Feelings
Another piece of parchment wound up in a crumpled heap near a bin with a few dozen others. The stallion that had thrown it sighed, rubbed his temple, laid out a new one, and chewed on the barbs of his quill. Sparkle-eyed for a brief moment, the stallion took the quill in his hoof and set to create a few words.
‘On the first day of the month of March…’ he began.
“Grah!” he shouted before wadding it up and tossing it into the pile with the rest of his failed starts.
“Be a little louder, why don’t you?” a voice called from the other end of the room.
“Grah!” the stallion yelled once more.
On the other side of the room, a bat pony sat up and stretched, turning his neck and flaring his leathery wings to work out the kinks. “Alright, White, what is it now?” the bat pony asked.
“It’s nothing,” White said back, though the flapping of his wings and the quiver in his voice said otherwise.
“We both know that’s a scientific impossibility,” the bat pony replied, getting off from his chair and trotting over to the pegasus at the writing desk. “If there was nothing, you wouldn’t be thinking at all, and then I’d be a very sad pony.”
White rubbed the back of his neck, darting his eyes about a bit as though looking for something. “Sorry to be a bother, Black. Just me being artsy again.”
Black pursed his lips and raised a brow before saying, “Artsy, huh? White, you’re ‘artsy’ more times a week then you’re not.”
“I know, I know,” White groaned, another piece of parchment falling victim to his frustration. “I don’t want to be artsy. I’d rather be making the art.”
“Life getting to you again?” Black rested his chin on White’s shoulder. “Let’s have it, what’s eating you this week.”
“The same thing that’s always eating me.” White sighed and rested his chin on a hoof, a knee leaning on the table, glaring intently at the next page. “Where are the words? Because I can’t seem find them. The thoughts are there, the pretty pictures in my head as I play out the scenes over and over again, but the words to describe them are missing.”
“There was another letter, wasn’t there?”
Silence permeated the room, drilling into every nook and cranny and sitting like jello. A parchment went without being crumpled up for at least three minutes, a new record for the evening.
When the time for quiet passed, White hunched over his desk, Black pulling away, and scribbled furiously. “I-I’ll write something tonight, I know I will. I just need to find the words.”
“No, you aren’t.” Black pulled the paper away as White was in the middle of his next failed sentence. “Here, let me.” With a pleasant smile that bared his fangs, Black neatly folded the parchment into a paper airplane and sent it sailing off into the bin.
“H-Hey!” White whined.
“Straight into the basket, twenty points, I win.” Black pumped his hoof and let out a ‘woot’ of victory. “Now then, you aren’t getting any writing done and we know it. You didn’t for a week the last time a letter came, and the time before that, and the time before that. Let’s not waste either of our time, hmm?”
White babbled and stuttered for a bit before once again slouching over. “But your story…”
“My story isn’t going to be any good if you’re wallowing in whatever it is ponies wallow in.” Black trotted over to the two beds in the room, standing in front of the one with pink sheets.
“Ponies don’t wallow,” White bemoaned.
“You’re certainly doing a fantastic job of breaking the mold.” Black patted the bed, making the springs creak a bit. “Now stop your silly pouting and get your guardian flank over here.”
White turned around in his chair and raised a questioning brow at the bat-pony. “Don’t you have to get to work soon?”
Black faked a pout. “White, I’m so hurt. I thought you enjoyed my company.”
“I do!” White corrected, getting up and tensing. “I didn’t mean it like that, I only meant isn’t it time! I mean…”
Before White knew what had happened, Black shoved a pacifier into the other’s mouth to cease the oncoming tirade of apologies before it had a chance to take off any further.
“I know what you meant,” Black said, giving the pegasus an un-amused glare. He took White’s hoof and pulled him towards the beds. “Sheesh, you’d think after all this time you’d figure out when I was being sarcastic.”
A few suckles came White’s soother before he asked, “Bwack, what’re woo doin’?” And yet the brighter stallion made no real motion to resist, allowing his leathery winged companion to direct him to the pink bed and be pushed on.
“Helping you find your words.” Black bent himself so he could reach under his own blue bed and the pink one, pulling out the drawers that were underneath them. Both drawers had fairly peculiar objects, diapers and sleepers being the least common denominator in this situation.
However, Black’s drawer had white diapers covered in various designs that seemed to reflect the night, with hollow cartoon stars, and several supplies that were a tad more mature in appearance. Mouth gags that looked a bit like pacifiers, but a tad more complicated. Leather straps, straightjackets, things of a confining nature.
White’s drawer, on the other hoof, was of a more foalish nature. The diapers were mostly pink as well, though there were some of a pure white. Some had prints that looked like little suns, or possibly sunflowers. There were a few pacifiers, some hoofie pajamas with button flaps, onsies, bottles, and a very small amount of foalish toys, which white would swear on his left wing that they were only experimental. His right wing was his favorite wing.
Black grinned in satisfaction as he picked up a diaper from each drawer, tossing his on the blue bed. He slowly unfurled the pink one, taking extra care to make sure each crinkle permeated the air. Every little sound made White twitch very slightly, his eyes growing wider as well.
“Nothing like the sound of a fresh diaper in the evening,” the bat pony said, taking a playful whiff of the diaper. “And now the coupe de grace.” Black laid the diaper out and picked up a tub of foal power and put a few puffs directly into the fluffy part of the diaper. “Lift your butt up before I have to smack it.”
White blinked and shook his head. “Yoo, uh, nevah offered ta do diss before Thuckthuckthuck. Ah fought it’d be too…”
Black ‘tsked’ and gave his friend a smack on his cutie mark. White yipped, more out of surprise than anything else as Black went for a ‘bark, no bite’ approach in his attack. “I said lift, mister, or should we pull out one of my toys for you to play with?”
White gave an expression mixed half with mortification and half with desire, with inner-debate being the outer-message readable on his face. With a sigh of defeat, the pegasus spread his legs.
“Hey, now, don’t expect anything on the first night,” Black teased at White’s distress, slipping the diaper under the other stallion’s rear and carefully pulling the tail through. “You’ve at least gotta buy me dinner first, I’m a strong independent colt, after all. Someplace nice, preferably with candy coated moths for desert.”
White huffed around his pacifier and let his head fall onto a pillow, directing his gaze as far away from the awkward situation as he could. “Yoo know we havta order dose from da caves.”
“Is that an offer?” Black grinned as the muscles in White’s thighs tensed. The diaper’s leak guards and absorbent insides began to press tight against the coat and loins of the much more nervous stallion, making him quiver a bit. “Honestly, White, could you be any more of a baby?”
“Stahp dat,” White whined, covering his eyes at the word ‘baby’.
The bat-pony chuckled as the upper half of the diaper pressed into White’s stomach. “Guess you can. Keep that up, you’ll go places. Maybe we should find one of those Cutest Foal competitions, then your bit problems would be solved.”
The suckling of White’s soother became louder still.
Black rubbed a hoof along the diaper, humming in thought. “Yes, yes, I see. Pink and too thick for anypony’s good. Dr. Black thinks the patient is ready for the final seals.” As one side of the tapes were lifted, Black made noises with his mouth that seemed to represent moving a heavy object, and the actual taping was accompanied by a hiss of escaping air. Black wiped his brow and huffed. “Oh, dear, this is too much for me. I don’t think I can finish.”
White cracked an eye open as Black turned away, fiddling with his own supplies. “H-Huh?”
“Yeah, you’re a big guy, I’m sure you can finish on your own,” Black replied as he picked up his own tub of foal powder.
White blinked a few times while he let out a particularly loud thuckle. His brain twitched more than any other part of him had all night as he felt the untaped side of the diaper, meeting both rustling plastic and the fuz of his coat. The lack of symmetry bothered him more than words could even do justice.
Deep down, White knew it bothered Black as well. But he also knew Black was always going to be twice as devious as he could ever be.
“Cood yoo pwease finish?” White asked, a slight air of defeat in his tone as he turned his head away in shame.
Black, however, seemed not to hear as he laid out a diaper for himself, with more speed than he had with his deliberate embarrassment attack on White.
When it became clear Black wasn’t going to respond, White let out a groan and kicked one of his legs. “Bwacky? Cood yoo pwetty pwease with extra crunchy chocolate coated bugsh finish mees diapee change?”
Black turned around with a satisfied smile and nodded. “How can I possibly say no to such an earnest plea from such a helpless little foal?”
“No’ hewpwessh...” White tried to reason, the falter in his voice proving just how wrong he was.
“You sure seem helpless to me.” Black pulled the other side of the diaper up so it pressed against White’s side, sticking it on snug and adjusting the diaper as a whole so the leak guards were perfectly parallel to each other. “Can’t even finish putting on a diaper without me. Next you’re going to need me to read bedtime stories and bottle feed you. If I have to do that second one, I expect at least a full novel a day.”
White once again covered his eyes, convulsing his body as though to escape his diaper. Naturally, there was no getting away.
Black snickered and ran a hoof along the waistband of the diaper while reaching over to the foot of the bed to pick on a teddy bear. The toy was lightly shoved into White’s forelegs, the pegasus looking baffled for a moment.
“Hug Bear Butt while I get padded. If you look, you’re a peeper.” Black flopped onto the other bed, landing perfectly on his own diaper and began the slightly more challenging process of diapering himself.
“Bear Bottom!” White yelled, accidentally spitting the pacifier out. Instinct forced him to immediately grab it back up with his lips, to which he silently berated himself. The sounds of Black’s diaper rustling as he struggled resounded in White’s ears, but beyond flicking his ears, didn’t react for some time. After about five minutes passed, though, White asked, “Do yoo need shome help?”
“I said if you looked, you’re a peeper.”
“I didn’ wook!” Bear Bottom felt the full force of White’s frustration in a powerful squeeze, but resolutely took his owner’s worries as was the sworn duty of any fuzzy toy. “Jusht twyin’ ta help.”
“Noted,” Black replied as the telltale rip of tapes unsticking came from his side. “I figured that when you oh-so-adorably offered some. You ain’t diapering me for a while yet, boy, so just rest assured that I need you to set the straps in place.”
“Wha’ a gweat notion.” White rolled his eyes. “Da reshowute strapper, twuwy I’m such an important part of yo wife. An’ I’m older den yoo...”
“Of course you’re important.” Black’s hooves landed on the ground and white took that as a sign it was safe for him to sit up and look over. A look of calm washed over Black’s body before he turned to his friend with another toothy grin. “I’m not going to trust any big baby to that job.”
White smiled behind his pacifier, holding Bear Bottom with a bit less force. “No. No, yoo’re not.”
Black stretched all of his limbs, wings included, which White recognized immediately as a variation of pre-flight exercises. White’s heart skipped a beat as that thought sunk in.
“Alright, come on, we’ve got some time before my shift starts. Get your padded rump out of bed and follow me.”
“Yoo put me in da bed,” White countered, though he obediently stood up and set Bear Bottom back in his previous perch.
“Not like I was gonna get you ready on the floor.” Black motioned for White to follow him as he stepped into the middle of the room. “Now move it or lose it, and I know sure as Tartarus you don’t lose your diapers when you get in them.”
“Weady for wha’ ezactwy?” The pegasus followed the pat pony, blushing and involuntarily smiling as he felt his padding force him into a waddle.
Black took his friend by the hoof and led him to the window, pushing it open so that the cool night air hit their bodies like a wave. “Outside.”
White’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks and his heart beat hard enough that the drumming made his chest quiver. “B-Bwack...”
Black raised a brow and smirked. “Don’t let my devilish good looks distract you. We’ve only got an hour at best. Your window of opportunity is closing fast.” As he said this, he pushed the actual window closer to being shut. “Look, there it goes! Away, away, away...”
White spat out his pacifier into his hoof and shivered. “Black, hold on. Real talk, please?”
The window came to a creaking halt, and a good deal of the playful amusement Black carried in his eyes gave way to earnest, if somewhat dry, care. “White, it’s alright. I know what I’m doing.”
“But the outside...” White turned away, cheeks flushed. “I know how you feel about going outside. If anypony saw, how would they feel? How would you feel? It’s just like you tell me when I bring it up.”
Black brought his hoof to White’s, helping him take the pacifier back in his mouth. “I wouldn’t be offering right now if you didn’t pay attention to that. We’re going to somewhere quiet and calm where nopony can bother us. Just the two of us, so neither of us will die of embarrassment.”
White suckled on his soother a few times, looking into the snake-eyes of his friend. Such an act was not something either took lightly, as doing so was as close as sharing their innermost soul as they believed one could get, something both desired greatly to hide away and not see in others.
Black’s eyes held no true malice, no trick to be found, and not a falter in any form. It took White only a second to pick it up, and once the second had passed, he leaned his forehead against the other’s snout. “Shomtimesh Ah fink one of ush is severely ripped off in diss fwiendship.”
The bat-pony pushed his friend away a gagged a bit. “Ugh, stop getting mushy on me, that’s what your diaper is for. Are we done with the ooey gooey emotional stuff or are we going?”
“I’mma comin’, I’mma comin’!” White flared his wings and pulled the window back open, looking out into the streets. The pavement was barren save for a very, very few, and the night was too dark and the candles of several houses to dim to let them see any real details about something flying up above.
“Get that pink monstrosity out of here.” Black gave White’s padded rump a shove, just enough so the pegasus had to push himself up on the windowsill to keep from mushing into the wall. “We could classify this as a weapon of chemical warfare! I do not need to wake up with an extra head tomorrow.”
“Yeesh,” White moaned as he hopped out into the air, flapping his wings to rush himself up high. Black followed close behind, and in no time the two were off with Black leading them in the direction of the castle.
“Bwack...” White warned, afraid the wind and his pacifier would muffle him too much to be heard.
But Black turned to bare his fangs at his friend. “Did you forget that you’re the baby here? You don’t know any better, so let the big ponies make the big decisions.”
White ‘harumphed’, trying to stick out his tongue and blushing even more when he hit the rubber nipple in his mouth. “D’joo ferget yoos in a diaper too?”
“Discord’s in the details.” Black nose dived towards the castle gardens, leathery wings folded close. White followed suit at a slower dive, wings stretched out further to catch some air. When Black came to a glide after falling a ways and scoffed at White being so far behind. “Come on, I know traffic ponies that don’t play it as safe as you do.”
White furrowed his brow at Black as he caught up. “Sowwy if Ah don’t wike putting mahshelf in mortal peril.”
“At least you have the decency to apologize.” Black stuck his tongue out as he fluttered his wings for a landing, coming to a stop on gently swaying grass.
“Are yoo shure we’re shafe?” White asked, looking around as he landed next to his friend.
Black nodded and rubbed his hooves into the ground before looking up at a statue of a pony holding a flag and wearing a cape of sorts. “Hey, I’m supposed to be the one worrying about getting caught. You’re the nutjob that would walk around in diapers without a single care.”
“Jusht twyin’ to wook out fo woo.” White had a look of wonderment in his eyes, not really looking at anything in particular as he glanced over the statues, trees, bushes, and beds of flowers that surrounded them.
“Sarcasm. The lowest form of comedy. Maybe you’ve heard of it.” Chuckling, Black jumped up onto the base of the statue and stood up, examining the cut stone a bit deeper. “Hmm, I dunno, she almost has as much personality as you. Maybe if you smiled as much as she did, I could tell you apart.”
White snorted.
“Yeah, just like that. See, ain’t so hard.”
“Black, diss is...” White spun around a few times, disbelief crossing with the joy he was forced to wear. “Diss is gweat, weawy, bu’ how do you know diss ish gonna be otay?”
“Elementary, my not-so-dear White,” Black said as he jumped back down and trotted to a bed of flowers, wrinkling his nose a bit. “The smell more than anything, I just don’t understand. How can something that smells so good taste so bad.”
“Bwack, focush fo’ me.” White trotted into the flower patch with Black. “How do yoo know yoo’re shafe?”
Black pulled his head back up and gave a self-satisfied smile, clearly quite impressed with himself. “This is the most ignored spot in all of the grounds. The gardeners only come around on Fridays. There’s absolutely no tactical point of entrance into the castle from here, so it’s very rarely passed over by other guards. And just to make sure we’re really not caught, the princesses are having teatime around now, and they always have teatime. Nothing gets in the way. So no surprise visits from wondering royalty.”
White suckled on his pacifier through Black’s explanation, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “Wow. Datsh a wot of pwanning.”
“Don’t be too impressed with me,” Black replied, his tone the complete opposite of his words. “I mostly did this so I don’t get found in a huge diaper. If anything, most of that work was for me.”
White pulled Black into a hug. “Bu’ yoo did it so we could pway outshide togedar.”
Black scowled, begrudgingly returning the hug. “Drat, you’ve figured out my mushy motivation. Don’t let it go to your head, this is a once a month thing at best, every few months being the likely situation.”
“Shtill... fanks.” White nuzzled his cheek against his friend and pulled away, a shiver running down his spine and surging through his whole being. “Gosh, Ah’m sho happy, Ah dunno what to do.”
“How about a classic?” Black suggested, pushing White over into the flowers. “Tag, you’re it.” He hopped away, blowing a raspberry behind him.
“Heeey, dat’sh cheatin’!” White leapt up and ran after the offending bat-pony, laughing and giggled all the while.
The little game continued for some time, with the two going back and forth rather quickly even despite their attempts at hiding from each other. Banter, death threats, and terrible puns were passed along with being ‘it’, until the running around got to them both and they were resting in the original bed of flowers after Black had ended the playtime with a shout of ‘No tag backs’.
For the second time for them that night, silence surrounded them, holding them like a blanket. Yet White found the quiet a welcomed reprieve, coddling him the same way the flowers beneath him did.
But the quiet, like the night and the day, had to come to an end.
“We’d better get back home,” Black said, though didn’t immediately move to get up.
White let out a forlorn sigh as he seemed to deflate, the excitement leaving him in the breath to be replaced by longing. “Yoo know... it’sh nightsh wike dese where Ah wish da night weawy di wast forevah.”
“And then I’d never get the day off,” Black retorted. “Sorry, that’s another wish you’re going to have to share alone.”
White scuckled on his pacifier while black rested the back of his head on his hooves. “Hey, Bwack?” White asked.
“Yeah?” Black replied.
“Do you evah wook up at da stars an’ just wonder ‘why’?”
Black nodded, though he doubted White could see. “Everypony does, White. Most ponies just don’t talk about it.”
“Hmm... thuckle.”
“That’s enough fun for one night.” Black pushed himself up and pulled White up with him. “Now I gotta fly back home, take this off, and fly all the way back to the armory. I hope you’re happy.”
White did not let go of Black’s hoof, and instead pulled him into yet another hug. “More den wordsh can say.”
“Drat, this was supposed to bring your words back.” Black patted the top of White’s head, then pushed the pegasus away so he could flap back into the air. “Come on, I seriously need to get going.”
White wordlessly flew up after Black, once again letting the pat-pony take the lead. In very little time, the two were back home and through the window to the cozy safety of their room.
Black wasted no time taking his diaper off, while White yawned and looked at his writing desk.
“Don’t touch it,” Black warned, checking the insides of a satchel hanging on one of his bedposts.
White thought about protesting, if the furrow in his brow were anything to go by, but grinned around his soother instead. Trotting to his side of the room and picking up Bear Bottom, White yawned and came to rest on the pink of his bed, wriggling his legs to get extra deep into his diaper.
“Have a good one,” Black said curtly as he slung his little bag around his neck.
“Hey, Bwack?”
Black turned his head to look at White. “Yes?”
White snickered. “Can Ah pwetty pwease wiff wots of fresh apple pies have a diapee pat?”
“You’re dry, right?”
White nodded and hugged his bear closer. “Yoo know I hate goin’ beddy bye-bye wet.”
With perhaps the most amount of shame Black would ever physically display, the bat-pony walked up to his friend’s pink bed, raised a hoof, and gave three little pats to the front of White’s diaper. The pegasus gave a little squeal of glee and squirmed some more.
“You’re weird,” Black said with a smirk. “Goodnight, sweet prince. Let flights of angels sing you to sleep, because I’m sure as heck not doing it.”
White spat his pacifier out. “Thanks, Black. For everything.”
Black gave an earnest smile and walked towards the door. “If it makes you happy.” The candles in the room went out as leather wings blew a gust of wind across the room, Black closing the door right after.
White snuggled his head a bit further into his pillow, clutching Bear Bottom into his chest, and allowed his eyes to close.
But not for the last time that night.
________________________________________
Black yawned as he opened the door to the room he shared with White, doing his best to shield his eyes from the offensive morning sun blaring through the window. “Ola, my comrade. Get any writing done this morning?”
As Black has expected, White was sitting at his writing desk, hunched over a stack of papers. Black was moderately pleased to see that the pile of crumpled parchment wasn’t any bigger from last night. But his minor excitement faded when he saw White was snoozing away, using his paper of a terrible pillow and occasionally letting out a thuckle while he dreamed away.
“What am I going to do with you?” Black asked himself as he trotted over to his friend, pondering what action to take. It was both their day and night off, so he could theoretically let White sleep the day away. But he wouldn’t get much writing done, and sleeping like that couldn’t be good for his back.
After a very small inner debate, Black picked White up, making sure not to touch the soaked diaper he wore, as demonstrated by the faded sun prints. Out of the corner of his eye, Black saw that at least the first page of the stack was filled with words, so once again his hope flared. He set White back in his bad, setting the toy bear in the sleeping stallion's reach, and trotted up to the writing desk to greedily take the pages and read away.
It wasn’t his story, though. The apparent title of the new story was ‘Feelings’ and started as such;
Another piece of parchment wound up in a crumpled heap near a bin with a few dozen others...
