaved and, after a series of fits and starts, hoisted the comatose guardian up and began to manoeuvre him from the hallway.
"Don't sweat it, I can kip on the settee", the fox huffed back, nudging open the door she indicated with his rump and backing inside; glancing over his shoulder he saw the silhouette of a bed and edged round to let Lara in and get Knuckles parallel with it and then, with a final mighty heave, toss him onto the soft covers, where his snores soon began to echo through the darkness. Tails wiped his sweaty brow and shook his head,
"I still can't believe they did that; of all the nights they could have gone and got plastered why did it have to be tonight, and why did I volunteer to come along?"
"Ah Tails", Lara put a comforting arm around his shoulders and smiled, "this is what is technically known as a laugh or cry situation, let me explain", the smile deepened, a little darker now as the echidna carried on, "they've done their laughing tonight, so tomorrow it's our job to make sure they start crying for it, and believe me they will". Tails suddenly snorted with laughter of his own, almost doubling over and as he did so, bumping his arm against something hard in his pocket; an idea came to him, so perfectly formed and diabolically twisted it just had to be done,
"Well", he smirked to his partner in crime, "why put off 'til tomorrow what you can start today"; he held up his idea and, after a fast and furious conversation, the two left to get the next model for their newly inspired masterpiece.
XXX
"Got it Tails?"
"You bet, this'll be one page of the album Knuckles won't want to touch with a barge pole" the fox assured her, his tails spinning and taking him off the ground as Lara watched on, amazed as his powers of flight were made manifest before her very eyes. He brought the appliance to his eyes and she shut her eyes against the light,
"Hmm, still not right; I know"; he flew over from his position on at the foot of the bed and gently reached down; Lara went on tip-toe to see what he was doing and immediately fell back, hands over her mouth to keep the giggles bottled up,
"You evil little creature", she was alarmed at his daring as he hovered back, "that's just wrong on so many levels".
"I know; isn't it great?" Without further ado, Tails hit the button and secured all the bribery he could ever have wanted from his friends; he fell to the floor and Lara led him out, exhausted but happy as their labours were completed for the night.
"Good, right then, goodnight Tails; don't bother setting any alarms in the morning; I can guarantee we'll be up before any of them could be".
"Okay Lara, see you in the morning". With that, the echidna and fox both bade each other farewell for the evening and retired to their beds, each waiting for the coming dawn and the opportunities it could bring.
XXX
It was a comfortable, warm place he was in; the covers were soft and the blanket underneath him was firm but still yielding, supporting his bodyweight easily as he finally began to stir. The darkness caused by his still closed eyes was a safe place to be; it was a strange limbo he found himself in; it was perfect for peaceful contemplation save one thing, a single matter he really needed to resolve before this place could truly count as a benevolent paradise.
He really needed whoever was smacking his head with a hammer to stop. Preferably right now.
Each beat of his heart was magnified a thousand fold to deliver a punishing punch right to the centre of his brain; Knuckles moaned as his body, no longer safe beneath the comforting blanket of alcohol-induced sleep, rebelled against the rough treatment he'd put it through the previous night. Oh my God; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been in more agony than this and by thunder he really wished he'd never have to be in this much pain ever again; at what exact point did that seem like a good idea? He drew in a great rattling gasp of air, the movement of oxygen only serving to wake him up more and as a consequence really let his body know just how ticked off with him it really was. He was sure the inside of his mouth now needed a government health warning and a fifty-year decontamination plan to class as even remotely safe, and someone seemed to have poured quick-setting cement into his sinuses; they snuffled and flapped noisily as he drank in another deep breath. And that's just the head; like water trickling through a thick fabric, the echidna's consciousness filtered down into through his thick, cracking neck and then onto his aching shoulders, though curiously one of them seemed to hurt more than the other. His body was sore though he could have almost have sworn he hadn't been in any kind of fight and he really didn't want to think about his legs; they were cramping like there was no tomorrow and he could sort of see their point; the rate he was going there might not be.
What the hell did I do last night?; Knuckles still didn't open his eyes for fear of what he'd see if he did as he tried to coerce his poor, aching mind to show him what had happened. Unfortunately it was pretty much a blank, though he did have to wonder if at some point he'd tried to climb a lamp post with his hands tied behind his back whilst shouting to the world that he was Athair and could fly off of it. He must have tried to challenge Thunderhawk to an arm-wrestling match though; there was no other explanation as to why his left arm felt like someone had run it through a mangle. He was so lost in this cataloguing it was only after several seconds and far more brainwork than it was worth that he realised his leg was being got at by something.
"Oh no", the voice went off like a depth charge in his suddenly super-sensitive ears and he gritted his teeth against the resurgent pain as it droned on in a hoarse whisper, "I can't feel my leg!" He felt implied to make a relevant point here,
"That's my leg"; I really should know that voice you know; he couldn't seem to drive his mind out of neutral and, bereft of options, took a wild stab in the dark,
"Sonic?" The thing that had been nibbling his leg seemed to crawl off as he felt pressure on his left side and the same voice hissed into his ear like a steam whistle,
"Knuckles?" He gave a bit of a nod as a there was a groan from next to him; he had the impression the blue hedgehog was feeling about as rough as he was, "how're you feeling?"
"Like Eggman sat on me", the echidna moaned, trying to muster the energy to cover his still shut eyes with his hands and wipe away the sleep he could feel clinging there, "what's going on?"
"It's called a hangover sixth-son", ow, ow, lower the voice, lower the voice; "believe me it gets better over time". He could recognise Thunderhawk's voice from the deepness, but where was the purple echidna? He knew he was in bed and, he held back a shudder as he realised Sonic must have been by the left side of him and, he felt to the right and pricked a finger, yep, Shadow must have been over to the right, still in Lala land. There was only one way he could do this and locate his sixth-father; gradually moving his arms to just beside his back, he pressed up, trying to conquer the screaming ache in his shoulders as he slowly blinked his eyes open.
The room was dim, but even that light was far too bright; his eyes automatically rebelled and slammed the lids down; it was a long, hard battle of negotiation of forced them to show themselves once more, and even when they did it was no better. The weak light played in dizzying patterns over his retinas and his suddenly queasy stomach lodged an appeal to have them shut; he had to exert more of a struggle than he would have like to overturn it. He could see a vague outline at the foot of the bed and, after squinting for a few seconds, managed to realise this must have been Thunderhawk, curled up at the foot of the bed and apparently in the same dire straights as he was. He flumped down again, the action drawing immediate protest,
"Don't do that red; my guts' gonna blow". Knuckles ungritted his teeth again and leaned over to see Sonic facing away from him. Snorting, the echidna answered,
"Stop talking then".
"Good idea", Thunderhawk put his weight behind this proposal, "sound hurts".
"Right, no-one move or speak" Sonic agreed upon and the other two conscious Mobian agreed, each left to stew in their own thoughts. Knuckles concentrated on breathing in and out; somehow the air seemed to be throwing his appalling headache back, sending it packing for good this time. Well, that wasn't as bad as it could have be…; that train of thought was crashed immediately as there was a noise like the world exploding all around him – for a second he was sure he was dead, the next thing he would hear would be the angels calling for him; of course, he had to be wrong in this,
"GOOD MORNING!"
XXX
He'd heard movement from the kitchen and pleaded with his face at Lara; after a couple of minutes her resistance had crumbled and she'd let him go with the following words of wisdom,
"Okay, I need a few minutes to get ready; remember now", she had lent forwards and grinned malevolently, "make them suffer!" Well, that part's easy; Tails had a huge smile on his face as he watched the trio on the bed writhe in purgatory as he stoked the fire, clapping his hands between each of his next words,
"Wakey, wakey rise and shine", amazed at his own daring he strode over and shook Sonic's shoulder, 'accidentally' pulling his hand away from his ear as he bellowed next, "come on, up and at 'em". The blue hedgehog had his body held rigid as a waxwork, his mouth open in a grimace of pain and his eyes wide and staring; he looked like the Mobian version of Frankenstein's monster. It's alive; Tails had to laugh at this as he skipped away and artfully dodged a feeble flap from Thunderhawk, eyes sparkling as he saw what had to be his next target,
"Stop it you sadistic little fiend", the elder echidna moaned; he followed the fox's course with his eyes and started in panic, "no, not the…" Too late, with his biggest smirk yet, the fox ripped the curtain back and let light flood into the room.
Tails laughed out loud as all three who were awake suddenly recoiled and hissed sat the sudden illumination, even this weak winter sunlight playing havoc with their hangovers. He watched on with interest as Knuckles' flailing arm knocked Shadow as he tried to cover his eyes; it was as the black hedgehog suddenly went from horizontal to ninety degree sitting position with both hands clapped over his mouth he realised this was serious; better than anyone he knew that never came out of the carpet.
"Oh no you don't", he raced over and seized the black hedgehog, pulling him out of his pit and running for the door, admonishing him at the same time, "this is your fault, and you better hold it in, it's not far; Lara had to put up with you lot last night so now you're paying for it". Second on the left; he threw the door open with one hand and Shadow in with the other; with all the grace of an obese duck the former ultimate life-form staggered and fell to his knees, gripping the toilet rim as though it were a dear friend – fortunately for Tails the door swung shut at this point and spared him the sight, though the frantic gurgles and splashes stayed with him as he banged on the guest room door,
"You lot, kitchen ASAP; and believe me you'd better be quick". Without another word, shaking with giggles, the fox headed for the kitchen and spoke,
"Hehe, they're on their way and…" it was then he looked around and his voice died; like a rabbit in the headlights he found himself helpless, pinned to the floor as he saw Lara, sitting at her chair with a paper by her side and The Look All Men Fear From Women on her face.
From the five-year old with his hand in the cookie jar to the fifty year old with his personal assistant on his lap, there's not a man alive who doesn't know that indefinable look that just radiates the message 'you're in trouble'. Tails gulped, his knees suddenly weak as The Look bored deep into him, exposing every wrong-doing, laying bare his most minute transgressions and he still couldn't look away, paralysed as the echidna lady grated,
"Good; take a seat Tails". Eventually, helped by the realisation she actually had The Look trained at a point about six inches above his left ear, the fox sidled off to the side of her, suddenly shivering as he took his place meekly, occasionally sneaking glances at her face. It was in credible; she somehow didn't blink and merely kept that bale gaze locked onto the entrance to the kitchen, the entrance which, Tails now heard with a thrill of expectation and pity, someone was now shuffling down and complaining, just waiting to walk right into the crosshairs. He half-wanted to shout a warning but decided against it for his own health, sitting silently as Lara moved her hand to the newspaper and began rolling it up into a tight coil, ready for the appearance of her unsuspecting target. Tails winced on the echidna's behalf as, with a half-muffled curse and a no-doubt aching head, Lara began on her targets,
"Ah, Thunderhawk".
XXX
All thoughts of turning on the patented guardian charm were blown away by her first two words alone; with the full knowledge that he was going to turn right into his impending doom, the lavender echidna was faced with a choice; either take it like a man or fall down pleading and screaming like a little girl. Worst come to worst, plead insanity; swallowing a lump in his throat, Thunderhawk gradually looked around with guilt suffusing his face, brought to the surface and highlighted under the harsh beam of Lara's Look.
"G,Good morning Lara; I…" He cut himself off as he saw the newspaper she was carrying twisted violently; somehow the image of those hands on his neck just wouldn't leave him alone as she stepped off her stool,
"Good night last night, was it?" The tone was perfectly measured and calm, much like the eye of a hurricane; one toe out of line and he knew he'd be right in the thick of it; curse this hangover, I can't think straight;
"No, er, fairly quiet really". Lara replied with the sort of smile a tiger might give before it pounced on an unsuspecting deer,
"I think my neighbours would disagree, and so would I come to that"; she was moving forwards steadily and, as though pressed by an invisible force field, Thunderhawk felt himself shrink backwards, stopping only when the searing cold of the kitchen units pressed into his back and even then he leaned as far away as he could get.
"Just thought I'd get it out the way", he babbled, The Look reducing his mind to mush at this steadily decreasing range, "there weren't any women involved, or anything other than drinking, we were just…" He was cut off this time as Lara, realising her quarry as a full head an a half taller than she was, solved the difference in the simplest way possible; Thunderhawk was dragged down to her level by a couple of dreadlocks as Lara-Le's voice sank to a bone-chilling whisper,
"Getting absolutely hammered, leading my son into bad habits and stopping him telling me, his mother, of the fact he was now engaged. I had to rely on one of his friends letting me in on that little secret; did that cross your mind Thunderhawk? Did it?"
"I'm sorry", he was a mouse in the trap, scrabbling for any excuse, "I wasn't thinking right; I just wanted a celebration with my sixth-son".
"You got that right", Tails winced from his seat on the sidelines as it appeared Lara was trying to tie some kind of bow under the lavender echidna's chin using his own dreadlocks, "you weren't thinking at all. And thanks to that, your sixth-son, my only son, arrived on my doorstep drunk as a monkey and babbling complete nonsense!" It was at this point in the proceedings that Sonic staggered into the picture, Knuckles trailing behind him, both looking distinctly under the weather as the blue hedgehog made a fatal mistake; he tried to reason with a woman on the warpath.
Tails braced himself as it was obvious what Sonic was planning and equally obvious that it really was not going to work; sliding over with what he thought was an amiable smile, the blue hedgehog sidled up to the storming echidna and spoke in what he must have assumed was a reasoning tone,
"Hey, hey no need for…"
"Shut up!" Lara rounded on him and Sonic backed up several paces, the echidna dogging every pace and prodding his chest with a very firm finger, "Sonic is it? Well a fine example you set for your younger brother last night; drunk and making enough noise to wake the dead. You've saved the world, he told me; from what I saw I wouldn't trust you to save a seat at a deserted bus-stop! How Tails turned out as well-mannered as he did with you as a role-model's beyond me", the fox in question hoped she wasn't going to turn around at this point as he doubted being slumped over the table trying desperately to fend off bouts of hysteria counted as good manners; he needn't have bothered as suddenly Lara left the cowering hedgehog, spinning and thrusting her newspaper like a sword as she levelled it at the main perpetrator,
"And as for you…!"
Tails lost it, giggling helplessly as he watched this woman demolish three of the most fearsome Mobians he'd ever met to quivering wrecks; Knuckles froze from where he'd been trying to sidle back up the hall unnoticed, squeaked in abject terror and tried to shield his face with his paws as Lara strode to him, now positively blazing as she'd moved from her appetisers to the main course,
"You, my lad, are so low in my eyes you're about drowning", that's low from this altitude; Tails realised as she really unloaded, "you're going to get married and you don't even have the common decency, the respect, to come over here and tell your own mother the best news of her life. You could have gone out after that, no worries there, but oh no, you have to do it before and leave the responsibility in the hands of a child while you go and get levelled. Then, oh and then it gets ever better; have you seen the state of my garden and my hallway – and I dread to think what my water closet's going to look like once your friend's finished in there", she took a pause for a breath as Knuckles became aware of the continuing retches from the direction of further down the hall; as they registered and he shuddered out of shared pain, hangover throbbing worse than ever under this continuing barrage, "well, what have you got to say for yourself; come on, I'm dying to hear this; what can you say after this disgraceful spectacle?"
There was a pause as Knuckles glanced up, his hazy eyes looking into his mother's penetrating ones as, under the circumstances of vast amounts of pain, general queasiness and a vague sense of having done something extremely stupid, he gave the only answer his befuddled brain could come up with,
"Ow?"
XXX
Oooh, not good; Tails cringed and looked away as all sound in the place died away – even the gurgles from the toilet melted into the background as Lara-Le inhaled all the air in the room, swelling like a bullfrog with static electricity crackling in her hair. Without a second thought, she sprang forwards and began belabouring her son with swipes from her free hand and rolled up newspaper,
"OW! I'll give you ow, and then some; take that, and that!"
"Ahh", Knuckles tried to block her strikes but couldn't due to the fact he was feeling like a mess and her rage was making her so much stronger than normal, "oww, 'elp, geteroffame!" Strangely enough there were no takers for this plea as no-one wanted to become the next punching bag for the frenzied female echidna as she ploughed on,
"You stupid, pig-headed, idiotic rake! I only hope Rouge has a sense of humour; she'll need one when you turn up on the doorstep like death warmed up. How you managed to find a girl like that's beyond me if you go and pull stunts like this. Oh Knuckles", Tails looked around as the whacking noises stopped and saw the guardian had been caught in a hug that looked only marginally less painful than the beating he'd been receiving, "you mess her around and I swear I'll hunt you down; for the love of the Master look after her". Out of instinct more than anything else, Knuckles gently put his hands on his mother's shoulders and held her in kind, making an observation after a couple of minutes,
"You mean I've got permission?"
"Of course you've got my blessing you prat", Lara disengaged and cuffed him again, smiling genuinely this time as he shuffled his feet, "she's the one for you isn't she?" The other echidna managed to half-smile,
"You bet she is".
"Coffee", everyone looked around as Shadow crawled into the kitchen doorway on his hands and knees; out of everyone here he looked by far the worst. His normally well-sheened quills were straggly and his eyes were half-shut with sleep as he crawled to Lara-Le and attempted to hug her round the knees; she leapt back as he looked up pleadingly,
"Coffee, please!" With a great deal of dignity, she spoke again, organising the unruly mob,
"Right, you four, get something to eat, something non-alcoholic to drink and for the love of heaven get yourselves presentable. It is now half-past ten; believe me when I say if I'm not hugging my future daughter-in-law by midday today", she tapped her newspaper into her open palm, The Look back in its normal spot as she growled threateningly, "you'll all wish you'd never been born with backsides. Now get moving!"
"Well, that's one way to clear a kitchen", Tails commented dryly as the last hint of Shadow's tail vanished around the door; Lara sighed as she sat down and massaged her temples,
"Those guardians will be the death of me; if it's not Athair driving me up the wall it's Sojourner's attitude, if it's not that it's Thunderhawk pulling something dumb like this", in exasperation she raised her mug of coffee, "roll on tomorrow, and may it be less mad than today".
"I'll drink to that"; two mugs clinked together as there was a muffled shout from the hallway,
"Don't mention drinking, ever again". Fox and echidna shared a look, smiled and cracked up together helplessly.
A/N: And they think their troubles are over? Not by a long shot if a certain black-furred guardian has anything to do with it!