You shifted a bit and he murmured in his sleep as he nestled his chin against the top of your head.

Before you had gone to sleep he had come into your room and plopped his head on the side of your bed, giving you one hell of a puppy dog eyes routine. It didn’t take long of staring at that face, resting on the edge of your bed and sadly staring at you, the only sound being the gentle swish of his tail on the hardwood floor as it wagged back and forth, before you relented. “Alright,” you had said as you lifted the covers, “up you come.”

His ears perked up and he tossed his apple-print pillow up onto the bed. The entire bedframe creaked and groaned as the heavy pony clambered up and gingerly laid down beside you. “Oh. Sorry bud” he said as his back pressed into yours.

You had a Queen Size bed but he was a large pony, big enough to stand eye to eye with you, and there wasn’t much room. “Don’t worry about it,” you said.

He chuckled awkwardly and put his pillow with the two you already had on the bed. “Don’t mean to crowd you.”

“Couch is too small, right?” you said with a bit of a laugh.

“Eeyup.”

You had two things suitable for sleeping on in the house, the couch and the bed, and keeping with how strange these creatures are both were oddly and conveniently sized and designed for humans for some reason. You had offered to take the couch and give Mac the bed: you were more than willing to give up your bed for one of the Apples out of gratitude for what they had done for you. Before Twilight Sparkle had given this house to you they had given you sleeping space on their farm. Granted it was the hay loft in the barn, but it was warm, dry, and surprisingly comfortable, and you would leap at the opportunity to repay the favor, but even then he refused to ‘kick you out of your bed’ and had tried his hardest to make due on something that was clearly too small for him.

“Kinda lonely too.”

You had him pegged as a big softie at heart the day you met him but you had no idea until today. Having his entire family away for one night left him feeling lonely enough to want to spend the night at someone else’s house. Whatever reason he had for coming to your place of all places was beyond you, but honestly you were glad he had. You had been feeling a bit homesick lately and appreciated the company. “Me too… bud,” you said as you rolled over and patted his shoulder.

Of course that had been hours ago. You had awakened in the middle of the night to find that, at some point while the two of you were sleeping, he had rolled over and put his hooves around you, almost pulling you right on top of him into a big gentle hug. You had nudged him and tried to pull away a few times but he was a deep sleeper and wasn’t too intent on letting go. You quickly relaxed and eased into it, however; his warm body felt so strong and his coat felt so nice and warm against your bare back. Things were going to be awkward come morning no matter what you did at this point, so you nestled your arm under his hoof and eased it under your cheek as a pillow, and whispered “good night” to him.

A gentle twitch of his leg was his only response. He must have been dreaming about something.