Friday, December 25, 2015

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Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Merry Christmas!

Early Morning

The first thing I see when I wake up is Twilight's eyes. She smiles at me. "Merry Christmas," she says.

"Hey, Merry Christmas," I reply. I run a hand through her hair. "Sleep well?"

"Mmm...yeah," she says, snuggling up against me. "Last night was amazing..."

"Yeah," I say. I kiss her. "Are you sure you're okay with—?"

"Yes," she says firmly. She blushes. "Umm...can I ask a question? And I won't be mad, honest...I just have to know."

"What is it?"

"Umm...was it as good...I mean was I as good..." She swallows. "When you were with Cadance..."

"Twilight," I say, taking her hand and squeezing it. "Making love to you...that was one of the most wonderful things I've ever done in my entire life."

"But..." Twilight looks worried. "You...with Cadance..."

I sigh. "Twilight, what we did last night...that was love. Real love. That...that night, with Cadance..." I look away. "Being with her was...angry. Rough. Full of shame and regret. It never should've happened and...and I hated myself so much for it. I still do."

Twilight sighs and wraps her arms around me. "Flash..."

I run a hand through her hair. "We'd better get cleaned up and dressed. And strip this bed."

Twilight takes a deep breath and her face scrunches up. "Whoof. Yeah."

We strip the bed and stuff the sheets in my laundry basket. She looks at her clothes, neatly folded in the chair, and hesitates. "I'll...I'll come back for those," she decides. She heads for the door...

"Uhh...Twilight? You're...you're just gonna walk around the dorm naked?"

Twilight shrugs. "I'm just going to the second floor. The only person I'm likely to run into is Pinkie, and, well...she already knows." She blushes furiously; a naughty smile plays on her lips. "See you downstairs," she says.

I shake my head and round up my own bath stuff, then head for the shower.

Morning

After I shower and get dressed, I head downstairs, phone in hand. Every single person I'm friends with on Canterbook is posting "Merry Christmas" messages; I post one of my own.

As I'm walking into the lounge, I nearly stumble when a new post from Rarity pops up.

Wow. Just...wow.

Twilight walks in, dressed in jeans and a sweater. "Did you check Canterbook yet?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Rarity?"

"Rarity," Twilight agrees, blushing.

I shake my head. "Well, you know what they say. When you've got it, flaunt it."

Twilight looks at her phone again. "She's definitely flaunting it," she says.

"Heeeeey, you two!" Pinkie calls from behind us. She throws an arm around each of our shoulders. "Did you have fun last night?"

"Pinkie!" Twilight groans.

Maud walks in, studying us impassively. "It's Christmas," she says.

Pinkie gasps suddenly. "PRESENTS!" She zooms over to the tree.

Twilight and I share a glance, laugh, and follow her.

Everyone else shows up within a few minutes. Amazingly, Pinkie hasn't opened anything yet; she's just sorting everything into piles. "Is Pinkie playing Santa this morning?" Cadance asks.

"Yeah, but I wish I'd thought to put on my sexy Santa outfit," Pinkie says. She tilts her head. "Then again, I don't look as good in mine as Rarity looks in hers..."

"Yeah, Rarity's pretty much the queen of sexy Santas today," I agree.

"Oh?" Cadance asks, tilting her head and arching an eyebrow.

"Check Canterbook," Twilight says.

Cadance pulls out her phone and opens Canterbook. Twilight's parents and Shining Armor crowd around her. "Oh my," Cadance says.

"Wow, she should be a model," Velvet says. She slaps Night Light and Shining Armor upside the head.

"Ow!"

"Mom! What was that for?"

"General principles," Velvet says with a smirk. "Come on, everybody, let's open presents!"

Once Pinkie finishes sorting everything into piles, we all start opening them, making a huge mess of paper and ribbons and gift bags.

From my parents, I got a brand new phone and laptop. From Twilight's parents, I get a cologne and shaving set. Pinkie Pie, for some bizarre reason, gave me a copy of Fifty Hues of Greyscale. Rainbow Dash gave me a few packs of soccer cards. Cadance and Shining Armor got me the complete series of HeisenBerg. Rarity gave me a charcoal pork pie hat.

(Geez, one all-night marathon of an awesome show...)

Fluttershy gave me a couple of interesting zoology magazines. One of them is about rams, the other is about lions. Applejack gave me a gift card for music downloads. Maud gave me a fist-sized chunk of rock encrusted with different shapes and colors of mineral crystals.

From Twilight, I got two sets of lavender sheets and a set of violet satin pajamas.

Pinkie stares at those, then gets a sly smirk on her face. "Wow, and you thought that joke I pulled with the birthday cake was bad," she says.

"What joke?" Velvet asks.

"You don't wanna know," Twilight says, blushing.

I shake my head. "On my birthday back in August, Pinkie made a cake with icing the color of, well...Twilight," I say.

Velvet lets out a whooping laugh. "Oh my God, you didn't!" she yells, doubling over.

"She did," Twilight says, covering her face.

Cadance raises an eyebrow. "So...Twilight...about those sheets and those pajamas..."

Twilight tries to curl into a ball. Everybody just laughs. Shining Armor shakes his head. "What is with this family?" he mutters.

I thank everybody for their presents, and they in turn thank me for what I gave them. My big gift was a pair of pink topaz earrings for Twilight. I gave her mom and dad a sampler box of fancy coffees and teas. I gave Shining Armor and Cadance tickets to a Five Doors Back concert coming up in the middle of January. I gave Pinkie Pie another cookbook with recipes and decorator tips for fancier, more formal desserts. For Rainbow Dash, I got a new set of knee and elbow pads, as well as a framed portrait of herself at the Fall Formal. The latter, Rarity put me up to; lately, she's been on a quest to get Rainbow Dash to embrace her femininity, and somehow dragged me into her convoluted scheme which is almost guaranteed to fail.

Speaking of Rarity, I gave her a gift card to a fabrics and crafts store, as well as a gag gift of a package of wet wipes. For Fluttershy, I got a massive poster which depicts nearly every type of butterfly known in the world. I gave Applejack a new photo album.

None of us got Maud anything because we weren't even expecting her, but it turns out that was the thing Pinkie Pie left to take care of so suddenly before the blizzard hit. Evidently, she went all over Canterlot looking for the most interesting rocks she could find, and gave Maud one from each of us.

Once all the presents are opened and everyone, present or elsewhere, has been thanked repeatedly, each of us loads up our haul and clears it out of the lounge, then we all spend half an hour cleaning up the enormous mess we've made.

By now, the fabric refresher I sprayed on my bed this morning has dried, so once I'm upstairs, I make the bed with the new sheets from Twilight, then arrange all my new stuff on the bed so I can deal with it properly later. After that, I head back downstairs to join everyone for breakfast and a Christmas toast with a mug of hot spiced cider.

After breakfast, Cadance and Velvet head into the kitchen to work on Christmas dinner, while the rest of us scatter to deal with this and that. For my part, I've got a new phone and laptop to plug in, charge, and get set up...that could take a while.

Daytime

Twilight decided to hang out in my room with me while I was setting up my new phone and laptop. "This thing's really high-end," she comments, looking over the new computer.

"Heh...yeah, I can always count on my folks to get the best of the best, at least," I say. "Speaking of which..." I pull out my old phone and call Mom.

"Hey, hon! Merry Christmas!"

"Hey Mom. Thanks for the new computer and the new phone."

"You're welcome, hon. How's it working?"

"I've still got everything charging and, you know, setting stuff up," I say. "Got a lot of data to transfer. Looks awesome, though."

"That's good," Mom says. "Had a good Christmas?"

"Pretty good," I say. "Just hanging out with Twilight while her mom and sister finish Christmas dinner."

I spend a few more minutes talking to Mom, then hang up and put my phone away.

"Are you going to be able to do Zodiac stuff with your new phone?" Twilight wonders.

I shrug. "Should be able to. I mean, the Zodiac stuff is linked to Canterbook, not to the phone..."

Pinkie wanders in. "Hey guys!" she calls cheerfully. She closes the door behind her. "So? How was it?"

Twilight blushes. "Pinkie..."

"Aww, come on! I wanna know."

"It...it was amazing," Twilight says, ducking her head.

Pinkie smiles. "I'm glad," she says. "You're such a cute couple..."

"Say, Pinkie...I just gotta ask. Why that book?"

Pinkie smirks. "Oh...I just thought it might give you some ideas," she says. "Well, I think dinner should be ready in about an hour. Twi-Twi, your dad and brother are in the lounge watching the parade, I think I'm gonna join them."

"That sounds good," Twilight says. "Flash?"

"Sounds good to me."

As we head out, Twilight suddenly stops. "I almost forgot! The Lucky Santa tickets!" She rushes to her room.

The Lucky Santa tickets...

Right! I head back to my desk and pull mine out of the desk drawer, then scan it with my phone.

Please wait while we determine if your ticket is a winner...

Congratulations! You've won a

Dinner for four at Portobello Grill

Please fill in your name, address, and phone number and your prize will be delivered in two to three weeks.

Huh. That's...not bad, I guess.

I head downstairs. I meet Twilight at the bottom of the stairs. "I didn't win anything," she pouts.

"I won dinner for four at Portobello," I say.

"Oh, nice!" Twilight says. We head into the lounge and sit down.

Cadance walks in a few minutes later. "Dad isn't coming," she says with a sigh. "He's snowed in and his car won't even start."

"That's a shame," Shining Armor says.

Cadance rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure you're real broken up about it," she says, sticking her tongue out.

I give Twilight a questioning glance. She leans close and whispers, "My brother and Dr. Fermata don't really get along. Dr. Fermata kind of...well...looks down on Shining Armor."

I frown. "Why? Because he isn't as—"

"No, it's not a money thing," Twilight says. "I think Shining Armor just made a bad first impression. Mind, I don't think any man would be good enough for Cadance as far as he's concerned."

Cadance's dad seemed okay to me the two times I met him. A little gruff, yeah...

While Velvet and Cadance finish the preparations for dinner, the rest of us watch television and chat for a bit. About an hour later, everything is ready, and we gather around the dining room table.

The spread is incredible.

There's a huge turkey and a large glazed ham. There's two serving bowls full of stuffing. There's a pot of mashed potatoes, as well as a pot of whole boiled new potatoes in cream sauce. Then there's beets, sweet peas with pearl onions, marshmallow fruit salad, greens, okra and stewed tomatoes, broccoli and cheese, yams, and corn casserole. There's gravy for the turkey, stuffing, and potatoes. There's cheese sauce for the ham. There's a basket of crescent rolls and a basket of garlic cheddar biscuits. There's also cranberry sauce and mint jelly, and each of us has a large goblet of cranberry juice.

"Wow, you really went all out," Night Light says.

"Well, it is Christmas after all," Velvet says. "Everybody load up! Don't hold back, there's plenty of everything for everyone."

"And we've got some desserts for later," Cadance says.

Good lord...when did they find the time to make all this with the blackout?

I take a little bit of everything I can fit onto my plate, determined to try as many of the things on the table as I possibly can. Twilight overloads her plate to the point where everything's going to run together. Pinkie mostly shies away from the green vegetables. Maud doesn't put any gravy on anything.

All throughout dinner, Velvet is giving me and Twilight a knowing look.

"So Maud, you're off to Vanhoover after Christmas?" Night Light asks.

"Yes," Maud says. "I'll be studying geology and mineralogy."

"I'm sure gonna miss you, Maud," Pinkie says.

"I'll miss you too, Pinkie," Maud replies. "But we'll be in touch all the time."

"Have you spoken to your parents today, Flash?" Velvet asks.

"Yeah, I called Mom a little while ago."

We make light, idle conversation over dinner. I fill my plate four times before I decide I barely have enough room for dessert.

And what desserts! There's a fig cake, a chocolate cherry cheesecake, two sweet potato pies, angel food cake with strawberry sauce, and desserts I can't even identify but which are absolutely delicious. I have a tiny piece of everything—just enough to taste.

"This is incredible," Shining Armor says.

"Pinkie Pie handled all the desserts," Velvet says.

"Wow, seriously?" Twilight asks. "I mean, I know Pinkie's a good baker, but ALL of this?"

"That's amazing," Night Light says.

"Aww, shucks," Pinkie says, blushing.

"Papa's an idiot for not wanting you to do this for a living," Maud says. "Even I can tell how good all this is, and I don't really like sweets."

"Yeah, well...Papa can go lick a turd," Pinkie says. "I know where I belong now." She smiles at me and Twilight. "And I'm gonna do whatever I want with my life, because it's my life."

"You said it, girl!" Cadance says.

"But maybe...cut down on the exhibitionism a little?" Maud suggests.

Pinkie ducks her head. "Heheh...yeah..."

Once everybody's eaten all they're going to, we all pitch in cleaning up the dining room, putting away leftovers, and washing dishes. After that, Pinkie and Maud head upstairs to have some sister time, Cadance and Velvet go to bed because they've been up cooking since the early morning hours, and Shining Armor and Night Light watch a football game in the lounge.

Evening

Twilight and I head up to my room. Twilight clears my Christmas haul off my bed, putting most of it away neatly, while I put the first disc of HeisenBerg on to play.

"That show's awfully violent, isn't it?" Twilight asks as she's headed for my closet with the pork pie hat Rarity gave me.

"Well, yeah...and none of the characters are especially nice people, but...it's compelling." I snatch the pork pie hat out of her hands and put it on. "Now...say my name."

Twilight smirks. "You're Flash Sentry."

"You're goddamn right." I pull her down onto the bed with me and kiss her deeply. We spend the next half hour or so making out, then fall asleep side by side with the television still playing.