That Time We Swapped Spit

        “How could I have been so stupid?” Button growled in frustration as he tried to maneuver the pixelated pony on the screen around all of the traps and enemies trying to kill him. “After everything I did to him it’s no wonder he’s moved on.”

Button wildly jerked the joystick, too frustrated to actually focus on the game. “If I had just gone to talk to him sooner then maybe we could’ve...” A particularly tough segment in the level caught Button off guard, and despite his calculated joystick movement and expert button pressing, his pixelated hero soon found himself at the bottom of yet another pitfall.

“Horsefeathers!” Button yelled, dropping his controller in disbelief. A quick moment of seething and the anger bled right out of him and he deflated backward onto the floor near his bed.

“What in Equestria is wrong with me?” There was a quick, fluttery knock at his window. Button’s heart nearly skipped a beat in his chest. There was only one pony that knocked on his window like that…

The earth pony jumped to his hooves, peeling back the blinds to find the one thing he didn’t believe he’d see.

“Rumble?” Button asked as he cracked open the window, thanking Celestia herself that his mother hadn’t had the chance to replace it due to his disaster area of a room. “What in Equestria are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.” Button said, opening the window so that Rumble could get inside. The pegasus floated into the room seamlessly, landing squarely in the middle of his friend’s room and taking a quick moment to collect himself while Button shut the window.

“Why’d you come back?” Button asked, clearly both confused and surprised. Rumble sighed.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened earlier today.” Rumble explained, moving to sit on the end of his friend’s bed as he did so. “I came here hoping maybe we could talk. Just the two of us.”

“How did you get here so fast?” Button asked, joining his friend in the open spot next to him.

“I boarded the train right after yours.”

“You wanted to talk to me that badly?”

“Of course I did. Did you think I was happy with the way that went?”

“You seemed pretty content with Ice Cream Swirl or whatever her name is.”

“Vanilla Swirl,” Rumble corrected.

“Whatever. Why don’t you just go talk to her if you’re in such a talkative mood?” Rumble sighed again, louder this time. “Because I don’t wanna talk to her.”Button said nothing. Instead, he took to staring at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Rumble breathed, getting up from the edge of the bed and moving toward the window. “It was stupid of me to come here, I should just go.” Rumble pushed open the window, the hinges as rebellious as ever.

“Rumble, wait.” Button waited for Rumble to turn back toward him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Button, what-”

“I was the one being an ass. I messed around with your feelings and even used other ponies just so I could make you feel miserable.” Rumble pulled his head back into the room, turning toward his friend.

“You’re not the only one at fault here y’know.”

“Yeah, but that was no reason for me to do what I did.”

“I don’t even care about that stuff anymore, I just want to move past this whole shit show and be friends again.”

“Honestly, Rumble, nothing would make me happier.” smiled warmly at one another before Rumble moved completely inside the room again. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” The two friends stood in an awkward sort of tongue tied silence until a breeze from the window Rumble had so carelessly left open blew in and knocked a photo right off of Button’s bedside dresser.

“Oh, horsefeathers,” Button gasped as the picture frame shattered on the floor. The earth pony scrambled toward his desk, sweeping away the bits of broken glass to inspect the photo in the frame.

“Isn’t that your dad?” Rumble asked from over his shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s one of the only picture I have of him.” There was a long moment of silence as Button picked up the pieces of glass with his hoof and deposited them into the trashbin.

“Sorry,” Rumble said under his breath, to his surprise, Button chuckled.

“It’s fine, I don’t even really remember him.” Rumble’s tiny smile sagged downward. “And from what my mom tells me about him he wasn’t that nice of a stallion anyway.”

“You don’t have any memories of him at all.”

“Nope, not even the day this photo was taken. It might as well have been like he wasn’t even there.” Rumble moved to stand beside Button.

“I know what it’s like. I didn’t exactly have the best relationship with my dad.”

“Is that why it’s always been just you and Thunderlane?”

“Pretty much. My dad left when we were both pretty little. My mom was pretty torn up about it but after a while we all just kinda forgot about him.”

“Do you still think about him? Like, do you think about what it would be like if he was still around?”

“It’s like you said. He’s been gone for so long he might as well have not even been there at all.”

“Yeah…” There was a heavy, drawn out moment of silence before Button finally decided to put the picture back on the dresser where it belonged. “Let’s stop talking about this, okay. It’s kind of a downer.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Rumble said, flopping supine on his friend’s bed. Button took a little extra time to make sure the picture was secure in the now broken frame before going back to idly sitting next to his friend.

“How’s your wife doing?”

“She’s...good.” Rumble replied solemnly, almost as if the words pained him to say.

“Everything okay with the baby?” Button pressed.

“Yeah, the baby’s fine…”

“Are you fine?” Rumble sat up to look his friend in the eyes, the sadness and regret displayed there spoke volumes louder and more clearly than anything Rumble could have said to him.

I dunno,  I just….I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Rumble took a few breaths in preparation to speak and all at once Button noticed just how sad and exhausted he looked.

“Do you know what it’s like-to wake up every day and realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your entire life and nothing you can ever do or say can fix it.”

Button’s gaze drifted toward the floor.

“Do you even love her, Rumble?”

Rumble threw himself back onto the bed.

“Honestly?” Rumble looked up toward Button who nodded. “No.”

“So then why did you have sex with her?” Button let Rumble have a long minute to think about his response.

“I dunno. I guess for me, it wasn’t even about the sex. She made me feel like she wanted me there. Like I was important…” There was an extended minute of silence and then Button spoke up.

“...I’m sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t important.”

Rumble grabbed Button by the neck and pulled him into a friendly noogie. “I already said I forgive you, you butt.”

“Stop. “Button laughed. “You’re gonna mess up my mane.” The earth pony colt managed to wiggle his way out of his friend’s girp and put some distance between them. However, Rumble was by far faster than him and before Button could even get off the bed he was tackled and pinned underneath Rumble.

“I’m gonna mess up more than your mane,” Rumble growled, attacking Button’s lips with his own. The two colts began a session of impassioned kissing that may have been their sloppiest and most lust filled yet. In fact, their session of face sucking was so intense that somewhere along the line, an errant limb from one of the colts jostled Button’s bedside dresser and knocked the picture positioned on top of it to the floor again.

Initially, Button paid it no mind, as he was so lost in the throes of their kiss; but a sudden and shocking realization kicked Button’s brain back to its senses.

“Rumble, stop.” Button panted as he broke the kiss. “We can’t do this.”

“What? Why?”

Button wrestled his way out from underneath Rumble to a sitting position. “You have a family and everything now. It wouldn’t be right.”

“But I wanna be with you.”

Button sighed. “I know. I wanna be with you too, but you have a kid on the way, Rumble. Do you want them to grow without a father like we did?” Rumble tried but for the life of him could not come up with a suitable reply to such a question. Button got up from the bed and picked the photo up, placing it neatly back on his dresser.

“She doesn’t have to know…” Rumble whispered.

Button frowned. “Rumble, c’mon.”

“I’m serious, Button. I mean, we both want the same thing, what’s the big deal? It’s not like I’m just gonna leave them or something.”

“Because it wouldn’t be fair to her or to me.” Button took up a post next to the window, offering Rumble a sympathetic half smile. “I think you should just take some time to think about what’s best for your family. ”

Rumble gawked openly at his friend. “Come on, there has to be some way…”

Button turned his eyes toward the floor and chewed his bottom lip, choosing to remain stubbornly obstinate. Rumble took this as his cue to leave, peeling himself off the bed and lumbering toward the window. The pegasus opened the window and gave a sad, sidelong glance toward his friend.

“Can you at least promise me you’ll think about it?”

Button refused to meet his eye. “I don’t know…”

Rumble turned toward the open window. “Alright, I guess I’ll see you later?”

“Sure…” With an awkward shuffle of his hooves and a flex of his wings, Rumble flew out the window and into the star kissed night.