Disturbed, Bucky made his way down the hall, his time spent with his younger foals was heavy in his mind. His view of Cheerilee was now forever altered, changed, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Ponies never failed to surprise Bucky, the most quiet and mundane sorts could be the most surprising.

He paused in front of the door, his destination. He knocked, but did not enter, fearful to do so. Inside, he heard a whinny, a snort, and a nicker of surprise. He hoped that he was not interrupting anything.

“Somepony is knocking at our door.”

The voice was muffled and Bucky could not make it out. Much to his dismay, there was no sound proofing spell and Bucky worried what sort of things his younger foals might be hearing from this room.

“Do come in!”

Feeling afraid, Bucky pulled the door handle door down and opened the door. He was immediately hit with an eye watering funk, the sort of stench that could only come from the rooms of teenage colts and fillies. He stepped inside and right away, he wished he hadn’t.

The room was a sty. The bed was unmade, the sheets were covered in hairs of all colours, and the blankets were in a wad on the floor. There were empty soda bottles on the floor. Dirty dishes were everywhere. Heavy coats and jackets were strewn about the room, but most of them were on the floor. Bucky was standing on something sticky, he could feel his right front hoof clinging to the floor and his frog was touching something clingy.

One of the couches was broken, snapped in the middle.

“We… uh… we’ve been meaning to clean up. We’ve been busy. All of the things we do,” Loch Skimmer said to Bucky, her eyes darting around the room. “Really, it usually isn’t this bad.”

“So what brings you here?” Rising Star asked.

“The couch is broken.” Bucky’s voice was a flat dull monotone. “Sparky, why is the couch broken? I know for certain that you have the spell that would fix it and make it right. There is just no excuse for this.”

Sparkler ducked her head down low and her ears drooped. She gave a guilty glance to the couch, then at Loch Skimmer as well as Ripple, and then looked back at Bucky. “Um…”

“Yeah… um…” Ripple tried and failed to say something in their defense.

Bittersweet stuffed her head under a pillow to hide.

“You see, um, well, you see, Ripple was doing her homework and was trying to read a book and Loch Skimmer kept blowing in her ear and was being a pest and Ripple kept ignoring Loch but Loch wouldn’t be ignored so finally Ripple went into super-brute-I-know-hoof-fu mode, picked Loch Skimmer up, and piledrived her into the couch.”

“What?” Bucky looked at Ripple and then at Loch Skimmer. “Loch, were you okay?”

“Oh don’t be silly… Ripple would never hurt me… I’m her sister. She was very gentle with me… besides, I’m a pegasus. You think being piledrived into a couch is going to hurt me? It was all in good fun… well, pegasus fun anyway… she suplexed Rising Star into the bed one time and he swore that for a moment, he could see his own pucker as his spine… twisted… into… a… pretzel… oh… you’re not laughing.” Loch Skimmer looked at Bucky, watching as he moved towards the couch, and watched his horn ignite. A moment later, the splintered and broken couch was whole again.

“To be fair, Ripple has used hoof-fu on all of us, with the exception of Bittersweet, because Bittersweet doesn’t tease Ripple but we do and we were just getting what we deserved,” Sparkler said, coming to her herd’s defense.

“What is all over the floor and why is everything sticky? Do I even want to know?” Bucky asked, cringing as he spoke. With the couch fixed, he turned and looked at his foals.

“Oh… that… well… you see—”

Loch Skimmer, who did not like to see her sister flounder, stepped forward. “Ripple pinned me down and farted on my head because I was being an annoying spaz. To get revenge, I waited till she had fallen asleep while she was doing her homework, I got a mouthful of water, and then I dribbled the water down into her ear… Ripple came up swinging and there was a scuffle, and then Ripple grabbed a soda bottle, shook it violently, and then popped the cap off while it was pointed at me, soaking me in soda. You can probably guess what happened next and I’ll shut up now.”

“At least Ripple is trying to do her homework… that is what I have gathered from all of this,” Bucky said, looking around the room at the empty soda bottles. “Thank you Ripple, for doing your homework.”

“Um, when the holiday is over, we’ll clean up in here, we promise,” Sparkler said.

“Why is there what appears to be chocolate syrup on the ceiling?” Bucky asked, looking up a large brown stain. “I do hope that is chocolate.”

“Oh it’s chocolate,” Loch Skimmer replied. “Are you sure you want to know? Cause, uh, that’s my fault too.”

“Yes… for some horrible morbid reason, I want to know. I feel like a little self abuse. Do tell,” Bucky said in a low voice. He wanted to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit down. Nowhere safe anyway. Before Loch Skimmer had a chance to say anything, he knew that he was going to regret this.

“Are you sure?” Loch Skimmer asked.

“Oh, I’m positive. My life will not be complete until I know how my very grown up and adult foals that I love dearly and I am proud of got chocolate syrup on the ceiling of all places,” Bucky replied.

Loch Skimmer took a deep breath, looked at her herdmates, and then looked back at Bucky. “You wanted to know.” Loch’s voice was nervous, squeaky, and contained a trace of laughter. “Well, uh, the good news is, you get to hear about Rising Star doing some of his homework… he was, uh, um, doing his homework and being a good colt, and I had a bottle of chocolate syrup because I was going to make chocolate milk and then to tease Rising Star, I began to… uh… well, you see, I, um, well, I started to do very perverted things with the bottle of chocolate syrup—”

“She was acting like she was giving it a blow job,” Ripple interjected, unable to look Bucky in the eye as she spoke.

“Yeah… that’s what I was doing, and it was very distracting to poor Rising Star, who couldn’t stop watching what I was doing and I had the neck of the bottle in my mouth when Ripple came along and clapped her hooves on either side of the plastic bottle, squeezing it violently. Chocolate shot into my mouth, down my throat, I almost choked, my mouth was full of the bottle and chocolate and I was gagging, and then chocolate came shooting out of my nose and got on the ceiling.” Loch Skimmer flopped over on the bed, grabbed a dirty hairy pillow, and covered her head with it.

Saying nothing, his face blank, Bucky backed out of the room. He shut the door behind him, trotted down the hall, and then made his way down the stairs. It took a supreme act of will to keep himself collected, to remain quiet, there were foals that he did not wish to disturb.

At the bottom of the stairs, Bucky exploded into laughter. Unable to stand, he fell down on the landing and squeezed his eyes shut as he laughed until he cried.

"Barley, dear, I was hoping to have a word with you,” Rarity said in a somewhat slurred voice as she looked Barley in the eye. “There are some words… words I have been wanting to say but I was scared… tonight, I am feeling courageous!” Rarity waved her wineglass around, almost but not quite sloshing some wine.

Raising his eyebrow, Barley looked at the inebriated mare and wondered what was up. Coco was looking at him with a hopeful expression. Barley, being old and wise, knew trouble when he saw it. These two were trouble.

“Barley, how would you feel about being a father?” Rarity asked.

“What?” Barley was stunned. Rarity’s blunt words struck him like a physical blow.

“Coco and I need a stud…” Rarity hiccuped, staggered a bit, and then batted her eyes at Barley. “We were hoping it would be you.”

“I’m old,” Barley replied.

Smiling, Rarity leaned a little closer to Barley. “Oh, but you are still handsome and we both know that you are capable.” Tittering, Rarity looked back at Coco, licked her teeth, and gave Coco a light slap with her tail.

“We talked to Luna about this,” Coco said. Coco, who had also been drinking, was nowhere near inebriated. The earth pony mare was calm, cool, and collected.

“Ye what?” Barley asked. He lifted his head and offered his full attention.

“Oh we talked to Luna… months ago. She came into the shop with Tourmaline… wanted a dress. We told her we had a delicate matter to discuss, and then we all went out and had a nice lunch about a week later. And the three of us discussed you being a daddy.”

“Ach, crivens! I’m being plotted against.” Barley’s eyes narrowed. “Nopony told me anything… ye’d think that Luna would’ve said sumptin.”

“Oh… Luna was waiting for us to make up our minds… like I said, I’ve been very shy about this… it is… difficult to just come out and ask a stallion for his… services,” Rarity said. She raised her glass to her lips, tilted her head back, and emptied it.

“Why me?” Barley asked.

“Oh, we made a very long list of things we were looking for. Practical things. And then we checked those things on the list off for every stallion we knew. You scored the highest,” Coco replied.

“I dinnae understand.” Barley’s ears pitched forward and his wrinkled brow became more wrinkled. “I’m old and I’m nothing special.”

“Oh but you are,” Rarity said as she sat her glass down.

“You are charismatic, witty, charming, a successful business owner, reasonably intelligent, you are a unicorn with just enough magic but not too much—”

“What does that have to do with anything? Is this a unicorn thing?” Barley asked, interrupting Coco.

Coco offered Barley a soft smile. “This is a pony thing. For the unicorns on the list, we looked at magical ability. Too much is bad… it is troublesome raising a unicorn foal with lots of magic… look at Harper and all of the zapping she does, both accidental and on purpose.”

“I see yer point lass…”

“You would of course get visitation and Luna’s only stipulation is that she is made the godmother, which is a very reasonable demand. We might have several foals, and all of them would be yours. Luna would be very happy knowing that a little part of you lived on,” Coco said, her lips pulled into a smile that revealed dazzling white teeth.

“I don’t know what to say.” Barley reflected upon Coco’s words. A little part of him living on might soften the blow when he died. It might make Luna’s life a little more bearable.

“We hope you’ll say yes… I didn’t think Rarity would bring it up so I really wasn’t prepared with a sales pitch.” Coco ignored Rarity’s flirtations and focused on the important issue at hoof.

“I cannae answer right now lasses… I’ll need time to think… and to talk with Luna,” Barley said.

“Of course,” Coco replied, bowing her head. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a very naughty pony that I need to drag upstairs…”

Derpy, laying on her back, felt the soothing heat of Bell Heather. Bell Heather was laying upon Derpy’s rounded belly, her head resting upon one of Derpy’s teats, and her little diapered backside was resting upon Derpy’s navel.

Beside Derpy, Thistle slumbered, succumbing to the long day.

Much to Derpy’s delight, Bucky crawled into the bed beside her. She felt the weight of his head come to rest upon her thigh, and, lifting her head and looking down, she saw that he was almost snoot to snoot with Bell. She let her head fall back down upon her pillow.

“Everypony is having a good time, and once again, here we are, off by ourselves.”

The sound of Bucky’s soft words was reassuring. Derpy began to feel drowsy now, Thistle was warm beside her, and she could feel Bucky’s body against her hip.

“The exciting life of an introvert.”

Derpy closed her eyes, focusing on the sensations around her. Bell Heather’s warmth. The tiny foal’s breathing. The sound of Bucky’s voice. Even though she had been with Thistle, Derpy had felt a little lonesome back here. Thistle had dozed right off, leaving Derpy with nopony to talk to.

“Lyra is completely smashed. She’s having a good time… the alcohol has made her the life of the party.” Bucky paused and then laughed. “At some point, you need to ask Loch Skimmer how chocolate syrup ended up on their ceiling.”

Lifting his head, Bucky looked at Derpy when there was no reply. He heard a faint groan and realised that Derpy had fallen asleep. Dropping his head back down, returned to the snoot to snoot position with Bell Heather. She had milk breath and was sleeping. Tired from the long day, Bucky closed his eyes.

Author's Notes:

The end to an almost perfect day.