Like Romance, Just Different

by Bandy

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Soarin, Romance, Sex, Braeburn
Length: 5811

Braeburn and Soarin' learn that there might be more to romance than merely being romantic.

Braeburn is no stranger to romance--he knows just as well as anypony that it's the stallion's job to breathe some romance into the relationship. But when his meager hope for one nice evening is derailed in spectacular fashion by his outlandish partner, Soarin', he finds that there might be more to romance than merely being romantic.

[Trigger warning: really, really gay]

Published 2013-05-07 01:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-07 01:40:02 UTC

Braeburn's Bluebird

Like Romance, Just Different
——

Flowers? Check.

Chocolates? Check.

“Oh Celestia, this is gonna end badly."

Debilitating nervousness that could tranquilize an elephant in a matter of seconds? Check.

Braeburn pawed at the collar on his shirt, silently cursing the tailor who convinced him to buy a size smaller than he normally wore. Sure, it did have the intended effect of accentuating his powerful legs and broad chest, but both of those wonderful physical attributes would be all but worthless if he suffocated in the process of showing them off.

No, he reminded himself. He wasn’t showing off. He was just making sure to look his best and impress—impress, not show off to—Soarin’ when he finally came to the door. The pearly-white box of fancy chocolates, another nice touch that his friends at the bar assured him would go over just as well as any pie, shifted about nervously in his grip.

From somewhere inside came the muffled pitter-patter of hooves on carpet, coming towards the door. Braeburn's nervous smile, offset on account of the flowers clenched between his teeth, intensified. Only time—preferably a very short amount of it—would tell if all these silly gifts would turn the night into one of the perfect evenings every cheesy romance novel he had researched over the course of the past few days (not read, just researched... thoroughly) held in such high esteem.

He just wanted to make this night go well. There was no shame in wanting everything to go well, ri—

Without so much as a creak of warning the door swung open, slamming against the outside wall with an ear-splitting crack. Before Braeburn had time to yelp in surprise, a pair of blue hooves shot out from the darkened insides of the house and latched onto him, yanking him off his hooves and dragging him inside.

The earth pony would have screamed if he had not landed on something soft and giggling. It didn’t help that the air had been knocked clean out of his lungs and back to Appleoosa, but that was beside the point.

“Brae!”

A pair of lips, eager and hungry for contact, met his own. In the moments between trying to regain his breath around the tongue being lovingly shoved down his throat and regaining his wits from the impromptu greeting, Braeburn’s mind conjured a single word that, bizarrely enough, managed to explain everything from the cackling mass underneath him to the set of hooves snaking around his waist, leading themselves lower and lower until they brushed against the very edge of his—

“Soarin'.”

In all actuality, it came out as more of a strangled, “Shrruhn’,” given the fact that the invasive pair of lips locked on his were still attempting to suck the wind out of him. Nonetheless, the muffled introduction was enough to halt Braeburn’s assailant and give the poor farmer a chance to breathe again.

“Heya Brae. Did you like the little welcome?” Braeburn couldn’t see it, but he knew that the pegasus underneath him was grinning feverishly. The worst part about that taunting smile, though, was that it seemed to be spreading.

“Yeah... I just love getting tossed around like a rodeo clown and spontaneously mouth-raped by my coltfriend. Could I have expected anything else? It’s only a Tuesday."

The invisible lips once again advanced, this time delivering a light peck on Braeburn’s nose. The shiver that dashed up and down his spine from the contact made the giggling beneath him intensify. “Oh come on, you like it. It’s fun! And who better to deliver it to you than Equestria’s most talented, most sexiest Wonderbolt?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Braeburn chuckled bemusedly, “you forgot ‘humble’. And—gaah!” He shot bolt upright as a hoof—presumably from the stallion underneath him—swatted at his flank. “Get your hooves where I can see ‘em, mister.”

Obediently, if not defeatedly, the rogue appendages slunk back. “Come on, Braeburn, why do you have to be so serious all of a sudden? I’m just trying to cheer you up after that little debacle yesterday with the noodles—”

The rest of Soarin’s inquiry died as Braeburn finally took some initiative and leaned down to silence the pegasus with a gentle, if not chaste, kiss. “Let’s not talk about that. I took four showers since then, and I can still feel those icky things sliding all over me.” He shuddered. “Eugh. That’s what I get for buyin’ something that doesn’t have apples in it. I tell you, I’m cursed.”

“Cursed with paranoia over spaghetti, maybe.” Soarin’ shifted awkwardly underneath Braeburn, fumbling for a position that wouldn’t crush his precious wings underneath him. As he did, though, an errant hoof brushed over the inside of his captive’s belly. Almost instantly, the earth pony stiffened and let out a barely-suppressed chuckle at the new touch.

Just as quickly as he giggled, Braeburn clapped a hoof over his muzzle in a vain attempt to squash any more laughter. But it was far too late—Soarin’ had already grown a deviously glittering smile that shone through the dark like a flashlight.

Braeburn went pale and bolted for the door. He didn’t get three feet before the blue menace was upon him.

“G-ahah, S-Soa—Soain’, st-st-stahahap!”

The poor earth pony found himself pinned to the ground by the faster pegasus, legs splayed out to squelch any possible hope of escape. A set of wings darted in and out of the darkness, prodding and tickling Braeburn’s belly, sending the trapped stallion into a vocal range previously unknown to anyone but the local dogs.

“So, you want to tell me why you’re so down?”

“N-n-nevahaha!” The torture only intensified with each refusal, eventually robbing Braeburn of the ability to breathe and reducing him to a heaving puddle of liquefied pony underneath Soarin’.

“Ready to talk now?”

Instead of talking—an art that became lost to him around the same time he lost control of his lungs—Braeburn just nodded weakly, coughing and sputtering in a sorry attempt to stave off the impending loss of muscle control brought on by the onslaught.

“Good.” Nodding his head in satisfaction, Soarin’ rolled himself off of his wheezing prisoner and offered him a helping hoof up. For a moment, the pegasus considered finding some other devious way to proclaim his affinity while still being as annoying as physically possible, but quickly abandoned the idea as he saw the definitive frown marring his partner’s face.

“Aw, come on Brae,” he mumbled apologetically as the struggling stallion beneath him batted away any form of assistance, lest it turn into another prolonged session of tickle torture. “You’re never this down after being subjected to that much tickling. What’s wrong?”

Still glaring daggers, Braeburn huffed, “I really didn’t expect ya to—whew, gimmie a second.”

Straightening on his own hooves, he shook his head to dash any last lingering traces of black from the corners of his vision. When he remembered that the room was still pitch black, though, his look morphed from one of mild panic to one of absolute reddening embarrassment. “I didn’t expect ya to get the hint right away—heck, I was ready to just spell it out in neon lights—but ya didn’t even give me a chance to outright ask before ya pounced on me like a starving rattlesnake on a mouse.”

Soarin’ retreated, ashamed. “Shoot, I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I? I just thought it would be cute if we had a good old fashioned romp to break up what’s been the most boring Tuesday ever. I mean, I know how much you like kissing—and heck, I like kissing too—so I just put two and two together and thought that you would like kissing.”

“That ain’t two—wait, no no no.” Despite the debilitating fit of forced tickles wringing his lungs dry like an overenthusiastic weather pegasus would a rain cloud, he somehow croaked out a single, dry laugh. “It wasn’t that. It’s just—do you mind turning on the lights real quick? It’s kinda hard to look you in the eyes if I can’t really see your eyes.”

“Oh, sure.” A moment of fumbling around later, and a dim row of lights on the ceiling illuminated a disheveled looking Soarin’, feathers askew and mane sticking out at odd angles as if he had just flown through a cloud made entirely of crazy-glue. Braeburn fared no better, his fancy shirt wrinkled in ten different places and crooked at the collar.

“This isn’t about me inviting you to my house just to attack you, is it?” The flier took a hesitant step forward, adding, “I know you haven’t been too keen on surprises after that whole ‘Surprise Buffalo Stampede Day’ thing, but I just wanted to surprise you and be spontaneous. That counts for something, right?”

“No, no,”Braeburn chuckled. “No, it’s not about any of that. Heck—I love this old roof. You know as well as anypony how glad I am you moved earthside just to make my commute easier. It’s just...” His lips pursed, attempting to force an answer out from between them. “I was hoping that this evening could be—consarnit, how do I say it—you know... romantic.”

“Romantic?” Soarin’ recoiled. “Shoot, I’m the most charming stallion alive. I’m romantic even when I’m not trying to be romantic.”

“Sure you are, bluebird,” Braeburn nodded, smiling to himself at the use of his favorite pet-name for Soarin’. It made him scrunch up his nose awkwardly every time Braeburn used it—just like he was doing right now—but it was one of the most genuinely adorable things about the pegasus he could find, and Braeburn employed it to his advantage as much as he possibly could.

“I don’t mean romantic like ‘wooing charmer sweeps me off my hooves like I’m some pretty little damsel in distress’,” Braeburn continued. “I just want a nice, quiet night doing nothing but listening to each other talk about nothin’, then maybe canoodling a little—” Braeuburn paused to chuckle as Soarin’s face lit up at the prospect of sex, “—just a little. You know, holding each other, nipping at each other’s ears—that kinda Cliché stuff.”

“Wow, Brae, I knew you had a sensitive side that could give any mare a run for their money,” Soarin’ teased, “but that little scene there was awfully specific. Are you leading up to asking me to go on moonlit strolls down the beach or something?”

They both shared an intimate laugh at the jab. “Get outta town, you varmit,” Braeburn finally chirped. "You may do things differently with your newfangled city customs, but back home in Appleoosa it's the stallion of the relationship's duty to sweep his maiden off her hooves and carry her into the sunset."

"Excuse me? I am not a mare."

"Sorry partner, but you're definitely the mare of this relationship."

"But I'm the one who does all the work around here!"

"While I'm not bucking trees and harvesting acres’ worth of crops, maybe."

"I eat thunderclouds for breakfast, without any milk!"

"I got struck by lightning once. I gave the cloud that did it a talking-to, let me tell you what."

"I have a penis!"

"Sure you do, lover-colt. Sure you do." Giggling darkly as Soarin's face darkened in muted anger, Braeburn did his best to direct the conversation away from any more sly jabs. “For now, let’s just do something that you’d read in a romance novel, alright?”

“You read romance novels?”

Walked right into that one.

“Aw, but I like the rustic farm look. Also, you got me flowers? Wow, who's being the mare now?”

Without missing a beat, Braeburn pointed to the wilted heap of blue beside them. A tangle of bent stems and half-crushed petals met their sight—casualties of the monumental makeout-turned-ticklefest. “Bluebonnets. They matched your coat—I thought it would be a nice touch.”

Soarin’ paused, staring blankly at the bluebonnets. “Flowers,” he deadpanned, cocking his head at an odd angle. “Really? You got flowers for me, of all ponies. Me, the same pony who got his romantic partner a hoofball for their six-month anniversary. The very same pony who replaced an antique pegasi-clan heirloom with a department-store ‘happy birthday’ card—”

“Hey, I spent half an hour picking that thing out for you!”

“—that’s the pony you think would go for flowers?”

“I thought it would be a romantic gesture.”

“I appreciate the gesture—and believe me, I’m sorry I didn’t see them in your mouth before I got into your mouth, but that kind of romance is lost on me. I’m like a black hole that sucks in romance and then radiates it outward like a giant laser beam.” His brow furrowed. “That’s how black holes work, right?”

Ignoring Soarin’s query, Braeburn snapped, “Well, at least you have other holes that are a bit more open.”

“Oh, so you would prefer that hole, then?” In a flash, Soarin’ saddled up next to Braeburn, pecking deviously at the earth pony’s exposed neck in quick, vertical lines from his jaw down to his collar. The air seemed to superheat in an instant as Braeburn resisted the urge to tug at his still-too-tight collar. “That sounds like a great way to spend the evening, if you ask me.”

“Err, no.” Too late did the poor earth pony realize the error in his words. “I meant your mouth! Your mouth is always open. I was being sarcastic!”

“Too late. We’re having sex.”

Using his dextrous wings to propel himself, Soarin’ hopped behind his stunned coltfriend and nudged his flank. “Up the stairs, you. We’re not doing it here and staining the hardwood this time.”

Braeburn, for all his emotional security and rock-solid mannerisms, went as red as an Appleoosian sunset. “W-what? No! We just did it three days ago. I’m still trying to wash the smell out of my coat, come to think of it.”

“Hey now, you implied it. It’s only fair.”

Braeburn shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in his own fur—which, for the record, was still plastered against his skin by the darn collared shirt. Well, you led this horse to water and tried to make him drink. The giant puppy-dog eyes Soarin’ would no doubt employ could woo Princess Celestia off her throne—Braeburn knew he wouldn’t last for a second. He had to think of an excuse, and fast. “B-but,” he finally stammered, “I don’t want to get this shirt dirty.”

“So that’s what that was!” Soarin’ slapped his forehead, a dumb smile creeping onto his lips. “I thought your fur felt a bit weird. We can just take it off real quick. Here, I’ll get that for you right now!” Before Braeburn could even flinch, much less open his mouth to object, Soarin’ dropped to his knees, sliding under the stunned stallion and expertly rippingoff the shirt as if it carried ten different kinds of the pony plague, throwing it in a heap next to the flowers. “There. All better. Sexy times now?”

“But, but,” Braeburn stammered for another excuse as he fumbled to keep his personal-space-destroying partner from getting a vantage point under him, lest he see that all the euphemisms weren’t falling on deaf ears, “sex isn’t a part of a romantic evening! I just opened myself up to you emotionally! You know how much I hate doing that.”

“Yeah, and now I’m about to open my legs up to you. It seems like a pretty fair trade off.”

“You’re supposed to agree to do what I say. That’s how it’s supposed to work!”

“Two stallions bumpin’ uglies isn’t supposed to work, either, but we seem to be doing okay for ourselves.”

“Gaah! I read romance novels for this?” Braeburn, not realizing what he had just shouted, stomped his hooves indignantly.

“You read what now?”

“Err—nothing!” The charged emotional whiplash of being assaulted, pleasured, tickled, and stripped finally began to catch up with him, turning his very breath into smog that choked his lungs and clawed at his throat. Hanging his head bemusedly, he muttered, “If we do it—and I’m not saying that we will—you’ll let me have my one little romantic tiff.”

There would be no negotiating bargains tonight, and Soarin’ knew it. “Yes.”

“And you’ll scratch me behind my ear in that one spot I love if I ask you to.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

Soarin’ grinned. “Alright.”

Despite it all, Braeburn managed to eke out a thin smile. Making love was romantic, right? Of course it was—so long as Soarin’ didn’t go turning it into one of the crazy sessions like they’d wound up in last week, of course. “Let’s just go,” the earth pony finally said, “before you get any kinky ideas about trying to ‘improve’ our sex lives. But I get to be on the bottom this time!”

Not surprisingly, Soarin’s face lit up like the surface of the sun. He wasn’t the type of pony to win arguments, especially against a pony as bull-headed as Braeburn. He would cherish this victory almost as much as he would cherish the impending intercourse he had just won. “Deal! Now hurry up cowpony, the bed’s gonna get all lonely without us there on top of it.”

Sounding a defeated agreement, Braeburn turned and followed Soarin’, who had already taken a literal flying leap up the stairs and towards the bedroom. By the time he trotted up to the room, Soarin’ had hopped onto the bed like a colt high on Nightmare Night candy, bouncing with feverish anticipation.

“‘Bout time, slowpony,” he quipped.

“You’ll slow down and take it nice and easy,” Braeburn retorted. “I need some release after all this stress you’ve put me through.”

The devious grin on the pegasus’s face grew. “Oh, fine, if you say so.” Without waiting for a more obvious invitation, he hopped down with a boyish laugh and guided Braeburn to the bedside, propping his lover’s muscular frame upright and running his sky-blue hooves along the length of his thighs.

Seamlessly transitioning from tender and guiding to outright ballsy, Soarin’ pushed himself up and kissed Braeburn. Any semblance of poise went right out the window from that moment out as Soarin’ greedily mashed his lips against his partner’s, pausing only to sneak occasional flicks of his tongue into the mix. All that Braeburn could hope to do was keep up and not get the air vacuumed out of his lungs in the process.

By the time Soarin’ broke the kiss, Braeburn had already resigned himself to begging for more. Thankfully, he didn’t have to utter anything more than a strained grunt, as his lover dropped to his hooves and ducked down to eye-level with his nethers.

With a delicate touch so unlike his normal brashness, the Wonderbolt leaned in and peppered Braeburn’s legs with little kisses, trailing a thin strand of stray saliva up his leg. Ever so gently, he brushed the earth pony’s legs open further, exposing the hard-won prize that waited for him, quivering with anticipation of the pleasures to come. With shame and inhibitions thrown to the wind, the pegasus flicked his tongue around the base, leading the slowly-hardening mass of flesh out of its shaft and into his waiting hooves.

Braeburn groaned, a long, slow melody that washed away the excess pile of emotions clinging to his heart, allowing it to flutter in his chest for a blissful moment. A fresh wave of blood rolled through him and into his member, perking it up and allowing it to climb skyward.

Happy that his sudden advance was so well received, Soarin’ returned to nipping at the delicate flesh around Braeburn’s base, kneading his partner in slow, vertical strokes. The pegasus expertly timed his strokes to line up with the spastic twitches that shook Braeburn’s form, gently winding his hooves up and down as painfully slow as his excited mind would allow.

All of this effort to please wasn’t lost on Braeburn. Well, technically, everything was lost on him, given the lopsided thousand-mile stare he wore, accompanied by the occasional loll of his bobbing neck. Finally free from any inner turmoil but that of sheer pleasure, he leaned his head back and moaned.

Soarin' advanced on Braeburn's nethers, emboldened by the approving groans. He worked his way up the staff, pausing to lick each outstanding vein, following the interweaving patterns on his way up. His maddening ascent peaked just below the crown, when Braeburn kicked out feebly at the sudden stimulation of a tender area.

"Nhh—right there, right there," he cooed, snaking one of his hooves behind Soarin's head grabbing a thin tuft of mane. "Do that some more."

His partner complied with enthusiasm, swirling his tongue around the head before diving back down to the sensitive spot, suckling on the hot skin. Braeburn's back arched ever so slightly as he pushed his lover's head aimlessly towards his hips, begging with a wordless moan for more. Soarin' rolled his eyes internally at the not-so subtle gesture, but nonetheless nodded and worked his way back up to the very tip, giving it an experimental lick before popping it into his mouth.

Braeburn squealed. Soarin' looked up, smiling around his companion's rod at the warm reception. He positioned the earth pony's head along the inside of his cheek so he would feel the entire ride down, and began his descent. His method was met with a fresh fit of muffled whinnies, stretched out for a breathtaking—literally breathtaking, for Soarin' at least—few seconds until he felt a saliva-drenched tip touch the very back of his throat.

Not wanting to end the party at mere felatio, he grasped whatever parts of Braeburn's length that weren't in his mouth in his hooves and jerked gently, all the while swirling his tongue along his captive's underside. Pulling himself up to that same sensitive spot he had exploited earlier, he flicked his tongue frantically for a split second only to fall right back down again, leaving Braeburn on the fraying edge of ecstatic shivers.

The earth pony whinnied again, louder this time, and bucked his hips forward without thinking, burrowing himself another inch further into Soarin'.

Air caught in Soarin' lungs, unable to flow around the thick length occupying his gullet. His stomach lurched in panic as water pooled at his widening eyes. His brain shouted an instinctual alarm—he would surely gag if he kept his partner's length in for a single moment longer. With a resigned slurp he pulled away, sputtering slightly and dabbing at an obstinate trail of precum that latched onto the edge of his lips.

When Braeburn realized that he was no longer being serviced, he opened his eyes. "Whuzzit—" His pupils shrank as he took in the sight of his partner. "Oh sugar, I didn't choke you or something, did I?"

"No, no, it's all good," stammered Soarin', "I just bit off a little bit more than I could chew—err, suck."

Braeburn let out a disbelieving chuckle. "No, that was my fault. I got too into it and tried to force myself deeper. I was only thinking of myself there, even after you did all... that—" he gestured vaguely to his member, still glistening with a salty mix of saliva and precum, "—for me."

"Woah woah woah now." Soarin' bristled, frowning in mock indignation. "'Only thinking of yourself'? Are you saying that I didn't enjoy myself?"

"I almost choked you into submission with my unmentionables."

"Point taken. If you're really so concerned about it..." The pegasus trailed off, wiggling his hips just enough to send his member slapping dully against his thighs. “Why don't we do something we can both enjoy?"

Now, Braeburn wasn't by any means a simple-minded pony. Expert advice from his parents (advice, coincidentally, that he wished nothing more than to forget every waking second of his existence) told him to read between the lines and reciprocate the sultriness. “So,” he breathed, layering on his country accent as thick as he could, “what does that entail, partner?”

Without missing a beat, Soarin’ chimed, “Buttsex!"

Braeburn’s face of barely contained excitement took a drastic nosedive into a pit of seething anticlimax. "Always the poetic one, aren't y—woah!"

So busy was the earth pony lamenting the many woes of having a partner as blunt as Soarin’ that he didn't even notice said pegasus silently tucking his head underneath his significant other's legs and rocking him onto his back, exposing two bobbing testes hovering limply just below the engorged mass of flesh.

Soarin' sighed wistfully. "I think I could stare at this forever."

"Well, I can't." Braeburn twitched anxiously, quietly praying for Soarin' to just mount him already and get it over with—not that he didn't want the event itself to drag on as long as physically possible, of course.

For good measure, he wiggled his hips just enough to send his nethers swinging like tiny pendulums. This seemed to be enough to break Soarin' out of his trance long enough for him to realize what he was in the act of doing-and just long enough to realize that his own balls would be turning an even deeper shade of blue if he didn't hurry up and do it already.

He pushed the painful thoughts out of his head as he pushed himself up on the bed, swinging himself into position. After a brief moment of disoriented fumbling, he managed to find Braeburn's hole and slip the very tip of his member inside. He dared not go further until he knew his partner was ready, though.

"Brae?" he whispered. "You ready?"

"Just do me already."

Soarin' tried to chuckle, but all his sex-addled brain could manage was a determined grunt. Heaving a steadying breath, he rocked his hips forward, pushing himself deeper into Braeburn.

The response was immediate. Braeburn's inner walls clenched around Soarin' in shock, then relaxed as they surrendered to the overwhelmingly wonderful burning sensation spreading through him. His thin, raspy moans encouraged Soarin' to go deeper, allowing Braeburn to grow accustomed to the length intruding into his most personal of spaces.

Just as Soarin' felt his hips connect with his lover's, he reared back, dragging his length back out until only the tip remained obstinately inserted. Smirking at the pained look of absolute bliss on his companion's face, he repeated the same motion—impaling Braeburn as slowly as physically possible only to pull back out at the very cusp of fulfillment—until the earth pony slammed his head into the bed and let out a string of fillyish whinnies.

Soarin' chuckled through clenched teeth. On the rebound of his last agonizingly slow thrust, he shifted his weight to one hoof, fumbling for Braeburn's hardened flesh with the other. Once he secured his grip, he sunk his hips once more, this time accompanying his thrust with a quick stroke up the length of Braeburn's staff still in his grip.

Both stallions grunted in time as the intoxicating scent of their own arousal filled the air like fog. Soarin' didn't wait to ramp up the intensity this time, quickening his pace to match his own rapid breaths. A thin, sticky strand of liquid leaked from the tip of Braeburn's member as it bobbed loosely in Soarin's hoof. Each twitch brought on another little shiver, paralyzing the earth pony in mind-numbing pleasure.

A spasm, white-hot and roiling, shot through the pegasus as his rhythm hit a peak. He shouted, louder this time, bucking his hips forward in a spastic burst. His legs trembled, threatening to buckle under his weight and send him sprawling to the floor below. He couldn't have cared less—his brain was far too busy drowning in the exhilarating rush of hormones that every thrust brought him.

"Mhnn—mmh—" Braeburn unconsciously mimicked his partner's noises. As the speed of Soarin's strokes picked up, so too did the weight that bore down on his hips like an invisible anvil, gaining momentum every time Soarin' slammed himself down into him and crushing him. The pressure clung to him, pooling just under his skin and aching to burst.

Soarin's rod flexed as he buried it inside Braeburn, scraping against his insides. That gentle tingle, weaving seamlessly between piledrivers of pleasure, finally scratched that deepest itch and broke the final chain holding him back from release. "S-Soarin'," he whimpered, hot seed rising inside him and threatening to all but explode, "I'm there."

"Me t-too," came the heavy reply. "Just a little more, and we can finish togeth—"

Braeburn whinnied loud enough to knock the rest of Soarin's statement right out of his mouth. He clenched around the pegasus and squeezed with all his worth as his body convulsed madly, gripped by the fist wonderful throes of orgasm. A yellow hoof fumbled blindly for purchase, finally catching onto one of Soarin's forelegs and locking it in a death grip.

Their eyes locked. Braeburn snarled, "I am cumming, now."

Another harsh yell sliced through the anxious air as Soarin' caught up to his partner, tripping his own wire and sending himself spiraling towards release. He thrashed wildly, driving himself into his lover as far as he possibly could and surrendering his body to the pulsing throb building in his loins, finally allowing it to jet from him in the form of a thick wave of white-hot seed, filling Braeburn to the brim and spilling out onto the bedsheets with a pitter-patter reminiscent of falling rain.

Braeburn's eyes rolled up in his head as his hips bucked furiously in the air. His member erupted, splattering his coat with thick, white stains. His legs kicked out as he emptied himself, covering his chest and belly in his own ejaculate as Soarin' injected him with another load of his own sticky seed. The two tensed simultaneously as a final, crushing wave barreled into them, sending them both reeling with only their own quivering bodies to lean into for purchase. Both stallions saw the world flash into nothingness, replaced for an excruciatingly wonderful moment by pure, paralyzing pleasure.

The world came back in slow, fading pulses—an outline here, a patch of fur there, one very big stain on the bed somewhere else—until the entire room had once more been filled with color. The only sound came in their own decrescendoing breathing and the occasional sickly squelch from the still-fresh stain flowering under Soarin'. Their hooves found each other as the two finally pulled away from their previous position, allowing their members to droop lazily against their bodies. Braeburn let out a little coo as a stray shot of warm love juice dripped down his flank and onto the bed below.

Wordlessly communicating their desires, the two fell onto the bed in a tired heap of limbs and fur, squeezing their bodies together as much as they could and squirming to the opposite end of the bed so as to avoid the fresh stain they had just made. Soarin' encompassed them both with his impressive wings, cocooning himself and Braeburn so they wouldn't have to bother with blankets—which, in all honesty, they had probably just soiled anyway.

"So..." Braeburn finally broke the swaddling silence, rolling his hoof over Soarin's side in lazy circles. "That was pretty nifty. Not exactly the romantic evening I had pictured, but still."

Soarin' let out a chuckle, shooting his partner an incredulous grin. “You kidding? This is, like, the most romantic thing I've done in months."

"We're both covered in cum, and we don't even have so much as a rodeo ticket to show for it."

"Oh, it was a rodeo alright."

"Get outta here."

The two swatted playfully at each other with their tails, fighting and failing to suppress another round of love-drunk giggles. By the time they quieted down and settled back into each other, the atmosphere in the room had relaxed significantly.

"I still have to disagree, you know," Soarin' mumbled. "This is romantic. Just a different kind of romantic.”

Braeburn rolled over, scrunching up his nose in confusion. "And how's that?"

“Well," Soarin' started, "we don’t have to be all lovey-dovey with each other to be romantic. Typical cowpony romance-y stuff—you know, sweeping the damsel in distress into your hooves and smooching for all the townsfolk to see and riding off into the sunset—" he dodged another playful punch from Braeburn, "—that's all well and good, but it's not our kind of romance. "

"Our kind a' romance?"

"Yeah. It's like, we could do all that outlandish, dramatic junk, but we don't really need to go that far to know that we love each other. I mean, we could get invested in all of those things, but there wouldn't be any emotional payoff to them. If professing our love for each other on a private beach in the Bahamares or having a dramatic test of of our faithfulness for each other won't bring us any closer as a couple, why should we do it when just spending an evening in with each other like this is just as affirming?"

Soarin' paused before adding, "Hay, we’re such a good couple that we don’t even need a dinner at a fru-fru French restaurant and a moonlit stroll on the beach to be romantic.”

“Even though that's what we're supposed to be doin'.”

Ignoring Braeburn’s snappy retort, Soarin’ continued, “We don’t need any of that. We just need ourselves, and a Tuesday.”

A thoughtful look clouded the Wonderbolt's pale green eyes. "You're still not getting me, are you." A nod from Braeburn confirmed the fear that all his post-coital ranting had been in vain. Blowing a stray tousle of mane from in between his eyes, he muttered, "Okay, let's try something else. What’s romantic to you? What defines ‘romantic’?”

“Well..." Braeburn allowed himself to skip into the recesses of his still-fuzzy mind to search for an answer. "It’s when you feel safe enough around the pony you care about to be vulnerable and real with them, because you know that they will care about you all the more for it. It’s that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you act like yourself around them and they still somehow find it in their hearts to accept you for it.”

"And do you have that warm fuzzy feeling right now?”

Sporting a blush that would put any tomato to shame, Braeburn replied, “Yes, though that may just be the semen."

Soarin' threw his hooves up melodramatically. As they flopped back down to the bed, he concluded, “Then this is romantic. It's not romantic-romantic...” He paused, waving his hoof in the air to gain momentum. "But—call me crazy—I think it's better."

"Better." The earth pony chuckled under his breath, willing himself closer to Soarin' even though he was already pressed against the other's side. "Well, you got that right. It does sound a m bit crazy."

His facade broke, revealing a goofy smile underneath. "But, if this is romantic... then I guess I like our kind of romance."

——
The End

Author's Note

Edited by the immaculate princess Starfall.