Mr. and Mrs. Cake were surprisingly forgiving people. Well, ponies. They wholeheartedly and eagerly forgave Ryan for trashing their shop in his excitement.

“Stupid fuckin’ ponies,” he grumbled, scrubbing frosting off the floor with a mop.

On the condition that he cleaned up his mess.

“Aw, come on. It’s not that bad!” Pinkie said cheerfully, sticking her hoof into a glob of bright pink frosting and tasting it. Ryan would have been much happier had they simply let him leave in peace. On the bright side, they let him eat whatever he liked, so long as his work was finished in a timely manner.

“Yes. It is. Anything that involves manual labor is horrible and cruel.” Ryan shot back, sweeping the mop in a steady fashion.

“I have a song for that! Do you like sea shanties?” she didn’t give him time to answer, belting out into song before he could reply.

“Pink,” he began.

“WHEN I WAS A LITTLE FILLY-“

“Pinkie.” He said more sternly, desperately jamming his fingers in his ears.

“AND THE SUN WAS GOING DO~OWN!”

“PINKIE!”

“THE D-“

“Oh, god, shut up!” Ryan yelled, sticking his hand in her open mouth. To his shock, he watched his arm practically slide through, until her mouth was over his elbow.

Ryan was silent for a moment, before jerking his arm back.

“AW, GROSS!” he complained, wiping off an armful of drool. Pinkie was busy trying to scrub the taste of unwashed arm off her tongue with the mop.

“Yew’lle tewwig me! Blech!”

Ryan did his best to wipe the slobber on his pants, and shook the rest off. “Well, that was…” he was going to say ‘disgusting’, but changed it last minute to “… kind of impressive. I mean, holy shit, you’ve got a big mouth.”

It was possibly the first time he’d ever seen Pinkie deadpan. “Yeah. You’re one to talk.”

Snarky little… Ryan grinned at that, picking the mop back up and wringing it out to continue cleaning. “If you’re not gonna barf on the floor or anything, you could help clean it, you know. Speaking of which; don’t ponies have gag reflexes?”

Pinkie scratched her chin with her hoof, thinking. It was a very strange look; seeing a pony behaving in such a human manner. “I think so. I guess I just don’t have much of one.”

“I guess not,” Ryan shrugged, agreeing with her. “not many others can say they can easily deep throat an arm.”

“What’s that mean?”

Ryan paused, berating himself. Of course that one would require an explanation. “It, uh… just stick with the ‘no gag reflex’ thing. As a matter of fact, let’s just not bring it back up again.”

“Almost finished up in here?” Mr. Cake said, sticking his head through the kitchen doorway cheerfully to check up on them. The bright yellow pony and owner of Sugarcube Corner peered around, seeing that a good chunk of the work had been done rather well. Mr. Cake himself had flaming orange hair, sticking out in odd places underneath his red and yellow cap.

“Yuppie-duppie! Pinkie Pie announced excitedly. “Ryan here was just teaching me about deep throat!”

Ryan could have sworn Mr. Cake was trying to impersonate Pinkie, because his yellow face had just gone quite a few shades pinker. His mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out.

“Turns out, I’m really good at it! No gag reflex at all!”

If Mr. Cake were to turn any redder, he’d make a better tomato than a pony. “Oh. Well. That’s…” he stumbled over his words, struggling to find something to say. As flustered as he was, it was rather difficult.

“… Keep up the good work.” Was all he managed to say quickly, before turning on the spot and trotting off.

Ryan facepalmed, groaning. Yeah. This was going to be easy to explain. And now, to top it off, Pinkie was going to have all of Ponyville claiming that he was some form of deviant.

Well, he was a complete deviant. But not that bad.

“Is it just me, or did Mr. Cake look a little flushed to you?” Pinkie asked him, putting a pan of pastries behind the counter.

“I dunno, Pink.” Ryan lied, finishing up with the mop. “He might just be feelin’ sick.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re right!” she exclaimed, bouncing up. “He probably has a terrible fever and-“

“Yeah, that’s great, but I’ve really got to get goin’ now.” Ryan said, jamming a thumb toward the door. He didn’t have anywhere to go, even if he knew where he was going. He just really didn’t want to be here when Mr. Cake got his voice back.

“Okie-doki-loki!” Pinkie said to him in a chipper tone, carrying a thermometer and an ice bag to Mr. Cake, wherever he had gone.

After a few seconds of standing in silence, Ryan shrugged and said to himself “Time to make like a cake and… split. Christ, I’m bad at jokes.”

Ryan was walking down the side street through the middle of Ponyville, trying to look like he was minding his own business.

In actuality, he’d already scared the living daylights out of four innocent ponies, stolen three loafs of bread (which he ate almost immediately), and knocked over two salesponies’ stands.

And a partridge in a pair tree. He thought to himself happily. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to, but he eventually stopped on a curb, habitually checking his pockets. He’d have killed for a couple of cigarettes by this point. Every time he had them anywhere near his cousins, one of them was bound to annoy him over them. He thought back fondly to when Danielle, the twin sister of Donald, had gotten irate at him for smoking in her house. However, when Donald commented on the same thing, she snagged Ryan’s lighter from his pocket.

And used it to light Donald’s shirt on fire from behind.

Good times.

All he had in his pocket was the faded photograph he’d grabbed before flinging himself into the violet hell-hole that dropped him in this world, though. He unfolded it gingerly, gazing down at the yellowed paper. He’d almost forgotten what his aunt looked like; although she’d been dead for quite some time now. In the picture, he could see a much smaller pair of twins, waving happily in front of their parents. Ryan, much younger in this photo, stood sheepishly behind his aunt, staring at the photographer.

He wondered how the twins were faring about now. He used to visit them almost daily, to make sure they were okay. Most of the days were on the same ones he visited Tiny Tim at the Children’s Hospital, and Nurse Racksalot. Eventually, though, the visits were cut to about one a week, and then once every couple of weeks. The only way he kept in touch with them was through phone, and Ryan sorely wished he had it back. Although Equestria probably didn’t get very good signal.

As a matter of fact, the last time he’d even seen the twins, one of them was possessed by an ancient evil inter-dimensional demonic revenge-driven alien, and the other had been about to commit the equivalent of suicide for the sake of rescuing her twin. However, a time traveling doctor discovered that Miller genetic code was required in order to prevent universal apocalypse, and Ryan threw himself out the window into the maw of chaos itself.

And that’s the short version.

“Ah, good! There you are!” he heard Twilight’s voice behind him, and he nearly jumped.

“Oh, uh. Yeah. Hey, Purple.” He said lamely, holding up a hand in a sort of half-wave. A shadow passed overhead, and for a brief moment, he wondered if Rainbow had moved one of the clouds again. He squinted upwards, and though he saw no sign of a Pegasus, he could have sworn he saw what looked like a griffin.

It really wouldn’t have surprised him much.

“I see you’ve managed to find substitution for… breakfast.” Twilight said pointedly, eyeing the many breadcrumbs on his shirt. He brushed them off, and nodded. “What’s that?” she asked, glancing at the photo before Ryan could jam it back in his pocket. He nearly told her to fuck off, as he had grown used to doing in the short time he’d been in her homeland, but he sighed and showed it to her with one hand.

“You have a family?” she asked, sitting next to him and levitating it closer to get a better look.

“I used to. They’re… really far away.” He said pensively. His shoulders drooped, and for a moment, Twilight could have sworn he looked… almost sad. “They’re… ohana.”

She tilted her head, unfamiliar with the phrase. “O-ha-na?”

“Ohana means real close; nobody gets left behind. A blue cartoon alien taught me that shit.” He explained, carefully folding the picture back up and putting it in his pocket. He never did like those damnable Disney flicks his cousin tried shoving down his throat. Too much singing.

“… I see.” She said, thinking. Many ponies passed them, but hardly any paid any attention. Ryan supposed it was true just about anywhere in any universe; give someone enough time to acclimate to something strange, and eventually, nobody gives a damn.

“Are we… ohana?” Twilight asked him suddenly, looking up at him.

He stared back at her for a moment, running a hand through his greasy hair. After a moment of contemplation, he gave her a toothy grin. “… Sure, kid. We’re ohana. Ohana means, uh.. family.” He recited.

“And family means, nobody gets left behind.”

If he wasn’t careful, these multicolored little bastards were going to start growing on him.

But he doubted it.

Author's Notes:

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