Tails climbed out of the bathtub and pulled the plug out. As the water level got lower and lower, a growling sound came from the drain.
After drying himself off with a towel, he looked over on the toilet. On the cover were his pajamas, a pair of briefs with a blue trim… and the diaper his sister gave him.
“There is no way that this is going to fit,” he said, studying it. Cream was still able to fit in regular baby diapers — she wasn’t even big enough to wear Sizes 5 or 6 yet.
He only had two options: either lose another pair of underpants to another possible accident or squeeze into something that he was seven pounds too heavy to wear.
He thought back to Cream. She gave him her diaper because she didn’t want him to be sad in the morning.
“Well,” he said, swallowing his pride “here goes nothing.”
Tails set the diaper under his butt and tried to tape it up. The tabs barely got to the landing zone.
Standing up, Tails walked around in the diaper a bit. It crinkled a little with each step he took; it felt soft too, inside and out. Well, I can see one reason Cream would like these.
He went over to the toilet, got his underwear off the cover, and slipped it on over the diaper. His pajamas went on next.
All that was left was to go to bed. Sonic would be on in a little bit.
This time, he was ready. No pooping this time, if he could help it.
“Okay, Barry,” Tails said into the phone “I can get that Sonic robot from last night restored by tomorrow night. The ‘bead worm’ thing might take a little while longer. Okay. Bye.” He hung up and put the phone on the coffee table.
He stretched out and turned on the TV. Some female body wash commercial was almost over when another one started up — an advertisement that made Tails’ blood go cold:
Outside the BATHROOM. We hear liquid dribbling into the toilet, which soon stops.
Cut to inside the BATHROOM. A little human girl, about six years of age, pulls up her shorts flushes the toilet.
She walks happily out, leaving the rumbling sound behind her.
She goes to the KITCHEN door and pushes it open. The viewer can see a distinct wet patch on her butt; somebody forgot to take something off in there!
Her mother is at the counter with a few paper grocery bags. The girl tugs at the woman’s shirt from behind. The mother turns around.
She checks the seat of her daughter’s pants, sees the dampness, and gives a knowing smile.
She goes over to one of the brown paper bags and pulls out a package of COMFIES SUPERS. The camera zooms in on the pack the mother is holding…
FEMALE NARRATOR: “The new COMFIES SUPERS…”
…and pans over to the “Magic Shapes” blurb.
FEMALE NARRATOR: “…with Magic Shapes that fade when wet.”
Cut to the Bathroom. The child is on the bath mat; her mother is fastening a diaper on her.
FEMALE NARRATOR: “It’s the best way to say ‘bye-bye’ to underwear.”
She rises to her feet.
The mother drops a used baby wipe in the toilet; the girl pulls the handle. They watch the wipe swirl down.
Close up of the child’s face. She takes a deep breath through her nose and squeezes her eyes shut. After a few seconds, she exhales and relaxes. She did something she’d waited to get diapered up for. It may have been happening offscreen, but what she did was obvious.
GIRL: “Ah!”
Freeze-frame; a COMFIES SUPERS package fades up in the lower-left hand corner with text to the right: “ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. LEAKS SHOULDN’T.”
NARRATOR: “COMFIES SUPERS: Accidents happen. Leaks shouldn’t.”
FADE OUT.
Tails cringed at the ending. Right now, he did not want to be reminded of bowel evacuations. There wasn’t anything he could do though: the commercial came right out of left field and this was the first time he’d seen it.
He turned the machine off in frustration and rolled over.
“Tails?”
The boy looked over his shoulder. Cream was standing behind him in a sky-blue romper and holding a plush Ricky in her arms.
“Already home?” he asked. “How was Amy’s?”
“We had a lot of fun. Had a good time with Sonic?”
“Mm-hmm.” The boy didn’t want to talk about last night’s incident with his sister. Knowing her, she’d probably say “But I poop in the bed a lot, too! Don’t feel bad about it.” What else would he expect her to say? She was still small enough for baby diapers.
Cream just looked at her big brother. He was acting pretty pouty, like he didn’t want to do anything with her. “Tails?”
The fox sighed. “Did you go potty?” he said with his back turned “Go get Mom or Sonic.”
“I didn’t,” she answered. “What’s the matter?”
“You don’t wanna know!”
Cream grabbed onto the boy’s shoulder. “You can tell me,” she said earnestly “I won’t laugh. I promise.”
Tails looked at the little bunny and sat up. “Cream, get up here.”
She did so.
Tails looked really worried and blushed a good deal. He leaned over and whispered into her ear: “Cream… last night, when I was asleep, I… I pooped in the bed.”
Cream didn’t know what to say. He, along with Sonic and Amy, confirmed that this was something that big kids don’t regularly do. For her, pooping in her pants wasn’t something alien. “Tails, I’m sorry that happened,” she told him with a hug.
“I haven’t done it in years,” Tails said, frustrated. “Just… how?”
Cream looked down at her feet, trying to think. She looked back her brother; he was wiping a tear from his eye. He was upset with himself, more than anything.
If only she could do something about it.
BINGO!
She hopped off the sofa and ran off.
“Where are you going, Cream?” Tails asked.
She didn’t answer. She had an idea.
Cream had run out of the room; Tails followed after. The pursuit led upstairs and to Cream’s nursery.
As soon as the young fox went in her room, he found Cream pulling a fresh diaper out of a COMFIES ULTRA-DRY package leaning against her changing table. She turned around, toddled up to him, and held out the diaper.
Tails just stared at it and didn’t utter a word.
“When you go to bed tonight,” Cream told him “put this on.”
“You want me to wear one of your diapers?” Tails said, puzzled.
Cream looked at him, caring and serious, and spoke again: “Tails, I love you. You’re my big brother and I don’t want you to feel bad if poop in the bed again.”
“But, Cream…”
“Go on, Tails.” She insisted “Please take it.”
The fox relented. He held the diaper up and stared at it. It did smell nice, but that didn’t do much to bolster his confidence. Size 4, he said to himself, am I even going to fit in this?
Everything around Tails was bigger as he ran down the hall.
He reached the bathroom door, but the handle was too high. Frantically, he kept jumping and trying to reach the handle.
Soon, he was able to grab it and turn it.
The door opened. Nobody was in the bathroom, but the toilet was ahead. The little stool Sonic used to get up there was already in front of it.
Looking down, Tails briskly tried to remove his diaper. Having been changed by his mother a bunch of times, he had an idea how to get off. After a few seconds, the tapes came loose and he darted for the toilet.
Even with Sonic’s stool, he still had to climb up onto the seat.
He had to remember how his brother did it. He started to strain and wiggle.
“YES! I WENT POTTY!”
Tails opened his eyes to see that he was no longer a little kid sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. He was back in the top bunk in his and Sonic’s bedroom. It was still dark, very early in the morning.
Blushing a little, Tails tried to go back to sleep.
For some reason he was dreaming of the first time he’d ever used the toilet. Back then, he wanted to learn from Sonic; he was, as still was, the most awesome guy he knew. Prior to that, he came into the bathroom with him to see how it was done. During that one brave moment, he accomplished doing his first stinky outside of a diaper.
He wanted to do it, especially since his sister was due in the near future.
Their mother was proud and their father, God bless him, was too.
It felt great to be a big boy.
As he tried to relax, something wasn’t right. Something didn’t feel right.
It wasn’t that he felt guilty or ill. Something felt sticky.
After a second or two, Tails remembered what he was dreaming about. All he could think was “Oh no”.
He flew down from his bunk and made his way to the door. Sonic was face-down in his pillow. The outburst didn’t wake him.
Tails crept into the bathroom and turned on the light.
He dropped his pajama pants and paused for a moment. “Please don’t have anything, please don’t have anything,” he whispered as his briefs came off.
The fox’s heart sank and every follicle of fur felt like it was standing on end when he looked into his underpants. It was something he hadn’t done in eons and it just happened again.
WhatamIgonnadowhatamIgonnadowhatamIgonnadowhatamIgonnado?, he thought frantically. Then it hit him: Cream’s diaper bin!
Fortunately, Cream was still over at Amy’s house, so waking her was impossible. The bin was right next to her changing table and nobody would probably notice.
In went the underwear.
He also borrowed a few baby wipes to clean up, and then it was back to the bathroom to get the rest of his pajamas.
One change of underwear later and it was back to bed.
Climbing back under the blanket, Tails tried to go back to sleep. One question, however, prevented him from doing so: “How could this happen?”
VANILLA: “Cream’s the only one who needs them.”