The Wheel and the Butterfly
A Dan X Pinkie Pie saga
Part 13 Dan & Pinkie Vs. Couch Hunt
Chapter 109 Dan & Pinkie Vs. Great Will
-ooooooo-
Author’s notes: I watched part of a Dan Vs. episode and it seems I may have screwed up on the color of Dan’s furniture in a few places throughout the story. I’ll have to hunt those down and fix them.
Just a heads up in case someone notices that Couchy changed color this chapter.
-ooooooo-
Dan furrowed his brow as he and Pinkie looked over a long line of beat up and dingy-looking couches. Pinkie was still wearing the shirt she had borrowed from Dan for the funeral, making the couple’s clothing match for the most part save Pinkie’s red sneakers and Dan’s black boots. They both stood in a wide open area of the store surrounded by shelves of random knickknacks and collections of random glassware and mugs.
Dan sighed and shook his head. “I haven’t been this disappointed since I found out ‘Two and a Half Men’ wasn’t about two guys who ran around with half a mangled corpse!”
“Well… you wanted a couch with character!” Pinkie said with a smile. “And these couches all have plenty of it!”
Dan shook his head. “These couches don’t have character, they have deep scars both physical and mental! I want a piece of furniture that I know can take a few hits! Not something that looks like it’s suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder!”
Pinkie giggled. “They’re not that bad!”
Dan pointed to a faded red leather couch with torn and frayed leather on over wood armrests dozens of scratches in them. Additionally, the cushions where dotted with tiny holes. “That one looks like it did several rounds with an army of housecats and lost every single time! It kinda smells like it, too!”
Pinkie pointed to a slightly green couch with a long-faded brown leaf embroidery design on it. “Well, that one looks comfy!” she said as she walked up to the couch.
Dan made a disgusted sound as he followed. “Ulg… It looks like Mother Nature threw up on it! I’m not even trying to exaggerate here! It actually looks like that.” Dan said as he vigorously motioned to the couch. He paused and added. “… It’s also not a creative color.”
“Ahh… you’re just being a picky-Mickey!” Pinkie sat down on the couch. “I’m sure it’s…” Pinkie trailed off and frowned as she felt a pinchy sensation in her knee.
‘Scccchhhhhooouuccch…’
Without warning, Pinkie sank into the couch cushions as the spongy green and brown fabric of the couch began to envelop her.
“Pinkie!” Dan cried out in alarm.
“Dan! Help! The couch has figured out I taste delicious!” She cried as she reached an arm up.
Dan rushed up and grabbed Pinkie’s arm in both his hands. He put his foot against the solid bottom of the couch for leverage and yanked on Pinkie’s arm, pulling her free from the blob-like piece of furniture.
Pinkie wrapped her arms around Dan and held him tight. “Thank you!” she said earnestly.
Dan returned the hug. “Yeah, yeah…” he said as he gently patted Pinkie’s back. He pulled back slightly, but kept his hands on Pinkie’s arms. “There! One of the couches here tried to eat you! Can we go now!?”
“Look, I’m sure one of these couches can at least make a half-way decent stand-in for Couchy!”
Dan sighed before he began speaking in a wistful tone, “But Couchy was special! He was lumpy in all the right places! He sat a perfect height off the ground! He was red!”
“You know I thought he was yellow for the longest time?” Pinkie said. “Geez-Louise did I have to scrub hard to figure out we had a red couch…! Also the blue carpets… drapes… walls…”
“I get it!” Dan said. “The apartment was messy before you moved in!”
Pinkie raised her eyebrows. “Messy?! I’m still surprised some of the piles of things in there didn’t come to life at some point and try to befriend you… or just eat you!”
Dan sighed, “Can we move on?”
Pinkie scanned the line of couches. “Weeeell… what about this one?” Pinkie asked as she motioned to a beige couch with almost threadbare cushions and upholstery.
“That couch looks like it would shank you for even attempting to sit on it!” Dan declared.
Pinkie maintained her smile and rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it’s not that bad! Look!” Pinkie flung herself back on the couch. “OUCH!” she cried with a pained expression on her face as she hopped off of it and rubbed her back. “That couch just shanked me!”
“I told you!” Dan said.
Pinkie examined the couch. “Huh, some of the springs are sticking out… Maybe we could get a really thick blanket to put over it, or—”
Dan raised an eyebrow. “You want a couch that might give you lockjaw?”
Pinkie pursed her lips. “What’s lockjaw?”
“It’s when you get tetanus and your jaw muscles start having spasms.” Dan smirked. “So, I guess your usual behavior with less sound coming out of your mouth.”
Pinkie giggled. “Hehehe…Guess I’m sleeping in the burn ward tonight…”
Dan chuckled. “You know, I’m actually reconsidering getting the couch now…” He frowned. “Though, I guess there’s a good chance we’d forget about stabbing rust springs in a steamy moment and then we’d both need tetanus shots.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Sha…shots?” She gulped. “As in needles?”
Dan nodded. “That’s how they treat potential Tetanus cases.”
Pinkie’s pupils shrank to the size of pin-pricks. “One sec!” she called out before dashing off towards the front of the store.
Dan followed Pinkie with his eyes briefly then shrugged and shook his head. He turned to a dingy-looking grey couch. “You look like if I touched you, you’d be sticky…” he uttered as he looked down. Dan heard the familiar sound of Pinkie bounding up to him. “What do you think, Goofball?”
“Oh no!” Pinkie called out in a tone that didn’t quite come off as genuine distress. “The stabbing rust couch has caught aflame!”
Dan turned to see a spiraling column of flame shoot up from the center of the beige couch.
“Pinkie!” Dan cried. “I didn’t want the couch!”
“Of course!” Pinkie said. “Who wants a couch that mysteriously bursts into flames for absolutely no discernable reason?!”
“You’re holding a lighter and lighter fluid!” Dan pointed out.
“Yeah, so?” Pinkie replied as she held onto those things Dan just said she had.
“So I’m guessing you started the fire?”
“Wow Dan!” Pinkie said in an offended tone as she placed her hands that were full of fire-starting materials on her hips. “I can’t believe you of all people would just profile someone like that! Just… WOW!”
Dan narrowed his eyes. “I am now torn between getting violent with you and making out with you.”
Pinkie grinned. “Why not both?”
Dan cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to violently make out with you?”
Pinkie pondered this for a second. “Well, when you put it like that…” Pinkie trailed off before nodding and adding, “Yes. Yes I do.”
Dan put on a mischievous grin, took a few steps closer to Pinkie, and wrapped an arm around her waist. “It does have a nice ring to it, come to think of it…”
“Oh my gosh! Is that couch on fire?!” someone cried from within the store.
Dan and Pinkie frowned.
Dan sighed, “We should probably leave now.”
Pinkie nodded. “I, too, was going to suggest we leave.”
-ooooo-
‘KABOOM!’
“And then the Great Will in North Hollywood exploded for absolutely no discernible reason!” Pinkie said.
“You don’t have to narrate for me Pinkie,” Dan said. “I was right there!”
Dan and Pinkie stood across the street from a long white building with a blue stripe on the front as flames shot out from small sets of large, plate glass windows and smoke billowed up from the brown, shingled roof. People screamed and fled from the building, escaping onto the dirty street as flames consumed the building. The sounds of broken glass and heavy items falling over echoed out from the doomed structure.
“Sooooo…” Dan began as he folded his arms and looked up at Pinkie, “why did you explode the Great Will?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Pinkie said as she shook her head. “But, hypothetically speaking, had some hypothetical brave and intrepid soul found that filthy looking building absolutely terrifying… Oh, let’s just call this hypothetical paragon of fearlessness, Pinkie Pie—”
“You just said your own name, Goofball,” Dan informed.
“Huh! No way!” Pinkie protested. “I swapped the first letters around!”
“They both start with the same letter, nimrod!”
Across the street the fire began to grow larger and hotter, consuming more and more of the building.
“Oh… right… uh… Let’s call her—”
Dan smirked. “So we’re assigning hypothetical gender, now?”
Pinkie sighed and rolled her eyes. “—HE OR HER Light Red Pastry. Hypothetically Light Red Pastry might have took one look at the scary, seedy-looking building, thought it was an eyesore, and heaped explosives—”
“Hypothetical explosives.”
Pinkie paused and shot Dan a glare. “How the heck are you making this so annoying to describe?!”
Dan chuckled. “I learned from the best."
Pinkie scowled at Dan and continued, “... Hypothetical explosives in the center of the Great Will and hypothetically detonated them.”
Dan pondered this as he tapped an index finger against his chin. “Hmmm… Where do you suppose this hypothetical frightened epitome of valor might have acquired such hypothetical explosives?”
“Uh…” Pinkie looked around nervously. “I’m sure there’s a very real, and not hypothetical explosives store nearby…”
Dan nodded as he began walking to his red hatchback. “I see, so if I open the hatch to my car and looked inside, it should still have explosives in the trunk…”
“Errrmmmm…”
Dan reached into his pockets and put on a mock surprise expression. “Oh, shock and alarm! It seems I don’t have my keys because somepony began shaking like a leaf as soon as she entered the store and said something about getting something from the car.”
Pinkie pulled her lips together tight as she stared at Dan, she slowly reached into one of her jean pockets and pulled out a set of keys. She reluctantly handed the keys to Dan.
Dan placed the keys into the lock of the hatch. “Welp, just going to open the hatch and see that none of the explosives in the back are missing, becau—“
“I BLEW UP THE GREAT WILL!” Pinkie cried.
Dan turned with a satisfied expression on his face. “Ah-ha! I knew it!”
Pinkie placed her hands on either side of her head as she stared out into space with a scared expression. “I couldn’t help it! It was just so dirty inside!” Pinkie’s teeth began chattering. “I just stood there wondering ‘What in this filthy place can give me lockjaw!?’ and before you know it, I was setting up explosives in the center of the store and detonating them!” Pinkie began tearing up slightly. “I just couldn’t take it…”
Dan put a comforting hand on Pinkie’s shoulder. “There, was that so hard?”
Pinkie sighed. “I guess not.” She looked out at the flaming sto—
‘CuuRummPTHChh!’
—pile of flaming rubble.
“I guess I just wished ‘high explosives’ wasn’t my go-to solution here.”
“Well, I guess you could have showed a little more restraint,” Dan said. “You know… maybe start burning their useless knickknack isle and get everyone to flee from the toxic fumes instead of starting with explosives.”
Pinkie nodded. “That sound like excellent advice, Dan!”
Dan smiled and shrugged. “You pick up a few things up after you get mad at a second hand store or half a dozen…”
‘EEEEEOOOEEEEOOOO…!’
The two perked their ears up at the sound of approaching sirens as red and white lights began to flash from down the street.
“We should goooo…” Dan said, trailing off at the end.
“Yep, definitely!” Pinkie agreed.
“…‘To Show up-N-Go Burger’ is the end of that sentence!” Dan said enthusiastically.
Pinkie gasped. “Yay!” She cried as she held up her palm.
Dan slapped his girlfriend a quick high five before they clasped their hands together and began happily walking down the street to a small burger restaurant down the way.
-ooooo-
“Here’s a nice, big, clean Great Will!” Pinkie said as she motioned out to a large, multi-entranced white and blue building.
Dan pursed his lips and scrunched his brow as he scanned the building from the parking lot. “Maybe too clean!”
Pinkie giggled. “Oh, come on! It’ll be nice to look for couches in a store where we don’t have to be afraid of coming down with something.”
Dan shrugged. “If you say so.”
-ooo-
Dan and Pinkie stood in the same parking lot as black smoke flowed out of each of the store's entrances. Store employees in blue vests and customers all rushed out, coughing and sputtering as they escaped into the relatively fresh air of Southern California.
Dan motioned out to the store. “Yeah… and then that happened.”
“Wasn’t me!” Pinkie declared quickly as she held her hands up in front of her.
Dan nodded. “I know! It was me!” he said with a grin.
Pinkie turned towards Dan. “Wow, you didn’t even try to hide that or anything!”
Dan shrugged. “Eh, I’m a man who likes to wear his heart on his sleeve… Also a man who likes to commit arson.”
“Alright, so on that note, why—”
Dan interrupted. “One of the goofy knickknack clowns looked at me funny.”
“Huh…” Pinkie replied. Setting fire to an entire isle seems a little extreme… Even by your standards.”
“I also hate knickknacks on principle,” Dan informed.
Pinkie nodded. “Alright, I can see that...”
“Aaaand that place needs a little smoke damage or something! Way too sterile for a Great Will! We can’t get a couch that’s been coddled and spoiled by being shown some sort of idealistic vision of a secondhand store!”
“Oooo! Ooooo! ” Pinkie said. “So you wanted to toughen up any potential Couchy 2s inside!”
Dan nodded. “Yep!”
Pinkie motioned to the store. “Of course, the problem is we can’t go back inside.”
Dan pulled his lips into a tight frown as he stared at the store. “Uhhh… yeah… Guess I could have thought this through a little better…” he said as he rubbed the back of his head.
Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, accidents happen.”
Dan nodded. “Especially when they’re intentional and willful destruction of property.”
“Where’s the next closest Great Will?” Pinkie paused and added, “…That we haven’t visited yet.”
“Hmmm… I think there’s a couple in Northridge…” Dan answered.
Pinkie nodded and the couple began walking back towards the red hatchback.
Pinkie began to speak in a tentative tone, “Uh… Hey… erm… precious snuki—ERM …snickerdoodle?”
Dan furrowed his brow and turned to Pinkie. “What outlandish thing that I’m going to hate are you trying to say…”
“Well, erm… my adorable cupcake…”
“And stop with the sappy pet names, you’re lousy at them!”
Pinkie sighed as she and Dan reached the car and sat down inside. “Alright… it’s just… I just think…”
“Spit it out already!” Dan cried.
“Well… I think there’s another option you’re maybe, sorta, kinda ignoring here.”
Dan frowned. “I already told you my views on getting a new-new couch!”
Pinkie shook her head. “Not that! I’m fine with getting a couch we know can take a bit of a beating… But, weeell…”
Dan narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to just tell me what you’re trying to say, or do I have to beat it out of you?!”
Pinkie sighed, “Alright here it goes…” She opened her sky-blue eyes wide as she looked at Dan. “Maybe we should try the Salvation Armed Forces.”
“WHAT?!” Dan cried as he threw up his arms and began emphatically waving them about. “Are you out of your curly, pink-hair-covered mind?! I can’t go back there!”
“I know you had a bad run in with them, but—”
“‘Bad run in’?!” Dan cried in an irate, frustrated tone. “They stole my car!”
Pinkie nodded. “But you got it back! You also got revenge for them taking it!”
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean I’m eager to go back there and rekindle the flame! There’s good TV I need to watch!”
Pinkie nodded. “Yeah, but it’s another night of us sharing the easy chair!”
Dan scrunched his eyebrows together. “I thought you liked getting all snuggly with me!”
Pinkie smiled and nodded. “I do, but I also miss laying on top of you while you watch TV.”
Dan’s face flushed as he placed his palms to his cheeks. “Gah! Stop using your adorable touchy-feely reasoning on me! Besides, we still have more Great Wills that are close enough!”
Pinkie nodded. “Sure, but what if Couchy 2 isn’t in any of those stores? What if Couchy 2 is waiting for us in a Salvation Armed Forces store right by our home and we’d never know because we hadn’t looked?”
Dan paused. “Huh… that’s uh… that’s actually a really sensible way of looking at it.”
Pinkie beamed.
“Alright, Goofball.” Dan smiled. “It’s time to brave muscular men who have been trained to fight with bells in search of our couch!”
“YAY!” Pinkie Cried excitedly.
‘EEEEEOOOEEEEOOOO…!’
Pinkie and Dan perked their heads up as the very familiar sound of sirens filled the air.
Dan started the car and pulled out of the parking spot. “And also flee another crime scene!”
Pinkie paused, shrugged, and cried “…Yay!”
Not the best chapters compared to your usual stuff, i'm just gonna assume the season finale was so awesome you didnt feel like trying to outdo it.
4368848
Heh, I guess this is a bit of a setup chapter. Though, it's a setup chapter wear three stores had fire set to them in some capacity or another...
X'D I love this
Adding to my list of things to read later. MFW, I just finished a 700k word monster and now I've added 400k more to my list.
4368915
Heh, take your time.
4368920
It really helps that you've broken the chapters up into 2k wordcount chapters, it makes things a bit more manageable.
Also, prompt response time. (b")b
4368930
I like the smaller chapters for the most part. Not entirely sure why, but I seem to find a satisfying chapter end for my needs most the time in 2-4K worth of words.
Also... I'm writing a lot, so I tend to catch comments right away.
That couch has seen the inside of couch prison and it learned to defend itself from people who step up in its hypothetical grille. And it never did like light red pastries.
4368935
Perfectly understandable choice for your chapter sizes. For Stardust I generally had to aim for around 6-8k words per chapter to tie up loose ends, develop current ones, and lay down the foundation for new conflicts.
Also, I used to be really good at responding to every comment but I kept getting buried in them towards the end. Was spending more time replying to comments then actually writing the next chapter.
4369008
Heh, I've definitely cut down on how often I respond to comments compared to when I first started out.
I thought I saw that green couch before, it was the starring secondary role in a James Bond movie. As for teh chain of stores being called Great Will, at this rate theyll have to soon change their name to the Great Grill, or maybe all teh way to Last Will and Resting Place?
Great Will has no real purpose, they are doing a service
awesome. both you and the story. I can't wait to see Dan and the salvation army round 2 with guest star Pinkie. this will be good.
4368874 funny how that would be considered a "weaker" chapter.
Awesome chapter!
5 things
1 I thought this was going to include a Minotaur >:<
2 Imma be a ne.. Oh wait I'm black, grammeh nazi then
Pinkie says On sec where it should be One sec
3. Pinkie says shopping at a great will were instead of where
4 . Dan says what outlandish thing are you that I'm going to hate you are you trying to say... Honestly imma guess you wanted to say what outlandish thing that I'm going to hate you for are you trying to say
5. Well hypothetically Dan would "hypothetically" look into the trunk and find the "hypothetical" explosives >:)
6 ( I lied) . OMFGJSJSKSNBD I LOVE YO......urrrr stories. Yeah. Shh.
This story.
This fucking story.
...
I have read it.
Beginning to most recent chapter (124).
...
In under 24 hours.
...
It was beautiful.
4370556 I have done those kind of You can only do that so many times until even looking at a food wrapper makes your head hurt.
4370595
Not the first time I've done that error... Though my head must have been all kinds of messed up when I wrote that, there's like three errors all in that one sentence.
4370140
Corrected the errors you pointed out. Thanks!
The sentence Dan says is a bit weird, but correct (unless it needs punctuation). Dan's not likely to hate Pinkie for just about anything she says at this point, though he still hates plenty of the stuff she says.
Dude, any idea on what cause your explosive watch and like rise?
4368930
4368935
But it also makes it so easy to say to yourself "I have time to read another chapter. It's only another two thousand words, after all." Then, before you know it, you've been up al night binging on this story. That's what happened to me, at least.
4372268
I'll admit I'm a bit of an evil person when it comes to my chapters. I tend to end my chapters on cliffhangers that DEMAND the reader start the next chapter... and the next, and the next. Honestly my readers would probably be better off quitting in the middle of a chapter. >_>
4371069
Mostly my other Dan and Pinkie fic hitting the popular box/feature box with mature turned off, and bringing this up to the popular box with it.
Getting Technaro's permission to use her art seemed to help as well. People are more likely to click on the story and stick around with the cover art change as far as I can tell.
After reading all 124 chapters in like 2 days,
I have to say I fucking love this story
It's really rare that a story keeps me hooked for over 400k words
and i still want more
The bell tolls once more.
Not sure if you meant this but.
Should it be Not something that looks.....
Just a thought, don't hate me for it
But good chapter anyway
4373731
Heh... I have no idea if I saw that and forgot then subliminally made the reference, or if this is my first time seeing it.
4368848 I thought it was a great chapter...
"Help Dan! This couch has discovered that I'm delicious!"
Classic Pinkie Pie...
4368874 An excellent setup chapter if ever there was one...also looking forward to the epic Amber vs. Sunset battle conclusion...
...I know before I mentioned Dan* falling for the Pinkie working at the mega value store that cursed him, but now I'm wondering about Sunset...assuming she's not too young...
4373083
Got this! Thanks!
Before I started reading this chapter, I said, "Well, the Great Will is gonna burn down." And not ten minutes into reading...well you know the rest. CALLED IT!
4373860
You know, that makes a twisted kind of sense. And in the process the two of them become the new Dan and Pinkie, just as the originals finally make it back to Equestria.
.....Probably keep this on under your hat for a while Justice, if you deign to use the fragment of an idea.
4374730 Is it weird that this scene makes me want to play Evil Genius again, by the way?
4374735
Elise definitely strikes that vibe a little.
Pinkie was still wearing the shirt she had borrowed from Dan for the funeral making the couple’s clothing match for the most part save Pinkie’s red sneakers and Dan’s black boots.
...Pretty sure that's a run on. Let's see... Pinkie was still wearing the shirt she had borrowed from Dan for the funeral. making the couple’s clothing match; for the most part; save Pinkie’s red sneakers and Dan’s black boots.
...Maybe, someone else can probably correct that better.
leather on over wood armrests dozens of scratches in them.
Remove the on, add a 'with' before dozens.
Guess I’m sleeping in the burn ward tonight…”
...Not sure what happens to go there.
knickknack isle
Isles are out in the water. Aisles are divided rows.
That sound like
sounds
replied. Setting
Just need to open those quotes before Setting.
Way to sterile
Too much, too many, go to the store. Another of those annoying homonyms, but the easy way to remember is that extra o shows up when it's 'in addition' or 'in excess'. ...Which makes less sense with things like 'too few', but we'll ignore that for the moment.
Think that's all for now
4368874
where
An amusing chapter. I do agree it's not at its strongest just yet, but it's a bridge, and a good bridge. So it doesn't need to do more than cross the water.
4361291
Alright, I changed Dan's dialogue to make it a bit more accurate. Thank you!
4364143
Here
Note that I'm currently going through massive corrections on the early-mid chapters that will hopefully get this up to pretty grammatical perfect standards and still need to touch up details here and there, but this file is at least everything that's up at the moment.
Edit: I think the I got the chapter wrong. This file is up to 109.
4376383 Your dislike bar keeps getting tinier. How does that make you feel?
4376390
Pretty nice, actually! Interesting what a lot of attention all at once does compared to the slow rise of me posting frequently and posting the stories to groups and stuff.
Also, the ratio is high enough that it looks like both my Dan & Pinkie fics will hit the update feature section (bottom 3) pretty frequently.
4375583
Thank you.
4376364 You should really pay attention to the dates stories are first posted so that you'll know that maybe something doesn't show up in a story for a really good reason.
4379285 What manga is it?
I wonder why the TOK didnt try to get rid of Cheese Sandwich...or did they?
Also, i this story is seriously lacking some Maud Pie.
4381463
Well, I began before season four even started. Not that I've dismissed the idea of either character making an appearance at some part. Not sure if Cheese Sandwiches abilities are quite up to the level of weirdness of Pinkie's but that could very well just be a matter of us seeing more of her.
4380315 You have seen nothing yet.
4382290 no worries also I'm running out of chapters
Since Dan and Pinkie havent shared a christmas together yet, will we see Krampus when they finally do?
4382444
Heh. That's something I'll keep in mind. I love the Krumpus.
4379386 marugoto anju gakuen