Home. Home again. Another day full of deliveries. Derpy stood at her own door, taking a deep breath, thankful to be home. She gently hoofed the latch, pushing the door open, and then peered inside, winking one eye shut so her good eye could see.

Derpy saw what could only be described as the aftermath.

On the couch, Bucky was sprawled out asleep, laying on his belly, his head squashed against the arm of the couch. On his back Dinky had sprawled out, laying on her back, her forelegs folded over her barrel, her mouth open, her barrel rising and falling with her breathing. Derpy took a step inside, and macaroni crunched underhoof. She looked down. There was macaroni and popcorn all over the floor.

Standing inside the door, she turned and saw Berry Punch, sprawled out in the chair, a tangle of yarn beside her on the floor in a basket, and two knitting needles sticking out of a yarn ball. Piña was stuffed in beside Berry in the chair, both were sound asleep, Berry Punch snoring faintly, drooling slightly.

Derpy followed the trail of popcorn into the kitchen, and stood aghast at what she saw when she went through the kitchen door. Popcorn. Everywhere. Some still remained on the table, quite a bit was on the floor, crayons and papers cluttered the table. There was popcorn on the ceiling, it formed words, a message letting her know that she was loved.

She was going to have to kill Bucky for teaching Dinky how to stick things on the ceiling, but she was also fiercely proud that Dinky could stick things on the ceiling. She backed out of the kitchen, stepping on popcorn and macaroni noodles, and looked at the sleeping ponies in her living room.

It was almost too adorable to stand.

Stepping quietly, Derpy went back into the kitchen, fetching the camera from the cupboard over the root vegetable bin, and then returned to the living room holding the camera in her wingtips. She snapped a picture of the two sleeping ponies on the couch, the click and the flash from the camera causing everypony to awaken with a snort or a twitch. She returned the camera to the kitchen, popcorn and macaroni still crunching underhoof, and then went back into the living room to confront Bucky about the popcorn on the ceiling.

“There is popcorn on my ceiling,” Derpy said, tapping her hoof and giving the stinkeye to the tan unicorn still sprawled on the couch, Dinky still lying on his back.

Bucky grinned sheepishly, his eyes still half open, his ears limp and hanging downward, framing his face.

“Popcorn. On my ceiling,” Derpy repeated. “I don’t know how to begin,” she finished, still tapping her hoof.

“Uh oh,” groaned Berry, rubbing her eyes.

“Dinky learned the minor sticky cantrip, she can’t stick things like couches or tables on the ceiling,” explained Bucky, his voice containing faint laughter, Dinky now giggling on his back, covering her mouth with her hooves.

“Yet,” added Berry Punch, grinning wickedly.

“Oh you are so not helping Berry,” Bucky said, covering his eyes with his ears as he did so. “It is an important spell for unicorns. It allows us to stick things to walls, like notes, maps, flow charts, graphs, papers, posters, small things with very little weight,” Bucky explained slowly, not liking the last look he had seen from Derpy before he had covered his eyes and tried to look as pathetic as possible.

“Dinky can pop popcorn,” Piña said helpfully, smiling the innocent smile of a foal that doesn’t know trouble when they see it.

“I can see that,” Derpy said patiently to Piña, still tapping her hoof. Her wings fluttered slightly and her breathing quickened.

“Derpy Doo, all of this mess can be cleaned up, we were tired, don’t be angry,” Berry said soothingly. Derpy’s body language said many things, none of it appropriate for translation before foals.

“Ceiling!” Derpy said slowly.

“Look, we know you made your feelings clear, but it is harmless, really,” Berry said.

Derpy’s scowl melted a bit. “Dinky learned that on her first day…” she said slowly.

“I made him teach me, I used the big sad eyes on him mommy,” Dinky confessed, rolling over on her side, looking at her mother, using the said sad eyes to full effect.

“It was well managed mischief,” Bucky said slowly. “All little unicorns, no matter what type go through a mischievous stage. It is better to focus it into funny little pranks than to wait for big troublesome outbursts,” he stated, still hiding his eyes behind his ears, and trying not to laugh and send the wrong message about his feelings as Dinky squirmed on his back. Dinky tickled something awful.

“I see,” said the grey pegasus mare, her hoof no longer tapping. Derpy opened both of her eyes and banished her scowl. “Been a long day. I had to deal with giant spiders when I was out delivering mail to Zecora.”

“And this is why they hire pegasi at the post office and frown upon earth pony applicants,” Berry Punch said with a chuckle.

“What?” Bucky said with more than a hint of worry, lifting his ears away from his eyes and looking at Derpy with a great deal of concern.

“Spiders. Big ones. Potentially pony eating spiders. Not an uncommon hazard when delivering the mail,” she answered, moving forward towards Bucky. After several steps, she reached the couch. She lowered her head and snoot-bumped Bucky, touching nose tips briefly, and then turned towards the chair where Berry sat. “It isn’t easy delivering the mail,” Derpy said as she moved towards Berry, crossing the room in a moment, and then snoot-bumping her friend. Berry leaned into it with a smile. Derpy backed away from the chair and sat down on her haunches, waiting patiently.

It wasn’t long until she was mobbed by two foals. She allowed herself to be bowled over and wrestled down to the floor, engaging in a snuggle-huggle-fight-fest.

Bucky decided in a single hot second that a mare being wrestled by foals was rather attractive. He swallowed, and his neurotic mind told him that his swallow was loud enough to be heard by everypony in the room. His mind’s accusations were confirmed when Berry Punch shot him a knowing smirk.

Feeling guilty, Bucky continued to feel attracted to this display of motherhood. He watched intently, making no effort to hide it. His own mother had never done anything like this, rolling around on the floor being playful.

He became aware that Berry was staring at him intently, in much the same way he had been staring at Derpy intently. There was something vaguely predatory about Berry’s gaze. She blinked once, then twice, and then she blinked and left her eyes half closed, gazing at him warmly, looking at him with an almost drowsy looking stare of arousal. Ardrowsal? The sort of look a mare might give when she is thinking about going to bed, but not sleeping.

There was a painful spike of attraction at that moment for Berry.

The room suddenly felt rather warm.

“So about our date tonight,” Bucky said slowly, “or am I in trouble for the popcorn on the ceiling?”

“Oh, we are doing something tonight,” Derpy answered, having her ear tugged on by an aggressive Dinky, who had her mother’s ear in her teeth, and her mother’s head in her forelegs. Derpy had Piña squished to her barrel in one foreleg, and the grey mare was on her back, her wings spread slightly on the floor.

“I could fix us a meal,” Berry offered, repeating her offer from earlier. “Or we could go out maybe. Take the foals with us. I know a place that has bean curd curry that is as hot as the blazes.”

“Mmm,” said Derpy, licking her lips as Piña was drumming away on her barrel, causing Derpy’s “mmm” to sound a little funny.

“I like curry,” Bucky confessed. “It is so delicious it is almost worth the embarrassing social consequences.”

“Embarrassing?” Berry asked.

“Yeah, embarrassing,” Bucky stated.

“More like fun,” Berry retorted, leaning over in her chair and farting loudly, getting near perfect resonance and vibration amplification from the cushion, the entire chair working to amplify the sound.

Derpy and the two foals collapsed into peals of laughter, while Bucky just sat there, eyes wide in shock, blinking several times, trying to take in what he had just seen and heard.

“How about curry and then we come home, wait for the foals to go to bed, and then we have a few drinks and play Twister together?” Berry asked.

“Twister and embarrassing social consequences,” Bucky replied, his nose crinkling.

“Oh don’t be such a snob. Someday, when we’re very close friends, I’ll show you a neat trick I know that you’ll like where I make my plot vibrate,” Berry promised.

Derpy guffawed with laughter as the two foals giggled, not understanding the joke, but Derpy laughing was pretty funny on its own.

Bucky found he could not reply. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and nothing came out. Nothing at all. The worst thing was, he was intrigued. He would never admit it, but Berry’s offer had him curious. He quickly shoved the thought away from his mind, feeling somewhat sullied and still strangely attracted to Berry Punch.

Derpy now had Piña and Dinky pinned, and was using her wings to extract terrible revenge on the foals, tickling them mercilessly and causing them to squeal and kick, pleading for mercy.

Pegasi weren’t known for mercy.

Berry Punch moved out of her chair and seized upon the golden opportunity to get some revenge of her own, planting her muzzle into Piña’s belly and blowing a loud raspberry that filled the living room with embarrassing flatulent noises.

Bucky rubbed his head with his hoof. These displays of affection were embarrassing.

Berry, noticing Bucky’s apparent distress, leaned over and whispered something in her friend’s ear, which Bucky did not notice, because his eyes were closed and he was rubbing his head with his hoof.

He did not see the pegasus moving quickly to her hooves or the wily earth pony tensing up. He didn’t pay attention to the sounds of little hooves moving clear of the coming carnage. Bucky made a lot of mistakes in a span of just a few moments.

Bucky suffered a very pronounced feeling of total confusion as he was pulled from the couch and pinned to the floor, completely overpowered by the much stronger mares. A giggling shriek escaped his lips, something he immediately regretted, knowing that he would privately reflect and cringe in embarrassment about it for days, focusing upon the event, driving himself to distraction. He felt his forelegs and hindlegs being pinned.

Somepony, who could not tell who, pressed her muzzle into his barrel and blew a very loud, very wet, and very ticklish raspberry, something which worried Bucky a great deal, as he was suddenly feeling more than a little arousal. He became painfully aware that in this position, parts of him were exposed and visible.

Embarrassingly visible.

Another muzzle pressed in, inhaled sharply, and then blew outwards, making wet sloppy flatulent noises against his pelt. Bucky gasped, his breath now gone, he could no longer laugh, squirming in their grasp.

And then, two muzzles pressed in together, working in unison, mark ludicrous fart sounds in harmonised stereo. Bucky heard a loud squeal and realised that it was him, and he heard two foals giggling madly.

And then, he was let go of, and he quickly rolled over, trying to regain his composure, worried that he was going to make a public display at any moment.

He looked up at the two mares staring at him, both smiling, and felt a strange feeling. A warm feeling. A pleasantly warm feeling. And part of him wished that they hadn’t stopped.

What he had just experienced was entirely unlike anything else he had experienced in his whole life. A total loss of control. And it was strangely enjoyable.

His eyes locked for a moment with Derpy’s, her amber orbs straight for a moment, just long enough to meet his gaze. Her wings were half unfurled, quivering slightly.

She stood over him, her head lowering, her face inches from his own, Berry Punch beside her, who even now, was smiling a secret smile, her eyes flashing with unspoken mayhem, filled with terrible promises of things to come, and Bucky’s vision was suddenly overtaken by a grey mare with a wheat coloured mane, her nose inches from his own.

Bucky felt his heart seizing, but not from panic. Not the usual type of panic anyway.

He was against the couch, no room to retreat, nowhere to run.

There was no room to have a chase, and Bucky wasn’t sure if he wanted to run from the pegasus right now anyway. She looked predatory. Running would certainly have consequences at this point.

Their snoots bumped, and Bucky felt his head pushed backwards against the couch, and he could feel hot breath against his lips. All he could see was grey now, and a few wheat coloured strands… Derpy’s eyes were closed. He could see her eyelashes. And a tiny scar just below one eye. Her every detail stood out in high contrast. She was astoundingly beautiful.

There was pair of giggles from somewhere that distracted him for a fraction of a second as Derpy continued to press her advantage and her snoot against his.

And then, with his head pinned to the couch, Bucky felt two lips press against his, gentle at first, and then with frightful savage intensity, suction increasing to violent levels, almost painful, Bucky’s mind recalled stories of tough pegasi that could crack nuts with their lips alone, you needed tough strong lips to fly at high speeds and not have them torn off from flapping in the wind.

Bucky could not breathe. At all. His nostrils were closed off from the crushing snoot to snoot contact, and his lips were thoroughly locked onto those of another. He became light headed, and then dizzy, and then he felt his body going limp.

Just when he thought his head was going to explode, Derpy pulled away with a gasp.

“Oh wow, it’s been years since I’ve been kissed like that," Derpy said, gasping, her sides heaving. “I feel like a mare again.” She fluttered her wings a bit, her tail twitching, her ears reorienting rapidly as she backed away. Her barrel expanded and contracted greatly. She licked her lips and heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

Bucky struggled to breathe, sucking in big gulps of air, his own barrel heaving, a really weird prickling feeling in his horn that had never felt before in his life, his head thunking to the floor limply as he no longer had the strength to hold it up.

“Ew, mommy has colt cooties,” Dinky said in disgust, running from the room, still giggling, Piña chasing after her.

“Gross!” Piña cried as she fled the room with Dinky.

Bucky’s lips were covered in a waxy oily residue, Derpy’s saliva thick upon them.

Derpy wobbled towards the stairs. “I need a bath. It’s been a long day. I need bubbles and hot water,” she said as she mounted the first few stairs. She turned and gave a final glance at Berry Punch and Bucky. “He’s weak and exposed Berry, you’re not going to get a better chance.”

Bucky struggled and wiggled, trying to will his limbs to work, to no avail. Berry planted one hoof on his barrel, pressed down to make him lie still, and then gently planted a soft kiss on his lips, smacking lightly as she pulled away.

“Just so we can get acquainted,” she explained as she pulled away. “You don’t mind do you?”

Bucky shook his head, looking up at Berry, who was looking down at him.

“Derpy really needed that, thanks for making it easy for her,” Berry said, smiling.

Bucky nodded, his head still on the floor.

“Just so we are all on the same page, you do realise that Derpy is the alpha in our little budding relationship, right? Or will I need to explain this to you?” Berry asked, her face now serious and full of concern.

“I- I don’t understand,” Bucky admitted.

“You like Derpy. I like Derpy. I’ve been her friend for a very, very long time. What you and I have in common is that we both like Derpy. And that she likes us. She’s kissed you, she’s dictated the terms of our slowly forming relationship, I’ve kissed you to get to know you a little better, and, after you and I have chatted a bit, I am going to go upstairs and go smooch her while she is in the bath. If this has any chance of working, we need to communicate. I understand Derpy, I understand you, I doubt that you understand either one of us though, am I right?” Berry said in a slow careful explanation followed by a question.

Bucky nodded. “I am having some trouble keeping up,” he confessed.

“Well then, you and I will keep talking as time goes on. And I am going to teach you a few things. Like how to relax. How to enjoy wine. How to speak pegasus. I am going to unwind you if is the last thing I do. And we are all going to take this slowly and carefully and see where this goes and nopony is going to do anything that hurts anypony else. If you are really uncomfortable with this arrangement and you do not want me sticking my muzzle into this any further, you need to tell me now so I can figure out what to do about the situation we are currently in,” Berry replied.

Bucky was silent for a moment, which made Berry Punch look a little worried. He gazed up at her. She was pretty, in a very different way than Derpy.

Bucky pressed his nose against Berry Punch’s leg, inhaling deeply, taking in her scent. Also different from Derpy. There was something appealing about her though. He made a gesture, beckoning her down to him, and she lowered her head, coming almost nose to nose with Bucky.

“I am a very repressed and uptight unicorn. I need somepony to show me how to have a good time,” he whispered.

Berry snoot-bumped him in reply, and then kissed him a second time, another quick peck, smiling down at him. “I can show you how to have a good time if you’ll let me,” she said, her smile warm and inviting. “And right now, I am going to go steal me a kiss from a hot… wet… soapy mare in a bathtub,’ she added, taking a great deal of pleasure in watching Bucky squirm as she placed emphasis on each word in her description. “Tonight, we’re going to have a nice meal. I’m paying. Don’t make a scene or you and I will have some hoof-fu fighting between us. Let us take care of you while you take care of Dinky. Now, keep an eye on Dinky and Piña while I go upstairs. The little rascals are in the kitchen and there is no telling what they are up to.”

Bucky nodded, reached up, and gently stroked Berry’s face. “Can things actually work out between the three of us? Herds were abolished because of the disharmony and the fighting they caused.” Bucky queried.

For a moment, Berry Punch looked very serious. “That might be jumping ahead a little in our relationship, but yes, there are still herds even if the Crown doesn’t recognise them as legally binding marriages. And they do work sometimes, but they take a lot of effort, work, and communication. There is bound to be squabbling. And you have to take steps to correct the problems that happen when they are little and easily managed, and you can’t let them spiral out of control. Derpy trusts you with her foal and I trust you with my little sister, who is, for all intents and purposes, my foal. So I’d say we are off to a good start. You just keep looking after Dinky, we’ll look after you, and no doubt that Sparkler will look after all of us because that is what Sparkler does.”

Bucky nodded.

There was a crash from the kitchen.

Author's Notes:

4:45 AM. In the morning.

That is the time this chapter was posted. I cannot sleep. The metal in my leg is bothering me, I have terrible phantom pains tormenting me, and I cannot sleep. So, I've been up all night writing and screwing around, having posted a big chapter of To Dance In Shadow around Midnight.

I've watched some stuff on youtube, read comics on Equestria Daily, browsed Ponu, scrolled through tumbler, and finished this so people can have a read.

If I go to sleep, the Cenobites will torture me again.