Extra, Extra!

Print Inkwell woke up with his face smooshed into his brother’s flank, drooling onto his ass. A long night of video games caused them to drop where they had sat, and somehow he’d fallen on his brother’s back half. He woke up bleary-eyed, his head pounding, unsticking his cheek from his brother’s cutie mark. He glanced at the clock; 7:10; school started at 8:00. As he rubbed his eyes, he felt Mango Smoothie stir, and the sudden realization hit him that he had been sleeping on his brother’s plot.

Print shot up as fast as his legs would let him, gagging while he scrambled to the shower. He turned the water on full-blast, not even waiting for it to heat up, scrubbing his face violently with a loofah, still too shocked and disgusted to vocalize an “eww” or “ugh.”

“Print?” Mango Smoothie called sleepily from the other room. “Why is my flank all wet?” Print froze, his eyes shooting open.

“Were you sleeping on…” Mango’s voice trailed off. Print heard him gasp in realization, then gallop towards the bathroom, jumping into the shower in an act of illogic that only the recently-awoken sleep-deprived can make. He crashed into Print, knocking both of them off their hooves. To both their horrors, Mango landed on top of Print.

“You’re making it worse!” Print screamed, fumbling to push Mango out of the shower. His brother’s groin landed right near his face; Print closed his eyes and shoved as hard as he could. Mango’s now even wetter body made a squealing squelch against the side of the tub as he flopped out, stunned and groggy.

“You’re making it worse!” Mango shouted back at him, his long black mane sticking in his eyes. He brushed it away from his face, scrambling to his hooves to rinse his flank in the sink. “You had to fall asleep on my ass!” he whined as he turned the faucet on and shimmied his plot into the basin.

“Uuuuuughhhhhh,” Print moaned as he scrubbed his face with lye soap for the third time. “‘One more game’ you said. ‘It’ll be a quick one’ you said,” he mocked.

“Yeah, well… If you didn’t suck so bad, I could have beaten you quicker!” Mango Smoothie retorted, squirting hoof-soap onto his flank, since it was the only stuff by the sink.

“Oh, right, blame me for this,” Print said, rolling his eyes and shampooing his mane. It normally looked wind-swept and suave, but a night of pinning it between Mango’s smoothie cutie mark and his own thick skull left it looking greasier than a plate of hay fries.

“Your cutie mark should be a tent,” Mango asserted, working the soap into a lather. “Freaking camper.” Print began to reply when Mango shushed him; they could hear hooves coming up the stairs.

“Well, it’s certainly unlike you two to get up so early,” their mother crooned from around the corner in her cultured Ponjabi accent. “But I can’t compla-” she stopped herself as she turned the corner and saw Mango with his plot in the sink.

“Uhhh… What are you doing?” she asked, staring in abject disbelief. Mango and Print stood stock-still in stunned silence.

“Getting ready for school…?” Print offered nervously from the behind the shower curtain.

“...On a Saturday…?” she asked, incredulous. Mango facehoofed, and Print immediately flopped down to sleep right then and there in the running water.

They woke up again much later, separate from each other this time. Print's head pounded and his eyes felt dry and achey. He dragged himself downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of tea and some toast, noting it was 1:30 in the afternoon. Mango followed soon behind, plopping himself in a kitchen chair with a mug of coffee.

"Look who's finally decided to join the world of the living," their mother tutted as she strode into the kitchen. Ordinarily Papaya Smoothie was out of the house all day running the "Smoothie Smoothie", but she always came home for lunch in the afternoon.

"...Brains..." Mango croaked, a little grin lighting up his muzzle.

She levitated two plates over to them. "Potatoes," she corrected.

"Thanks," Print said gratefully before tucking in to the fried potatoes ravenously. His mom tousled his mane lovingly, but gave him a stern, yet gentle buffet on the ear. Before he could swallow his potato to protest, she boxed Mango's ear as well.

"That was for staying up all night playing video games," she scolded, waggling a hoof at them. Her expression softened, and she gave each of them a kiss on the cheek. "And that was because I love you both," she said, pulling back from the table and trotting out the door. "I'll see you both for supper!" she called.

Print and Mango rubbed their ears, looking at ear other in bewilderment.

"Dude, she's..." Mango began.

"...whacked out of her head," Print finished.

"She was worse when I was younger," Mango said, munching on his spuds. "Makes a hell of a potato, though."

"Yeah. How was she worse?" Print asked, apprehensively, sipping his tea.

"Oh, old Ponjabi disclipline," he chortled. "Once she wrapped me in a blanket and hit me with a stick."

"Mom?!" Print asked, surprised. She was known to thwack them on the head every now and again, but he couldn't imagine her going so far.

"Well, it was more like a sleeping bag," Mango reminisced, "and the stick was more like a twig. I don't remember feeling anything. I just stood there getting the linguini like 'You got me! Nothin I can do; you got me.'," he said, smiling his goofy grin.

Print stayed silent, knoshing on his potatoes. It sounded like her, all right. Traditional, but softer than a feather pillow when it came to disciplining them. Their dad was another story. He was known to make them copy out lines of old Ponjabi poetry as punishment for something as trifling as leaving a light on when they left the room. Even when he was just learning, Print breezed through it, while it still took Mango hours to struggle through.

"At least it wasn't 'Gunka galunka'," Mango mused, sharing the same thought as Print. "My hooves still cramp up every time I see the freaking Ponjabi alphabet."

"Meh," Print said nonchalantly. "Never bugged me."

Mango shot him a look. "S'because you write faster than most people can talk, man, come on."

Print held up his hooves in a weak surrender. "Alright, sorry," he conceded. "What do you want to do today?"

"Hmm, I don't know..." he said, glancing at the clock. "It’s 1:35... Kai's probably stoned already,’ he concluded, sounding annoyed.

"Yeah, like as not," Print said. He liked seeing Kaimalomalohumunuka'oliva'a in school, but he wasn't much of a fan of his behavior elsewhere. The drugs and general atmosphere of his house brought back too many memories of a foster home or two. He didn't feel like reliving that, and although Mango didn't mind as much, he only hung out with the big Hoofalulu native to keep him out of trouble. "Probably better we didn't see him."

"Yeah, I suppose not," Mango agreed. "Hmm, it's been a little sparse since Lucky moved away..."

"Yeah, that sucks..." Print nodded. Lucky Charm had been Mango's main gaming partner for a long time, and had helped Print get up to speed in a lot of things, from how to play Road Brawler to the basics of not being a total dork all the time.

"What about your friends?" Mango suggested. "The journalists?"

"Reporters," Print corrected. Print ran the Canterlot High school newspaper, the Fast Times, which was reputed as one of the better high school newspapers in Equestria. Everyone on the newspaper’s small staff was friendly, but had more quirks than a poorly-written program. "Emmett's probably in church and Ee-sang is at an AngelRing tournament all weekend."

"He's good at AngelRing?" Mango said with mild surprise.

"Yep, he and his team made top eight at Equestrian Cyber Games last year," Print said, taking another sip of tea.

"Woah," Mango said, sounding quite impressed. He'd always been a fan of watching pro-gaming, and AngelRing was the hottest shooter at the moment. "Well, then, I guess we're on our own, bro."

"Oh well, I don't really mind," Print said.

"Neither do I," Mango agreed. A coy smile crept onto his face. "Want to go hit on fillies at the mall?"

"What do you want me to do, play bad cop? You know you're the bad cop."

"You wound me, you wound me," Mango giggled, still smiling. "That'd never work anyway."

Print looked him up and down judgmentally. "Not with what you're wearing."

Mango looked down at his boxers and tanktop, scratching his scruffy chin. "Mares go crazy for this."

Print cast him a sarcastic glare, popping his last potato in his mouth and sashaying to the sink to drop his plate off.

"If you were Soarin the Wonderbolt," he snarked. "Unless you've got wings under there the mares aren't going to bite."

"Good! I don't want them to bite!" Mango retorted, shoveling his last three little potatoes in his muzzle, hopping up to follow his brother upstairs.

"Do you seriously want me to wingman for you?" Print sighed, slipping into a well-pressed collared shirt.

"Not really, man," Mango said, carelessly tossing the idea away. "You always end up making friends with the fillies and cockblocking me."

Print was taken aback, but understood nonetheless.

"Maybe you should try making friends with them first," he offered, doing up his buttons and slipping on his casual undervest.

"Maybe you should stop being so gay," Mango retorted.

"At least I didn't hit on my cousin," Print snapped.

"Our cousin, and I'm sure even you, the biggest queen, can admit that Lac was hot," Mango contended, quickly adding: "Besides, she showed up late to the reunion and I didn't recognize her."

"Hitting on anypony at a family reunion is generally ill-advised," his younger brother said serenely. "Besides, she was pregnant."

"Again," Mango huffed, flustered, "I didn't recognize her, and she wasn't showing."

Print looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"She had the foal, like, three weeks later," he said, straightening himself out in front of the mirror. "You can't actually be serious, right?"

"You said you thought Naan was hot," Mango countered angrily, turning away to hide his blushing face.

"I stand by it; he is," Print said, flushing a little. "But he's still my cousin, so I didn't hit on him. I really don't care if you have a fetish, dude," Print said, trying to end the discussion. He hated talking about his own sexuality, and even though Mango was more blatant about his, he didn't want to keep talking about it when it was clearly bothering him.

Mango stayed silent, still blushing heavily, eventually pointing to the TV.

"1v1, No items, Coyote only, Last Waypoint!" he shouted, hoping to redirect the conversation.

"Challenge accepted," Print chirped, happy for the break. A few matches of Smack Bros later and all talk of sex was forgotten. Print stole a glance at the clock: 2:45.

"Want to see a movie?" he asked.

"Without a filly? I'm not a loser, man," he said, his eyes staying fixated on the screen.

"Yeah, let's sit in and play games all day," Print snarked.

"What do you want to do then, huh?" Mango chided as his controller clicked and clacked. Print sucked his tongue for a moment, thinking it over.

"Want to make dinner for mom and dad?"

Mango let out a cry of laughter like a phoenix’s mating call. "Us? Make dinner? You're totally insane," he hooted.

"Why not?" Print said defensively. "It can't be that hard."

"You can try, dude," Mango sniggered. Print stood up.

"Come on," he said, "we're going shopping."