//------------------------------//
// Homecoming. 
// Story: Bros in Equestria 
// by Mandroid 
//------------------------------//

	Light seeps in through your windows and wakes you up. That sucks, you can see why Mous hates being woken up like this. You pull the still sleeping mare laying next to you closer, okay maybe it wasn't all bad.
Rainbow had stayed at your place every night since your talk with Fluttershy, finally able to know that she wouldn't be ruining a friendship in doing so.
Rainbow nuzzles into your chest as she wakes up "Five more minutes..." she complains.
You kiss the top of her head. "Come on lazybones, we both have work today."
She waves a hoof dismissively. "Buck work...I'm staying in bed today."
"I'll bet I can get you out of bed." you say as you play with her hair.
A small laugh is your answer. She asked for it. You grab Rainbow by the flank and jump out of bed, ignoring her yelp of surprise as you do. You make sure to lean Rainbow against your chest as you carry her out to the kitchen, her moaning at being moved not helping matters.
Mous is eating at the table when you get out. 
"Are you always out here before I am?" you ask.
Mous shrugs. "I get up when I hear you moving around so I can ensure I always get the best seat."
You roll your eyes and walk into the kitchen, Rainbow still leaning on your chest. "Anon, throw me an apple if your -that- set on moving me this early." she says.
You pop an apple in your mouth and grab one for yourself. These Golden Delicious were the best.
You carried Rainbow back to your room after breakfast, she shifted her weight and fell onto the bed again.
Oh dammit. 
"I thought that getting some food in you would wake you up some..." you lament.
You can see Rainbow's grin from here. "Yeah, bad move on your part. I'm gonna have to lay here and let this food digest for a while before I get up again."
You lay down next to her."I got you out of bed once, what makes you think I can't do it again?" you ask.
Rainbow smirks at you. "I'm ready for you this time." 
Luckily, force is not your only option.
You jump off the bed and head into the bathroom. "Okay, you just lay there while I shower, you know, naked and stuff."
You hear her shuffle around on the bed. "That...won't work Anon..."
You turn on the water and step in. "Sorry! Can't hear you over the sound of me vigorously rubbing my wet chest!"
You hear the something jump onto the floor and clop into the bathroom. You wipe the steam off the glass to see Rainbow pouting at you. "You're a terrible special somep0ny, bribing me like this."
Forty minutes later, you're showered, laid, dressed, and walking out the door. You kiss Rainbow goodbye as she takes off into the clouds. 
"So, does she taste like skittles?" you hear behind you.
Mous is standing in the doorway behind you, heading out as well. 
"Skittles?" you ask.
He gives you an incredulous eyebrow. 
Oh. Tasting. Rainbow.
"Haha." you say.
You walk ahead as Mous waits by the mailbox for Derpy. Something about giving her a hug he forgot about. You walked by somepony on a stage as you got closer to town. He was ranting about chaos theory or something.
The library was abuzz when you stepped in. Papers were strewn about the floor, books sat open on ever piece of furniture available, a chalkboard with what looked like a time dilation equation sat in the corner.
"Oh, hey Anon!" you hear from the other room. Twilight came trotting out to great you. "You're just in time!"
A quick once over told you that Twilight had at least slept, no bags under her eyes and she was keeping balance pretty well.
"What is all this stuff, Twi?" you ask as you motion around the room.
Twilight's face lights up like a Christmas tree. "The Princess sent over a special spell that her magisters made and she wants us to help!"
You grab one of the pieces of paper laying around and start scanning it. 
"What kind of spell are we talking about?" you ask.
"Why, the spell to send you home, of course!" she answers.
...what?
A lump forms in your throat.
"S-She finished that?" you ask.
Twilight goes back to reading a large tome. "Not yet, but she says she has the base component down. It's our job right now to take care of the stability of the portal."
Stability, that means she already knows how to send you elsewhere and how to power it. The hard part's done.
This portal nonsense could take a few weeks, a month at the most, but then what? How much longer did you have here?
"R-right, I'll go work this out." you say.
You sit down at the desk and start crunching numbers based on the magical theory you know, but your heart isn't in it like it normally is. 
How much longer were you going to be here? Were you allowed to opt out? Should you? What would Mous say?
You admit that you missed your family, but you know that you'd miss Rainbow and all your other friends here if you left. Shit, you had a GIRLFRIEND here. One who had been living with you a month.
It was no doubt that the two of you cared about each other, you didn't want to leave that. But...at the same time, you didn't think that writing off your homeworld was the best mode of thought.
"How's it going?" you heard over your shoulder, causing you to jump.
Twilight stood behind you. 
"Uhh. Fine. Fine, take a look." you say as you hand her the paper you had been writing on.
Twilight's face grows a shocked expression as she reads. 
"Anon, did you do all this right now?" she asks.
"Well, yeah." you say. "Why?"
"Anon, this is incredible! You've cracked the portal stability equation! How did you do that?" Twilight asked.
You turned in your chair. "Well, it was simple enough. I figured out what kinds of magic we'd need, probably spacial manipulation and maybe a time tunneling spell if time flow is different there than it is here, And then I just used general Arcane energy to bind them together." You look up at her. "Is that...special?"
"Incredibly!" she cried out. "Nopony has ever thought of combining different types of magic energy together! We always just kinda brute force it."
"Well, different ways of thinking, I guess." you say.
"This'll cut down on the time till the portal is done drastically! I can't wait to get you started on the other aspects!" she exclaims.
Waitwhat? Oh god.
No.
Dammit, no!
You just cost yourself a month of time here! Idiot!
You groan and put your head in your hands. Idiot! Stupid idiot!
Twilight senses something is wrong and approaches you again. "Anon? Is something wrong?" she asks.
You talk through your hands. "Twilight, have you ever wanted something, and then later on your realized you didn't want it anymore?"
"Did something happen, Anon?" she asks.
You looked up and saw the concern in her eyes. "It's just...I've built this life here that I like and suddenly, this thing that I should want with all my heart comes along and is ready to take me back to my old one and...I don't think I want it to."
Twilight puts her hoof on your arm. "Well, I think you've answered your own question, Anon. If you like someplace, you don't try to leave it."
"But what about my family?" you ask.
Twilight gets a knowing look in her eyes. "Would your family want to see you again if you were going to be unhappy?"
"But...what about the spell?" you ask.
Twilight levitates the paper you wrote on over to her. "You've cracked something important, but we still have a long way to go before it's finished. And when it is...we just won't use it!"
You give her a bit of a look. "So, we're doing this entire thing just for its own sake?"
"Nope! For science!" she says.

Twilight let you off early today and you began to walk home.
You felt good. Really good. You had always figured that staying in Equestria for a long while would be a possibility, but this was the first time you had -chosen- to stay.
Ah. And there was your main reason for staying flying through the clouds now. 
"Hey Rainbow!" you call out.
She doesn't yell back and shrugs at you. "Head back to the house when you're done! It's important!"
She nods and flies off. You can fully appreciate Ponyville now that you can see it as your home. Fillies ride around in wagons, colts and mares wake through the center of town. Some wave hello to you, some even say it. But all of them have already accepted you. And you them.

-Music-
You arrive at your house, it would be a few hours till Mous got home, which was good.
Rainbow lands next to you. "What's up Anon?" she asks.
You open the door and motion for her to come inside. You shut the door behind you and turn to her.
You run your fingers through her hair. "Rainbow..."
You find yourself at a loss, how to you tell somep0ny that you didn't have to go back to your home dimension?
"Oh fuck it." you pull Rainbow close and kiss her as hard and deep as you can. 
She's shocked for an instant, but she catches up quick. You walk to your room and collapse on top of the bed, Rainbow already pawing at your shirt. You spend the afternoon like that, intertwined in the language of lovers that communicates you're feelings and then some.
You both finish and simply lay there curled up in each other for a while. 
"Hehe...wow. Where did -that-come from Anon?" Rainbow huffed out.
You feel Rainbow shudder as you plant kisses up her wings and onto her back. 
You stop at the base of her neck "Just happy to be home." you whisper.