Author's Note

If there is any explicit sex involved in this chapter, I'll be sure to let you know through these author's notes!

-cc

Chapter 1: Busiest of Days

Only a few weeks into his job at the Cloudsdale Mental Hospital, the young griffequus carefully went through his paperwork. In a small room, he sat alone, shuffling through papers and letters as he organized them appropriately. The stack of papers was manageable at this point, but had he left it like this it would have gotten exponentially worse. Most of them were case files, but a few were needed confidential patient information for the doctors down the hall.

The room itself was a quiet, plain white room with a light fixture that hung from the center ceiling. All the papers laid in stacks on a large, wooden desk with baskets and cabinet drawers just behind the pegasus. With a focused look on his face, the pegasus sifted through each paper. His arms were gloved in a pair of dark blue rubbery material.

A small name tag hung around his neck that read “Existential Panache - Assistant”.

Just as he finished putting a bunch of relevant papers into a satchel at his side, a pony pushed through the dark wooden door. The pony, a normal pegasus in cladestent green and blue colors, brought a bunch of files to the back drawers. The pegasus paid no mind to Panache.

One flap of his wings let the yellow pegasus leap out of the room in a hurry, and down the well lit, clean hallways of marble and stone. Pegasus ponies of various colors went up and down the halls passed him as he made his way to the office just at the end. The sound of chatter and clopping of hooves was indecipherable in the sounds of moaning and groaning from the patients that lay in wait. While the hospital does help ponies with mental health issues, the hospital’s full name is “Cloudy Charnel’s Hospital for the Mentally Ill and Emergency Services” but due to the name being too macabre for most ponies to say out loud, as well as its’ length, everypony calls it “Cloudsdale Mental Hospital”. Despite the dark nature of its true name, the hospital has a very low death rate.

Panache pressed his gloved arm over the handle of the door, and opened it. Pulling it out of the way, he entered, and walked over to the doctor’s secretary. A pony with a pair of orange rimmed glasses that were shaped like watermelons, as well as a mane put up in a bun with an equally orange coat, happily took the files and paperwork with her hooves.

“Is that everything? I’m not sure if I got it all.” The yellow pegasus pat the back of his head. With an unsure smile, he spoke up, “I can go back and double check, just to be sure!”

“No, sweetie. You’re fine.” Her slight country-like drawl leaked out, “I got everythang I need, thank ya kindly. Uh, I just need you to check on Nurse Promare. I think she needed help in room 201.”

He flinched, “O-Oh yeah? I’ll be right over there, then. No problem.”

“Thanks, Existy.” The mare smiled happily, and went back to whatever it was she was doing.

Exist turned around and took a stroll out of the room. His wings furled to his sides, he stayed out of everypony’s way. After letting out a huff of air, he made his way down the long hallway once more.

Something was on his mind. Thoughts of what the Nurse was working on and what kind of uncomfortable comments they might make. His thoughts wandered further into memories of them having to do ridiculous things to patients to satiate the nurse. A cloud swirled around his emotions as his face turned toward the door labeled 201. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

Before him was the nurse clad in a cap and scrubs. Promare seemed to be an ivy blue mare with white, and teal striped mane and tail. Her cutie mark was simply a epidermic needle. Of course, like the rest of the ponies in the hospital, she was a pegasus. Turning around to see Exist enter through the door, she flinched with a slight twitch in her eye.

“Change your gloves, please! The patient is irritated right now.” She said, going back to a taupe and blue pony writhing around on the bed. The pony she was working with had been strapped down.

He did as he was told, rolling his eyes. Taking off the rubber gloves, and placing them in a trash can nearby, his darker colored arms were revealed. Cat paws were at each end, and quickly they put on new rubber gloves.

“I hate those restraints…” He muttered, thinking back to the ghastly faces patients made, “So unnecessary.”

“What was that?” The mare said, expertly pulling medicine into a sterile needle. “...Anyway, I need you to hold his head still for me. Quickly!”

He nodded warily, getting over to the pony’s turning head. It seemed the pony wasn’t able to say anything intelligible as they seemed to growl as Exist got closer. Taking in a sharp breath, Exist quickly put his hands around the pony’s head and held it the best that he could. Despite the estranged pegasus’ thrashing, Exist was able to keep still.

Promare carefully approached the patient with needle in hooves. Despite being hooves, she was able to hold the delicate object with a gentle finesse. Slowly, she pressed the needle into the pony’s neck and injected the fluid inside.

After a few moments, the pony seemed to calm down. It closed their eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Nurse Promare went to her notes, and began to write something down.

“Uhh, do you need help with anything else?” Exist said, putting his paws back on the clean floor.

The nurse just put the needle into a safety bag. The metal glistened in the plastic container as she placed it into disposal. Without another word, she motioned for the griffequus to get closer.

She quickly turned around her notes, and put them into Exist’s snout. Taking the notes with a slight twinge in his eyes, she said, “Look this over, and get some water for him. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

With that, the Nurse left the room and let the pegasus to his own devices. Exist, now holding the important notes in his paw, began to look them over. His green eyes peered through each set of information but only absorbing the important bits and ignoring the frivolous or overly detailed explanations.

He closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. Eyebrows furrowed against a vein in his forehead as he thought about all of the other things he’ll have to do today.

…

Later in the day, Exist found himself helping out one of the psychiatrists with their patients. Now in a quiet room tucked away in the other side of the hospital, Exist took a seat next to a calm stallion. In front of them, laying on a comfortable couch of sorts, was another stallion lost in thought.

The room they were in was well lit. Windows brought in plenty of light from behind and to the side of the chairs they sat in while behind the patient’s couch was a pair of bookcases. The door to the room sat at one end, while at the other end was the psychiatrist’s desk and chair. Beneath them was a dark blue carpeting of sorts.

Around the psychiatrist’s neck was a familiar name card that read “Mindful Meaning - Psychiatric Help I”. Mind seemed to be wearing some sort of white collared shirt, with paired suit and tie. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but more of a formality in this pony’s case. His coat was a greyish-silver color, with his mane and tail being white.

No longer wearing rubber gloves, Exist had been taking notes for the psychiatrist as they asked the patient questions. Mindful spoke up, “How do you feel about the medication you have been taking?”

“You ask me this every week. Nothing has changed!” The patient spoke up irritably as they scratched at their face a bit. “I still feel the spiders under my skin.”

“Can you describe to me this feeling as it is now?” He spoke up.

The pony lowered their eyes as they thought for a moment. The words slowly came out, “There’s like… little eggs of spiders being hatched. They’re crawling around and laying eggs, so that more and more walk around and annoy me all day.”

“...Okay.” The psychiatrist thought to themselves for a moment, “Do the spiders hurt?”

“No… just annoying little bites and pricks.” The pony rubbed their arms.

“I understand.” The psychiatrist turned to Exist, “Write this down. We’re going to up the dosage, and send a slip to Cloudless Summer.”

The pegasus psychiatrist then pulled out some of his notes, and began to jot things down. Meanwhile, the yellow pegasus looked over his notes and occasionally looked over at the patient. His eyes questioning the safety and well meaning of the pony’s sanity as he saw a few interesting aspects of their psychological profile.

“We’re almost finished here. I just have one more question for you.” The psychiatrist put down their notes and turned towards the patient, “Is there anything you want to talk about, or tell us?”

“Well, I-” The pony looked over at Exist, stopping mid-sentence, and eyed him with a sudden fear in his eyes, “He has spider hands!!”

Exist blinked for a moment, but didn’t speak up. The psychiatrist spoke in his stead, “I assure you, he’s just fine. ...Uh, Assistant, could you leave us be for now? Thank you for your help.”

As the patient started to whimper and scratch himself more vigorously, Exist slowly got up from his seat. His wings carefully whisked him through the door and he was out of sight.

Out into the hallway, he stifled a feeling of guilt as thoughts of his shift being nearly over filled his mind. Thoughts of his home and what he’d eat for dinner came to him. The cozy warmth of his living room and his many blankets calmed him down. Finally, thoughts of his boyfriend visiting gave him all the energy he needed to finish out the day.

…

Now late in the day, Exist’s final duties were performing any menial tasks left. A range of paperwork to leftover cleanup of patient rooms. His paws would always curl up in apprehension if he had to clean up a room as he knew that it was always something too disgusting or just annoying to clean up that was left. He knew that these pegasi meant well but sometimes they were just a little too absent minded when it came to the worker food chain.

The sounds of closing doors and soft goodbyes could be heard as Exist went down to his last duty. Lucky for him, it was only to change the coffee filter in the break room. Nothing too big. Once he was finished with that, he could leave. Quickly, he opened the door to the breakroom to be met with the stingy smell of coffee and donuts.

Ignoring the ponies taking their empty bags out of the fridge in the back, he went straight to work on the coffee machine. His paws unfurling the hook on the side of the hoof-pumped machine, he took a look inside - taking a step on top of a nearby step stool. Of course, it was gunked up with old coffee grinds and dirty water. It reminded him of pulped nuts smashed into a watery paste.

One of the ponies trotted up next to Exist as he was working on the machine, and spoke up, “How are you doin’, Existen….Exist?”

The yellow griffequus flinched. He slowly turned to meet the pony from his height, “Oh, hi! Umm…”

“Highlander.” The stallion replied with a smile. This pegasus sported a royal purple colored coat with a dark-grey mane and tail. His cutie mark seemed to be a swirl with a wing striking through.

“Sorry! I’m terrible with names.” Exist tried to smile back, but found it hard as the time of day weighed down on him. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to chat. ...Today was just really busy. I can’t believe how many ponies came in this week.” The pony dramatically leaned against the table that the machine had been sitting on. “It’s nice to have a nice chat after a long day, yeah?”

Exist’s eyes looked off at the machine and back at the pegasus with apprehension, “Y-Yeah.” He clenched his teeth.

“Heh, yeah… Well, lemmie tell you, there was this patient I had to deal with. Hoo boy, he was a nut. Couldn’t sit still, had to get another nurse in to keep him from trying to break his food tray…” The pegasus went on as Exist went back to cleaning up the coffee machine, “...but then I got everything together and everypony is where they need to be. Uh, what about you?”

“Huh? Oh, I had a few odd things done. Job things… haha.” A few parts clanked as Exist put the machine slowly back into place, “Today was exhausting though, definitely agree. ...I’m just really tired right now.”

“Me too me too. Uh…” The pony shuffled a little bit, “Would you be up to out to dinner somewhere?”

Without missing a beat, Exist replied, “Not today, but I suppose I’d like to. I’d just have to ask my coltfriend first.” Weakly, he smiled as he closed the machine.

The pony pulled back a bit in shock, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to intrude! I just don’t have a lot going on, and I wanted to hang out with somepony, y’know?”

“It’s fine.” Exist stepped down from the stool, “Well, I’m kinda busy this week doing errands for my new home. ...Hm. I’m not sure when would be best. Maybe you could ask me at the weekend?”

The pegasus nodded as a visible flush went to his face, “Well, uh, I’ll talk to you later, then.”

Before Exist could reply, the purple pony quickly went out of the door. Exist’s paws pushed the stool to the side and sighed heavily. He shook his head, a regretful wave rushing through his mind. In the air hung the sound of clamor as ponies continued to clean up, but in the yellow pony’s mind was the growing sound of spiraling thoughts.

…

His paws pressed the front door of his house open with a huff. There were bags under his eyes as Exist sauntered over to his newly bought couch. The late afternoon light burned through his windows as he pushed his face into a pink, fluffy pillow. Sounds of the summer sun setting had danced over the pony’s back.

Thoughts swirled through Exist’s mind. His legs and paws ached as he pressed into the cushions. The day was long and arduous for the pony. Why did they have him do so much this time? It was unusual for him to be around so many different sections in such short periods of time. Another grumble went into the pillow.

The sound of a knock at the door made the pony flinch. Lifting his head, he yelled out, “It’s open! Come in!”

He heard the door open before a familiar smell swept into the room. The smell of fresh mail and cologne filled the air. Exist’s nose happily accepted the smells as he turned around: it was Care Package, of course!

“You’re here!” Exist said, making room on his couch. His back arched a bit as he pushed himself up onto the arm rest. “I’m glad you could make it this time.”

“Heya, heh. I just got caught up in some special deliveries.” Care Package’s yellow coat glistened in the sun as he took a seat on the couch. “I’m off duty now, and they CAN’T get me until tomorrow!”

“That’s great, babe.” Exist smiled softly, resting his eyes. “Nopony is out to get you now.”

The red-maned pony chuckled, tossing his hat and satchel to the side. Now only in a blue uniform, he pulled himself over Exist and cuddled close. “I get to be with my cute giggle colt.”

Exist smiled with an anxious huff. Their warm bodies pressed close to each other under the glistening sunlight. Their bodies rose and fell with each breath as they took the time to wuzzle against each other. Bodies flipped and turned on the comfortable couch as they got more comfortable.

Care Package gave the yellow pony a little nibble on the neck when they turned to face each other. Straddling over atop Exist, he made sure the pony knew how much he liked him in this moment. Blushing faces pressed close to each other as they continued to cuddle.

“You always smell so good.” A yellow nose pressed into the mail-stallion’s bare chest. Care Package had opened most of his uniform up for easier access. “Do you do that on purpose?”

His stallion head lay on Exist’s fluffy yellow mane when he answered, “I just like it. Makes me feel better about myself.”

“Awww.” Exist pulled him in tightly.

“E-Exist! You’re… crushing me…!” The stallion uttered fidgeting under the squeeze.

“Sorry sorry!” He softened his grip, looking dreamily up at Care. “I don’t see you that much, is all.”

Care Package rubbed a hoof on the side of Exist’s head and lightly shushed him, “I’m here now, heh.”

A relieving sigh escaped from Exist as he arched his back a bit against the couch, “Mmm.”

Their lips touched under the sunlight. The lights in their eyes sparkled in glistening, tangible crystals as they pressed forward into each other. They let themselves divulge in their desire for one another with hooves and paws running wild around their bodies.

Between huffs and shortness of breath, the mail-stallion spoke up, and rhetorically asked, “Baby, I’ve been missin’ you.”

“We’re just hard working ponies.” Exist chuckled, snuggling his muzzle into his coltfriend’s neck.

Care Package shivered with delight as he felt something cooking down below make itself known. “Mmmhmmm. And you know us hard working ponies need a break every now and then.”

“I agree.”

The afternoon went on through this rare event. Together they shared in each other’s bodies like they were molded in love. Sounds of their laughter, and mutterings were encapsulated within the warm, cloudy home. On and on it went, the sun lowering until it was replaced by the beautiful moon.