Mother Lovers

"And this is the kitchen. Pretty standard really," the realtor said as she walked through the Ponyville condo with Sunburst following behind her. Now that the unicorn was the Vice Headpony of Princess Twilight's School of Friendship, he needed a home in Ponyville. "All your basic amenities. Sink, fridge, oven." She continues walking towards the hallway. "It does have two bedrooms. So even if you don't have foals, you could always turn it into a study. Are you married or-" The front door opened and an earth pony stallion walked in to look at the condo open house. "Oh. Hello there. What's your name?" The realtor asked.

"Button Mash?" Sunburst greeted, recognizing the former student of the school.

"Vice Headpony Sunburst?" Button greeted back.

"You're not in school anymore. You don't have to use my title. What have you been up to since you graduated?" Sunburst asked.

"I design video games for arcade machines. It's pretty good work. Fun too," Button said.

"Well that's good to hear. So you're getting your own place now?" Sunburst asked.

"Yeah. But what about you?" Button asked.

"Things with my marefriend have... changed. So I had to move out," Sunburst said.

The realtor quickly got Button caught up on the current tour and then picked up where she left off with Sunburst. It wasn't a very big condo, but the rooms that it had were nice. Each of the bedrooms had a large walk-in closet. The kitchenette, though small, was very well designed. And the living room had plenty of space to entertain a small party if one were so inclined. The bathroom had a walk-in shower stall with nice sliding glass doors and an entire linen closet.

"It's nice," Sunburst said. "A bit expensive though. Especially on a public education salary."

"Yeah I was thinking the same thing," Button said. "I need to get my own place, and I could afford this, but that would be about it."

"I'm sorry," the realtor said. "But there isn't a whole lot else available in town right now."

"What if it was half the cost?" Button asked Sunburst.

"Yeah that'd be great!" Sunburst said.

"That's what I was thinking too," Button said, "... Roommate."

"What?"

"Why not split it? We're both single adults. Let's save some bits," Button suggested.

"I don't think that would be appropriate. You used to be my student."

"But like you said, I'm not anymore. And you're not my vice head pony. You're not even that much older than me. You're what, thirty?"

"I'm twenty nine."

"Yeah, not even ten years difference!" Button said. He could see that Sunburst was considering it. "Come on, It'll be fun. We'll get some ciders and Applejack Daniels. I can set up my SwitchStation 360 in the living room and you can be player two in Dragon Drop 3D."

"I have the board game version of that game!" Sunburst said excitedly. "Okay. Okay let's do it!"

After a visit to the bank, the two stallions co-signed the lease to the condo. After that, was the relatively easy step of moving in and unpacking. Either bedroom was more or less identical and they each took one. Button Mash got to work setting up the entertainment center with the big screen TV and the gaming console while Sunburst set up his bedroom. Sunburst opened up the last of his boxes and took out a portrait to set on his dresser. Button walked in.

"Hey, I finished setting up the TV. Do you think we should get a mini-fridge for the living- whoa! Is that your marefriend?" Button asked, seeing the portrait. "Wow dude, she is hot! I can see why you were dating her. I'd be tapping that all day every day!" Sunburst quickly snatched the picture frame away from his new roommate and clutched it in his hooves.

"That's... my mom," Sunburst said, blushing with embarrassment and irritation.

"Oh, dude, I'm sorry!" Button quickly apologized. "I was talking out of my flank!"

"No, it's okay. I'm used to it," Sunburst said. "I've been hearing colts tell me that my mom is hot my whole life."

"Yeah, me too actually," Button said, putting a hoof on his shoulder. "But it doesn't get any easier hearing it. Trust me, I know. Hearing all your friends say how lucky you are to have such a hot mom..."

"And then when they find out your mom is single, you know they are going to clop themselves off later while thinking about her," Sunburst added.

"Your mom is single too?" Button asked. Sunburst nodded. He reached over to put the picture back on his dresser. It slipped out of his hooves and fell to the floor. The backing popped off and some other photos fell out of the inside of the frame. Sunburst dove to the floor to gather them up. Button knelt down to help. The other photos were of the same mare, but of other parts of her body. Mostly under her tail. "Dude!"

"It's- uh, my Dad's!" Sunburst said quickly. "The pictures. I mean, the picture frame is my Dad's. Was my Dad's, I mean! So those must belong to him. Must have, I mean." Sunburst quickly gathered up all the pictures and stuffed them back inside the frame and clasped it shut. His face was redder than an apple.

"... Okay. Yeah. Sure. Makes sense," Button said calmly and turned around and went back out to the living room. "I'm gonna go run down to the store... to get some cider. For the fridge."

"Okay," Sunburst grumbled and continued to unpack the rest of the boxes for the common rooms.

Button returned from the store and put the cider bottles in the fridge. He heard the toilet flush and he headed down the hallway. Sunburst stepped out of the bathroom with an old magazine under his armpit.

"That's my Playcolt!" Button snapped. "Why do you have it!?"

"It was in the bathroom box," Sunburst said.

"MY bathroom box!" Button said.

"Sorry. I found it when I was unpacking," he said. "And I gotta say, the mare in this one is pretty hot though," he said, holding it up to let the centerfold flip open, revealing a mare laying spread eagle.

"That's my mom!" Button yelled, immediately regretting the words as he grabbed the magazine away from him and carefully folded it back up.

"Oh. I thought I recognized her," Sunburst said.

"Yeah! You met her at that parent-teacher conference!" he said.

"Ah, right right." Sunburst remembered. "So... your mother is a Playcolt model?"

"She was," Button emphasized. "She's a pediatric nurse now."

"Okay. She was in Playcolt magazine..." Sunburst said, looking at it in Button's hooves. "So why do you have it."

"It's my Dad's!" Button said.

"But you just said that it's yours," Sunburst said.

"It is. I meant that it was my dad's," Button amended. "I keep it because it's sentimental."

"Is that why it was packed with your pocket pussy?" Sunburst asked, pointing at the masturbatory aid still in the bathroom moving box. Button glared at him.

"You're one to talk, with your spy photos of your mom."

"I- I told you those aren't mine!" he retorted.

"Yeah, well you didn't seem too keen on throwing them away," Button said. Sunburst glared back at him and grit his teeth before taking a breath.

"You know what? I think maybe we should just pretend that none of this ever happened," he said, trying to deescalate things.

"Yeah. Maybe we should," Button agreed, grabbing the moving box with his personal items to bring them back to his room. Sunburst walked out to the kitchen and saw the bottle of Applejack Daniels on the table. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured himself some. Then he poured a glass for his roommate. He had the feeling they could both use it.

Button walked out of his room a minute later and saw the proverbial olive branch waiting for him on the table. Button was happy to accept it and sat down across from his roommate. He threw back the shot and winced from the familiar burn of the whiskey. Not to put off the drinking purist, but he didn't care for his liquor to be room-temperature. He grabbed some ice from the freezer and poured himself another glass, and refilled Sunburst's cup as well.

"Cheers," Sunburst said, lifting his glass. Button raised an eyebrow.

"Are we toasting to something?" Button asked.

"To us? New roommates?" Sunburst offered.

"To a hell of a first day," Button said without a smile. "May it only get better from here on."

"I'll drink to that," Sunburst said, clinking his glass against Button's before the both drank them and poured up another. The third drink on an empty stomach made his head rush.

"Here's to forgetting about tonight," Button toasted. Another clink. Another drink. Sunburst finished his drink and poured another.

"Um, hey, before we forget about tonight, can I ask you something?" Sunburst asked.

Button sighed. He had the feeling he wasn't going to like the question. "Yeah, sure."

"Was it just the one issue?" he asked. "Of the magazine? That she was in? I'm just curious." Button rolled his eyes but didn't get mad.

"No. There were two other issues that my dad had before he left. I was only able to get the one because I was..." Button looked away for a second, "... borrowing it when my mom found his stash and destroyed them. That was shortly before he left."

"Oh." Sunburst's tone was less of sympathy and more one of interest.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I just so happened to have met Huge Heifer one time when I was visiting Las Pegasus," Sunburst said.

"Wait- the Huge Heifer? The steer that owns Playcolt? How in the world did you meet him?" Button asked. Sunburst rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"Well, I, uh... may have been visiting his ranch... as a... customer," he said.

"How much did that set you back?" Button asked.

"Too much," Sunburst said. "But by chance, I crossed paths with him in the lobby, we chatted briefly and he mentioned that they have all the back-issues of Playcolt in an archive, so I could special order those other issues for you... You know, for sentimental reasons." Button Mash stared down at his glass.

"Yeah, I'd..." he trailed off, swirling his drink before gulping it down. "... I'd appreciate that."

"I've got to say, I'm actually rather envious," Sunburst admitted.

"No you're not," Button cut him off. "Living in fear of someone finding out. And then all it takes is for one of your friends to find out and you never hear the end of it. And you end up punching them in the mouth so they never speak of it again, and then they're not your friend anymore." Sunburst sat up suddenly.

"I remember that fight!" Sunburst said. "I couldn't believe that was you. You were always so polite and quiet. I never took you for the violent type. You ended up knocking out one of his teeth! I never did get either of you to tell me what the fight was about."

"Yeah..." Button said, sipping his drink now. "Because he wanted to keep the rest of his teeth."

"I guess what I meant was... I'm envious that you have a big three-page centerfold, and all I have are a few blurry snapshots," Sunburst said. Button looked over the rim of his glass at him. "Yeah, the photos are mine," he admitted. "My mom started dating this guy for a while after I had moved out. I got in touch with him. Told him I was an ex-coltfriend. I asked him to take the pictures. I offered to pay him a lot of money for the photos and for his discretion. I was able to get those few from him. He was going to do more but when he found out who I was he backed out and broke up with her."

Button reached across the table and refilled his roommates glass and then his own before lifting it up.

"To Mom," Button said.

"To Mom," Sunburst echoed. Clink Drink. Refill. Button chuckled.

"I'll tell you what, you order me those issues, and I'll date your mom and take some more pictures for you," Button said. Sunburst laughed out loud.

"Ha. Yeah right."

"No, I mean it."

"Okay, sure, it's a deal," he said. Changing gears, he got up from the table to grab a couple cider bottles from the fridge. His imagination started to drift away with him. "Heh, maybe you can get my mom to go to a swinger's party and you can swap partners with your mom's colt-friend there," he said. Button popped the cap off his bottle.

"No, that wouldn't work. My mom would recognize me obviously." He took a swig of his bottle. "And she doesn't even have a coltfriend to swap with."

A smile slowly crept across Sunburst's face. "... yet." Sunburst added.

"Hmm?"

"Your mom doesn't have a coltfriend, yet!" he repeated. He pointed at himself and grinned.

"Wait, so what? We date each other's moms?" Button asked.

"Yes. Yes!" Sunburst was nearly dancing in his seat.

"And then what? Swap them? That's the plan?" Button asked.

"That's not a plan, that's a goal," Sunburst said. "But luckily, I was raised by a mare that taught me a thing or two about having a plan..."