Adventures in Fluff'n Folding

Mary Shannon hated doing laundry. Not that she particularly enjoyed doing anything even remotely domestic, mind you, but laundry definitely ranked at the very bottom of the list. Hell, she'd rather crawl through garbage-strewn alleys, in the pouring rain, with bullets flying over her head, rather than face the Unholy Maytag Duo. However, she didn't dare let her mother or Brandi do the laundry - she liked her whites white, and her colors colored, thank you very much - and Raph was out of town, which left her with only two options: Go to work naked, or break out the Tide.

It hadn't been as easy a decision as one might think.

Besides, considering some of the items she'd dug out of her laundry hamper, it was probably best if she took care of it herself...

"So you finally gave in, uh?" Brandi asked as she wandered into the laundry room, watching her sister fold pile after pile of freshly-laundered clothes.

"What are you talking about?" Mary asked, not bothering to look up from her folding.

"Doing Raph's laundry."

"Oh, for the love of god," she exclaimed, dropping the t-shirt she'd been in the middle of folding and glaring at her sister, "what is your obsession with laundry? For the last time, no, I am not doing Raph's laundry; I have never done his laundry, nor do I plan on ever doing his laundry. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Crystal," Brandi replied, a smug expression on her face.

"What's with the smirk, then?" she asked, frowning. She didn't like the look on her younger sibling's face; whatever she was up to, it couldn't be good...

"If you're not doing Raph's laundry, then whose underwear is this?" she asked smugly, brandishing a pair of aeronautically-themed boxers.

"Those aren't Raph's; they're Marshall's," she replied without thinking, realizing too late she'd given her sister way too much information.

"Marshall, uh?" she asked, a knowing expression on her face. "How exactly did Marshall's underwear wind up in your laundry?"

"All right, first off, that's not underwear."

"Um, I may not be the smartest girl around, but even I can tell that this is underwear."

"All right, technically, I guess, yes... But Marshall wears those to bed, with a t-shirt. They're pa-ja-mas," she emphasized slowly. It was only when she saw her sister's expression that she realized she'd just dug herself in deeper by admitting she knew about her partner's preferred bedtime getup. "I am not sleeping with Marshall!" she said, exasperated.

"Oh, I know that... I'm guessing that, if you were, there'd be a whole lot less drama all around."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It's just that... I dunno... You just seem a whole lot happier when you're hanging out with Marshall than when you're with Raph, is all. Just something to consider, I guess," she added, shrugging.

Mary bit her lip, wondering what her sister was driving at. Of course she was happy when she hung out with Marshall; he was her best friend! Friends were supposed to make you happy, weren't they?

"Look," Brandi continued, unaware of her sister's confusion, "when I told you you couldn't do better than Raph, I was projecting. Don't get me wrong, I still think he's a good guy, but I just don't think he's the guy for you."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Mary answered, ignoring the the nagging voice in her head insisting her sister was on to something. "Just... fold!"

"Fine," she replied, making a show of folding the garment, "but maybe you should ask yourself why you're happier with Marshall than with anyone else you've ever been with."

"I am not with Marshall," she pointed out, rolling her eyes at the notion.

"Which really makes it all the more telling, if you ask me..."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing no one's asking you, then," Mary grumbled as she viciously folded the last few pieces of clothing left in the first basket. She was saved from having to say anything else by the ringing of the doorbell. "Why don't you just go see who's at the door?"

"I would love to!" Brandi chirped, practically bouncing out of the laundry room. "Have fun fluff'n folding!"

Mary shook her head in disbelief, thinking she should really check into whether the hospital she was born in had any switched-at-birth incidents on record, because she really didn't see how she could be related to either Brandi or Jinx. Maybe there was, somewhere out there, a family of snarky ass-kickers who didn't care about clothes or jewelry, a family who spent hours staring in confusion at their Barbie-esque daughter – who kept asking questions about under-ripe citrus fruit, for some reason – wondering where they had gone wrong...

Sighing, she returned to her folding, idly wondering who'd been at the door. She'd been about to call out to her sister and ask when Marshall walked in.

"So," he said, looking perplexed, "what is this about you playing with my underwear?"

She stared at him in horror, mid-fold, silently vowing to kill her sister when she got her hands on her. "Don't ask," she managed to say after a few seconds. "Just fold."

"Okay," he agreed good-naturedly, picking up the nearest t-shirt and folding it into a perfect little square before moving on to the next item in the basket. "So, what's with the laundry?" he asked. "You hate doing laundry..."

"Yeah, I know..." she agreed, watching as he happily folded a pair of pants, followed by a couple of dress shirts. "I've discovered that, sometimes, it's really not so bad," she admitted as she tried to smooth out the crumpled shirt in her her hands. "It's all about who you're doing it for, I guess."

Not to mention who you're doing it with...