RED

I stepped out of the shower with a yelp. "Fucking no!" I clutched my head as I scrambled for my clothes. "Son of a bitch!" I pulled my pants on and grabbed the rest of my stuff in a bundle. I could hear Red crying as I moaned. "I can't-- No!" I turned to face the beige curtain between us. "You can't do that! You can't-- Ah!" I stormed out of the bathroom and straight out into the dingy hall of the apartment building. "Fuck!"

I stood out in the hall for a bit, left tied to the ground as the whimpering grew louder. "You can't just-- You can't pretend to be something you're not!" I tried to step away, but my feet refused to leave the ground. "You can't!" I yelled back into the apartment. The lights flashed on and Red walked slowly to the door.

He looked up at me with a completely broken stare. "I never lied.... I'm a mare...." She plopped down, her sheath was showing just barely and her balls were nearly sucked up into his stomach. "I'm sorry...." He hung her head low. "Please...I really thought you knew."

I stared at the half-mare my stomach growled at me rather loudly. "You're not sorry. You would have--"

Red locked eyes with me, teary and blue she punctured my heart with her gaze. "I thought you knew...."

I bit my lip and huffed. "I don't-- I-- You--Aaaugh fuck!" I stormed up to her and slammed my hand against her door. "You-- You just-- You fucking-- I hate you!" I shoved her door open, leaving the mare tightened up with a hoof to defend her face. "Fucking stop it!" I ducked down and grabbed my head. "How-- How was I going to know?"

Red slowly opened her eyes. "...Hit me--"

"No." I rubbed my face and felt my own eyes start to burn. "I don't want to."

Red rubbed her eyes dry with her foreleg. "You'll feel better."

I shook my head. "How was I supposed to know?" I held my hands out to her, begging for an answer. "I don't know what you mean. How was I supposed to know?" I placed my hands on my knees. "I don't understand...."

Red lowered her head. "Prettiest filly left at the bar. Ponies ask me all night, but...most can tell." She held her hoof up. "I smell like a stallion still...."

I rubbed my nose. "You smell like perfume--"

Red shook her head. "Ponies can tell--"

"Well I'm not a pony!" I pointed to myself. "I'm not! I don't know how you thought--"

"I'm sorry!" Red stomped her hooves. "I thought you knew, and I was wrong!" His eyes grew watery again. "I didn't think--"

"No!" I stood up took a deep breath. "You didn't think...."

Red and I stood off with each other, staring, waiting. "...Can I come in?" I asked calmly.

Red looked up at me with her ears back. "Why?"

I sighed heavily. "Because I'd like some answers."

Red's eyes dropped down to the floor. She stood up and stepped away from the door. "It's open."

I shifted around and grabbed my shirt. "We need to sit down and talk." I stepped inside and started to pull my shirt on. "We need to sit and fucking figure this shit out." I pulled my shirt back on. "It's late...I just, I need to figure this out right now." What I didn't tell her was that seeing her cry was digging into my skin, and if I didn't settle this now, I never would, and I'd end up living with this pain for a long long time.

I walked in and looked around the now bright room. The shoddy cream paint and the smell of mildew hung around like the tattered curtains tossed up over the small windows. I spotted cheap linoleum and hurried over. The waxy floor made a horrid noise as I walked over to a small wooden table and sat down.

Red walked in after me, bare and beige, she looked like any other mare. She walked around the table and sat down across from me. She settled in and stared at me, her head turned down slightly. "Explain. Now."

Red looked up at me and nodded. "Four months of potion therapy...then I get robbed before I can pay for the final round of treatments." She held his hoof up. "I was so close. I'm a mare, I feel like a mare, I look like a mare, I am a mare...I just...I just don't--"

"You've got a dick." I set my socks, underwear, and jacket onto the ground. "You said you smell like a stallion. I don't smell it, but it sounds like a pony thing."

Red laid his head against the table. "You can change in a day, but permanent changes take time. It's a transition, not a snap. The snaps are never permanent."

"Trans, we have them back home." I scratched my neck. "But you don't even have any masculine features for a mare. You're just, tiny, and soft, and--"

Red nodded. "I'll settle out after I'm done. But you have to overshoot and come back to something level." She looked down at her groin. "But some things take time...and money."

I stood up and looked back to the hall. "Setbacks?"

Red took a deep breath and looked up to me. "They took the money I'd been saving for the treatment. Probably used it for drugs or alcohol or something stupid." She rubbed her table. "Living in this crap sack, saving money for so long, working so hard!" She slammed his hoof into the table. "Lost! For some Celestia damned griffon to get high!" She shook her head hard. "I hate it here! I'm so sick of working just to get fucked!"

I leaned against the wall and rubbed my face. "Fucking-- Coffee, water, something." I rubbed my nose. "I need to dry out."

Red slid off her chair and turned to the cheap icebox. "Don't drink from the tap, you'll get sick."

I walked to the icebox and looked in. Several glasses of water sat open and waiting. "Jesus." I grabbed one and hammered it back. "The shit I get myself into when I drink." The cold shot down my throat and took away the heat from my chest. "I go out to get laid, I get stupid, now this." I rubbed my face. "Now I'm fucking standing here with a god damn tranny!" I hit the wall and leaned my forehead against it. "And I can't fucking leave!"

Red looked up at me with a nervous look. "What are you going to do then?"

I stared down at her. "How much do you need?"

"Six-thousand. Three more rounds and they said they'd cover the rest if I needed it." She sat down before me. "Jamie, I can call you that right?"

I rubbed my face. "After that, mare in all? Nothing left down there?"

Red looked down at herself. "Shouldn't be--"

"And what's gonna happen if I leave right now? Realistically."

Red scratched the ground with her hoof. "I shower...I go to bed, I go to work in the morning. I go back to life normally and try to scrape by."

I licked my lips. "And if I stay?"

Red's eyes grew watery. "I don't know. To be honest...I'm a little scared. You're big, you're angry, you could do a lot to me, steal, rape, I don't even know."

I stared down at the thin red mare. "I'd never do that. I'd sooner be a thief and a killer than a rapist."

Red dropped her head. "Then I really don't know what you're going to do. I'm surprised you even stayed this long."

I dropped onto one knee. "This, this shit in here isn't okay." I pointed around the crumbling apartment. "Because of a medical problem, that's not okay." I patted my chest. "I'm a desk clerk for the guard...the things I deal with, accounting and non-emergencies." I pointed back to the door. "I'd be back here in a week having to take reports from you getting robbed again." I stood up and shifted my feet. "And you-- When you cried, I just don't like it. I don't like it enough to--" I felt my skin creep at the realization of what my dick had been in. "Enough to keep from losing my shit."

Red shook her head. "Why though?"

I stared down at the red mare. "I don't know." I ducked down and put my arms around her. I hoisted her up and into my arms. "I'm tired, I don't really know what the hell is going to happen in the morning, but we'll figure it out then."

"You're going to stay?" Red sniffled softly. "After all this? You're going to stay with a mare like me you met in a bar?"

I sighed heavily and walked out into the hall of the apartment. "Until the rain stops." I carried her down the hall and through a solid wood door. A dingy twin bed was sitting beyond a dresser. "...So stupid." I walked over and set the mare down in the bed. "I just-- I'm tired of being alone, I'm tired of doing this bar hopping bullshit."

"With a mare from a bar?" She asked so quietly, so softly, that I could barely hear her. "You could do better...and we both know it, we both--"

"I can leave if you want." I rubbed my arm. "It's not the best start, it's really actually pretty fucking terrible, but this-" I pointed to the hall, the uniforms strewn across it, the crappy paint chipping off at the tops. "-this doesn't sit well with me. And neither does someone like you dealing with it all alone."

Red closed her eyes and turned away. "You were looking for sex in a bar.... You were-- how...why?" She opened her tear stained eyes and locked onto me. "And now you're standing there, taking me to bed."

I felt my own eyes burn slightly. "I've been in places like this before. Clean upscale apartments, nicely dressed, nice parts of town, mares just looking to get laid." I rubbed my face. "But they're shallow. They know what they want, they make it clear, but that's it." I pointed to Red. "This, this is fucked up. This is really, really fucked up for a lot of reasons." I shook my head. "But you're-- you-- the uniforms, the broken window, this gender correct shit." I ducked down next to her. "There's more fight in you, one little mare at last call, than half the girls I'd taken home."

Red shook her head. "I'm not--"

"Can I stay?" I stood up before her. "Can I help you?"

Red looked away. "Dear Celestia...." She covered her eyes. "Don't you care? I have boy parts, and you're still just sitting there--"

I patted my chest. "I'm standing here. Asking to make one of the roughest decisions of my life."

Red stared at me. "All those things I said to you, the flirting, the teasing.... Even if I am a mare--"

"I don't know why I'm still here." I felt a deep knot dig into my leg. "But I still am. I'm stuck here...waiting for an answer."

Red laid down on her side. "What happens next?"

I sat down on the edge of her bed. "Nothing sexual...." I rubbed my forehead. "You should have told me."

Red sat upright next to me. "I'm sorry...I really thought you knew."

"Yeah, well I didn't." I dug my nails into my pants. "And I don't really know." I turned to look at her. "One step at a time I guess." I hooked my arm around her neck and pulled her against me. I put my other hand on her head and cupped her ear. She was warm against my chest. "One step at a time."

Red sighed deeply. "Jamie...." She crawled up and sat on my lap. "Thank you." She pressed her head up under my chin as hard as she could. "...I went there thinking I'd find somepony to have a night with--"

"So did I." I held her against me and laid back into the bed. "Guess it's gonna end that way anyways." I made sure I had a good grip on her and pulled her close. "I was getting bored anyways.... A little excitement is good."

Red sighed. "...Jamie...." I felt something kiss my chin. "Thank you."

I felt a deep itch try to dig into my skin, but it was stomped out by the feeling of a mare's voice hitting my ear so softly it could have stopped an army mid march. "Sure." I held the mare close. "We'll figure this out. I promise." Helen of Troy. My mind shot off in an odd direction.

She was beautiful, she was a mare in almost every aspect, but everything I thought about her came with a huge asterisk. But one that could be thrown away with one last push. One last fight, and I'd have something worth fighting for, not some tea-tray mare to stick for another night. The uniforms in the hall told me it, the happy smiles in the face of robbery told me it, the way she apologized so sincerely for a shared wrong told me everything. I clutched her tighter and pulled her cheek against my chest. "We'll fix this, give me some time."