Rumble and Lickety Split barrel into the living room, just quickly enough to miss the door opening. They waddle behind the living room curtains and hide, still lewdly locked together crotch-to-flank, silently praying to Celestia that the ponies at the front door aren't going anywhere near the living room. Or Thunderlane's room for that matter.

Alas, their prayers go unanswered.

Rumble and Lickety hear the sound of many hoofsteps and voices. They hear the gravelly bark of Thunderbolt, Rumble's father and the soft, raspy tone of Skyblossom, Rumble's mother. The bubbly, hyperactive voice of Pinkie Pie, the town gossip. The elegant, affected voice of Rarity, the other town gossip. Lickety's blood turns to ice when he hears a mare's nasal Baltimare accent. That's his mom, thinks Rumble, that's Lickety's mom, Buttercream. She gave me cookies when I hung out at his place on Tuesday. I'm ten feet away with my cock in her son's ass. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

More hoofsteps, more voices. More than six, maybe a dozen. Rumble and Lickety hear the living room door open, and the ponies start to file in. Chair legs scrape against the floor as ponies sit around the living room table. Rumble nudges his head forward, and peers out of the edge of the curtains. His parents haven't turned the overhead lights on, only the lamps. Rumble stays very still in the dim light, becoming more horrified as he sees who's in the room.

Mom, dad, Magnum, Pearl, Buttercream, Caster, Pinkie Pie, Rarity — my fucking boss, Rarity — Rainbow Dash, Bon Bon and Lyra. They are not here to stay. They are sitting down to rest their hooves, then they're going to raid the liquor cabinet and go somewhere else. They must go somewhere else.

"Thanks for hosting on such short notice, Thunderbolt," says Magnum, taking his coat off then sitting down, "Me and Pearl forgot about Sweetie's practice session tonight. She plays with that dragon all the time now, I didn't even know he was a musician..."

"Oh yes, Spike is quite the talented pianist," says Rarity.

"Said the nurse to the guardspony!"

Rarity laughs and waves him off, "Oh father, you're dreadful!"

"That he is," says Thunderbolt. "You're all welcome tonight, anyway. Thunderlane's over at his marefriends’ place, and Rumble is... somewhere, dubtrotting or whatever it is teenagers do these days. Teenagers still do drugs, right? They'd better still do drugs. I didn't raise Rumble to be some sissy who lives on tap water and good intentions, hah! Now let's get down to business, it's time to get drunk and play cards. Nopony leaves this room 'til sunrise! Unless you have to pee." His face darkens and muscles ripple under his grey coat. "Pee in my living room and I'll cripple you..." he growls.

Skyblossom brings in several bottles of gin and some tonic, and serves drinks as Rarity conjures up several stacks of chips and doles them out. Soon, eleven of the ponies in the room are drinking, laughing and playing poker. The two other ponies are hidden behind the curtains in an uncomfortable position, either stuffed inside another pony or being stuffed by another pony.

"Hey Thunderbolt," says Magnum, "What was the joke you were going to tell us before we left our place?"

"That? Oh, it's a good one." Thunderbolt grins and slugs his gin and tonic. Everypony looks at him, and he takes a moment to drink in the attention. "So there's four merchant bankers in a train cab, a Cloudsdaler, a donkey, a Fillydelphian and a griffon. They're joking and boasting and all trying to flaunt how rich and successful they are. The griffon takes out this bottle of spiced brandy, real classy stuff, the sort made from champagne grapes and aged for twenty years in barrels of the finest pearwood. The stuff that costs two-hundred bits a bottle. He takes a swig of it, then chucks the bottle out of the window. The other passengers gawk at him, and he just shrugs and says 'Plenty more back where I'm from.'

"So they talk some more, until the Cloudsdaler pulls out a snuff box. It's full of white salts, the kind you're not even allowed to export from Cloudsdale, purified with lightning so it hits you like a cannonball but lets you down as gentle as a feather. The sort of salts that cost two-hundred bits a gram. He taps out a line onto a pocket mirror, snorts it and then flings the snuff box out of the window. Like the griffon, he shrugs and says 'Plenty more back where I'm from.'

"By now, the Fillydelphian is seething, and he knows he's got to one-up these other bastards. So he grabs the donkey, throws him out of the window, sits back with a smug grin and says, 'Plenty more back where I'm from!'"

Everypony at the table bursts out in groans and laughter. "That was awful," says Lyra, "Never change."

"Terrible," says Bon Bon, rolling her eyes. Rumble feels Lickety tense up underneath him. Oh Celestia, Bon Bon is his boss. He used her confectionary contraptions to clean his colon. Please Luna, drop a shooting star on this house...

Buttercream is cringing, fidgeting her butter-yellow hooves. "I don't know, that joke is a bit... out there, for me, personally."

Caster nods along with her. "I agree. It's funny, but I wouldn't be comfortable telling it around Cranky and Matilda."

"Ahh, come on, we're all friends here, it's a funny joke," says Magnum, shrugging. "Everypony is so politically correct these days, it's almost as bad as the nine-eighties."

"I agree," says Rarity, "Sometimes I feel like they've banned common sense, you can barely put two words together without someone calling you a racist. Now I'm certainly no racist, one of my very best friends is a zebra, but there are still parts of Manehattan I wouldn't walk around at night. That's not racism, it's just good sense."

"Rares, that is some bullshit," says Rainbow Dash, "There's bad parts of Cloudsdale too, and there's not many zebra up there."

"Oh, I'm not saying it's a racial thing, heavens above. It's just that there's a certain culture in places like that. I know they've been traditionally deprived, but it's naive to expect that they'd all instantly become well mannered law-abiding citizens simply because they were treated poorly in the past."

"Still bullshit."

"Rainbow Dash!"

"Look, I get that you're not burning sundials outside Zecora's hut or anything, but you've still got that freaky Ponyville attitude. Are you gonna tell me you wouldn't blink if you saw Sweetie Belle walking down the street tail-in-tail with a zebra? You wouldn't ask him pointed questions about what his family does for a living? Wouldn't worry about Sweetie picking up 'bad language' and 'bad habits' from him? Wouldn't try to touch his mane?"

"Rainbow Dash, you're out of line," says Magnum, "You know we'd welcome any coltfriend of Sweetie's with open wings, as long as he was nice and not a scumbag or a mohawked welfare thug."

"No, Rainbow has a point," says Rarity, "I phrased it very badly, I only meant to talk about communities, not zebra. I'm very sorry if I offended anypony; that was not my intention. Let's change the subject."

Rainbow Dash nods, her expression softening. "Yeah, good idea. So, ponies, what's new? Didja hear about the riot me and Thunderbolt stopped the other week?"

A collective groan rises from the ponies.

"Yes," says Bon Bon.

"Yes," say Magnum and Pearl.

"You called me a hippie and laughed in my face when I asked if the use of dogs on teenagers was a reasonable use of force," says Caster.

"Yes," says Buttercream.

"I'm representing several of the ponies you arrested in court and I'm bound by oath and law not to comment," says Lyra.

"I thought you were a harper?" says Skyblossom.

Lyra shrugs. "I also harp."

"You have told me on more than one occasion, Rainbow Dash," says Rarity.

"You told me three times today, and twice yesterday, and once on Wednesday before we started making out, and twice on Tuesday, and-"

"Fine," huffs Rainbow Dash, "Does anypony have any less awesome news?"

Skyblossom perks up, a silly grin on her face. "I think our son might have a secret fillyfriend!" Oh dear Celestia please no please stop talking mom oh please. "He's been zipping off to see 'friends' all this week and last week and he just blushes bright red and gets tongue tied when I ask who it is. It's adorable! He must have found somepony he really likes; none of his other fillyfriends lasted longer than a week, he just went through them one after another."

Thunderbolt smiles proudly and lights up a cigar. "Yeah, the colt's a real ladykiller."

"He's a lovely young stallion, I'm sure he's found a very nice fillyfriend," says Rarity.

"Actually, I think Lickety has a marefriend too, he's been doing those exact same things," says Buttercream. "I'm so happy for him, he's seemed so lonely lately, and that's completely changed over the last few weeks."

"D'aww, lil' Lickey has a marefriend?" says Bon Bon, "I'm going to give him such a ribbing over that the next shift he has — nothing too bad, I'm not a monster." She raises her forelegs in mock-surrender when Buttercream gives her a look.

Thunderbolt's brow is furrowed, his expression somewhere between perplexion and indigestion. "Lickety Split? I thought your son was a gay."

"Not — not that I know of..." says Buttercream.

"'A gay?' Seriously?" says Lyra.

"He's never said that he was," says Caster, his eyebrows raised, "Why would you say he is?"

Thunderbolt looks uncomfortable for the first time this evening. "Well, you know, he's got a long mane, and uh, he's kinda campy acting not that there's anything wrong with that, and he makes ice cream—"

"What's wrong with ice cream?" asks Bon Bon sharply.

"Yeah, why is making ice cream gay?" asks Caster.

"'A gay?' I'm not letting this drop, I mean, 'a gay?' Luna above, it isn't the Dark Ages anymore, you can't call us that," says Lyra.

"It's — it's sweet, and popsicles and ice cream cones, they look — I mean, they look kind of like - you know, when you lick them..." Thunderbolt trails off.

Lyra crosses her front legs. "You're all seriously going to let this pass, aren't you? He just dropped 'a gay' into casual conversation like a landmine in a playground and none of you are going to dig it up? You know what, fuck you ponies. I need a wicked piss, excuse me." With that, she gets up and leaves the room.

"I see where you're coming from, but, doesn't your son work for Rarity in a dress shop?" asks Buttercream.

Rarity turns her nose up. "Nothing gay about that, I'll have you know."

"Kinda fruity," says Rainbow Dash.

"Rumble is working for a business," says Thunderbolt, a tad defensively, "Business is manly, even the fashion business. Especially the fashion business! Look at that Hoity Toity fellow. He's surrounded by mares!"

The living room door opens, and a grey pegasus pokes his head in. "Hey mom, dad, hey guys. You playing poker?"

"Thunderlane!" says Skyblossom, "Come give your mom a kiss!"

"Sure thing, ma." He trots over an plants a kiss on her cheek.

Thunderbolt slaps Thunderlane on the back. "Son, it's great to see you, sit down, have a drink, we'll deal you in."

"Ah, sorry dad, I'm just back to pick up some clothes from my room, if I'm not back soon Flitter will chew me out."

Oh no. Fear grips every nerve in Rumble's body. His pupils turn to pinpricks. Every muscle freezes stiff. His cock retracts straight back into his sheath, pulling out of Lickety Split with a quiet 'slup'. A frothy mixture of lube, semen and excrement seeps out of Lickety and runs down his legs and onto the floor.

"It's lovely to see you anyway, Thundy," says Skyblossom, "Give Flitter and Cloudchaser our love."

"Will do, ma, see you tomorrow." He trots out of the room, and Lyra comes back in a moment later.

"Hey guys, I'm back," says Lyra. "Oh, Skyblossom, I don't want to gross you out or anything but your cat threw up on the stairs."

Skyblossom blinks rapidly, and gives Lyra a wary look. "We don't have a cat..."

Pinkie Pie sniffs the air and looks around the room. "Hey, do you ponies smell that? There's a weird smell in the air. It smells like... *sniff* *sniff* huh... It smells like anal sex and fear."

Lickety lets out a sudden, terrified squeal.

Thunderbolt sits bolt upright. "What was that!?"

"Burglars?" says Rarity.

"That curtain just twitched!" yells Rainbow Dash. Oh Celestia no!

"Thunderbolt, on three just like back on deployment," says Magnum, "One, two, three!"

Magnum rips the curtains off the poles with telekinesis, revealing Rumble and Lickety Split to the whole room. Rumble is on top of Lickety, his limp cock hanging behind Lickety's flanks, a puddle of foul juices underneath them. The room rings with shocked silence.

Lickety bursts into tears and runs off crying as fast as he can. Not a single other pony moves.

Thunderbolt is the first pony to speak. "Well, at least he's on top."

Silence reigns once more. Nopony moves.

Suddenly, there is a strangled cry from upstairs.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY ROOM?!"