Pillow Case: Netflix and Pony

>Be Pillow Case the pegasus mare
>Be on Earth
>Be in college
>Be on Winter Break
>Be…d, Bath, and Beyond sells comfy and warm blankets
>You would know; you work there between classes and take full advantage of the employee discounts
>Never in a million years did you think this would be all your cutie mark amounts to
>“Casey, are you gonna get up?”
“Nnnnn… five more minutes.”
>“You said that fifteen minutes ago.”
>Generally, a mark and a high school education are more than enough for a pony to live off of
>‘Generally’ being ‘up until a few years ago when a freak magic accident led to the discovery of a planet full of exceptionally bald, magicless primates’
>Celestia decided to make friends with them because that’s how she rolls
>“Come on. I made cocoa for both of us.”
>Unfortunately for you, they can make a lot more pillows and linens than one pegasus mare with a pillow cutie mark can
>And sweet Celestia do they have some nice fabrics
>You very well may end up naming your firstborn foal Polyester
>Sure, you’re kind of young to be thinking along those lines
>But it’s so SOFT!
>Like fresh fleece times a gajillion!
>You can’t beat them, so you joined them
>The first step was to move to Earth and get a degree in something
>Dad recommended computer science
>He’s always been an ‘ear to the ground, wings in the sky’ kind of guy, so you’re taking his word for it when he says computer people are going to be in demand
>Those are his words, ‘computer people’
>Times may be changing a bit too fast for him
>He may have been biased towards computer peopledom because you were always helping him with the family computer
>Between him and your brothers, you were fixing it every other week
>Your baby brothers were always blaming it on bad magic-proofing
>Bad magic-proofing causes short circuits
>THEY cause the sort of problem that makes you both dread and appreciate that C++ can actually be sort of fun to mess around in
>You haven’t heard anything about it breaking in your letters from home
>“The cocoa’s gonna go cold if we wait too much longer.”
“Don’t we have a microwave for that?”
>“We do, but this is… hang on, let me think for a sec…”
>Hopefully, no news is good news
>It would be nice not to spend Spring Break debugging the computer while mom tears her feathers out because she procrastinated on the tax returns
>Again, something to worry about later
>Nap time is not worrying time
>Right now is nap time
>“…yeah, it’s your fifth nap today. I’ve seen cats that sleep less than you do. There’s no way you’re still tired.”
“But I’m comfyyyyyyyy…”
>“So you’re not tired?”
>You peek out of your blanket at the roommate you promised you’d watch Netflix with today
>He’s a rather non-descript guy wearing a sweater, pants, and wool socks
>Also he’s human
>That’s probably worth mentioning
“I’m not, and I still want to do that thing you talked about, but I also don’t wanna leave this blanket.”
>“What a conundrum. I guess we’ll have to work around that.”
>You barely have time to squeak in protest as you are hoisted out of bed, still swaddled in this fantastic blanket
>Your room-mate is playing the ‘big, strong human’ card again
>It’s always ‘I am Anon, hear me roar,’ and then, ‘Watch as I move all this furniture with these five-hoofed things on the ends of my arms,’ and then usually followed by ‘I think I just threw out my spine.’
>Usually good for a laugh, so long as he’s not serious about that last part
>He’s carrying you so you face backwards as he faces forwards
>You wriggle a bit further up his shoulder to get your wings out from under the blanket
>It’s not like he would drop you (intentionally) but falling ANY distance without wings is the most common phobia among pegasi
>You read that in a magazine once, or something
>The chilly air of the apartment makes your feathers stand on end a little
>Living off-campus might be cheap enough for your budget (with a roomie) but that also means the thermostat might never be set to any temperature above ‘affordable’
>Anon sets you down on the couch with a grunt
>“There we go. I’ll go get the cocoa.”
“Be quick! I can feel my CQ dropping.”
>“CQ?”
“Comfiness quotient. Trust me, there’s a science to this stuff.”
>Spurred on by your made-up jargon, Anon power-walks into the kitchen
>You reach out a wingtip towards the remote on the coffee table before you
>It’s a bit of a chore, but you manage to prod it with a feather until the TV is turned on and in the Netflix menu
>Just in time, too
>Anon sets your cup of cocoa down right beside the remote and takes his seat
“Thanks!”
>“No problem. Now since you’re the expert, I’m gonna let you pick what we watch today.”
>You pick up your mug of cocoa between your forehooves and blow away some of the steam rising from the cup
“I’m the expert? You know what they’ve got on here better than I do.”
>He shakes his head
>“I meant on how to spend an afternoon comfortably.”
>Oh
>Okay, that makes more sense
>It also gives you a chance to make up more nonsense
“Right. There are a couple of different factors I see in play here. We have to have comfy thoughts, which is where the choice of movie comes in. We should go for either a romantic comedy or just plain comedy.”
>You slide the remote across the coffee table with a wingtip
>He scoops it up and starts going through the menus, skipping straight past the romantic comedy section
>“I’ve never been too interested in Rom-Coms.”
“Works for me. Slower stuff is more likely to result in a sleepy comfy, but nonstop gags would give us a happy comfy.”
>“And you’ve had plenty of that first one.”
“Exactly!”
>He’s learning quick
>Anon stops scrolling through the lists on the TV and looks over to you
>“So, how nonstop do we want these gags to be?”
“Medium to high frequency. Not so much that we can’t keep up, but more than enough to hold our interest for a few hours.”
>“I think I know just the thing.”
>He flips back through the menus and switches from movies to TV shows
“We’re watching a show? Those aren’t long enough to reach peak comfiness.”
>“Nobody said we have to only watch one.”
“Fair point.”
>You take a sip of the cocoa
>Not bad, as far as powdered hot cocoa goes
>It doesn’t taste very watered down at all
>You suspect Anon used some half-and-half and an extra packet of cocoa for this
>He’s a good roommate like that
>Anon finally finds the show he was looking for
>‘Looney Tunes: Merrie Melodies’
“I’ve heard of this one. It’s supposed to be a classic, right?”
>“It is. It’s this or yet another Christmas special.”
“Let’s go with this. I can only watch the Grinch steal Christmas so many times. Now for physical comfiness.”
>Anon leans back on the couch, hot cocoa in one hand, remote in the other
>“Check.”
>Not totally true
>You really hope this next step doesn’t seem too forward
>It’s not like he isn’t a reliable, honest, and funny guy
>One you’ve been living with for months
>Still, you aren’t sure you want to take this relationship in the direction this will go if he misreads the situation
>Grandma would flip out if she thought you were in love with a human
>Anyway, here goes nothing
“Not quite. We’re missing one thing.”
>“What’s that?”
>You slide a wing under the hem of the blanket and drape a bit of it over him
“Snuggles!”
>Anon looks at the edge of the blanket you offered him
>After a second, he does what could be described as a facial shrug and starts pulling some more over himself
>You scoot along the couch with the receding fabric
>Eventually, you end up right beside him
>He goes stiff in surprise as you bump up against him
>“Holy crap. You ARE comfy.”
>He leans his weight against you just a bit
>You reciprocate the gesture
>This seems to be going just as well as you’d hoped
“You said it yourself. I’m the expert. I’ve a got a Doctorate in Soft-ology and everything.”
>“You have a Ph.D in being soft? Is that a real thing in Equestria?”
“It’s a very specialized field.”