The living room was warm and cozy and that was all fine and good, but most promising of all was its role as a source of conversation and activity. As the yawns escaping Tails' mouth and stretches into which his limbs contorted belied his restless energy on this evening, that was exactly what he needed.
And he was in luck: Amy, Cheese, and Cream were sprawled comfortably out on the carpeted floor holding a tea party dutifully and ornately arranged by the latter. The rabbit looked quite excited at hearing his footsteps, but his mouth had more impatient plans.
"Hey, you guys," Tails announced proudly, "you should try going to the bathroom as a boy sometime. Standing up is so convenient!" His face burned bright red and he clasped his hands over his mouth, but it was too late; they were all laughing hysterically. "Oh... I'm sorry, Tails!" he said in a muffled voice.
"Ahhh..." Amy wiped a tear from her eye, her lowering voice a much needed white flag in this moment. "So, I take it you two don't have much to do tonight?"
"Yeah!" he sighed thankfully. "Got any ideas?"
"I do!" Cream chirped up. "You can join our tea party!"
"Um..." He scratched the back of his head and rolled his eyes upward, searching frantically for a polite out to that suggestion. "Nah, I think I'd better not. Looks like you guys barely have enough tea as it is, and I wouldn't want to be a drain on your supply."
"That's so thoughtful of you, Mr. Tails!" said Cream. "Go ahead and have more, Cheese!" The Chao enthusiastically gulped the rest of his nice, warm beverage.
"I heard there's gonna be a scary movie on TV tonight!" Amy helped out, taking a quick glance at an old clock on a nearby table. "And it's gonna start in a few minutes! I wanted to watch it with Sonic, but he just so happened to develop a mysterious case of 'iris-itis' – his eyes are acting up to any bright lights... that aren't in Knuckles' exercise room."
"I hope he's okay," Cream added softly.
The gentle pitter-patter of the rain outdoors saturated the warm summer air with a comfortable humidity that provided a cozy, protective blanket around the complex and complemented tastefully the air-conditioned indoors of the den where the television was set up. Tails snuggled into the floor, his feet lazily propped into the air as he stared at the screen.
"Your body is so comfortable, Tails!" he sighed in ecstasy. "You're like a warm, fuzzy pillow! Uh... thank you" – he quickly lowered his voice to a whisper – "but would you mind quieting down a little so we can watch? Uh... sure..."
The film recommended them by Amy was a fairly standard, unremarkable pulp-zombie effort in all respects: a group of survivors were defending themselves in a decomposing city from a growing army of mindless mutants. Chromatically, there were lots of greys, browns, and greens everywhere, which did little to unsettle Tails himself besides their dim calling to mind of his girlfriend's long-gone ancestors. But the other hermit of his body had other ideas.
"Tails..." he whispered at the loudest pitch he could without risking any anger. "I'm scared. I don't want to watch this."
"Don't be scared! It's just a movie. None of this could ever happen. It's nothing to think too much about. ...Then why are you watching it with your eyes so wide?"
He sighed. "Come on, Cosmo, this is the best part! The zombies are finally gonna get the arrogant teenage guy who walked off by himself to prove how tough he was! It's gonna be great! Here, look!"
"No, it's not!" He shut his eyes tight, turned his head away from the bright and blaring screen, and shielded his ears from the audible, cartoonish carnage with both pointer fingers. "Hey, stop that! I want to watch!" They fought for a while over whether his sensory organs would be receiving input, but time was not on the side of seeing the complete movie, and when Tails finally wrenched his hands away and his eyes open, the exciting scene was over.
"Come on, Cosmo!" he shouted. He stood up, almost on the verge of punching an anger-sized hole in the screen but settling instead for turning the device off.
"Tails, I'm... I'm so..." He began to cry, but soon enough began to wipe each tear away, gently and understandingly. "It's okay," he whispered. "I shouldn't have tried to force you to watch something that scared you. Want to watch something else?"
He sniffled again. "You mean it?"
"Of course I do!" He smiled and knelt beside the television's dials to test out the other channels – surely something good had to be on.
"All the good stuff on and this is what you want to watch?" Tails moaned.
"This isn't 'good'?" he pouted. "The archaeology of the carpentry techniques of eastern countries isn't 'interesting' to you?"
"Well..." He clutched his temples in frustration, defying every inclination to switch the set off and do something else or even simply to look away. "Maybe it would be moreso if these people would just try good old-fashioned, efficient nails and screws instead of this dumb interlocking 'timber-framing'- Ack! Now I'm learning stuff!"
"I'm sorry, Tails," he said and finally did turn the set off without protestation. "I can't believe there's nothing we can do that we'll both enjoy."
"Erm... hey, maybe there is!" He brightened up and looked around the dark room for stimulation, but his eyes were directed instead just outside.
"Would you like to go on a walk, Tails?"
"I would love to!"
The torrential rain slammed down onto the city, aggravating the silent wounds of the long-uncared asphalt streets and bathing the lawns of the few houses with wealthy enough land plots to accommodate them in just a little too much water. The sky being obscured for the foreseeable near future with its murky parade of cumulonimbus clouds, bright white streetlights, traffic lights, and lit interiors of apartments formed the only major sources of illumination.
And yet, it was a sublimely beautiful improvised work of jungle art. Or it was perceived as such by some of its active audience, anyway.
"Do you think you'll be okay out here?" he asked non-confrontationally, dragging his feet over the flooding sidewalk.
"I... uh, I don't like being waterlogged much, but I think I can handle it. Really, haha? I feel like I'm swimming in a muddy lagoon. It's not clear or pristine in the traditional sense, but it feels wonderful."
He smiled, the work of both of his occupants. "Then maybe I can learn to like it. ...I love you, Cosmo."
"I love you, too." He held one of his hands in the other.
"Actually... okay." He laughed and prepared to posit one minor suggestion. "Doesn't it at least feel weird to have all this water sloshing around in my... in our shoes?"
"I suppose it does. Why don't we fix that?"
He giggled and took them off, along with his socks, and held them under his arm. The nighttime walk through the city progressed thereafter with rainwater seeping around the rough pads and sharp claws of his feet and matting all nearby fur. A rude splash from a rude driver gave him the idea to willingly walk around in the congealing, dirty slush of the curbs. Over not much time, a thin but defined layer of mud began to cake on his feet.
And when he came back, grinning like a madman who had lost his hat and was far too happily energetic for tea, Amy was waiting worriedly for him in a bathrobe and slippers. "Tails, your feet are filthy!" she cried. "You go and take a bath right now! And please, try your best not to track that mud everywhere. Did you visit a farm during your walk? I didn't know we had any around here..."
"Why, no," he giggled, raising his tails into a light and comfortable hover to keep his feet off the floor. "But who really goes out in a monsoon to stay proper and clean, anyway?"