In an apartment in New York City
*cue bass intro*
Jerry Seinfeld was perplexed. He often found himself perplexed at least once or twice a day. His fascination with the nuances of the mundane and ordinary affairs of life provided much material for him as a stand-up comedian. He didn't have to make things up- he just had to observe things and life would do the rest.
Unfortunately, those perplexing observations often annoyed him. For instance, the current two perplexing observations had names: Kramer and Elaine.
"So tell me again- why is it you're both here?"
"Well me, I got no place to be," Kramer said. Both he and Elaine were friends of Jerry, close friends. So close in fact that Kramer resided in the apartment across the hall from Jerry.
"Now that clearly is not true," Jerry said. "You HAD some place to be. You WERE some place before you came HERE. I'm pretty sure you could find OTHER places to be."
"He says he's got no place to be, he's got no place to be," Elaine said. They were both watching t.v. on Jerry's couch. Jerry had dated Elaine before and they were still friends. Elaine had a knack for simplifying things, being direct, much to the dismay of anyone who had ever disagreed with her.
"And what about you? Why exactly are YOU here, occupying MY couch? When I'm expecting company?"
Elaine shrugged. "Me, I got no place better to be."
"Oh, but I can think of many places better for you to be. Places like... your place. YOUR place, is in fact a better place to be. For you. Especially because YOUR place, is not MY place."
Still fixated on the t.v, Elaine winced at the idea of returning to her own flat. "Ehh. I'm here now."
"You two don't seem to realize exactly what I'm preparing for. Cherise is coming over and I'm trying to prepare things before she gets here."
"It's two in the afternoon! She won't be here til what, five-thirty?"
"Four-thirty!" Jerry countered. "She likes eating early!"
Elaine scoffed. "You're having dinner with the girl, not marrying her. Take her out some place."
"I don't wanna take her out some place! I wanna take her here so she doesn't get used to going out! If I take her out once, she'll start expecting to go out, it'll get expensive and then I'll be the one that has no place to be!" Jerry explained.
"Because you'll be homeless," Kramer said, staring at the television, popping another Junior Mint casually into his mouth.
Jerry went over to him and proclaimed, "You HAVE a home! So LEAVE for a few hours and come back later!"
"I'm sorry, Jerry. I can't do that."
"WHY. NOT???"
"Because. I got no place to be."
"Aaaaugh..." Just then, the buzzer to his apartment went off. Instinctively, Jerry went to press it.
"It's George."
"Yeah, come on up." George, another friend of Jerry's often dropped by for impromptu visits. It was such a ritual of buzzing him in that Jerry didn't stop to think it was going to add yet another perplexing annoyance to his current collection. He had time to realize this, and by the time George walked in the door, Jerry asked,
"Why are YOU here? I have a date with Cherise!"
"Cherise? Which one's Cherise?"
"It doesn't matter which one! I just need all three of you to LEAVE!" Jerry exclaimed.
George turned, head low, shoulders slack in shame. "I can't go back, Jerry."
"Don't tell me you have no place to be."
"I won't soon. I'm about to be evicted. Evicted, Jerry, evicted!!"
That news, more than anything else, piqued the interest of Kramer and Elaine. They both twisted around in the couch, suddenly losing all interest in the t.v that had been watching and instead focused entirely on George.
"What happened?"
"They're gonna find... the odor."
"The odor?"
"The odor," Jerry said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "Oh dear heaven not the odor."
George spun. "Yes, Jerry. For the past month, there's been a smell in MY apartment and I can't... I can't place it. I've steam-cleaned, I've drycleaned, I've mopped, I've vacuumed, I had the maid come in and she mopped, she vacuumed."
"Not the maid."
"Yes, the maid!" George continued. "But it's still THERE, Jerry. It's a phantom, this stench, it's just... it won't go away. No matter what I do, it just WILL NOT go away. You have any idea how frustrating that is?"
Jerry folded his arms. "More than you know."
"Then you know what kind of trouble I'm in," George said. "So right now, for this moment, I have absolutely NO place to be."
"Well, have you tried-" And that line from Kramer began a neurotic tangent of neurotic suggestions followed by equally-neurotic dismissals from George. It was as if Jerry and all his friends had some sort of daily obsessive-compulsive disorder that involved the trivial minutia of day-to-day existence.
Jerry realized that getting his friends to leave his apartment was going to be a losing battle. For him, at least. Sighing to himself, he grabbed his coat and keys and left the apartment building.
Out on the street, he opened his cellphone. Odd that he didn't use it more often.
"Hey, Cherise. Yeah, it's me- hey, I was wondering if you wanted to get together sooner."
"Sure, I got no place to be."
"Terrific. Wait, really?"
*cue bass outro*
"People find this funny?" Dan asked, confused. "They're just... people, talking about the little issues of their lives. With obsessive emphasis and a laugh track. People really find this crap funny?"
"They did in the nineties," Phoenix said. "Seinfeld was one of the top-rated shows back then. Lots of people watched it." (I was actually more of a fan of Frasier.)
Dan turned off the t.v. "Only reruns on in the middle of the day, anyway. Figures." He slumped, arms folded, back sinking into the couch.
Phoenix looked up from the latest issue of the Ponyville Gazette. "Weren't you... around, during the nineties? You didn't watch much t.v?"
"I didn't. Mr. Mumbles did."
"Ah. She's your cat, right?"
"Yess," Dan said through slightly-gritted teeth. The thought of his cat and her likely-unfortunate circumstances was not something he wanted to be reminded of. There were a lot of things in that moment that he didn't want to be reminded of.
A pair of dark, perforated bughorse hooves wrapped themselves around Dan's eyes from behind the couch. "Hi boyfriend! Guess who?"
Dan sighed. "That is NOT how you play Guess Who."
"Really? Are you suuuuure?" the distinctive voice of Chrys asked him.
"That's... just stop it," Dan said, brushing the hooves off his face. Turning around to the couch, he saw both Chrys and Fluffle Puff, with Fluffle Puff holding a pair of fake Chrys hooves. "I'm not in the mood for any of this!!"
Chrys propped herself up on the couch. "I know, hon. But what's done is done. We can't change the past, we can just find better ways of dealing with it."
"Thpppth," agreed Fluffle Puff. Secretly, she knew that better than most of them. Her husband, Fuzzle Puff, walked up from their shared den in the basement.
"Thrrrrbb-thrrrrb-thrrrrrb."
"Thppppbbb?"
"Thrrbbb-thhh-thrrrrb."
"Thppp-thppp." Fluffle hopped off to take up her shift watching the little ones. The last members of their race, Fluffle and Fuzzle were caring for the next generation of flufflapons in the most convenient place of all- Twilight Sparkle's basement. With Daring Do's help, they had relocated the proto-puff ponies in their crystalline forms from the Badlands to Equestria, a very delicate and secretive process.
One of the Flufflapons, a green male they named Fraffle, was just now exiting the larval stage and beginning to walk on his own. A purple female they named Foofle was the same age but having a little difficulty walking. Hopefully in time, they would travel to other dimensions themselves to bring joy and snuggles and meet other flufflapons. If there were any left. Both Fluffle and Fuzzle knew how unlikely that was.
Chrys petted Fuzzle as he approached. His fluff was nearly identical to Fluffle's fur, only blue in color. Fuzzle was still new to all of them, but the scent of his wife was strong on all of them and so he had accepted being comfortable around them. They were like pets in some ways, even though they were vastly older and more knowledgeable than anypony else in Ponyville.
"That reminds me, we're going to need to make another ham run soon," Chrys said. Fuzzle's tongue began salivating at the thought of delicious ham, which was apparently the primary food source for fluffy ponies.
"I thought we had that setup to be delivered," Dan said.
"There's still some logistical problems Equestria is dealing with. Delivering food is one of them. Outside of pizza, that is," Phoenix reminded him.
"Figures," Dan said. And he hated saying the word 'figures.' Because it didn't really mean anything when you thought about it. At least, when he thought about it, which he tended to after saying the word 'figures.'
"Everything's gone wrong now. I hate it here. I hate Equestria. I HATE EVERYTHING!!" Dan shouted. "I can't STAND IT!!"
"I think you need a hobby," Phoenix said. "Might I recommend something that is non-violent, non-destructive and in no way involves anything illegal?" (Or anything involving law for that matter.)
Dan snarled. Sensing tension, Fuzzle barked in response. He wasn't as used to Dan's usual behavior as his wife was.
"Why don't you go outside, get some fresh air?" Chrys encouraged him. "Afterward, you can come back and spend some time with the fluffy ponies. I know they'd love to see you."
Twilight and Spike descended from the stairs. "We're back, everyone. How are things?"
"Fine," everyone except Dan said. Fuzzle Puff said "Thrrrmff," which meant 'fine.'
"Well, things could be better in Canterlot," Twilight said. She skipped the stairs halfway and flew down. So accustomed to her powers and abilities now that she had no problems flying and teleported from Ponyville to Canterlot and other places with ease. It still took a lot of energy, especially when teleporting others along with her but she was kind of tired of using the hot air balloon, especially because it kept crashing into Wubway. And because they couldn't find it.
"Everything seems to be back to normal, but stuff is... different," Spike said. "And there's still a few ponies that have gone missing."
"Missing? Who, exactly?" Phoenix asked.
Spike shrugged. "A few ponies here and there. Some just haven't shown up to work or usual places. But then they show up a couple hours later."
Twilight nodded. "We're not entirely sure but it maybe that everypony is just having a hard time readjusting."
Dan spun around. "That sounds odd to me. EVERYTHING is back to the way it was, perfectly the way it was, just as we left, AS IF we had never left and yet SOMEHOW ponies are just... having trouble getting back to it?"
"That seems to be the case," Twilight sighed. "It's been the same way in Zebropolis and Wingston."
"And the Crystal Empire," Spike added. "We haven't even had any contact from Saddle Arabia. Spooky."
"Has the princess sent anyone to investigate?" Dan inquired. "Someone preferably armed with a weapon, armor and at least half a brain?"
Twilight shook her head, and took a seat Lyra-style on the couch next to Chrys. "Not yet. We're still trying to get things accounted for, so until then, making long trips isn't safe."
"Uh huh," Dan said, unsure about that decision. "That's not how I would do things. Communication is a priority. Lack of it is one of the reasons why the planet blew up in the first place."
Twilight neither agreed nor disagreed with him. They both had to do what Princess Celestia told them, and so she just looked at him with a futile gesture in her eyes. So Dan continued speaking.
"This isn't the way things are supposed to be, Twilight! Things aren't supposed to just go back to normal-"
"Isn't that what we wanted?" Chrys asked.
"It's a figure of speech! We were supposed to LEARN from what happened, PROGRESS and IMPROVE using what we LEARNED. From our MISTAKES. And my- I mean our, glorious triumph over that FREAKING MANIAC THAT KIDNAPPED YOU ALL AND NEARLY DESTROYED THE UNIVERSE LIKE FIVE DIFFERENT TIMES!!!"
Again, no one argued with Dan. He'd been like this since they'd gotten back home a week ago. It had been difficult enough saying good-bye to Captain America, Chris Redfield and their other friends who had helped them on their journey. But they all had other places they had to be. Other universes that needed them. So they had one big farewell party hosted by Pinkie Pie and went their separate ways. And there's been less-obvious copouts in this story but hey, it is what it is.
"Anyway," Spike suggested, "there's some errands I need to run, so I'll be back later." The little dragon walked to the door. After what happened, he was acting more confident than most, and had been spending more time with Rarity.
"Okay," Chrys said.
"Wait," Dan stopped him, "I'm coming with you. I... like you all said, I need to get some fresh air. It will be... good for... me. Euuuagh."
"Alright," Spike replied. They walked out the door together, leaving the others in the comfort of the Golden Oakes Library.
Twilight turned on the television. "Ooh, Seinfeld! That show is so funny!"