Chapters The Night He Wants To Remember
On the eve of his nineteenth birthday in some Canterlot bar, Caramel was riding the buzz he'd been building since he stepped into the establishment half an hour ago. He knocked back a shot of cheap brandy, shaking his head back and forth as he felt the stiff drink torch his throat. Licking his lips to catch a stray drop, he slammed his hoof over and over down on to the counter. Calling for another shot over the loud shouts and conversations of ponies with better lives speaking over him. And his loud pounding continuing even after the drop in the song playing through the speakers of the bar, bringing all eyes to him. Staring at him like the skinny, stupid flake that he was.
If Caramel could believe they gave a damn, there was a question they were asking. What was this nobody doing in Canterlot? Who did he think he was interrupting the mood just so he could get another glass? Well Canterlot chumps, he had no business being here! None what so ever. That was the point. Caramel was free to do whatever he wanted and the Canterlot blowhards in this bar could suck it!
Still he winced in embarrassment as the bartender made her way to him and refilled his glass, ducking his flushed face and feeling the blood rush up to his ears. If he had a better life and lived in precious, precious Canterlot, he wouldn't want a loud drunk ruining the party even thought he wasn't the loudest. The bartender, a white unicorn with red eyes and pair of headphones hanging of her neck, her head was bouncing to the beat as she gave him a silly smile and mouthed something he couldn't understand. He shrugged. The bartender seemed to repeat what she said until she stepped away, heading to another customer down the line.
Oh well, he didn't hear a thing but he liked this. Drinking with a sea of strangers in a city of strangers. It was so liberating in a sense that it felt like a daydream. Some part of him worried when he closed his eyes this night however it ended, he'd wake up home like nothing ever happened. Still living that stupid life with his family and his fucking brothers who just couldn't understand a thing. Just thinking about that gave him a slight headache and Caramel rushed for the drink.
Canterlot was great.
Canterlot was really great.
Why did he need to think about home and responsibilities? He was free now. This was the first night of the rest of life. The night was young and he still remembered his name. That needed to be fixed.
Caramel gulped down the rest of his drink and rocked back and forth, liking the pain tapping into his temples. He settled for waiting quietly for his next drink as the room rose back to it's former head-collapsing level of music, talking and drunken shrieks. The earth pony turned his stool slightly. Enough so he could watch the crowd of self-proclaimed cadets cheering and doing keg shots, tube challenges and body shots off the tables they pushed together. He guessed because they were wearing that gold training uniform, nobody was calling them out for being a crew of loud dicks.
The mix of large unicorns and earth ponies twice his size made Caramel a little weary as they got louder and things started crashing and breaking as the cadets switched who was drinking off who. That massive giant pegasi with small wings should have know that little table couldn't have held him. But the trio who dared the pegasus only got on their knees and resumed slurping lines of salty and icy drink off his body.
'Makes me want to recruit...' Caramel thought wistfully, watching a pair of unicorn sisters double team a large male earth pony in a drinking contest and getting shit-faced all around. 'All I have to do is take orders and know when to bend over. Yeah...'
“Hey beautiful, what's a fine mare like yourself doing drinking alone?” Some unicorn stallion, white coat and blue two-tone mane, slid into the seat next to him and leaned over. Their muzzles almost touching as the unicorn wiggled his eyebrows as like a come-on. Was he serious?
Caramel forced down his hoof that was about to point to himself and go what the fuck. The unicorn's horn was shining with a green shine as Caramel glanced into his eager blue eyes for some sort of explanation as to how drunk off his ass the unicorn was to confuse him with a mare. Wait. Green glow and blue eyes? Wasn't unicorn glow supposed to match the eyes? Caramel blinked as he felt the alcohol kick in and kept his question to himself.
“I dunno.” Caramel slurred, giving a slobbering smile as he started cracking up. “I don't know what a fine mare is doing alone but this stud-cake of a stallion might be up for answers! Yeah! Do you really think you can handle all of this good stuff?”
The unicorn recoiled. His eyebrows slapping his forehead as they stretched to the top as the stallion took a double-take. Then another one. And another, his eyes roving Caramel's sitting figure as if he was making excuses to himself. Caramel snorted, his eyes fluttering close as he laughed harder. The unicorn's face...! Caught in twisting lust and disgust as he visibly fought to stay in his seat and leave Caramel hanging to try his luck again.
“I wasn't serious about answers.” Caramel managed to get in, wheezing all the while. “I'm not a colt-cuddler so... I was just messing with you. You are free to try your luck elsewhere but you should probably bring along a pair of glasses with you too.”
“Then shit, what are you?” The unicorn said a little loudly, turning the heads of other ponies at the bar as Caramel went red as he tried to tell them to mind their business and fuck off. This wasn't what they were thinking! The guy made a mistake. “You looked like a mare and I'm a stallion...” The unicorn trailed off. “I thought you looked lonely.”
“How does any of this make me look lonely?” Caramel waved a hoof in the general direction of cadets getting drunker and noisier as the seconds passed. “I'm having the time of my life here. I came to this bar to get drunk off my ass and I can say for sure, I am getting it done.”
That being said, Caramel began to consider how much of a mare he looked to this stallion. Soft hips aside because Caramel has tried all his life to get rip like the many earth ponies stallions in this bar. He was still taller than the average mare and had a tough jawline that could cut through bread.
Okay, maybe cut through soggy bread if he was being honest here.
“What did you come for?” Caramel asked, not really caring about the answer and wanting to resume drinking in his apparent loneliness alone.
“I got accepted into the Royal Guard Academy, Canterlot Division.” So he was with the rest of those go-lucky fuckers. “I'm now a official private and you know how chicks dig a stallion in uniform.” The unicorn shot him a shit-eating grin as he began to flex his forearms, making aggressive grunting sounds. “I'm here to try my luck.” The unicorn purred and Caramel stiffened in his seat, hoping he was imaging that the unicorn was still trying to make a pass at him.
“Don't you mean cadet? I had three of you tough guys correct me already when I called them all recruits.”
“Recruit. Cadet. Private.” The unicorn made a show of waving off each military term before getting off his seat and stretching against the counter. His body at peak condition from all the training and heavy workouts he must do every morning. The unicorn wasn't wearing a uniform like the others but he didn't need to with a body like that.
Caramel writhed in his seat as he took a desperate look at the unicorn's large and toned back and hard hindquarters as if they were carved by artists, chiseling everything into excellence. In comparison, Caramel felt like a glob of fatty unmanly goo which was insulting because he was the earth pony here. Shouldn't unicorns all be fat nerds! “Same.” He said between hot grunts, sending trembles down Caramel's spine. Angry trembles for sure! “Thing.”
“Sure, it is. You bastards probably just like having the chance to correct ponies.” Caramel muttered before deliberately turning his head and nudging the unicorn out of his fitness routine to where he was discreetly pointing to. Or blatantly pointing to. Caramel couldn't tell as he felt the room shake and spin and wondered when his next drink would be coming.
The unicorn followed his gaze to the orange pegasus with bright red hair sitting in the booth across from them. The mare was working though the drinks lined up in front of her like they were water as ponies cheered her on. From afar, Caramel could clearly see her as fine, flirty mare that would have his tongue in knots if he had a brave bone in his body to try and talk to her.
But this meat head right here had to have gotten his priories mixed up by hanging around. Caramel wasn't a mare and they weren't friends. The unicorn had to get moving. Just being around him made Caramel feel funny... Wait, he meant to say incompetent at life but whatever.
“As the best stallion in the room,” Because if he doesn't call himself that, who will? “The sweet mare over there might be more your speed, Mr. Trying Your Luck. Mostly because she is an actual mare and a little because she's hot. Literally. Do you see her hair whipping back and forth like that? I'm already feeling the burn! I'd lick her hooves if she let me.” He said, feeling the liquid courage running though his veins. “She could walk on me all night.” Caramel felt his tail lifting itself up and wagging, practically exposing his stupid hips and slapped his hooves on it.
The unicorn dragged his eyes from Caramel who squirmed under the slow gaze that said he saw Caramel getting worked up, took a long look at the mare and shrugged. The bastard actually shrugged. Caramel's heart dropped to the floor and swore vengeance. Why on Equestria would he shrug at that kind of mare? The mare that was so far out of Caramel's league that he couldn't choose between saying out of this universe or out of the two universes next door.
Was this unicorn that good at picking mares that he could stick his nose up at her? What a fucking bastard!
Shit, she could be in magazines on center-fold spread with her tight, slim body and those slick wings making her look like a some sort of sexy minx. Ummph, he couldn't wait until for the wet mane edition...
“Nah. Why the fuck are you the best stallion?” The stupid bastard said stupidly. Thanks for missing the point.“I'm the best stallion and as the best, I say you should do it.”
“Do you see yourself?” Caramel gestured to his muscles that could bounce off bits. The prince-y rich boy face girls adored. The muscular build that was the best he seen. Celestia, all of this was killing him on the inside. “You got a better chance than the rest of us, you dick. Do you have confidence problems? Have trouble getting it up?”
Caramel allowed a small smile to skirt across his face.
“Because you don't need to get up when you have a body like yours. If I was a mare, I'd be throwing myself at you and telling you not to look at that other mare because she'd make me jealous, then gay and I'd drop you like a hot potato.”
“All she's gonna think is that I'm trying to get her on her knees cause I look like I'm on a ego trip like the rest of the recruits. But with you, fellow girlie and all sensitive type, she'd want to talk to you.”
“Girlie.” Caramel silently mouthed before glaring. “Did you just call me girlie? As a name? Nick-name? Seriously?”
“I'm sure as hell not calling you manly.” The unicorn snickered. “Say I didn't introduce myself. My name's Shining. Shining Armor. Yours?”
“Caramel.” He replied, rolling his eyes and slightly shoving Shining. “At least my name doesn't sound something out of a cheesy book.” Caramel mocked but the unicorn seemed to be in deep thought.
“No last name?”
Was last names really that important? His wasn't at the moment.
“Not anymore.”
Shining went silent before, “Let me buy you a drink. It's not often I get to welcome fresh faces to Canterlot and in this city, you can name yourself anything you want.” The unicorn chuckled as if laughing at his private joke.
“I like anything that's free.” Caramel smiled and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.
“Hey, I am not paying for that.”
“Don't be cheap. It's free.”
“But it's coming out of my wallet.”
“That's what make it free!”
The Night That Never Ended
A couple of shots, mugs of mixed drinks, pints of bubbling juice and weird taps that made him lose sight in one eye and the world started to go blurry. And loud, so loud. Ponies talked, shouted, argued and bitched right against his pulsing ears as he slurped anything that was put in front of him. Colors and shapes flickered and swirled the more he tried to keep his head above the intoxication making his mind turn to mush.
There was so much green, green, green until suddenly there wasn't.
Cream blushed as he leaned into Shiny, his body shaking from the hiccups slipping free from his swollen lips. What was the feeling sitting on the bottom of his stomach? Was it really... Ah, it made his body shake and burn for Shiny.
He wanted more. He needed more. But Shiny wasn't paying him any attention.
The world felt so fuzzy and furry and buzzy like his heart strings were being plucked into a song. Cream whispered, his voice a chant of all the little things that stole his heart. Of tips and horns and lips and songs and a particular unicorn stallion who wasn't looking at him. Finally Shiny turned to him after finishing his own drink, smiling like the sun and moon and making Cream's knees go weak.
It was weird in all the good ways to feel lips press against his, tugging his trembling lips open to a invading tongue. Drool dripping free and splattering on each other coats as their tongues wrestled. Shiny won as he always did and pulled away, leaving Cream still wanting more. His body swayed and swayed, continuing the movements of their kiss as Shiny ruffled his hair.
Where had Shiny been all his life?
Wait, what?
“I'm so wasted...” Caramel cracked, smacking Shining's heavy hoof off his mane and giving the meat-head a friendly shove. “I thought you kiss... kissed me.” He stuttered as he looked at the rest of the bar and found it almost empty. Sure, he wanted to get drunk but he didn't want to spend his whole night in one bar. He wanted to hit up a few more places and this fucker was still here.
“You're a Canterlot native, right? Know of any hot spots we can hit up this late at night?” Caramel dropped his head on the counter as he asked, turning his face slightly to look at Shining who had a curious dark expression on his face. Was Shining mad because he lost his night too? Too bad. “I'm even willing to be your best stallion to help pick out the lucky ladies for you. I owe you that for the sexual confusion at the least. Shining?”
“My name isn't Shining.” The voice sounded so unfamiliar and displeased. Caramel couldn't tell if Shining meant for him to hear that. “You've been calling me Shiny all night with your voice so cute. Where did that little mare go?”
“I don't remember doing that.” Caramel dragged up a hoof, waving for someone to serve him another drink. “Shit, I bet you don't remember me doing that.” Caramel pulled his body up and growled into Shining's face. “Just because you're a tough beefcake doesn't mean anything to me. I'm a stallion who can still kick your ass.” Caramel lost his grip and fell into Shining's warm lap, struggling to pull himself away. “This doesn't mean anything! I am still an ass-kicker.”
Shining helped him up as Caramel tried to take a swipe at his face. Shining blocked the hit and chucked. “You're more of an ass-taker if I had to say.” Caramel cranked back his hoof to punch Shining right into his jaw but the idiot moved faster than he thought. Shining kissed him and everything went green, green, green.
Cream curled into Shiny as he felt his lover rub his muzzle into his mane and a hoof run down his spine, sending shivers to his core. Cream sprinkled wet kisses and love bites along Shiny's neck as he felt something wrong. Why was he making out with Shining? Who the hell was Shiny?
He had a reason. It felt good. But he couldn't remember when and why? Shouldn't he know that about the stallion he loved?
Liked?
Tolerated?
“I love you, Shiny” Cream moaned, waiting for Shiny to play with his lips some more. “I love you...” Cream repeated, watching as Shiny threw down some bills and told the bartender to mind her business. It sounded so mean. The stallion he loved wouldn't do something like that.
“Sorry about that.” Shiny spoke, his horn and eyes turning a green, green, green for only a flicker of a second. “You know, you don't look that good. Let me take you to a bathroom.”
“Whatever you say, Shiny.” Cream sung, allowing himself to be roughly dragged outside the bar. It was so weird. The bathroom shouldn't be so far away but Shiny kept on making him walk further and further. The streets got dirtier and all of the pretty lights lighting their way was gone. “I love you.” He said randomly, feeling his body go stiff with a realization. “I love you?”
His why went unspoken as Shiny pushed him through a narrow backroom and into a shitty bathroom stall. Caramel fell back against the toilet, desperately trying to shake the fog in his head.
“I love you?” Caramel repeated, rocking his head and watching Shining lock the door behind him. “Shining, what the hell. I don't like stallions. Hell, I don't even like you that much.” Caramel muttered, trying to stand up and collapsing against the stall's wall. “I don't-”
“Yes, you do.” Shining said calmly, his body taking most of the space in the stall and that horn glowing green, green, green. “And now it's time for you to show me how you love me. Get on your knees and face the toilet.”
Shining waited anxiously, his eyes growing darker and his erection growing more and more blatant as it saluted between his legs, until he finally processed the single word Caramel said. “No?” Shining spoke, the confusion curving his lips into a half-baked frown of displeasure. “What?”
“I'm a triplet.” Caramel stated as Shining stared at him dumbfounded. “From a family of idiots up in Hollow Shade. I was the one born without a horn but I got the family's magical sensitivity or immunity and shit.” Caramel trailed off before he got back to the point. “Whatever fucked up unicorn shit you used on me...” Caramel spat out, still attempting to get on his hooves. “It only works once.”
“That's not possible.”
“Technically...” Caramel puffed out his chest like he was about to break into a long explanation on all the things going on in the world that shouldn't work but does because of hello, magic. But instead, dropped low and crawled under the stall's wall. “I have always been a shit.” Caramel darted for the door, reaching for the handle but a body slammed him into it and his head saw stars.
Shining picked him up by his shoulders with fucking magic and threw him into the stall's wall, his weight causing it to bend inwards and break. Caramel stood up before a swift hoof-jab to the neck and a kick to his gut had him on crawling away on his knees. The earth pony got up and lunged at Shining, his hoofs flying left and right, swinging drunkenly and with the burning desire to smack that smug look out the unicorn's eyes. The bastard was enjoying this.
Shinning ended everything with a straight punch to the face. Caramel flew back, blood and saliva streaming out of his mouth before he tried to sneak again past the unicorn, balling up his body to lunge again as he stumbled forward. The unicorn grabbed him by his mane and bounced his head with sickening crack against the sink's counter.
Once.
Caramel struggled, his hooves clawing at the arms holding him.
Twice.
Caramel spat more blood, a cut was slicing its way across his forehead, blinding him as more red, red, red bleached his sight. Everything went black as Shining threw him to the side and dragged his body back to the toilet, forcing him to face the fucking rim.
“This is all you had to do. Why did you have to make this so difficult?” Shining mocked, freely resting a heavy hoof on the back of Caramel's neck. Daring him to move and die. “This is what you do for people you love.” Caramel flipped over and bucked Shinning right into the crouch.
Shining only smiled.
“That might have worked on someone else.” Shining sat down on top of Caramel's front, his hard dick pushing into his belly, pre-cum smearing into his coat. “But since I'm really in need of a hit and baby, you're just my type.” He winked. “If you don't want to love me, you can call me Master. And even if you think you aren't going to be saying that of your free fucking will...” Shining lifted up Caramel by his shoulder and smashed his head against the toilet
“I just have to up the dosage, Mr. Immunity.”
Three years from that fateful birthday he spent in Canterlot, Caramel found himself back in the capital for another stay through the winter. Granted, Caramel wasn't hitting up the city due to low funds and sweet deals if one knew where to look. 'Mostly legal' is the term that Caramel kept looking for these days. He himself would be doing something completely illegal for the sake of what... Making that sick fuck, Shining Armor suffer?
Was it even worth it?
Caramel was mostly content with his life. He was a professional temp, offering his services to the farming towns like Ponyville and Appleloosa from early spring to late fall, raking in the easy bits. Caramel had no home. No security. No life insurance and none of the stress that came with keeping all of that junk up. He saved his money, lived cheap and when winter came, he'd always had a pool of bits to keep him going until spring came. Well... Not this time... He'd be living shitty after he got through this thing of his.
The earth pony paused in the rolling of the white and plastic sheets he was spreading out across the rotting wooden floor. Eerily noticing his nail gun wasted two nails before he turned it off and abruptly dropped the gun from his mouth. His torture room was complete outside a few more layers of plastic that would soften the feel of the floor. Caramel was sick and tired of splinters he got in his hooves when he first started cleaning out the place.
Some part of him thought he should have went with carpet but he wisely remembered the potential of carpet burns and leaving any more evidence than necessary. He was crossing into the line of pure illegal. There was no what if Armor wasn't going to tell anyone. It was a matter how far could he make it across the country before a set of Royal Guards kicked down the door.
A large white mattress sat to the side and Caramel was still considering whether if he'd actually have a need to use it. But for the most part, the center of attraction was the stall. The stall where Armor... Ah, that wasn't important. That stall was where he'd take his revenge and clean his head of the green, green, green.
The stall was simple. It was small. A bleached blue on all sides with a little broken door. Of course, the stall didn't have slots at the bottom to provide an escape and in the back of the stall, there were hooks and pulleys to hold a stallion of Armor's weight and size. There was even a empty toilet to complete the feel of the bathroom. Caramel rubbed his hoof against the stall's door, reveling on the feel and proof that he's...
A fucking psycho, that's what.
With all this money he spent, couldn't he have made his way to a therapist? Or paid some gangster to frame Armor and get his sorry ass put in jail. Then getting him acquainted with the term, 'don't drop the soap'? There was no need to put himself in risk like this. Not for...
Caramel sighed and stepped into the fake bathroom, checking that he had the pulleys installed tightly into the back wall and the strength of the ropes. Everything passed his mental checklist. He was ready and all he needed was Shining Armor's disgusting flank.
According to his plans, the entire operation would take four hours. A hour procuring Armor, a half hour of tying Armor up, another half to have Armor stewing in his own mess and an hour actually torturing. There were plenty of things that could go wrong in the time frame. What if he underestimated Armor's training as a Royal Guard? Caramel would only have the element of surprise on his side. What if the cocktail of drugs he planned to force Armor to drink didn't work? What if he overestimated his training and Armor made light work of him?
What if Armor finished what he left off...
Caramel left the stall. Picked up his gun and resumed pushing the new layer across the floor and nailing it down in rows. Everything was fine. His planning was fine. All he needed was the resolve to see things through and to trust how he spent his money. Bits don't lie, don't abuse, don't brainwash, don't trick and won't ever let him down. How could it? It's just coins made of coppers and silvers.
Ponies were different. Shinning Armor was different.
And was it wrong for Caramel to engrave a memory into Shinning Armor's head just like he did to Caramel?
No.
Not at all.
Shining Armor, Canterlot's Rising Star and a shame of a stallion, liked to drink his coffees with cream and two cubes of sugar. Four days a week, Armor stayed at the guard dormitories at Canterlot Castle. The other two and a half days, he often spent time at his parents' house and following his close friends, Rust Mark and Steel Hilt for fun at their favorite bar, Laurels'. On the few times he indulged in having a mare friend, he prefers mature, lanky types but spends equal time pursuing friendly and playful mares.
If he's dating, nobody knows but the word on the dorms is that he's chasing after Celestia's niece, the obscure and often forgotten, Mi Amore Mi Cadenza. On what little information Caramel has on her, he can only assume that she's of the former type and doesn't care about the particulars of their relationship. What matters to him is to find a perfect time to snatch Armor without anyone getting suspicious about the four hour absence.
Caramel found an opening when he noticed that Armor lied to his friends on one particular get together at Laurels'. And made arrangements of his vacation days to focus around a up-coming three day weekend at the academy with his own parents are heading away for trip. The only one who would notice would be the girlfriend and Caramel could allow that loose end to hang.
Armor disappeared for the three days. Then came back to his family home on the fourth extra day off he's set up with his trainers. He lingered around his house before heading to the bar, Laurels'.
That's where Caramel will make his move.
