Peter and Sponge Pudding - firm friends, perpetual pals, bosom buds, long-time associates and also roommates - were sitting on their sofa. Neither of them looked especially happy. The television was on, but neither of them was especially watching it.
Not for the first time that evening, Peter checked his phone. After checking it he sighed and put it back again.
“You know, checking more isn’t going to make anything happen,” Pudding said.
“I know, I know…”
He did it again anyway, seconds later.
“What did I just-”
“I know.”
He returned the phone to his pocket and sighed, letting his head flop onto the back of the sofa the better to stare vacantly at the ceiling in silent despair. The ceiling offered him nothing but, importantly, demanded nothing of him either, so was on balance a pretty good choice.
In theory a nice young lady that he had encountered and with whom he had traded numbers was meant to be sending him a message informing him of her movements, so that he might align his movements with her movements and meet up with her, and they might spend some time together getting to know one another better, and good times would be had by all.
This was the theory. This was not how it was working out in practise. The theory remained a theory. An increasingly ill-supported and unlikely one, by all accounts. A fringe theory, you could say.
On reflex, his hand went back to his pocket, and it was only with a conscious effort of will he stopped himself. Nothing had changed and nothing had happened, and confirming that nothing had changed and nothing had happened would only make him feel worse, and he’d had enough of that already.
“Eurgh. What a pisser,” he said, summing up his feelings on the matter.
“There there,” said Pudding, not unkindly, giving him a pat on the shoulder. When this had no immediately obvious effect she moved her hoof a little and gave another pat on his upper arm, accompanied with another: “There there.”
With the minimum of effort he let his head roll to the side so he could give her a blank look. She responded to his blank look with more pats, moving to his ribs, his forehead, his knee, his thigh, all with similarly underwhelming results.
“None of these working for you?” She asked.
He did not feel any compelling reason to dignify this question with an answer.
“Why are you still here anyway? Thought you had plans too?” He asked instead, rolling his head back to its original position so he could resume staring at the wonderfully undemanding ceiling.
“I did,” she said, withdrawing her hoof and mimicking his ceiling-staring, flopped-out pose on the sofa. Given that she was nude this would, in most circumstances, have been a little obscene, but ponies could (and did) get away with this sort of thing on the regular. After a while you kind of just stopped noticing. Peter had. Mostly.
These plans of Pudding that Peter had mentioned - the plans in question, those plans, Pudding’s plans - had been plans to go out with a friend of hers and see a film, in fact, and then maybe go do something else. Plans that would have easily swallowed up her whole evening and seen her set. He’d known this, she’d told him this. And yet here she sat, not doing any of that.
Hence the question.
“So what happened?” He asked.
“Food poisoning,” she said.
Not for her, obviously, but for the friend with which the plans had been planned.
This Peter hadn’t seen coming. Few rarely saw food poisoning coming. The world’s worst surprise party, where you were the party popper. So to speak.
“How...unexpected,” he said. Pudding shrugged, the motion sending her slithering a little further down the sofa, tail now dangling to the floor.
“Not if you’ve seen how she eats.”
He thought back to the few occasions he’d had the pleasure - ‘pleasure’ - of observing her friend eating and remembered the enthusiasm and lack of caution with which she consumed, well, probably more than one thing she should have looked at a little more closely. A carefree attitude is often something to be applauded, though perhaps not where food hygiene is concerned.
“...I wouldn’t like to say,” he said, not liking to say that he wouldn’t like to have said.
“Hah. But yeah, she’s out of commission for the night - whole weekend, I’d expect - so that’s me with nothing to do. Except stay here and keep your miserable behind company,” she said, swiping a hoof at him briefly and in the process almost totally sliding off the sofa, only being saved by him reaching over and catching her under the forelegs, hoisting her back up into a proper sitting position.
“For which I am profoundly grateful,” he said, once he’d set her back down propped against a pillow and tucked her mane back behind her ear. It was forever flopping all over the place.
“I’d hope so. I’m in high demand,” she said, immediately flicking her hair free again, grinning at his look.
“Real funny. And obviously high demand, obviously. Unlike some other people,” he said, tapping a finger pointedly on his sternum. For his troubles he got jabbed in the chest by her horn. Not too hard, but so gently he wouldn’t get the point.
“Oh cheer up. So she flaked out on you, so what? Was she even that great?” She asked.
“She seemed nice…” Peter said glumly, a particularly obnoxious advert on television briefly ensnaring him with just how ridiculously stupid and garish it was.
He hadn’t really had a chance to form any more of an opinion than that. Tonight was meant to have been the opportunity to do that! Maybe find out how nice she actually was! Turns out, not so nice! And what a way to find out. His glum expression gave her pause. She thought a moment, then shuffled across the sofa, forced herself under his arm and then butted him in the side. This got his attention.
“Hmm?” He asked, peering down at the unicorn now dug in snug beside him.
“I have an idea,” said said unicorn.
“What’s your idea?”
Disentangling herself from under his arm - she’d only gone in under there to make sure he paid attention - she reared up onto her haunches and waved her forehooves around, painting a picture with her imagination brush.
“How’s this for a vision: we drink beer and play old games until we both forget why we’re miserable. That’s the vision, that’s the whole thing. Good, yeah?”
He considered this vision of hers. Did seem a pretty good vision, and her way of selling it to him was pretty convincing. It was all in the delivery. The hoof-waving in particular had really sold it. Put him in the frame.
“Do we have enough beer for that?” He asked.
“Yes. If no, we can get more,” she said.
Purchasing things wasn’t hard, after all. Money could (famously) be exchanged for goods or services, and they did live a gnat’s whisker away from a Tesco (who didn’t in this day and age?). In hindsight this was obvious, something he had to concede.
“Point. And do the games have to be old?” He asked, still hungry for details. She gave an emphatic nod. So emphatic a chunk of her mane flopped over her face and had to be brushed aside.
“Yes, they do. Nostalgia works best when drunk.”
“Ah, I get you,” he said. Back to the good times, the old times. When things were simpler, problems seemed less daunting, the world seemed less big and the graphics were more angular and yet somehow still also clearly so good they could never get any better as this was obviously the peak of fidelity. “Alright, you get the drinks in, I’ll dig out the Playstation, wherever it ended up.”
“It’s in a box.”
He knew that already. The question was which box. She knew this. It was why she’d said it.
“That’s really, really helpful, thanks,” he said.
“It’s alright,” she said with great magnanimity, giving him another pat on the leg before hopping down and making a great show of swishing her way to the kitchen for drinks. That left him on box duty.
There were many boxes in their flat, the vast majority of them being in Peter’s room, holding Peter’s stuff. Pudding had helped him in moving them in there a while ago and they had stayed where she’d helped to move them ever since, with the deadline of him emptying them always being sometime next weekend. The problem in that being, of course, next weekend was always a week away, so nothing had ever happened.
Something needed to happen now though, so into the boxes Peter went, finding an awful lot of stuff he’d thought was lost and a lot of stuff he’d entirely forgotten about. He swore to himself he’d really deal with it next weekend and, after a few fruitless boxes, found what it was he was actually looking for. He returned to the living room cradling the Playstation and its accompanying nest of wires, entangling controllers and connectors and plugs.
“Yeesh, did you just shove that into a box and forget about it?” Pudding asked, back on the sofa, a beer clasped between her hooves. Could have levitated it, didn’t want to.
“I tidied it up first, I sweat,” Peter said, heading for the television.
“Hmm.”
Pudding did not believe him.
By some miracle - the miracle being that their television was old - Peter found that he could hook the thing up and, by some other miracle, it actually worked perfectly fine. Next came finding the games, so back to the boxes Peter went, returning some minutes later with a stack. These, too, somehow also worked. Miracles on miracles!
In short order they found themselves playing something gloriously split-screeny. Neither had played the game in years, of course, and it took both of them a little bit to get back into the swing of things. One got into it perhaps a tiny bit faster than the other.
“You’re cheating,” Peter groused.
“I am not cheating,” Pudding said, piling on the mock-offence without letting up her relentless assault.
“Well you picked a cheap character, then.”
“No, I’m just better than you.”
“Pffbt.”
Not long after this Peter lost.
“Was this game always this ugly?” He asked.
“I think our eyes have just got better,” Pudding said.
“Probably only thing that has got better. Old times were best times,” Peter said. The sense of nostalgia was already taking effect, the beer indeed helping things.
“Old times were best times. You were shorter, it was great,” Pudding said, and Peter gave her a bemused look.
“Why is that good?” He asked.
“I didn’t have to look so high up when I was talking to you,” she said, setting her controller down beside her a moment so she could drink more. Peter saw this, saw the wisdom in it, and picked up his own can.
“Huh,” he said before sipping.
He’d never considered the height thing before.
A rematch occurred though results were much the same, and conversation by turns moved beyond Pudding’s (obvious) cheating, through a brief discussion on what year the game came out in, thence to the sort of things that had been going on in their lives at the time, back when they’d been young and innocent and footloose (hoofloose?) and fancy-free.
In particular, conversation wandered onto a specific school trip they’d been on. Some sort of ‘exploring history’ deal that had involved historic recreation. Specifically, what had happened when Peter had got involved. Too involved, perhaps.
“Oh yeah! And you were digging that hole with an, uh, an antler, wasn’t it?” Pudding asked, very animated now she had a chance to drag up an embarrassing episode. Peter Grimaced.
“Look, it was part of the experience. It’s what they gave me!” He said.
“Yeah, but you didn’t stop!”
“They didn’t tell me to stop!”
In his defence they hadn’t. They’d handed him an antler after explaining its usage as a tool, said he should dig, then gone off to give the others kids (Pudding included) something to do. Was it really his fault he’d just done what they’d told him?
“Didn’t you need help to get out in the end? Because you’d dug so far down?” Pudding asked, starting to get the giggs.
This was true, but Peter didn’t feel like confirming it was true.
“They didn’t tell me to stop! Not my fault I’m good at digging holes,” he said.
At this point Pudding was near insensible with giggles. She could remember seeing him in the hole now, and the mere thought was enough to make it hard to breathe. Certainly made it hard to keep sitting - she slithered off the sofa and landed with a soft thump on the floor, not being rescued this time, giggling all the way.
Of course, he wasn’t going to just let this go without a response. He dipped into the past, felt around, and came back with something stupid that she’d done back when they’d been smaller and younger. That’d show her.
“At least I didn’t catch a netball on my horn. There’ll be no team this year, girls!” He said.
“That wasn’t my faaaaulllltttt! It was the first time I’d played! I panniiccckkkeeeddd!” She said between breaths, now writhing on the floor and flailing her hooves at him, as if attempting to waft him and his words away. This did not work.
“Ask the ball how it feels about that!” He asked, now bending over her, the better to not let her escape. She tried to wriggle away, but to little avail.
“It was my first tiimmmmeee!” She wailed, shuffling her bum on the carpet, resorting to worm-like techniques to get away, but he’d moved off the sofa now and was more-or-less on top of her, down on all fours, following her as she squirmed away. No escape!
“Yeah well it was my first time digging a hole with an antler, but would you let that go? Noooo,” he said, looming over her, getting lightly baffed in the face by her hooves, something which did little to shift him.
“Stooopp!”
“You reap what you sow!”
“You’re so meeeeaaann!” She wailed, still shuffling and, on finding one of his arms by her head, turning to it and without really giving it a whole lot of thought, kissing it. Just on the wrist. Just like that.
This changed the mood somewhat. Wriggling stopped, as did giggling. Neither of them moved.
“...did you just kiss me?” Peter asked, more baffled than anything else. For Pudding’s part she was lying there stock-still, flat on her back, eyes like sauces and fixed on some point perhaps a thousand miles behind his neck.
“...no.”
“Yes you did, I saw. I was there,” he said.
Not a lot of disputing that.
“So why ask?! And yes, fine, maybe. Just on the arm! Didn’t mean to,” she said, adding the last part in a mumble, practically luminescent her face was so red, no longer staring upward and instead doing her best to look anywhere other than at him.
“How can you not mean to? It’s hard to do by accident, isn’t it?”
“Well maybe I missed!” She said, now resorting to trying to hide behind her mane. This didn’t work all that well because all he did was move it out the way again. Foiled, she instead pouted. This didn’t work either, as he’d weathered her pouts before and had developed a resistance over the years.
“‘Maybe’? Where were you aiming for, then?” He asked.
Her pout now one of outright annoyance she turned her face back to look at him.
“Maybe here!”
And she grabbed him by the cheeks with both hooves and kissed him again. On the lips this time. It was Peter’s turn to have eyes like saucers, and they remained as such even after she broke away and finally escaped.
Not seeing a whole lot of point in running away, Pudding returned to the sofa and to her beer, sipping sullenly while Peter gradually returned to his senses and pushed off all fours so he was instead resting on his haunches.
“I wanted to be out of the flat tonight in case you came back with her and I’d have to see you with that girl and…” Pudding said, slowly turning the can around and around and not finishing her sentence, clearly, something Peter picked up on.
“And what?” He asked.
Pudding said nothing.
“And what?” He asked again.
“I’m jealous! Got that?! Understand?!”
“But what about when-”
Pudding stepped in before he could bring up other examples, because he really didn’t need to.
“I was jealous then, too!” She said.
“Oh.”
Peter tried to think back to those times and tried to think back to how she’d been then, if he’d missed anything obvious. Nothing leapt out at him, but then if he hadn’t been paying attention, would anything have? Would anything now? No, no, probably not. He’d just been oblivious, plainly, mostly because it hadn’t even been anything he’d thought to keep an eye out for.
He glanced up at her sulking on the sofa and felt an odd lurch in his belly.
“Mean, I’d be lying if I said it’d never crossed my mind - you and me, I mean. I just always figured it’d never work because, well, you know, you-” He said, not getting to finish.
“Because I’m a pony?” Pudding asked, pouncing, eyes flashing at him.
He gave her A Look. It was enough of A Look her eyes (no longer flashing) had to go down to the can in her hooves.
“...no. Because you and me have known each other since, like, we were babies. You’re as constant to me as gravity. So it’d be a bit weird. Or so I thought, anyway. That was my thinking,” he said.
“Oh. Oh right, yeah.”
That was a factor that had honestly never crossed her mind. Now he’d said it out loud she felt a bit stupid for nothing having considered it, and stupider still for having said her bit.
“What was that thing you said?” Peter asked.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“Did you really think-”
“I said don’t worry about it!” She snapped.
“Well I am worried about it because I don’t want you thinking that that would ever be an issue! When have I ever done anything to make you think that it would be?” Peter asked, he too now also annoyed, and in being (and sounding) annoyed making Pudding feel bad for having snapped.
“Look, I’m sorry, it’s just - well, why else wouldn’t anything have ever happened?” She asked.
“Because we, like I said, have known each other since forever! With every year that passes without anything happening, having something happen just seemed more awkward in my head! And since nothing ever did, I figured you didn’t…” Peter said.
“So did you…?”
“...maybe…?”
“And now…do you…?”
“...maybe?”
The air was thick with unspoken guff, a crushing atmosphere made up of years of unspoken assumptions and mistaken beliefs and filling-in-the-gaps. Or something like that. Both of them felt very silly. Neither of them could look at the other, despite a burning desire to do so.
Eventually, they both gave in. Eyes locked. Cheeks reddened. Eyes unlocked.
“We’re both idiots, aren’t we?” Said Peter.
“Little bit.”
“Kind of embarrassing it took us this long.”
“You should probably have said something,” Pudding said. Peter choked on his drink.
“Me?! Me?! You- look, let’s not go around assigning blame, we just need to - we should-”
He wasn’t sure. He made to have some more of his drink but found it, to his chagrin, empty. In his choking he must have somehow finished it off. He peered down into the can to see if any beer was hiding. It wasn’t, it was just gone.
“I’m getting another one of these. You need another?” He asked, standing up and gesturing towards the kitchen.
“Yes. Please,” Pudding said, quickly.
He returned momentarily with fresh cans, handing one to her and flopping down beside her to open his. They sat sipping for a second, staring at a main menu that had been burbling away to itself the whole time.
“What should we do now?” Pudding asked.
Peter drank and thought about this.
“Uh, kiss more?” He said.
Puddling drank and thought about this.
“...sure.”
The unspoken reasoning behind this - reached silently and mutually through the benefit of their years spent as buds, pals and friends - was that no productive discussion vis their apparently hidden feelings for one another could happen tonight and they’d have to have a proper talk about all of this in the morning, and that also the one kiss they’d had had been quite fun and they both wanted more of that, please.
So they both got to work immediately on having more of that, please.
Soon after they’d started this, Peter’s phone started to buzz in his pocket so, without looking, he took it out and tossed it (gently) across the room so it could buzz somewhere less distracting.
They could leave a message, whoever they were.