Roomies

It had been a good evening. Chrys conked out early, in the middle of the movie in fact. Octavia and Vinyl bid their goodbyes, and left, however Scootaloo decided to stay over. Weave didn’t end up getting much sleep.

The following day, Starlight was vegging in her chair, reading ‘Spell Matrices for Dummies.’ Chrys was on the couch zoning out to something on the TV. Supposedly she’d be out of it for a few days while her body adjusted. Scootaloo was sitting at the table, blinking sleepily at her cup of coffee.

Weave was humming to himself as he prepared a breakfast for everyone, making sure not to burn any individual part of it with multitasking green glows on just about everything flying around the kitchen. Some days it very much paid to be a spell researcher unicorn. Quite literally. And other days it was simply helpful to make sure everyone under his roof got food before they conked out from exhaustion.

“Smells good.” Scoots commented, sipping at her coffee.

“Hey, Chrys, how are you holding up?” Star called across the room.

“Mmmm, bleh.” Chrys grumbled out.

“Mood.” Star said, turning a page.

Seems everyone was worn out today. Well, everyone except Weave, who was still on the rebound from what Chrys had done to him when she was still her bigger self. He was still, perky, would be the word for it. As Scoot’s hips could attest to from last night.

Plates began floating out from the kitchen and found their ponies to sit in front of, with Weave’s following him slightly behind his head as he took his own place at the table. He paused for a moment as he passed by Scootaloo, before pecking her on the cheek and sitting next to her.

“At least somepony’s got some life to them.” Scoots smiled as she slowly started on her food.

“Got any plans for the day?” Star asked, half-paying attention to her book, and half-trying to make sure the food got in her mouth.

“Sit.” Chrys yawned. “Cope.”

“That’s a good plan,” the stallion of the group nodded solemnly. “I, meanwhile, am simply going to go over my mail, see what new requests have come in and see if they’re at all viable before picking a new project.”

A piece of mail stood out, from Ponyville General.

“Whazzat?” Scoots pointed at it. “You get tests done.”

“Oh, has to be from the small cock club. He got rejected for having too massive a dick.” Star spoke up.

“Well she’s not wrong.” Scoots giggled.

The stallion rolled his eyes before opening the letter up and reading it.

To Mister Intricate Weave;

Some of your recent spellwork has come to our attention, namely after a physical for a one Miss Scootaloo. Our medical unicorns are very interested in the spell you cast to improve Miss Scootaloo’s stunted wings. We’d be very interested in learning such a spell, for it could prove beneficial to numerous pegasi with similar conditions.

Whenever you are free, if you could come by the hospital.

Doctor Redheart, PHD.

“Huh,” the stallion hummed to himself, before glancing over at Scootaloo. “Redheart wants me at the hospital. Something about the spell I used to fix your wings. They’re not giving you any issues, right?”

“No. But the doc was surprised at how well your spell worked.” Scoots shrugged, flapping her wings for emphasis.

“Everyone’s having medical issues minus the one guy in the room.” Star said with a chuckle.

“Hey, I’ll take it,” the unicorn stallion quipped back. “It’s better to be helpful in my opinion. Where you can, lend a helping hoof, but don’t run from your own issues and spurn it when you need it in turn.” With that being said, he finished off the rest of his breakfast and levitated his dishes to the sink. “I’ll mess with them later,” he promised, giving Scoot another peck. “Apparently I’m off to the hospital.”

“Be good for the doctor.” Chrys said sleepily.

“Fully intend to,” the stallion said, giving the changeling drone a hug as he walked by. He raised an eyebrow at Star for a moment. “Do you think a hug would be appropriate for you at this juncture?” he questioned his fellow unicorn carefully. He still had memories of what she had been up to before she had her breakdown and didn’t want to encourage bad habits. “Because I want to give you some form of affection before I go if so.”

“Hugs are fine. Thanks for asking.” Star said, smiling weakly at the stallion. The moment she finished talking, Weave gave her a nice, big hug, being careful not to disturb the food, and held it for a few seconds. After which he stepped back, nodded at her with a smile on his face, and headed out the door towards the hospital.

As he was on his way…

“Hey! Hold up a sec!” A voice called out from above. The stallion paused for a moment, turning his gaze upwards to see who was talking to him.

A bright cyan mare, with a short-cropped rainbow mane flapped down to hover in front of him. “You’re the guy that Scoots is seeing, yeah?”

“After a bit of a bumpy start, yes,” Weave confirmed. He knew who this was, she was the lead weathermare of Ponyville, and one of the heroes who kept the chaos mostly controlled. When she wasn’t a contributing factor, anyways. “What can I do for you, miss Dash?”

“Oh, not all that much, just wanted to say thanks for her wings. You did a lot, though I think she’s more into her engineering stuff now, over wanting to do stunts. Though… Thanks again.” She rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “Never thought I’d get to go flying with her. Well, without the baby carrier.”

“Hey, I wanted to help, all the pieces were there, I just pulled them together into a spell that would help fix her,” the stallion said with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “Once she apologized and I saw the problem for what it was, it wasn't much effort to pull the answer together and cast it on her. I’m actually on my way to the hospital to give an explanation to them about what I actually did.”

“Good!” Dash grinned. “You treat her right though, you hear? You break her heart and you answer to me.” She stuck her tongue out and gave his shoulder a shove before flying off.

“Crazy mares. And I live with a few of them, I should know,” the stallion rolled his eyes and continued on his way.

Thankfully the rest of the trip was uneventful. Additional thankfulness for the hospital being quiet when he got there. He walked up to the front desk and smiled at the receptionist. “Hi, I’m Intricate Weave, Redheart wanted to see me about the spell I used on my marefriend to help her with her wings.”

“Oh, yes! Mister Weave, I believe she’s free, but I’ll give her a call to find out.” The mare said, smiling and picking up the phone and tapping at it. “Sorry, it’s ringing.”

“No, it’s fine, I’ve got nothing else going on,” the stallion said, shaking his head. “My housemates are all dealing with their various issues today, so they need space as it is.”

“That’s too bad.” The mare frowned sadly. “I- Oh! Yes! Mister Weave is here.” She had to cut herself off to talk on the phone. “Yes.” She nodded, she looked back to Weave. “How much time do you have, you might have to stay a bit, or help us record some things.”

“I didn’t have any other plans today,” the stallion said with a wave of a hoof. “Granted, it might take me a minute to cross-reference all the parts of the spell I came up with, what with how my talent works.”

“That’s not a problem.” She said before staring off into the middle distance. “Yes, he’s got time. Okay.” And she hung up the phone. “Alright I can bring you back.”

“Lead on,” Weave said with a nod.

It had been a rather long hour and a half, and Weave’s voice was hoarse from explaining. He was very much understanding the feeling of coping that Chrys and Star were doing.

“I’m just glad you accept the fact of my talent working in weird ways now,” the stallion sighed. He never thought being connected to the collective unconsciousness would result in more talking. “As long as I don’t think too hard about how to solve the problem, it happens easily. The moment I have to explain it, I start getting a headache.”

“Of course, sorry that we kept you so long.” Doctor Redheart apologized profusely as she walked Weave to the hospital entrance. “You’ve really done a lot for the medical community, I’m serious.”

“The answers were all already there,” the stallion demurred with a shake of his head. “I just sort of…pulled them all together and looked at them in a new light.”

“Well thank you again.” Doctor Redheart smiled. “If we need anything else, we’ll contact you.”

“I’ll make sure to charge you a good rate for any projects you throw my way,” the stallion replied cheekily, with a wink to show he was joking.

“I’m sure you will.” Redheart giggled, waving goodbye before she turned back to the hospital hallways. Weave gave a nod to the receptionist before turning and heading out the front doors himself. He needed some aspirin for his head. Fortunately he had a bottle back home, specially dosed for cutie-mark induced explanations of his talent.

Praise be Celestia, the walk home was uneventful!

The home was quiet when he got in, as he peeked in, he saw Chrys curled up in a ball, snoozing on the couch. Star was nowhere to be found. Peace and quiet for the first time in… awhile.

Weave didn’t even so much as say hello to the snoozing ‘ling, heading instead for the bathroom and the medicine cabinet therein. He needed to pop some extra-strength headache medication. Explaining one spell for over an hour felt like a railway spike was being driven into his head from the feedback from the collective unconsciousness. You weren’t supposed to think too hard about it. Doing so had…consequences.

There was a soft clopping of hooves. “How’d it go?” Star asked quietly from the bathroom doorway. Weave held up a hoof as his magic grabbed ahold of the bottle, popped the top, and gulped two pills down. He let out a sigh before turning to Star, his magic absently putting the bottle away.

“An hour long explanation of things that don’t want to be explained, which results in feedback from my talent and giving me a headache,” the stallion deadpanned. “Fortunately it wasn’t that hard a spell to explain, and she had a lot of the relevant texts to hoof. But it was still something that left me feeling like someone was splitting my skull open.” He put his hoof back down and shook his head, closing the cabinet and sighing again, this time in relief. “I’m also fortunate that I have this sort of medication-strength headache pills at home for situations like this.”

“Let me know if you need me to go and grab anything for you.” Star said with a small smile. “I’m assuming you don’t want to go anywhere else.”

“Give the meds an hour and the headache will go away entirely,” the stallion agreed with a nod. “I’m probably just going to go read for a bit, unless someone comes up with something else to distract me.”

“It’s what I’ve been doing.” Star shrugged before wandering off back to her room. Weave hummed to himself as he headed back to his own room, plucking a book off the nearby bookcase and heading towards his bed. He laid down on it and picked a random spot to pick up the story again.

There came a knock at the door and an annoyed mumble from the couchling, who proceeded to cover her face with a hoof like a cat. The stallion marked his place, put the book down, and got up from the bed, stretching a little bit before answering the door.

A pearly white mare with a cotton candy mane of purples and pinks grinned at him from the other side of the door. “Weave! Scootaloo told me all about you!” The mare said happily.

“Ah, she had mentioned her friends to me,” the stallion agreed with a nod and a smile. “Going by your colorations, you’re not an Apple, so that would make you Sweetie Belle, yes?”

“Yes indeedy.” Sweetie Belle giggled into a hoof. “And I’ve heard that you’re the one who helped out her wings.”

“Ah, it wasn’t much,” the stallion said, rubbing the back of his head with a hoof. “An hour of mulling the problem over got me a solution that seems to still be working today, so I’m going to call it a permanent fix. Which isn’t bad for my talent. Just, don’t ask me to explain it. I already did that once and got a headache for my trouble.”

“Oh, no. I don’t really have the brain for any kinda complicated magic.” She shook her head. “I’ve always enjoyed singing, among other things.” She batted her eyelashes in his direction.

“So I’ve heard,” the stallion agreed. “So what brings you by?”

“I wanted to thank you properly, and I’m making up for Bloom too, because she’ll be busy for awhile.” She leaned in a bit, giving him the sultriest eyes.

“Oh. Oh.” Weave blinked a little. “Is Scoots…aware of your intentions?”

“She’s the one who asked me since she’s gonna be busy with some work for the next couple days. So, I’m here to make up for it.” Sweetie said proudly, puffing out her chest. “You might’ve forgotten, what with your busy night.” She tittered, sticking her tongue out playfully.

“It, was kinda busy,” the stallion chuckled sheepishly. “So, uh, how did you want to-”

And she caught his lips with hers.

“Hey! If you’re gonna bang, at least make it to the bedroom!” A quite annoyed Chrys yelled from the couch.

With that pronouncement, Sweetie dragged Weave off to his room.

Well, his headache would definitely be forgotten.