Love Tap sipped her tea, and waited. All week long her little colt had been acting… strange. Staying after school, but not being able to tell her why, not playing Minecraft, things of that nature. But then there was the largest oddity; his blasphemy. The one thing she thought she would never see him do.

He was playing dating sims.

That had truly been the last straw, and had forced her hoof. She had to get him to talk to her, and the breaker box beside her almost guaranteed that. As if on cue, a beam of light entered the basement. It first went to the corner, causing Love Tap to smile. Checking for intruders was never a bad practice, though the continued, thorough search told her otherwise, and she had to try not to start laughing. Button’s muttering made this all the more difficult as he himself lamented about how stupid it would be for treasure or monsters to simply appear. And yet, he still had to check for them.

This was ultimately to his detriment though, as when he finally shined the light on his mother, she had been able to recompose herself, and was staring at him with a bemused smile. Her eyes tweaked, one widening as the other one almost slammed shut, all due to the scream that now echoed through the basement. “Button!”

The colt slammed his mouth shut, his chest rising and falling at a rapid rate. He blinked a few times before raising the flashlight again, and letting out a long breath. “Sorry, I thought you might be.... I don’t know actually.”

Love Tap raised an eyebrow as a brown lock of mane fell before her eye. “An axe murderer perhaps?”

Button Mash tried to level out his breathing, before furiously nodding. “Y-yeah. You never know when one of those is going to break out and come after you.”

Love Tap merely smacked herself and sighed. “You aren’t supposed to be playing Until Dawn, Button. You’re not old enough for it, and besides, you don’t like horror games.”

Button tucked his tail between his legs and bit into his cheek. “Yeah, but Rumble told me I could learn a lot from it and the relationships in it.”

Her eyes narrowed as a smile crept back onto her lips. “Relationships? Why would you want to learn about relationships?”

Button paled further before smacking his head into a post. “Why do I always do this?”

Love Tap wrapped a cream hoof around her little colt and pulled him in while she chuckled. “It’s because you’re terrible at lying and keeping secrets. Trust your mother when she says that that is a very good thing in a relationship.”

Button bit into his cheek and looked up at his mom, his eyebrows furrowed. “But Action Star lies all the time, and the girls seem to want all they can of him.”

His mother slammed a hoof over her muzzle, groaning as she did so. “Button…” She sighed and wrapped him up even tighter. “Tell me, do you think that whoever it is you like would be happy if you lied to them?”

Button became almost white as a sheet, and he started shaking his head furiously. “If Di thought I was lying to her, she would get furious!”

Love Tap’s eyes snapped open wide. She was trying to process what she had just heard. Surely he didn’t mean Diamond Tiara? As far as she had known, the only time the two had even really talked was during their visit last weekend at her house. Unless… “Button honey, what exactly happened last weekend? She didn’t have you sign any weird contracts or anything like that, right?”

Button’s color returned, and he tried getting out of his mother’s arms, before stumbling forward and shaking his head furiously. “No, Di wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Then what happened?” Love Tap laid down, her curiosity growing ever greater. “How did you two come to be something more than friends?” She made absolute sure to leave off ‘instead of you and Sweetie Belle,” from the question.

Button bit into his cheek, but then started furiously shaking his head. “Me and Di just started dating, that’s all. What’s so strange abo-Ow!” He rubbed the top of his head and glared at his mother. “What was that for?”

Love Tap raised an eyebrow as she raised her hoof again. “You just heard how I feel about lying, and now you’re going to try to just brush my questions away? Spill.” When Button didn’t back out of his silence, she decided to break out the big guns. “If you’d like, I could just punish you for having kept secrets from me all week long like you have. How does having to beat Hydlide before playing anything else sound for a punishment?”

Button shook his head furiously, before looking down. “Pl-please mom, don’t make me play that game again.”

Love Tap sighed and sidled up to Button, before nuzzling his cheek. “Honey, you know I support you in all you do, and that I can help you with your relationship, but you have to let me at least know how it started. Like, how did you two confess your feelings, and things like that. Please, let me know Button.”

Button looked down, before swallowing hard. “And you’re certain you won’t get angry or anything?”

Love Tap crossed a hoof over her chest and then put it to her eye. “Pinkie promise.”

Button let out a long sigh before nodding. “Well, um, you said you wanted to know how I found out that she liked me, right?” He waited for his mom to nod, his face becoming a deeper shade of red with each passing moment. “Well, Silver Spoon called right when I was putting my hoof to her vagina, and-”

“What?”

One very short, awkward, and terrifying conversation later, and Love Tap finally walked out of the bathroom, using a towel to get rid of any leftover vomit. She slowly went to the kitchen and pulled out a bucket, soon filling it with cold water, some of which she splashed on her own face, before going back to the basement. There, she found Button, curled up in the fetal position, his entire body red. A quick tipping of the bucket, and her son sprang to life, almost jumping to the rafters above her head. “Are you okay?”

Button swallowed hard, looking up at her. “H-how far did I get through the story?”

“I asked if you two had sex, and you passed out, so about half a minute.”

Button nodded. “Ca-can I please just leave it at that, please?” He barely squeaked out the last word, and Love Tap thanked Celestia that that was where he wanted it to end.

“Did you two at least use protection?” She watched as he barely nodded before letting out a long sigh herself. “And how do you feel about her? Do you think you might actually like her?”

Button pressed the edge of his hoof into the floor, unable to meet his mother’s eyes. He opened his mouth, but then simply laid down. When Love Tap lowered herself, she could see a tear come down the side of his face. She lifted a hoof, catching the small droplet as she ran her hoof along his head. “What is that for? No, or I don’t know?”

He took one more deep breath, before nuzzling into his mother’s side. “I don’t know. When I watch her with others, she is so cold, and withdrawn, only wanting to make fun of them, and even sometimes hurt them. When it’s just the two of us though, she… she’s cute. She doesn’t always know what to say, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Especially when she gives me that little smile of hers that I’d never seen before. The bit of red that always splashes onto her cheeks when she does it gets me every time, and it’s just… nice to be with her.”

Love Tap smiled at her little colt, staring at the smile that had drifted onto his face. She doubted he even entirely knew about it, or even why he was smiling like a damned fool. It soon faded, much to her disappointment, as he looked down. “That isn’t love though, is it? My vision doesn’t change to pink when I see her, or anything like that.”

Love Tap cooed softly into his ear as she continued to stroke his head. “That’s something you’ll just have to figure out unfortunately, and no game is going to tell you the truth, alright?” She waited for him to nod, before patting him on the head. “Now, we can talk more about all that birds and bees stuff later. Before then, I need to schedule a chance to meetup with Filthy and your new marefriend. I think a week is far too much time with how young you are for me not to have met them.”

Button had already turned bright red from mentioning birds and bees, but then gasped at the rest. “Oh, you could come with me to the event I was invited to tomorrow. It’s a big, fancy party for Diamond Tiara’s dad and a lot of his investors, and she did say we could come. I just... didn’t know how to tell you.”

His mother nodded, a smile spreading across her lips. “Yes, that sounds-” She stopped, the word ‘tomorrow’ echoing in her mind. “When you said tomorrow, d-did you mean that?”

Button bobbed his head. “August twenty-seventh, at seven in the afternoon, Ponyville Museum. Diamond’s been making me memorize that ever since Tuesday.”

Her eye began to twitch as her breath came in much shallower. “And a lot of fancy stallions will be there?” Button’s nod was the last straw for her before she had to slump against the wall and talk into it. “Button, did it ever occur to you that you might need a suit for this?”

Button paled, and swallowed hard. “No?”

She slowly stood up, groaning as she rubbed her muzzle. The next twenty four hours were going to be long if she was going to make Button at all prepared for this, but to see her colt happy… it was still going to be a pain. She started trudging for the door, before calling to her son. “Come along Button. We have errands to run.

Author's Notes:

The third chapter should be arriving tomorrow. It's in the editing phases, and I was simply too busy to quite finish with it yet. I do hope you're enjoying it so far though.