"Did we really have to agree to an Underwear Christmas Eve party?" Tails asked, tugging on his shirt lightly to try and keep too much of his undies from showing off.
"Hey, you could have said no," Sonic said, a light blush on his face as well. Tails pouted and tapped his foot. Sonic wasn't very good at playing tough. "But then you would have felt left out, right?" Sonic continued, leaning down and giving his buddy a wink.
Tails rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah... I guess..." He then shivered when the door to his house opened. "Oh come on! Close the door!"
"Sorry, sorry! I just need help hauling this bad boy in!" Manic the Hedgehog, Sonic's younger brother who was visiting for the holidays, called back, struggling to yank a huge Christmas Tree into the house all on his own.
"Did you seriously go outside in just your briefs and socks?" Tails stammered, a bit surprised.
"Hey, are you going to help me drag this in or not?" Manic muttered, getting a little exasperated. His teeth were chattering and he was shaking. Obviously, he was really cold. Why he stepped out there without putting on pants was anyone's guess.
Perhaps it was because this Underwear thing was his idea.
The green boy just stumbled by the house, fumbled in through the door with alcoholic egg nog in his hands the day before, and started splattering drool everywhere. Tails didn't know who he was at first but Sonic was quick to inform him that he was indeed Manic, his younger brother.
Well, his other younger brother.
After a day or two of hanging out, it wasn't a wonder why Sonic was so cautious to talk about him. Apparently, they had been separated at birth and only found out they were related by chance in some dirty city in an adventure he wasn't around for.
Manic was elated to learn that he wasn't the youngest brother of the three of them. He cuddled the fox boy a bit too much before a fight broke out between the three of them. Tails would rather not go into the details about who lost...
Either way, it was just the three of them on this snowy night together. Family was spending time playing video games, watching movies, eating junk food, and now, apparently, hauling in Christmas Trees from the outside?
"Where did you get this exactly?" Sonic asked, approaching with his hands on his hips. Once Tails helped to yank it in a bit more he quickly closed the door so that the snowy air wouldn't invade his humble abode any longer.
"I just found it on the doorstep outside!" Manic said excitedly. "Either a fan of yours left it behind OR we just got super lucky."
"If this tree belongs to someone else, I don't want it in my house," Tails spoke up immediately.
"Finders keepers. That's the rule of the five finger discount!" Manic grinned evilly, setting the decorated and strangely lit tree down against the wall. It was so weird how powered up this thing was despite there being no plug attached to it. It almost seemed mechanical...
Sonic cleared his throat. "No talking about thieving in front of me, please?"
"Hey now. You've gotta live a little. Stealing is fun," Manic shrugged. "I mean, seriously, have you ever taken a cookie from the grocery store? The first time I did, I got home and had it, and I swear it was the BEST tasting cookie I've ever had in my life. What they say about forbidden fruit is super true."
Tails giggled at Sonic's followed exasperated sigh.
Oh yeah. Manic was a thief, in case you didn't know. He grew up in the slums of the city he was from and was raised by some pretty dirty people.
"There's a bat girl I know who'd get along well with you..." Sonic said.
"Not into girls really," Manic muttered.
"What was that?" Sonic asked.
Manic blushed and grinned. "Nothing. HEY! How about we take a picture in front of this thing!"
"Uh--" Sonic began.
"Sure." Tails piped up. "If it's going to stand there and be all pretty, might as well."
Sonic scratched the back of his head and shrugged. "Yeah, sure... but still, I dunno about this tree. It feels pretty weird that it just appeared outside like that."
"Tis the season right?" Manic put his arm around Sonic and led him to it.
"That's a response to what I said, how?" Sonic asked, sweatdropping.
Tails bent over and set up a tripod to snap their photo. When he bent down Manic whistled and playfully said, "Nice butt! Looks like a giant peach!"
Tails blushed and quickly stood back up before turning around and marching his way over to stand next to Sonic. "Hardy harr..."
Charmy was right. It was annoying being told you had a big butt all the time...
Anyway, the countdown was coming.
"Three...!" Manic said.
"Two...!" Sonic grinned.
"One...!" Tails chimed in.
In that instant, two mechanical arms sprouted from the metallic trunk of the tree, sporting two hard boxing gloves with the Eggman logo on them.
The instant the countdown went to zero, the boxing gloves bashed the back of Sonic, Manic, and Tails' heads in with several, fast, rapid fire punches!
"CHEES--OOOFF!" The three of them lurched forward a bit and then started to gurgle out drool and weird, knocked cuckoo sounds from their mouths.
They spun in place before wobbling about, finding it hard to stay steady.
Manic was out of it, teetering back and forth and about to collapse. Tails was falling backwards and trying to remain steady, while also giggling at the birdies and stars he was seeing.
Sonic raised his finger, as if having an epiphany, and shouted. "DUUUUH! I knew Mr. Christmas Tree was suspicious!"
The photo was snapped of this image right before the three of them fainted and slumped on top of one another.
As this happened, a sound bite went off behind them from the tiny Christmas card attached to the tree.
"Merry Christmas Sonic, from your worst enemy. I'm hope you enjoyed my little present. HOHOHOHO!" The voice of Dr. Eggman rang out before he fittingly laughed like Santa Claus.
He got that on tape via the camera he attached to the card. That was all he needed. He'd sit back and enjoy his egg nog in peace with the image of the three brothers laid out unconscious in their underwear as a nice set piece for the ambience he had for his own Christmas party with his robots.
Merry Derp-mas to all and to these three brothers, a VERY good night.
---
Find out how that first meeting with Manic went down in the story I recently uploaded to my Patreon, if you're curious.
See exclusive images and bi-weekly stories for just a single dollar a month over at my Patreon. Even more colored images await you for 10 dollar patrons and above too. Check it out: http://www.patreon.com/SDCharm
