We are the guests who have stayed too long
Author's Note
I'm not, uh...
I'm not entirely sure whose fault this is. I'm pretty sure, but not entirely sure...
Although they probably know it's their fault. If there is someone whose fault it is. Which there might be. Just saying.
I'm going to bed I'm sleepy.
We are the guests who have stayed too long
One of the numerous benefits of being a princess is owning and being able to sleep in a bed most wouldn’t have the proper bedroom to pull off properly, and which most would also consider probably a little bit over the top and ostentatious.
We’re talking something the size of most people’s actual bedrooms here.
One of the numerous benefits of being in a poorly-defined (though undeniably quite intimate) relationship with a princess is that you often get to share this ridiculous bed, which means you get all the pluses of using it with none of the minuses of owning it.
Which is to say, Tim felt that out of the two of them he was getting the better end of the deal than Celestia was. He didn’t even have to do anything! Just had to cuddle the magical horse he was rather fond of and as a result got to sleep in a bed so large he wouldn’t even have been able to fit it into his house back home!
Celestia, in her own quiet way, felt that she was the one coming out on top however, as now the bed wasn’t quite as desolate and lonely as it once had been and she got to fall asleep holding something that wasn’t a pillow and which, in fact, could hold her back.
Really they were both winners.
And in particular today they were double winners, for today was a lazy day! This they had decided, Tim feeling that she had earned one and Celestia having been then convinced by Tim that she had earned one.
He could be very persuasive about these sorts of things.
The immediate upshot of this decision being that - once she’d got up to make sure the sun also got up and was on its way - Celestia returned to the bed. This was very important to both of them, because not only is a bed a crucial component of a lazy day but Celestia was a crucial component of keeping Tim warm in the bed.
Instantly upon her slipping back under the voluminous duvet he had latched onto her again, drawing a sleepy giggle out of her as she nuzzled back into him.
“Miss me?” She asked and he nodded into her neck, yawning.
“You were ages,” he said, still yawning, trying to hook a leg around one of hers but not really being awake enough to understand how he was doing it wrong.
Also she had not been ages, it had been the work of moments, in fact, but she played along.
“I know, you poor thing, being left all on your own,” she said with thick, rich layers of overbearing concern, stroking his back with a hoof. This was exactly what he’d wanted and he nodded some more, somehow managing to dig even more into her.
“Yes, that’s right, more pity please,” he said. Celestia giggled.
And they lay like that for a bit.
“You know,” Tim said eventually, voice slightly muffled on account of him being basically moulded to her. “If your sun worked properly you could have a lot more days like today.”
That got the teeniest little frown from her in response and she peered down at the top of his head. The top of his head told her nothing of value.
“Please don’t insult my sun, Tim, I like my sun,” she said.
Technically not really ‘her sun’ per se, she supposed, but her lengthy working relationship with it had left her feeling rather fond of the thing, so she allowed herself a certain level of...well, fondness.
Also technically wouldn’t it be the planet that would have to work properly? Both, really. He had explained how things worked where he’d come from, but she’d found it rather hard to picture in her head.
TIm gave a quick kiss to whichever part of her happened to be closest (her neck, incidentally) just to help smooth whatever ruffles he might have caused. This was very much appreciated by Celestia. Tim then said:
“It’s a great sun don’t get me wrong. Just saying. You wouldn’t even have to tell anyone it went on its own anymore. It’d be a fantastic doss. Think about it?”
She grinned, and this time stroked his hair.
“Shh.”
Silly human. It just didn’t work like that.
Further silent, cozy cuddling followed, both of them awake enough to not be able to go back to sleep but also sleepy enough that moving or getting up was a horrifying suggestion. So they stayed wrapped around one another, snuggly, occasionally shifting a little bit otherwise remaining thoroughly entangled.
Some while later - minutes? An amount of minutes? - Tim stirred with a purpose and kissed the same spot he had last time again, again much to Celestia’s approval. Her approval mounted as further kisses followed, moving up her neck as he shifted, eventually ending with the two of them face-to-face and smiling.
There had been a time when this sort of thing would likely have struck Tim as a strange thing for him to have been doing (what with the magical horse and all), but that time was a long time ago now, and didn’t really matter a whole lot right at this moment.
“We don’t have any plans for today, do we?” He asked, fuzzily aware that they shouldn’t have but deeply terrified that he might be wrong and forgetting something important and vital that they’d have to get up and do.
More her than him, obviously. She had an actual job.
Thankfully, Celestia’s first response was to tighten her grip around him.
“The plan is to stay here,” she said. “Later there might be food. That’s it.”
Another princess benefit being that food could be made to come to you if you didn’t want to go to food. Worth raising the sun for this perk alone, really.
Tim relaxed.
“That’s a good plan,” he said.
“It’s a very good plan,” Celestia agreed.
More companionable cuddling followed, sprinkled with occasional outbursts of light smooching. All was well. At some point Tim - in a quest to be even more comfortable - rolled over and became de-facto little spoon. All continued to be well.
And then, quite without warning, Celestia let out the kind of fart that seemed to shake the bed a few inches across the floor - no mean feat given the aforementioned size of the thing. It had been loud enough that the silence that followed was a kind of crushing void, as though normal sounds were too embarrassed to come back quite yet.
Tim, eyes wide, could only lay there, stunned.
“Wow,” he said, rolling over to find Celestia looking just as shocked as he did, on top of also looking very red indeed. He was going to say something pithy, only his movement’s had upset the duvet, which had released what had been trapped underneath it. “Oh my God! That’s vile!”
“I’m sorry!” She gasped, both hooves pressed to her muzzle, something which did very little to hide the redness still spreading across her cheeks, a spreading not helped by Tim’s frantic wafting.
“And you always looked so delicate!” He coughed.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be so loud!”
Tim settled on pressing the duvet back down again, to limit the damage. It kind of helped.
“I think I heard the windows rattle,” he said.
“I said I’m sorry! Stop picking on me…”
The pout she pulled out to accompany this was the most adorable thing that Tim had seen in days, if not longer. He knew she was putting it on but knowing this didn’t make it any less affecting. It was like having a handful of kittens thrown at him.
“Aww, you look so sad now! But - my God! Oh! I - “
He couldn’t finish this sentence because he started laughing instead, unable to help himself, which set her off too. He laughed and his press on the duvet loosened, resulting in a sharp decline in the air quality and more, louder laughter, which made Celestia’s giggling worse.
“Wow! Oh my, I feel like I have to respond to that! Can’t let that go unchallenged. Hmm,” Tim said, tittering a little between words, mostly on seeing just how badly Celestia was still cracking up.
He had - so to speak - nothing brewing, but the need to respond remained. He thought briefly then brought a hand up to his face, pressed the heel of his palm against his mouth and blew the loudest raspberry he could possibly manage.
It lacked the sheer resonant force of the noise Celestia had made, but still had a flatulent charm all its own. Celestia had still been recovering from her fit of giggles and him doing this pushed her right back into them again.
“N-no! Stop!”
“Wait wait I can do better, let me try again,” he said, using both hands this time.
Whether he did better was open to debate, but it did make Celestia laugh even more, the duvet going flying as she rolled and kicked her legs, flopping over again from Tim.
And then she did it again, and somehow even worse than the last time. Tim very nearly fell out of bed he was laughing so hard. Or possibly because she’d been more-or-less aimed in his direction this time, the thought of which was funny enough to render Tim basically insensible with laughter.
“What did you eat, woman?!” Tim managed to say before legitimately rolling off the other side of the bed and thumping onto the floor.
“Stop picking on meeee!” Celestia wailed, falling off of her side with another thump.
They both lay either side of the vast bed, panting, occasionally bursting into smaller and smaller little dribbles of laughter before finally, eventually, being coherent enough to haul themselves back up and clambering towards one another.
“That-” Tim started, but Celestia cut across him:
“Don’t! Don’t - not a word!”
He raised his hand to his face again only to have his wrist magically caught before it could get there. She gave him a warning look.
“A raspberry isn’t a word!” He protested.
She did not deign to respond to this, instead releasing his wrist on sufferance and picking up the duvet from where it had landed, pulling it back up over both of them as she physically grabbed Tim and pulled him in towards her.
He would have made some sort of joke about ‘danger close’ but he felt that that might be pushing his luck. Her soft spot for him was only so big, after all.
Besides, he could save it for later...
Normality then resumed and they just cuddled silently for a nice while, just pretending that what had just happened hadn’t just happened. That could only last for so long though and, as was often the case (because he lacked an immortal’s patience) it was again Tim who broke the silence, this time by chuckling.
“Grown adults - grown adults! - reduced to crying wrecks by farts,” he said with obvious wonder.
“It’s just our secret,” Celestia said.
She wasn’t especially concerned with anyone else knowing, but if, say, Luna knew the exact circumstances of what had happened she just knew she wouldn’t hear the end of it. And Tim would also know this, and would think that informing LUna of the exact circumstances would be hilarious.
Tim, meanwhile, goggled at her.
“Did you hear those?! Those won’t be a secret from anybody!” He said.
Again she frowned, hoping to show him that she wasn’t impressed, but the look on his face was so appalled she had to giggle again instead, going in for another nuzzle.
“Why do I put up with you?” She asked softly.
“Because you l- uh - because you’re so fond of me, obviously,” he said.
Tiny slip there. She’d caught it and he knew she’d caught it, but she didn’t point this out.
“Hmm. I suppose. Why do you put up with me?” She asked.
“Because I’m so fond of you, obviously.”
“Obviously,” she said, smiling, resting her chin on top of his head.
One day he was going to slip up properly during that, one day.
Possibly another lazy day. Just not this lazy day.
But that was okay. Celestia sighed happily and wrapped her tail around his leg.
“I wonder what we should have for lunch?” She wondered aloud.
“Bea-”
“If you say beans I will push you out of this bed and you will not be allowed back in,” Celestia said with absolute, perfect serenity.
Tim’s mouth worked wordlessly for a second and then he gritted his teeth.
“...no sense of humour, some people…”