//------------------------------//
// Not So Normal Day 
// Story: The Tale of The White Night 
// by DraconequusMaximus 
//------------------------------//

White woke up several hours later, he was surprised to find Braeburn snuggling him underneath the oversized quilt from before. White's blush thankfully went unnoticed by the sleeping pony. Upon examining Braeburn he noticed he was without his hat which let White see that he too had been crying. White couldn't help but wonder if Braeburn had been crying for him. White couldn't bring himself to get up and disturb the stallion that he barely knew but already cared for greatly. He proceeded to hold the golden pony as he was being held, however when he put his arms around the stallion he felt a nibble on his ear (thestral ears are extremely sensitive to touch as well as sound). White wanted to smack the sleeping stallion but he had enjoyed the unintentional flirtations far too much to be truly angry.
After another half-hour or so Braeburn began to stir, immediately upon waking he felt himself being embraced by an embarrassed but still clinging thestral. Braeburn to this very day will tell you that this was the most adorable scene he had ever bore witness to.
"So..." Both ponies said at the same time.
...
"I wanted to thank you for... everything that's happened since we met on the train last night." White said looking into Braeburn's beautiful green eyes. 
"Well that's mighty kind of ya but I don't think I've done anythin' worthy of being thanked over. I've been dragging you out of your comfort zone since we met, & i feel terrible about it. I didn't know what you'd been through or anything about ya but I just kept prying you" After Braeburn had finished talking he got up & trotted into the kitchen & out the back door. White was growing more & more worried each second after Braeburn left the house, but before long the thestral's ears picked themselves up at the sound of an opening door and hooves on linoleum. Braeburn trotted up to him wearing a guilty expression and hoofed him the traveler's cloak that had been on the clothesline. 
"It wasn't dirty, I just needed an excuse to see you without it again. I know I told you that but it still weren't right of me to run of with somethin' twern't mine. I'd never seen anything so... beautiful before i couldn't let you hide yourself away like that." As Braeburn spoke his thoughts there was an unmistakable twinkle present in his eyes.
White was again speechless as he realized he had heard the stallion correctly earlier. After his brain rebooted he said: "I nopony's ever told me anything like that before, d-does this mean you're a colt-cuddler too?" White asked the stallion uneasily as he feared the answer would be "no". Braeburn seemed to think for the first time in his life that actions would speak louder than words. He quicklly jumped at the surprised thestral and embraced him and brought him into a kiss that white accepted eagerly as soon as his brain caught up to the rest of him. 
Neither stallion could tell exactly how long the kiss lasted but when it was over words seemed unnecessary. Braeburn motioned to the kitchen to which White merely nodded. As they walked White ahead of Braeburn the latter took this opportunity to stare at the flank he had just held in his hooves, all he could do was smile. When they reached their destination Braeburn took it upon himself to try and find them something to eat, unfortunately being a single stallion most everything he had in the cabinets where ready-made or instant meals. His refrigerator he knew was not much better. White caught on to the stallions distress after he saw the items in the cabinets and decided to bail him out.
"You know what sounds great?" This caught Braeburn's attention. White himself having lived alone for several years assumed he had the only thing White was proficient at making. White trotted up to the fridge and opened up the freezer to find the foodstuff in question.
"Frozen pizza sound alright to you?" White asked with no small amount of smugness in his voice.
"That settles it. He is an angel, who hath delivered unto me cheesy goodness and hot make-outs." Braeburn thought to himself with wonder in his eyes.
"Sounds delightful." He said calmly.
As they waited for the pizza to cook something dawned on White: He had yet to tell his new friend (coltfriend?) of the princess' visit tomorrow night. 
Not knowing how to bring it up he simply said: "What would you think about meeting royalty?"
Braeburn not knowing where he was going with this answered without thinking long on an answer.
"Well, i reckon I'd be a tad nervous if I knew I was going to be in the company of royalty." As he said this he grew curious at his guest's seemingly guilty expression.
"Brae (White slipped that in hoping he wouldn't mind him shortening his name) I need to tell you something."
While Braeburn thought having him use a shortened version of his name was good progress toward their relationship he was a tad worried by the hesitant tone in his (maybe) coltfriend's voice.
"Theprincessiscomingtomeetyoutomorrowatsundown." White blurted hurriedly. Braeburn was actually slightly relieved when he heard this.
"Oh thank Celestia! For a second I thought you were going to tell me that you were some kinda prince and you didn't wanna be my coltfriend because I'm a common earth pony." Braeburn said as he wiped sweat off his brow.
"Wait... you really wanna be my coltfriend?" White asked with a look in his eyes so cute Braeburn had to stop himself from dropping to the floor clutching his chest going "HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGG" 
"Of course I do! Wait... Princess... Coming... My house?" Braeburn's eyes seemed larger than dinner plates at this point. Then he bolted to a small closet underneath the stairs and retrieved more cleaning implements than White had ever seen at one time. He then viciously began scrubbing the already pristine hardwood floors. This all took a matter of seconds & white was unsure he could have moved that fast with the aid of his wings. White then decided to try and snap his coltfriend (*Squee*) out of his sudden outburst of cleanliness. 
"Braeburn?" 
Nothing. White everything from shouting at him to waving his flank in his face (Having this particular method fail caused a particularly large blow to his new-found self-esteem. After several more attempts he decided it was impossible to distract him from his quest to sanitize the house before the arrival of the princess of the night. He then remembered the pizza in the oven. White found a couple of oven mitts and removed it from the oven and turned of the heat. The very second he turned around to search for a pizza-cutter he heard a rush of hooves, Braeburn was sitting at the table with a plate as if he had been there the whole time.
"Really? I wave my flank in your face and pizza is what grabs your attention?" White said vaguely angry.
"Ya did what now?" Braeburn asked with a raised brow & a evil grin on his face.
"N-nothing! I mean... I was just worried you didn't like how I look..." 
Braeburn could tell that even if White was doing much better than he had been his self-esteem still needed work. Braeburn's solution was to get up and kiss White just as they had before. After they broke the kiss they decided the pizza was still needing eaten. After they finished eating Brae was less enthusiastic with his cleaning and White even used his wings to get to the cobwebs in the corners of the rooms. After several hours of cleaning the two stallions decided it would be a good idea to get some rest as it was already early morning of the day of the visit.
The stallions decided that since things were already going differently in their relationship as they had moved in together, then kissed, and were about to have a visit from what was essentially White's closest thing to a maternal figure, that they would go ahead and sleep in the same bed. In the case of somepony feeling frisky, they were to be forced to sleep on the living room sofa. They both fell asleep holding each other in Braeburn's bed.
They woke up several hours later, & though it felt like morning it was early afternoon. They agreed to spend the time they had until their fateful visit from the. princess getting to know one another. They talked about their likes & dislikes and hobbies. They both were surprised to find that this was the first real relationship either of them had been in. After awhile Braeburn began to feel cold so White grabbed the large quilt and threw it over them. White still wanted to know more about the golden stallion so he asked innocently: "What's with the enormous cutie-mark quilt anyway?"
This question seemed innocent enough but Braeburn's ever cheery outlook seemed to dim considerably.
"It was a gift from my granny. The quilt has every cutie-mark of all the apple family members up until it was given to me. Every year at the family reunion we add more to it. normally we'd just keep adding & adding but..."
"If it's too hard to talk about you don't need to say anymore."
"The reason they gave me the quilt is because I haven't attended a reunion since my father, Bismarck & my mother, Brina died in a fire on the family farm outside Whinnypeg a few years ago. I had already moved here to Apploosa help plant the orchard. I didn't find out for several months because there were no train tracks out here yet or even a post office. I never got a chance to come out to them. Or say goodbye even. They sent my cousin AppleJack here with the quilt a few months ago."
White noticed Braeburn eying three cutie-marks positioned in a row, a slightly lumpy redish-purple apple, a bright red apple with yellow streaking and speckles, and the one that caught White's eye the most was the one identical to Braeburn's.
"I'm sorry I brought it up, I didn't know you'd lost your parents." 
Braeburn's expression lightened a bit as he looked at his coltfriend. He leaned over & pecked White on the cheek and pulled him into a hug. He quietly said: "It's alright neither of us are alone anymore & maybe we can catch the next reunion, I'm sure my family would like you."
"Really? I-I've never really felt like a had a family before. Do you think they'll accept... us?" White asked uncertainly.
"Us Apples stick together, I just let myself forget that." Braeburn said as he pulled his "angel" into another kiss. Lost in their own little world populated by only them, they failed to notice the shimmer in the air that indicated long distance teleportation. As the sun sank lower beneath the horizon the shimmer grew brighter until a blinding flash broke the concentration of the stallions on the couch. Neither being familiar with magic, they held each other tight in fear until the light had dimmed and the princess of the night stood before them. 
The silence between the cuddled colts and the lunar princess was later nominated for most awkward moment of the century. 
"we apologize for our earliness it would seem we are interrupting something." Luna said while trying to put on a convincing smile. At this point Braeburn looked back to his coltfriend as he was unsure what to do. This was of little help as it seemed White had fainted at the moment they were discovered.
"Horsefeathers!" was all Braeburn had to say to this.