"I'm sorry.."

"Huh-uh.."

She silently cries while held by Daniel, she tries to push him away, confused on whether to take his embrace or just push him away for hurting her. Her thoughts flood with conflicting feelings behind them, trying to tell her to hug him back or reject him for what she thought was originally rejecting her violently.

'Please..don't..'

She tries to push him away, he seems insistent on holding her in place. '..why are you so cruel..' Fluttershy's confused, one moment in love, interrupted by the sheer look of hate from her friend, then held against the wall being choked. Now he just want to hug her. '..why?..' she thinks as she lets him try to comfort her, her mind flooding with signals to either just bolt or just to submit and protect herself.

He sits along his bedroom floor, legs crossed, Fluttershy sat bundled up in fear on his lap as he repeatedly strokes the back of her head. She's hurt, he knows she must have some bruising on her lower jaw; she detests internally, keeping her head buried in his neck with silent tears rushing through her frightened closed eyes. She hears him apologize, his voice sounds breathy as he seems to hold back tears of his own. He sounds upset, but concerned in a way she's not familiar with; He sounds guilty.

"I'm sorry..I didn't mean to hurt you..I didn't mean for..me to hurt you.." He recognizes his own words, they feel hollow to him compared to when he originally said it, his mind argues at this depressing sense of deja 'vu.

'I didn't mean to hurt you..I didn't mean it..' He puts his hands along her shoulders and pushes her gently away, trying to stare at her directly, but she doesn't seem to want to look at him. Her eyes dart away and seem to twitch in fear, the ears are flat instead of upward in their usual perkiness, Daniel can feel her body shake as she lowly gasps between her audible crying. He tries a last resort, moving his hand to her left cheek to try to comfort her in the way he knows she and Pinkie likes.

"H-hauh.." She flinches and closes her eyes, moving her head to the right side to avoid contact, her front forelegs come upward to protect her head as she can feel his hand slide slowly past her left cheek. She pleads repeatedly in her head instead of aloud, her mouth quivering too much to be able to say it, very slightly ajar. 'D-Don't..'

Daniel takes this opportune moment to explain to her what happened quickly, before she breaks down emotionally. "Luna.." Fluttershy instantly recognizes the name, she glances over to him for a moment as he continues. "..she helped me remember, and helped me resolve the problem with that thing. That abomination." Fluttershy cautiously listens, her head still turned away, she starts to perk up as she feels his fingers settle around the back of her left ear. "..I.." Daniel's unsure of if he should explain that part with Grace, he might explain it to Twilight, but not her. He rushes ahead and just states plainly and simply. "I should be fine now. Just..I still saw it when I woke up. You looked like it and I..reacted." Her cheeks flood with trace amounts of pink, she looks like she's stopped crying, but Daniel doesn't feel any better as he looks towards her neck.

"..I'm sorry for doing..this, to you. I didn't know it was you." It feels awkward, but necessary to ask as he inquires at the slightly purple sight along her neck. "Does it.."

She assuredly but cautiously nods to answer him, for some reason Daniel lightly smiles while shaking his head. He speaks, he sounds a bit hysterical. "I'm such a fucking idiot." He runs his hand down near the bruising along her neck, his smile drops, as does his tone. "I always fucking act before thinking things out." He suddenly lays his forehead down on her's, closing his eyes as he apologizes to her again. "I'm sorry..I didn't mean to hurt you like I hurt someone else I once knew.."

Fluttershy's unsure of how to respond, so she instead picks up her fore legs, it manages to catch Daniel's attention. He grasps her hooves unexpectedly, interrupting her indecision to act; he's acting very weird and she's not sure whether to hug him or hold him back, her mouth slightly ajar as she hears what he has to say.

"..just.." He closes his eyes again, sincerely saying, "Thank you."

Lightly blushing as those words register, her mind starts to spark with loving inkling as she realizes he's holding her hooves and they're face to face with each other. Daniel continues, keeping direct eye contact. "Thank you for being so understanding." He smiles, continuing. "I don't know anybody else would have been as understanding as you if they were to be with me, or be stuck with me." He moves his hand down to her chin, just above the bruising, he lifts her head up a little to face him.

Her mind warns her with conflicting signals, she gets nervous internally as they both seem to get into position for a kiss. 'Uh..D-Danny..are you going t-to..uhh, uhh..!' Her face glows pink from anticipation/nervousness, unwisely she assumes he's about to kiss her as a grander show of apology or confession; she lowers her eyes and slowly extends her lips as preparation for this false tender moment. Instead, she feels some other loving feeling, her ear twitches as her eyes do the same; it's not a kiss, but something else tender.

"Mmn..nnn..~" She doesn't try to hold back the noises, she wasn't ready for them.

He's petting her and scratching below her chin like he did with Pinkie, her mind floods with loving thoughts and with more base motive behind it. This feels familiar, as it should, as she grasps his wrist again to encourage him to continue.

"D-Dan.." She tries to signal for him to continue, but he instead stops, curious about her use of the other variation of his name that's more casual. He asks, wondering what's wrong based on her sudden change in behavior; admittedly he didn't have confidence that she'd accept his show of respect.

"..what is it?" He feels her grip tighten, as much as it can without opposable thumbs. She requests directly, in a bit more of a sultry tone he's uncomfortably familiar with.

"...lower..~"

'..err.' He's not sure how to respond, so he passively just continues and goes with her request, aiming lower with his petting; taking mind to have it beneath the bruising, no doubt he knows it's still sore. He tries to suggest something, being reminded of the bruising as he glances lower towards her body, she subtly takes interest in his glancing.

"Maybe we should get you something for..well, this." He points closely at her bruising, realizing it must still hurt, it wasn't a gradual turn of purple; it was immediate after he grabbed her, he could hear her audibly choke. "I still have some aspirin, though it's not good for me, it should be fine for you." He gently places his hands on her side, gesturing for her to step off his lap so he can stand. She meekly steps aside as he does so, Daniel leaves his room and goes towards the kitchen's top cabinets. The floor feels cold, as it should, it's still some time in the very late night. Rummaging around for a bit, he spots a pill bottle on the counter beside her saddlebags, he calls out to Fluttershy.

"Oh, did you bring some?" He picks it up and inspects the contents, they're large pills, so apparently not. '..huh.' He hears some light clattering on the floor down the hallway, she suddenly flies over and nervously suggests against something.

"Uhm..you don't want to use those.." She looks a little saddened, passively thinking to herself as she grasps the top of the pill bottle with her mouth, whisking it away out of his hand and placing it on the counter. 'I..couldn't hide it..' She explains, "Those are..anesthetics.." she darts her eyes away nervously as Daniel fittingly looks confused at her statement, she continues on with her explanation. "Well..bear anesthetics."

She looks up at him with a worried expression, pleading; fearful that he'll get mad at her basically drugging him. "I-I didn't know what to do to get you to sleep, you just wouldn't sleep and you looked so miserable..they couldn't get you to sleep, like Pinkie, or Twilight, or—" She feels his hand on the top of her head, she bundles up and squeaks as Daniel tries to reassure her before she gets any more nervous, running her mouth like Pinkie when she gets excitable.

"Alright, alright, I get it." He lets his hand off her head and reassures her while meeting her eyes, she looks back up in what he guesses must be a confession of guilt. "It's fine..I understand why you had to do it." He glances over to the pill bottle, subjectively commenting on his own reply in his head. 'Think I just would have appreciated a heads up or something..' He asks her, curious about it, albeit he sounds a little demanding as he speaks. "Where the heck did you get bear anesthetics?" He picks up the bottle and starts reading the label for information. She explains to him, calmed by his assurance that he's not too mad at her for her strange method to get him to sleep.

"Well..I work with a lot of animals..when natural remedies don't work, I sometimes have to use medicine as a last resort..I try not to.." It seems like a simple enough explanation, she works a lot with animals, she did seem awfully ready with aspirin when they first met. He thinks subjectively regardless, 'Right..what kind of situation calls for these?' as he reads the name out loud.

"Diolarxamine. To be taken internally, recommended method: Hide in food." He takes that in for a moment, assuming the method it describes. "..uhh, I'm guessing that was mixed in with the..cranberry juice, wasn't it?"

She shyly paws her right front foreleg along the floor; he takes that as a yes as he twists the cap back on the pill bottle. "Alright..well I'm grateful for the intention, just.. not the execution." He's being honest, though luckily it doesn't seem to rustle her in any noticeable way. He rattles the bottle, around four or so inside as he places them respectively back into one of her saddlebags. He notices something else, the cranberry juice container she appears to have brought. "Oh, huh." He holds it up and smiles, a little in disbelief. "Sheesh, you really do think ahead, don't you? Thank you." He places it on the counter, looking downward he sees a warm smile; Fluttershy seems happy at the acknowledgement he gave, humming two quiet words.

"..you're welcome..~"

Thinking back on the task at hand, he sifts through the upper cabinets, grasping a significantly smaller pill bottle beside the wooden cabinet door's hinges. Reading the bottle and correctly identifying it as basic aspirin, he takes out a small glass cup more fit for her size and reaches for the container he left on the counter. He asks, being cautious over the fact he got drugged with it. "Err..there's none in here, right?"

It doesn't seem to register at first, but she quickly answers, given a few seconds to think it over with a little stutter in the beginning. "Oh, n-no, I put it in..uhmm..after. I promise there's not any in there.." She doesn't seem confident with her own choice of method to necessarily knocking him out, she didn't know any other subtle way if there was one, short of injecting him directly with some kind of strong tranquilizer; something she'd hate for him to see coming. Daniel continues with his should-be short endeavor, pouring the container's red contents into the glass, he gently slides it over towards her while emptying two small pills beside it. She looks at the glass and sniffs it passively, Daniel feels a bit awkward as he watches her lick the counter to pick up the pills into her mouth, taking a long sip of cranberry juice between her hooves along with it.

'Oh..huh.' He sometimes forgets he's in a world inhabited by magical talking ponies, two months of interaction with them seems to have made him forget his strange situation; their body limits especially, such as simply picking objects up with their mouths with the lack of hands or fingers. Unicorns seem to have it much easier when it comes to physical limits due to their magic telekinesis ability, he's suddenly reminded of how Twilight seems to love to bop him over the head with things when she gets annoyed with him, Daniel's starts to get distracted back into his sarcastic line of thinking. 'Hmph. She seems to love physical comedy.' He prefers action movies, albeit the last one he watched was with Pinkie and it still felt generic, other worldly or not.

'...Pinkie.'

He suddenly turns and looks towards the window, thinking to possibly visit her now in his more well rested state, he realizes the futility as he sees it's pitch black outside his home. 'Damn.' More than likely very early in the morning, so she's probably well into sleep like everyone else. Daniel wipes his face as Fluttershy places the unfinished glass in the refrigerator, lightly poking her tongue out of her lips, she forgot the cranberry juice was unsweetened. Noticing his mild look of concern and/or disappointment, she asks him while unsure of which of the two he seems to be conveying.

"Danny..are you okay?" She tilts her head, remembering the response method she got to work earlier, it works again as he feels inclined to answer her a bit quicker and seemingly more informative.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He looks back towards her to be polite. "Just that now that I can sleep, I thought to maybe visit Pinkie, bit late to do that now though." He glances back towards his room and continues. "Maybe in the morning." Daniel stretches, Fluttershy can hear the audible pop in his arm as he stretches his chest outward and back inward with his arms on the opposite front and backside. "I guess we should head back to bed, not going to stay awake all night now that I can sleep."

She smiles, noticeably overjoyed by his suggestion. She replies acceptingly, "Oh..okay..~" as she picks up her saddlebags in her teeth and trots off towards his room to settle in a little better.

Daniel tries to call out, "Wait, I didn't mean—" she disappears behind his door frame, he gives up on it and sighs. 'Guess she'd spend the night to make sure I'm okay..' He assumes that's her reasoning, placing the pill bottle back into the cabinet. He unwisely argues internally instead of aloud towards her. 'I don't have another bed Flutters..'

Back to their apparent impromptu sleepover, he mutters one last question before they head to bed, evidently in his own bed.

"Is she going to be sleeping over the covers or.." He's quickly answered quietly as he sees her under his bed's covers, he kindly requests, "Fluttershy.." She blushes and gets what he's conveying, she tucks herself outside of the covers, hiding a warm smile while feeling a little ambitious.

--

"Dannyyyyy~" A soft voice calls out to him, he tries to ignore it, it seems familiar. It calls out again, seemingly cheery; is that Pinkie?

"Urgh.." He hears a clattering noise, seemingly trying to stay silent. 'Fuck' he thinks he's asleep again, back into the nightmare. He opens his eyes suddenly, taking a quick panicked look around. It's not what he expected.

"Oh..good morning." Fluttershy tilts her head happily, standing in the bedroom's doorway, frowning a bit once she sees his expression. "Oh..I'm sorry..did I wake you?" He just woke up from sleeping, the rooms blurred as usual, but he notices the blur start to blend with her face. He blinks unsure of what he's seeing, it seems to clear up as quickly as it began, maybe he just got his senses back together? The feeling's not familiar, waking up without seeing that thing watching him, without it torturing him trying to force him to remember. He huffs, faced with her concerned expression, he explains.

"Oh, no, no. You didn't." He lies, seeing just a split second of what seemed like the abomination in pony form envelope over her, though he feels it's more appropriate as a white lie since it was so short-lived. "Just not..used to the feeling of waking up." Is true, as bad as that sounds when he recalls what he just said. Taking a look around the room, it seems to look normal now, he can hear birds lightly chirp in the background beyond the window; his paranoia seems to have gotten the better of him he hopes, making him think he saw what he expected to see. Figuring he should stop doing that, he thinks 'Acting instead of thinking..I gotta stop that.' he stretches and sits up on his messy bed in his long boxers and a plain white t-shirt, taking and breathe in then out to calm himself.

"Wha—" He sniffs the air, he smells something familiar, it seems out of place. He turns to her and asks, "Is..something cooking?"

Fluttershy warmly smiles as she answers him, "Oh.. I'm making you breakfast..~"

"..oh." He didn't realize that she'd do that, the smell looms throughout his room, presumably throughout the house too. Listening closer past the door, he can hear a faint sizzling with the smell of what seems to be frying potatoes and something else. He didn't realize he had oil for cooking, maybe he didn't look for it when he moved in; He realizes something as he thinks back on that fact, asking her directly. "Uhh..Fluttershy, I don't think I have any potatoes. Where did you—" He's interrupted by the eager pony, she gives a gleeful smile as she answers him.

"I went to go get some things when I realized you didn't have any..~" Her ears perk up as she realizes she should be watching over the stove, she can smell it getting crispy. "Oh! Uhm, I'll be back in a minute." She meekly shuffles away, he assumes to the looming smell of something cooking over a skillet.

'I'm perfectly capable of doing that on my own..well, now I am.' He assumes she may have taken his laziness with preparing food into account, at best he usually likes going out for a bite to eat in the morning, though he's a little concerned by the length of effort she had to fulfill her gesture. He mutters, disappointed in her invalidating his ability to head to Sugarcube Corner for breakfast as an excuse to visit Pinkie.

"Well I can't exactly say no now.." It'd be impolite to refuse it now, so he moves to his closet to get dressed, preparing for his apparent surprise breakfast. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Fluttershy watches the hash browns sizzle alongside the eggs, a spatula clasped in her teeth; her mind flutters with warm thoughts as she waits for the right moment to flip them.

'Yes! Yes! He got up okay..' She flips the eggs over, feeling accomplished being greeted with his less indecent behavior, he didn't panic like every other night before he tried sleeping. 'He's better now..~' She scoops up the eggs and places them on a plate, watching the hash browns sizzle as they are just about brown enough. 'No more nightmares, no more lack of sleep..~' Flipping over the hash browns, she continues with her line of thinking. 'Now he can stay awake, no more trauma, no more worrying, no mor—' It strikes her suddenly, realizing something else.

'..no more visits..'

Fluttershy's ears lower as she places the hash browns on the plate, she can faintly hear Daniel exit his room and come closer towards the kitchen to investigate the looming good smell. '..oh.' She darts her eyes towards the plate and meekly says to him, "Uhm..here you go." Her saddening thoughts are interrupted by a familiar warm sensation near her head as she turns to turn off the stove, her ear twitches and embarrassingly so does her tail, an uncontrolled bodily response. 'H-Haaah..~'

"..thank you, I know you didn't have to make it, but I appreciate the gesture." Liking the apparent fond reaction, he gives one more little scratch by the tip of her ear, it twitches again in delight as Fluttershy's heart goes aflutter upon contact. She thinks to herself, encouraged by his show of appreciation, especially his apparent physical kind.

'..if he wants me around longer..I suppose I should stay..~' Her ear lightly twitches as she detects the absence of his hand, he's turned away and pulled a chair over to the counter instead of sitting by the small table besides them. Taking this as a show of affection, she continues her line of thought, '..if he likes the company..' Her eyes lower as Daniel lovingly smiles to himself, noticeably enjoying the hash brown when he takes a quick mouthful.

'...if he likes my company.' Her mind encourages her to push onward, 'Be bold..be confident like Pinkie is with him..' as she pulls up a chair beside him, shyly sitting upright. She's reminded of how Pinkie's not afraid to be bold, taking a drink from his cup when he seems to warrant it, she hugs him without a doubt that he won't reject it, pulling him down to her own level when she wants a face-to-face talk or interaction. All things that Fluttershy can't do with anypony because of her own mildly deprecating shyness. Fluttershy's stomach burns with anticipation, she tries to work up the words when she notices he doesn't have a drink.

The counter's not that high, it's not built for someone his size, so they're at about equal height when they both sit down. She takes advantage of this and shyly addresses him, scooting closer just below his eye level a foot away. "Danny.." He glances over after taking a small mouthful of scrambled eggs, he silently savors the taste, noticing she must have put a smidge of butter and salt to enhance the flavor of both the eggs and potatoes. He swallows before replying, trying to be polite in front of his kind yellow friend.

"Hm?"

"Uhmm.." She tries to work up the words, her inner endearment starts to make her nervous from how much it wants to say beyond the initial request. 'Ask him!..ask him!' Putting her hooves on the counter, she asks him with a low voice.

"Can..can I.."

He raises an eyebrow, confused on what she wants to do or ask. A thought sparks in Daniel's mind, 'Has she eaten yet?' as he glances towards the remaining part of his breakfast. '..huh.' He detests the gesture, it might be a little too much to offer, but he hasn't done anything nice for her all night or all morning; thinking back on it, he hasn't all week. He decides to offer it, feeling bad spotting the bits of purple still around her neck from last night's unfortunate incident, he stabs the fork's prongs into a bit of egg and holds it in front of her. She blinks and darts her eyes towards him, her cheeks run ablush with pink as Daniel offers her what she wanted to ask to share together.

"Er, do you want a bite?..you made it anyway."

Fluttershy shudders, not expecting him to offer instead, her heart goes a flutter and she starts to panic internally. 'Oh my..oh my..~!' Resisting the shaking starting to buckle her forelegs, she takes her own advice to be confident with her approach; she slowly nods and extends her head to eat some. She closes her eyes as she clasps her teeth on the fork, pulling the egg steadily off the prongs, subtly attempting to look appealing while doing it. Instead, it looks a bit odd to Daniel, the situation accounting for the majority of it. Apparently they're sharing breakfast now, he tries to dismiss his wandering thoughts, reminded of himself acting instead of thinking as an ongoing problem he'll have to get over. He dips his fork and scoops up a bit of hash brown, eating the bit, methodically offering another bit to Fluttershy afterward. He's trying not to think too much of it, as to him it seems silly but kind to do so, reasoning 'Well she made it.' as he continues their back-and-forth sharing.

She gladly takes another bite, her ears perked as her face feels warm, silently savoring his amount of attention and care he's giving to her in turn. She silently hums, 'Mmm..~' as she takes another bite from his fork, taking split second glances at him when he takes bites of his own.

'He looks so happy..~' she happily thinks, watching closely at his lips.

Daniel takes another bite of egg, he's about done, evidently Equestrian sized meals are very small compared to his usual intake. Fluttershy offers to him, after taking the last bit of hash brown off his plate, "Uhmm..I can make some more..I mean, if you really want..~" She means to try out a new pancake recipe, combined with bits of cinnamon and maple to enhance it, she's sure he'd love it even more. Sadly, Daniel thinks objectively, stating to her,

"Thank you Fluttershy, but I think I should head out about now." She looks at him, confused at what he means, focusing on his choice of words. 'Don't..you like it?' Daniel continues, placing his plate into the sink to wash later himself, "I really want to visit Pinkie, it's about time I think that the store would be open." He confidently thinks to himself, reminded of the obstacles he'll have to get around to do so. 'Mr. Cake isn't keeping me out this time! Except maybe Mrs. Cake..' She still scares him when she's angry. He feels like he's given enough appreciation, he's eager to see Pinkie again after so long, delay after delay he's had as an excuse.

Fluttershy simply mutters, "Oh..okay." She puts on a semi-fake light hearted smile, encouraging his sudden decision. "I'm.. sure she'll be surprised.." Daniel puts two fingers to his forehead and flicks them, some sort of farewell salute as he walks away, Fluttershy blankly stares at the plate in the sink as she hears the front door open and close.

Their little moment together ended as soon as it began, sooner than she expected, sooner than she wanted.

She silently mutters, "Hmph." silently as she glances towards the sink, she thinks to wash it herself, she lightly smiles at the possible response she'd get from him. 'Maybe some petting..some hugging...~' Her mind floods with mental images of them closer, the kinder gestures they'd give each other in turn for each other's kindness. '..maybe something else..tender..~' Her eyes lower as she says to herself, an ambitious smile following shortly after, tilting her head while lost in her tender thoughts.

"...he'll appreciate that..~"

She paws the faucet handle to the left side, water starts to flow into the sink. Determination spurs in her chest.

"..I'm sure he will."

Author's Note

Edit: Oh damn, I didn't realize this has 930 views at the time of writing this :D Is currently 8:24 AM, compared to the time below. Awesome! Thank you!

Well this is a bit late, but better late than never. Quite eventful!

Been unwisely sleeping in for the past few days, not anything necessarily bad, just perfect temperature combined with the cold of the room and the warmness creeping in from outside..heh. So just been doing that a lot. A big bit of evidence to that being that at the time of writing this, it's 5:45 AM, so I'm heading to bed in a bit. Will probably work on the next chapter later today or early tomorrow..give or take my messed up sleep schedule.

I tried to take careful care to nor try to type in a dazed state, overlooked quite a bit now and fixed a few mistakes. Again, thank you to all that have read thus far, I appreciate the feedback in comments especially! :) Either for motivation or just general feedback, it's good to get some comments.

For today's cute picture, I found something interesting, which is evidently coincidental in the depiction of the beginning of this story!

https://derpibooru.org/265577?scope=scpe5268a527eed508677ba34ce904fd1a86f583b91b

Reminds me a lot of Daniel's situation in the 1st and 2nd chapter, the depiction of injuries. The image above is actually from a fanfiction, I haven't read it, but if you'd like to out of curiosity, you can find it here :) It looks immensely popular, and based on the comments, very engaging. So feel free to read it if you'd like!

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36257/cheating-death