Black’s rubbed his jaw in thought as his eyes scanned the pages, occasionally nodding. “A lot of your stories start this way,” the bat pony noted.
The pegasus at the writing desk chewed his lips a few moments before asking, “Should I change it? I know the past three have been bad like that, but—” A dark hoof pressed itself into his lips before he could continue.
“Didn’t say it was good or bad.” Black pulled his hoof away, smirking and shaking his head. “Just pointing out a little bit of an oddity. And maybe asking, in a backwards sort of way, why that is.”
White hummed while his wings dropped so the tips of the longest feathers touched the back of his chair.
“Hmm?” Black egged on.
With a sigh, White traced his hoof around the quill on his writing desk, brushing along the soft edges. This continued for three more rotations before his thought wondering was disturbed by a jab at his ribs.
“Hey, White?” The bat pony knocked on his friend’s skull. “No clocking out into lala land quite yet, you’ve still got plenty of writing left to do.”
White nodded furiously, eyes bugging out. “Right, writing, yes, words!”
Black raised a brow and set the story down on the table, picking up the quill to put it in the built-in inkwell that had been made so knocking one’s elbow into it and ruin potentially hundreds of words was an impossibility. “Your brain is really runnin’ on fumes, eh? Okay, I’ll be direct. Is there any particular reason the last three stories of yours have always started in this way?”
The question was laid out in front of White like a path of hot coals with brick walls making it so he couldn’t walk around the issue. With no way out, and lying being out of his skill set, White spoke, “The story starts there because I’m starting there.”
“Inception,” Black said plainly. “Starting at a writing desk while at a writing desk. You’ll certainly know how the character feels.”
White nodded and brought his hoof up to stifle a yawn. His eyes returned to a normal, if somewhat tired, position. “Write what you know, right? I know what it’s like to be at a desk while trying to figure out what the next word is going to be.”
“Not an unfamiliar place to either of us,” Black agreed, humming as he pushed a few pages off of the top of the little pile. “But I can’t help but think that there’s a bit more to it that that.”
White’s grimace threatened to tear his jaw off. “Isn’t there always?”
“That’s just what happens when the story comes from your hoof and onto the paper.” Black pointed to one sentence in particular that read, The ghost’s paled, wrinkled skin and charred black mane caught the moonlight and reflected it as a thousand memories into the the shivering stallion’s eyes. “It’s as thick as butter this time around. You’re in a particularly foul mood, aren’t you?”
White lightly pushed Black’s hoof away and stacked the whole story together again. “Nothing that needs to be worried about. It’s like you said, just write something to get some words flowing. These were the words that came.”
“Don’t be like that.” Black rested a hoof on White’s shoulder. “If you thought that was the only reason, your wrongness detection is in serious need of fine tuning. This is to let you get your pent up frustrations out, and that’s not going to to happen if you let yourself become a grouch.”
“Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything more to me than that,” White lamented, furrowing his brow and shrugging his friend’s touch away. “If I really even make a difference or change lives or... or if I’m really worth anything.”
Black harumped and once again jabbed White’s chest and was rewarded with a yipe of surprise. “Don’t get all broody on me now, we have enough sad sacks in the world already. You deal with them every day, don’t become one yourself.”
Rubbing that spot he’d been poked, White let out his latest in a series of sighs. Shivering some as he picked him his document. “Cripes, why did I ever write these? You’re right, there wasn’t any point to either of them.”
“I didn’t say that,” Black replied, but White was already to the process of throwing the pages into the garbage. “Whoa, whoa, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I was an idiot,” White grumbled, opening a drawer and picking up another story. Eyes glossy and full of pained regret, the brighter stallion shivered in some small amount of disgust. “I had no business making that story, it was an invasion of personal space. I’ll get rid of it and we can just pretend I never wrote it.”
“White, stop, now,” Black ordered, any teasing or playfulness in his tone now gone. In its place was annoyance, disappointment, and maybe the slightest tinge of sorrow.
White fussed as his leg was pushed down to hold him in place. “B-Black, I’m sorry...”
“You’re being ridiculous and dumb,” Black warned. “I will warn you that it’s a bad idea to be either of those things while I’m around.”
“Let me go,” White whined, pulling himself free from the other’s grip. “Just forget it, I am dumb. This was a bad idea and I’m the idiot for not figuring that out sooner.”
Black let out a sharp breath through his nose. “That isn’t you talking anymore.”
“What does it matter if it’s true?” White countered. “I can’t do anything right and I’m just getting in the way. I’ll write your story, I promise, I just need to stop being such a loser.”
“White, you’re talking crazy.” Black crouched as though a lion getting ready for the day’s final hunt. “And there’s only one thing to be done with crazy ponies, you know.”
White nodded, turning his hoof to let the document fall into the trash. “Let them fade away so that can’t bother anypony.”
Just as the waste basket was about to receive a new addition, Black zipped beside the bin and stuck out a leather wing to catch the papers. The bat pony then reach in with his hooves and fished out the other story and held it up as though it were evidence in a criminal trial. “You see these things? They’re words, those things you’ve been looking for all this time. You’re honestly trying to tell me that after all the grief you went though to make these, you’re going to just throw them away? These stories that are a part of you?”
The pegasus bit his lip and turned to face any direction other than the accusing eyes of the other pony in the room. “If they’re a part of me, then they’re every bit of stupid and ridiculous as I am and deserve to fade away, forgotten. It’s not worth the hassle when...”
Black raised a questioning brow and placed both stories into the drawer White had opened.
“Like I said, forget it.” White trotted past Black, heading towards his pink bed, but even the sight of his cozy bed seemed to make him frustrated in some way. “Don’t trouble yourself with my problems when you’ve got more important things to worry about.”
Black’s expression became dull as he watched White crawl into bed, not even getting his stuffed bear to cuddle. If that wasn’t a sign of intervention being needed, then Black’s name was Polka Dots.
“What a fantastic piece of advice,” Black commented as he trotted over to their beds and jumped up on his bed. He stood up straight and examined a hook on the ceiling by fiddling around. “I love that wording, if I have more important things to do.”
“I said ‘when’, but same difference.”
“Details, my friend, details. I’m not letting you throw away those stories just like that.” Satisfied that the piece of metal was firmly in place, Black hopped down from the bed and pulled the drawer underneath open to stick his hoof around the various oddities inside. He pulled out a pacifier gag and scrutinized it for a moment before shaking his head and dropping it back inside. “But I’m afraid you do have a problem that needs to be dealt with post-haste.”
White simply hummed from his bed and rolled over to look away.
Black smiled as he pulled out a straight jacket, admiring the straps and cords by running a hoof over the bits and bobs of the article. “Of course you wouldn’t see it, since you’re the crazy one here.”
“Crazy one?” White bemoaned. “Look, I’m just self-loathing at the moment. Give me a week, two weeks tops, and I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Now hold on, bear with me for a moment.” Black kneeled down to open White’s drawer of oddities, closing his own drawer’o’fun in the process. “Are we in agreement about that silly artsy-fartsy thing I said earlier?”
“What thing? Words being hard to find? That’s kind of become a staple with me.” The pegasus kicked at his sheets, trying to lay his body as bare as he could, the exact opposite of the hugging closeness he usually tried to create for himself. “Find some words, write a bit, get in a funk, rinse and repeat until I finally have something that resembles a story.”
“No cigar, I’m afraid. I mean about the stories being a part of you.” With a smile of satisfaction, Black pulled out a pink diaper, snickering at the little hearts that dotted it here and there. “The words you make are yours, regardless of whether they’re good or bad. Of course, I wouldn’t exactly be as apt to talk to you if they weren’t at least tolerable.” The drawer was resolutely sild shut after Black pulled out a white bottle, a serene smile passing over him as he took a whiff of the foal powder tub’s top
“Words are extensions of yourself and mumbo-jumbo like that,” White mumbled.
“Exactly. You almost threw away those words, and subsequently, yourself.” Black snickered as he gave the fresh diaper a purposeful tug open, allowing the crackle of the plastic backing to resound throughout the room. “Get on your back, colt, you’re in need of a serious time out.”
White complied, but more out of confusion than obedience. “A time out?” White asked. The straitjacket Black presented as a game show host might the grand prize of the evening answered White’s question. “Hey, whoa, I didn’t ask for this.”
“Where’s the fun in asking?” Black smirked, setting the jacket aside and returning to the needlessly thick diaper. Puffs of foal powder lofted through the air as Black applied until a literal layer of the stuff was across the length of the diaper. “You know the best adventures have one of the main characters deal with things beyond their control. Guess what?”
“Wh-what?” The pegasus blinked in reply as Black ever-so-gently pulled White’s legs apart. Under normal circumstances, Black would have instructed White spread his legs himself before applying padding. White had clearly done something incredibly right or terribly wrong to have Black simply skip the playful bossing around. The straitjacket suggested it was the latter of the two options.
“Tonight, you’re living the dream. You have officially lost control.” To punctuate this, Black pulled White along the top of the bed so he was in an optimal position to be diapered. There was no warning, no chance to think on White’s part. The fluffy pink thing was carefully and meticulously slipped under White’s haunches, tail pulled through the intended hole with precise movements. Black was gentle in his ministrations, but decisive nonetheless.
“I... w-wait a second.” White rubbed his temples in an attempt to get his bearings.
“One elephants,” Black sang, freezing for exactly one second.
Next White’s inner thighs tingled from crinkling plastic pressing into him and loose powder starting to rub him, a cool feeling coming over his loins. “I’m so confused, but this isn’t bad at all. What are you doing, exactly?”
Black put a hoof to White’s lips and ‘shhed’ him. “Ah, ah, ah, no more talking allowed for you anymore. At least for tonight.”
The top of the diaper touched against the lower part of White’s stomach, the sides not more than a few moments from wrapping around his hips. Any other time Black would tease about how helpless White was to need some other pony to put a diaper on for him. Even though the usual smirk of satisfaction adorned the bat pony’s lips, the words did not come.
“Black, seriously, I’m confused.” White let out a shiver as his legs were pushed closed to make sure the diaper was on securely, with the result being the thick diaper rubbing into him even more.
“Perfect, that should last you quite a while.” Nodding at his work, Black once again presented the straitjacket to his thoroughly confused friend. “Up, up! Now, we have to get this on you immediately before you can cause yourself any more harm.”
White blinked. “Cause me any more...” An epiphany truly worthy of deities sunk into his mind like sand through cracks in the ground. “M-My words?”
“Like I said, extensions of yourself. And you tried to throw them away.” Black teasingly sniffled and dabbed his eyes with one of the restrictive coat’s sleeves. “It’s always so sad when the good ones try to hurt themselves. There’s only one thing to be done with ponies like you.” The toothy grin returned to Black before he pulled the jacket over White’s head. “Make sure they can’t hurt themselves anymore.”
White lifted his chin so his head could slip through the neck hole. That was what you did with ponies that hurt themselves, wasn’t it? He tried to rationalize some kind of response to get out of this corner he’d been backed into, demand to be let go. A word was all it would take to get Black to back off.
The feeling of being hugged from almost every possible angle made any such word fizzle in his throat.
Black used light tugs and pushes to get White’s forelegs through the long sleeves until every square inch of the pegasus’s body above his diaper and below his neck was bundled up tight in cloth. White made pathetic attempts to break free of his cozy prison and that was about all the fighting he did. A cord was tied here, a strap was latched there, the next thing White knew he was stuck hugging himself. With everything stuck in place, now White pulled against the straitjacket. As his happy moans and energetic grunts showed, this was simply to feel just how snug everything was.
Black grinned as White wormed his way about, the lazy smile all too telling about his current mood. “There we are, the patient is restrained. Can’t maim any innocent words now, can you?”
“U-Uh huh...” White mumbled, wiggling his legs to rub against his diaper.
“Hmm... that could be a problem, though.” Black slapped his forehead and gasped, looking around the room. “That bedpost! That desk! And would you just look at the stack of magazines! You could get a paper cut, or stub your hoof! No, no, no, this simply won’t do. We’re going to have step up your treatment to extra-stringent standards to ensure your safety.”
“Mmmm...” White moaned, grimacing and squirming in place. “What more can you do to me? I can hardly move at all.”
“You can still kick and roll, and you can fall off the bed.” Black kneeled down and pulled open both bed’s drawers to rummage inside. From White’s cushier supplies came some plastic pants, clear, shiny, and one of the few things not covered in ruffles of a sickening pink color. Black let out a ‘feh’ at them and dropped it back inside, instead pulling out a pink pair. From his own drawer came a sort of reinforced metal bar with cuffs on each end. Each cuff was as fuzzy as a freshly combed kitten. “We need to make sure there’s no way for you to get hurt at all. And since such a situation would leave you stranded for a while...”
“B-But I only wear those when I know I can’t get a change for a long time.” His eyes shifted about as he forcefully pulled against the tough jacket’s sleeves. “Or when I don’t want to get changed...”
Black held White’s wiggling legs down and slipped the plastic panties around his hooves. About halfway up White’s legs it was no issue, but once at his knees the leg holes of garment began to hug tight. Black strained to drag the springy leggings up White’s thigh and to get the waistband around the diaper until he was able to tuck it into the strait jacket’s bottom. The leak guards of the diaper and the leg holes of the plastic panties met in perfect harmony, protecting their wearer from any unfortunate accidents.
The effect was twofold on White. The smooth, shiny plastic was curiously appealing to his eye. Bulbous, round, and smooth like a bubble, White simply loved moving his legs up just to feel the cool material rub against him. The other thing that made White grimace in embarrassment and smile in glee all at once was how much more hugging he felt from his diaper, the tight, tight panties making the fluffy inside of his diaper push into him all the more.
“The patient’s writhing has only gotten worse,” Black lamented, dramatically bringing a hoof to his eyes. “Oh woe is you, for your options are slowly becoming fewer and fewer by the second.” The bat pony snickered and picked up the fizzy cuffs, his friend enjoying himself too much to notice and thus unprepared for a soft ring being latched around his ankle.
White’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you... there isn’t even a point in asking, is there?”
Black nodded and pushed White’s legs close together to latch the other ankle into the same position. “I’d make a comment about old dogs, but you’ve still got a few good years before you go senile and won’t shut up about how it was back in your day.”
The pegasus pouted and grunting, the next layer of cozy tightness applied with his legs locked together. The rather conflicting situation of his massive diaper pushing his legs apart and the bar keeping them from doing so only made him enjoy the enjoy the poofy predicament more.
“You’re certainly babbling like an old stallion.” Black snickered at White’s various grunts and moans. “Although there is one other thing that babbles, isn’t there?” The bat pony flew up to the ceiling, grabbing the metal bar to lift White up into the air.
White let out a yelp of surprise, instinctively trying to leap onto his hooves. This action was rewarded with further rubbing from everything he was wearing, creaks from the jacket, and squeaks from his diaper.
“You’re about as helpless as that other thing that’s helpless. Escapes my mind right now, but not to worry. You’ll have plenty of time to think about what it is while you’re undergoing inversion therapy.” With a grunt, Black managed to lift White to the set of hanging clips that were fastened to the ceiling. Usually, they were used to hang clothes to dry, and sometimes Black when he was feeling cavesick. Today, though, White would get a little closer to his inner bat pony. “There, how’s that? With all the blood rushing to your brain, why, you should be feeling all sorts of words building up and waiting for you to grant them release on paper.” He winked. “Of course, that won’t be until you’re released first. Need to ensure the patient has made a full recovery, after all.”
White grunted, pulled, twitched, and all around struggled, all manner of noises coming from with the pony himself or and of the things he was wearing. “Whoa, is this what’s it’s like being a bat?” He let out a yipe as he was given a push and performed a decent impersonation of a pendulum.
“We’re usually able to get down of our own accord.” Black snickered and gave white another push to increase his momentum. “You, however, are completely helpless.”
“Helpless...” White repeated, pushing his wings into the back of the coat. “Mmph... Errrrg... wow, this is snug.”
“All the better to make sure you can’t hurt any more innocent stories.” Black landed back on the ground and rummaged through White’s things. “One more thing to complete the ensemble. A soother, to give you at least a little something to do while you’re up there for an indefinite amount of time.” Black hopped onto the bed, pacifier in hoof, and made to push it into White’s mouth.
But, for the first time that night, White earnestly fought back, turning his head to the side to avoid the rubber nipple.
Black frowned and pulled the pacifier away. “What’s the matter? Is it not pink enough?”
“Why just a regular one?” White asked, shaking his head to mane his mane fly about.
“I figured you’d like a little freedom,” Black replied, tossing the soother over his shoulder. “If you’d rather have nothing, though, I guess that’s okay.”
A small ‘thwap’ resounded as White’s tail flicked about enough to smack his taut diaper. His cheeks burned a frustrated red as he asked, “Heh, well, uh, c-can I have one of the gags? It might fall out otherwise.”
A knowing smirk passed over Black’s face. White never spat out his pacifier during his sleep. Never. “Oh, of course, how silly of me. Let Dr. Black fix you right up then. Here, have another swing as a reward.” Black pressed his hoof against White’s chest and gave him another push.
“Ooooohhh, that feels good,” White moaned.
Black hopped onto the floor once again, this time going through his drawer for a new toy of his own. A hum escaped him as his eyes trailed across to collection of pacifier gags. Why simply stop at just a gag? White should still get to have just a little control over what happened to him.
A gag and another thick leather strap made their way to Black’s hooves before he met White face-to-face up on the bed. “One pacifier you can’t spit out, as per the patient’s request.”
“Thank you,” White managed to get out before the nipple of the elastic-strapped soother was pressed against his teeth. “Mmmm, sho goood...”
The ends of the rubbery straps came together behind White’s head, securing the dummy in place so it couldn’t be spat out. “There we are,” Black said, standing up straight to meet White’s bulging pink diaper. “Here, hold this for me.”
“Mmmph?” White grunted out, feeling something bump and slide across his smooth diaper and sit square on top.
“Now I know you’re supposed to be utterly helpless right now, but I thought you’d like to try out a new plaything from my drawer’o’fun.” Black weaved the latest strap through the front of White’s straight jacket and locked it in place with the latches lying in wait for such an opportunity. He then did the same thing with White’s back. The latest object of holding actually didn’t do a lot of hugging. It sort of just sat on White’s diaper, doing nothing to affect the bulging plastic padding.
White discovered his friend had not yet set the toy up properly, however, as evidenced by some rope being shown to him. “This here is sure to stimulate you just right. We’ll get those brain juices flowing yet.” The small rope was tied, or possibly hooked as White couldn’t see, to his pacifier.
White suckled, looking down his nose as a toddler might when they discovered their first grasshopper. “Mmmph?”
“Go ahead,” Black egged on. “Give it a tug. You can tell me whether or not it was actually worth the bits.”
With a shrug and thinking he literally had nothing better to do, White lifted his head to his relative ‘up’. He moaned and wiggled on the hook as the strap around his diaper was pulled good and tight along, making the plastic panties creak from the strain and all the poof underneath to rub and hug into the pegasus even more so than it did already.
Black snickered as his friend writhed and squirmed, unable to escape from the snare he had been ever-so-gently placed in, and now unable to escape his own love of being cradled and hugged tight all over. “I’m assuming you like it.”
White either nodded or pulled on the string for another round of diaper-squeezes.
“Excellent. Well, my work is done here. The patient can no longer hurt themselves and can now only pathetically sway to and fro.” Black jumped from the bed and trotted over to his own desk, where his armor dutifully awaited its owner.
White blinked as he watched the bat pony get ready for his job. Getting ready for his job?! “Mmmph! Mmmmm! ThuckleThuckle.”
Black adjusted his helmet so his mane comfortably sat underneath, not a strand being rubbed the wrong way. “Hey, that diaper is set up to be used, my friend. You should expect to be soaked for a long, long while.”
White let out a whine and bounced on the hook, bending forward and back so he almost looked like a worm about to be cast out.
“No need to thank me, just doing what any good friend would do.” Black took another look at his captivated friend and raised a brow. “Well, a friend who had these kinds of interests.”
“Mmmmph!”
“Hey, before I go, give your pacifier a tug if you want to stay there all night or triple-moan if you want to get down.”
White’s writhing came to a halt. For a tense moment, White looked like he had no clue what to do. It turned out he was just trying to make sure he could pull on the cord leading to his diaper strap as hard as he could.
Black smiled warmly and gave White one more push, sending him into the largest swinging motion yet. “That’s good. Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be to undress you from all that? No way I’d make it to work on time. Anyway, have a pleasant sleep. And try not to hurt yourself, alright?”
White let out a grunt that could have been ‘good night’ or just another gleeful squeal.
Black nodded in satisfaction and turned to trot out the door, leaving White to his rocking. The ensnared pegasus sighed deeply through his nose and closed his eyes, swished his tail, and felt his diaper grow warm. He then proceeded to fall into one of the most peaceful sleeps he’d had in a long, long while.