Hot Bruises

We had most of the light damage fixed up in a jiffy, with only a few more warped wooden panels to deal with, as well as putting some objects back where they belonged. After I framed and hung a picture of last year’s Wonderbolt squadron, I worked with Creed to tip the table back over. It felt like it was made of lead when I tried doing it myself.

He got it back up on its legs, and the thud that thing made was near enough to knock me on my rear. “It’s like a freakin’ pool table! What’s this thing made of?!”

“Built for strength, so it’s some pretty dense redwood. Heavy, but it was meant to not get shoved around if something happened.” Creed looked up at the wall, and I followed suit. Pretty sure we grimaced at the same time when we saw all the cracks. “Can’t say it was worth the weight...”

I covered my face and went back to the tool kit. “Yeeeeeah. Nothing I can do about that, I ain’t no construction worker.”

For some reason, Creed saw fit to put his hand on my shoulder. With the past two hours having swept right by, I hadn’t realized how tense I was. His rough fingertips dug into my muscle and released the tension in an instant. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Mmm… Who said I was?” I leaned into his touch.

“We’re here to fix up what we can. I’ll see if I can get some pros in later to fix the wall damage. In the meantime…” He looked towards the living room window, which was right above the torn-to-shit couch.

“How’re the windows not broken?” I asked.

“We got those repaired yesterday. Skipper called in a favor.”

I couldn’t think of a familiar name. “Skipper? He one of the guards on vacation?”

“Yep. He’s an energetic little bastard, but his spirit is kinda infectious. If you need a guy to hop parties with, he’s your… Huh.” Creed walked over to the window’s adjacent curtains. They were almost as torn up as the couch. “I thought they’d replaced these. Guess the favor stopped at windows… Oh well. Nothing I can’t fix.” He pointed to the tool box. “There’s a needle and some stitches at the bottom.”

“Wait, you…” I reached into the toolbox and fiddled around in there until my hand wrapped around the bag of needles. “You do that sort of stuff?” I asked as I tossed Creed the bag, as well as a roll of stitches.

“Stitching, knitting, crocheting, all that stuff. Helps me keep calm and collected, even in the worst of times.” He sat down on the couch and stuck the needle into the curtain. Just like that, his massive hands became blurs before my eyes. “I’ve always been… different. My attention span was always short. Even in my later school years, somehow, something else would always get my attention. So, I decided to get help. Signed on with a crafts group, found my muse, and I haven’t looked back.”

He never struck me as the attention deficit type, but I suppose we all have our inevitable shortcomings. Celestia knew I had more than a few at the time. “Well, a keen eye can help when you’re creating stuff.”

Creed didn’t reply for a few seconds. I figured he wanted to finish one of the ripped patches on the curtain, but then he looked up and said, “Huh? You say something?” with a thick grin.

“Oh, you…” I nudged him in his massive bicep. Although my hand stayed there for a bit. He went back to his stitching after a nudge back against me, and, since he was busy... I looked off to the wall behind him and just let my hand do its own thing. His stitching was really smooth, from what I could tell from his arm’s quick yet seamless rotations. A continuous motion of tension and relaxation. My hand followed his flexing up towards the shoulder. “All those years of work paid off, huh?”

All of my fondling, and he didn’t seem to mind… I liked this one. I liked him a lot. “Well, I didn’t get this buff through arts and crafts. I wanted to steady my heart rate, so I started exercising. Once I lost some weight and put some meat on my bones, I signed on with the royal guard to get stronger, as well as rake in some extra cash. And helping people, that’s always a plus.”

“How much do you bench?” I asked, my hand involuntarily squeezing his shoulder. His muscles were hard as steel. Coated in platinum.

“About three hundred for twenty reps. Three twenty five if I have a good lunch.”

I bit down on my lower lip so hard I was afraid I’d go full vampony.

“Ah, but the real fun part is working out naked. You have no idea how liberating it is to have your whole self getting worked to the brink without stupid clothes clinging to you all the time.”

Yeah, I bet it was fun. Hanging out in the gym, just in a pair of track pants and nothing else. Everypony stuck staring at him as he walked over to the weights, taking the two heavy ones into his strong hands. Flexing with those wouldn’t be anything to him... could bench press a mare and set her back down without even breaking a sweat if he wanted to. Super strong, but as gentle as a breeze. Now that’s an adonis.

All the mares in the room put their exercises on pause. They walked over and watched him put the weights at his mercy, every muscle flexing under his glistening skin. Oh, they’d all be shakin’ in their yoga pants harder than the cows with a snake nearby. Assuming a cow would ever wear yoga pants, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now, I put myself among the mares who have lined up to get lifted. Probably in my cargo shorts and a loose tank top. I imagined him picking me up, light as a feather to his might. Completely at his mercy. But I wasn’t afraid, not in the slightest. I relished the smell of his sweat as he made use of me. He could have done whatever he wanted.

My imagination took me and Creed a step further. The room emptied out, except for me and him. There was some purple lighting and jazz music playing, though why it was playing in a gym was beyond me. Creed sat up on the bench, looking at me with his zen eyes. His hands trailed down his shining figure, his fingers closing around the trim of his track pants. He started to pull them off “Hey, Bloomer.”

I was still squeezing Creed’s arm. I immediately relinquished my grip and closed my hands around each other. “What’s up?” I asked him.

“Done with this one,” he said, lifting up the curtain to show that he has successfully stitched up the majority of it. It looked presentable now, aside from a few rough patches. “I think I’ll do the other one later.”

“Right, do the thing… later.” I was dumbstruck. A complete slobbering idiot. I needed a distraction. “Hey, what’s that?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of the kitchen.

Creed followed the path of my finger. “Huh? I do believe that is a fridge.”

“It’s a fridge in need of work!” Took that distraction by the reins and rode it all the way home, guessing from how I ran over to it. Sheesh, that fantasy threw me for a loop. “Let’s see, uh... um. I could paint it!”

“Paint a fridge.”

“Yup.”

I was hoping he was staring at my boobs with those eyes, because he himself had found a distraction. Or he didn’t believe me. “It’d look nicer in a yellow color.”

“Alright, fair enough... Which section?”

“Huh?”

Creed gestured to the fridge with a hand. “That fridge is split into two sections. One’s used by us, and the other by the Wonderbolts.”

“The Wonderbolts stay here?” I took another look around the house on instinct, grimacing. Maybe there were a few other things I could fix up before I headed out...

“The Wonderbolts use these cabins in case they need to make an emergency landing. There’s enough food and supplies to keep themselves fixed up. And, in case they need a rescue, they can signal home base with a beacon.” Creed pointed to a (currently non-operational) keypad on the kitchen wall. “We’re bringing in a magitechnician to fix that tomorrow.”

“So, I should expect a lot of canned food?” I asked as I stepped towards the fridge.

“Rations for the Wonderbolts, fresh stuff for the vacationing soldiers. Doubt the fridge was restocked after the storm, though, so you might wanna look out for that.”

“Fridge-based stink bomb, gotcha.” I opened both of the fridge doors, and it was just as bad as I expected. “Gah-hagh. Wow.” I didn’t even bother to look at what had gone bad, though I was pretty sure it was everything. “I think you’d be better off getting a new fridge.”

“Silly. Let’s just take it all out.” Creed went past me, reached into the fridge and pulled out several cans, along with some bags of expired potatoes, celery… Oh, the poor apples! “Yep, this is carnage of the culinary sort,” he said. “Though I think this is the worst of the damage. Give me some time with the rest of that fridge and I can make us a mean stir fry. I just hope the Wonderbolts haven’t eaten my rice.”

“A single tupperware box of rice wouldn’t feed the entirety of the Wonderbolts,” I snarked. “And why would they?”

Creed grabbed his rice and stepped aside, gesturing to the fridge. “Notice how there are two doors. Two doors for two groups of ponies.”

“The Wonderbolts and royal guard, respectively,” I assumed.

“Exactly. So you can understand that it’s a pain when one group takes the food of another when it’s left behind for next visit. What if a crashed Wonderbolt needed that chow for their survival?”

“One chocolate bar can be the difference between life and death.”

Creed raises his brow. “Oh, you refrigerate your chocolate too?”

“Yeah, I prefer the flavor when it’s cold. Anyway, I think I get the problem. And I was sorta kiddin’ about the whole paintin’ thing, but I seriously think we should label these doors.”

“I have some spray paint packed up on my bike.” Creed went to the door. “Back in a flash. Don’t go anywhere.”

Creed left through the front door, during which time I held my breath. I expected the door to break, just after I spent an hour or so using my wood glue to put the damn thing back together. I never knew a winter storm could figure out how to karate chop. I let my breath out when the door shut without a hitch.

Oh please. I repaired the door, so of course it would work perfectly! Ha ha!

I bopped myself on the head before I could let my relief and pride get the best of me, then looked through the kitchen drawers that I didn’t have to repair. Most of them were empty, aside from a few pens, as well as the obvious contents of the silverware drawer. Then I found a drawer full of old documents. I figured they were bills or something of the like. They would do the trick just fine, assuming I could find some… Ah! Scissors! Just behind the documents.

It was time to put my grade school crafts skills to work. “Just watch me, Miss Cheerilee.” I pulled out two pieces of paper that didn’t look important enough to put me behind bars, and brought them over to the table. Just had to cut out a lightning bolt for one door on the fridge, and a sun for the other, and with some quick cuts...

I had a circle and some kinda weird-looking, angular... thing. “Rainbow Dash’d slap me for this.” I rolled up the paper into a wad and started over. This time, after grabbing the paper, I got a pen too. Kicked myself for not bringing something to design the actual cut-out before I started cutting. I sat back down at the table and drew out a proper sun shape, a circle with six wave-y spires coming up off it; it wasn’t Royal Guard salute material, but it’d do. Then the other, I drew out the Wonderbolts lightning-bolt symbol; pretty simple stuff to cut out, provided it’s actually drawn.

With a snip here and a snails— I mean, snip there, I had two stencils that would actually make Miss Cheerilee proud. Or at least crack a smile. “Now I just wait for Creed t’ come back with the spray paint, and we can mark the doors.” I looked over my shoulder at the door, ear perked for any noises. Nothin’. “C’mon, Creed, don’t make me start lookin’ for more work...”

Too late. I was already looking at the table’s edges. If I had some sandpaper and a whittling knife, I could stylize those edges like nopony’s business. I imagine some waves carrying a busty siren on the left side, and a ship at sea on the other side. I wanted to giggle like a school filly.

“Somepony stop me, I’m havin’ one of those thoughts with pictures in ‘em!” I cheered.

Creed opened the door and poked his head in. “You mean an idea? Because I find a thinking mare very attractive.”

“Oh, there you are,” I said with relief. “How’s the outside world, chief? Do the children still laugh?”

Creed sneered as he laid a box of spraypaint cans down on the table. “Nope, everypony’s dead. Let’s paint a fridge.”

I passed the stencils over to him and walked to the fridge, leaning over in front of it to better inspect the surfaces. “So, whadya figure’s a good color?”

Creed leaned over next to me, looking over the stencils. “Well, gold for the guard, blue for the ‘Bolts. Makes sense to me.”

“But that’s so... pedestrian.” I looked at Creed with a wide-eyed, entranced stare, before breaking into a snigger. “Nah, I’m fuckin’ with ya. Ya’ve got good taste. Hand me the cans.”

Creed took the blue and gold spraypaint cans out of the box, but before handing them to me, he started spinning them in his hands. He reminded me of a gunslinger with revolvers. And an ocelot, for some reason.  He switched the position of his hands without once showing signs of dropping the cans. Just when I thought he was done, he tossed one of the cans behind his back, switched hands with the other, and caught the airborne one. Then he just kept spinning.

“Well?” he asked. “Lemme at ‘em.”

“Oh!” I picked up the symbol stencils and slapped them both of the fridge; the royal guard symbol was on top, and the Wonderbolt symbol was on the bottom. Thank goodness for the versatility of wood glue, and my keen eye for keeping them in line with each other. “Go for it.”

Creed held the gold can above the blue one and went to town. His steady arms kept him from going outside of the stencils. After about ten seconds of spraying, he retracted the cans, spun them both one more time, and hooked them onto his jean loops. “Ta-da.”

The result was way better than I expected, with the symbols’ colors mixing well with the fridge’s white exterior while still catching the eye from a distance. I was especially fond of how the guard symbol turned out. The curvature of the lines, the evenness of the circle… When did I get so good at this? Wait, scratch that. How did I forget I was so good at this?

“You’re a lot better than you realize, Apple Bloom,” said Creed, as if he could read my mind. He probably noticed that I was staring at what I’d created. “I’m glad to see you so excited about all of this. When you stopped sending me photographs of your designs, I started to worry that you were giving up on carpentry, and design in general.”

“Heh…” I leaned against the fridge, being careful to not disturb the drying paint. “You get a letter from a board of professional critics tellin’ ya yer not good enough for their institution, and suddenly ya feel like giving up on the craft you worked tirelessly on ever since ya discovered yer special knack for it. That letter might as well’d said ‘YOUR LIFE IS A LIE’ in bold letters.”

“You know what?” Creed said with a mighty shrug. “Fuck ‘em. I like your work. You like your work, and I’m pretty damn sure that the dudes outside will be more than happy to meet the mare who fixed up their summer house in just three hours!”

“It’s only been three hours?” I asked. I probably squee’d, too, I dunno, wasn’t listening to myself over excitement ringing in my ears. I didn’t even know excitement had a sound until that moment.

“Better than you realize,” Creed repeated. “So, I guess we have some free time on our hands. What should we do?”

Take off your pants. “I think we should go outside, hang out with the rest of the guys for a bit. You’ll introduce me, right?”

Creed nodded wholeheartedly. “Of course. You’ll love White Knuckles and Skipper. They’re my best mates in the guard. I’ll just need to get my swim trousers…”

I punched my palm. “Oh, that’s right! Swimsuit! You didn’t happen to see where Caramel put mine, didja?”

Creed pointed past the living room. “First bedroom on the right. He threw it on the bed.”

“Cool, thanks.” I skipped out of the kitchen, into the living room, and ran into the hallway, nearly missing the bedroom. I skidded to a stop, opened the door, and headed inside. I shut the door behind me.

I sighed desperately as I lean my back against the door. "Damn him." I didn’t know what sort of mental therapy Creed went through in Neighpon, but I want some. Somehow, he knew just what to say, and just how to say it. My carpentry was the work of wonders, and I wasan idiot to deny that those past few months. I placed all the blame on those judges, but the problem was me. I flew too close to the sun. It can happen to any creative type. My mistake was not taking the rejection letter as incentive to work harder; I just gave up on the spot.

No, wait… I never gave up, I just stopped for a little while. I distracted myself from the problem with sweet food and a new bedmate every week. And yeah, rampant hedonism is all fun and games, at least until you reunite with that cold-hearted son of a bitch named reality. No, no… His name was Creed. Caramel may have been my navigator through this creative deficit of mine, but Creed was the one who reawakened me to what I can do. I probably would have figured it out eventually, but at that moment I knew I owed him everything for helping me rediscover it sooner.

Well, I could’t give him everything, but I could give him something.

I quickly threw off my hat, flannel and tank top, chucking the clothes onto the bed next to my bikini before working away at my jeans. I wanted to get out of all this fast so I didn’t hold him up, so the boots came flying off with a good kick, landing next to the bed. I grimaced as my zipper got caught in the fabric, groaning. “C’mooon, y’ stupid thing...” It took me a second before I realized that pulling it back up would get the fabric unstuck, and with a quick pull back down and drop, I hopped out of my jeans and slipped my boxers off.

Okay, maybe that was a bit too quick, since the air was chilly around the downstairs. Still, it wouldn’t be long before I was outside in the sun, so I slid over to the bed and grabbed the bottom of my swimsuit, stepping into it and slipping it on. I took a moment to admire it. It fit so nicely against me, it’s like it wasn’t even there. “Caramel’s got good taste... Wonder if he went shoppin’ for a groupie before?”

I wrapped the sarong around my waist and tied the knot. Far from modelesque, but I felt just a little bit prettier with such an elegant wrap following my movements. I then grabbed the bikini top and held it up to my chest. That’s when I got an idea.

Leaving my breasts exposed, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, turning into the living room. There, I saw something unexpected, and that’s putting it lightly. I dropped my top on the carpet at the sight of Creed. His back was turned to me as he slipped on a pair of tight-fitting swim trunks. I savored the all-too-brief sight of his muscular, prominent ass before it was covered up by blue and black checkerboard.

What was I doing? I’d been making good conversation with the stud for the past hour. I knew I should’ve been able to get past his beauty and talk like anypony would in this situation. I mustered up the gall to say, “Hey there.”

Creed, not at all spooked by my presence despite what I may have seen, turned around. Seeing my naked torso, for a brief moment, made his expression change from content and calm to mildly surprised. “Oh.”

We both glanced at the bikini top on the floor. Predicting his unspoken question, I said, “I was gonna ask ya to tie me up, but…”

“I could,” he interrupted, stroking his beard. “But, uh…”

I left the top where it was as I stepped closer to Creed. For just being a few steps away, the trip felt like it was a long hike. I reached out, my fingers twitching from the anticipation of touching his chest. I didn’t get much of a chance to get a focused feel for him before he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me in and kissed me full-on, my body pressed against his.

Well… everything I could say had already been said. The guy could read minds. I wrapped my arms around his body, his neck specifically, closed my eyes and just relaxed in his grasp, heart pounding from the simple contact of him. He was really warm too, which did a really nice job of beating back my chill from before. I couldn’t tell how long we were connected for, every second just becoming a blur of his lips pressed against mine, his strong arms keeping me close and safe against him. I could even feel his heart pounding in his chest... He really was just as excited as me.

I felt his hand slide up my back and around my side, some sound getting out of me as he reached up and cupped my breast in his hand. His touch was gentle, like he was handling something delicate, but firm enough for me to get another squeak out. Hadn’t made that sound in a while, but they just kept rolling out as he played with me, squeezing and rubbing until I almost got sore from it. Was I really that sensitive?

“Mmph!” Oh, it felt nice... c’mon, play with my nipple some more, please... I didn’t even feel him break the kiss, I was too focused on his fingers pinching and twisting my nipple, the shocks doing more than enough to make the air in front of me feel like him. I definitely felt him shift down, and when he took my breast in his mouth, I lost strength in my legs. We both dropped to our knees, my arms hugging his head as close to me as possible, just to make sure I didn’t lose that feeling of him nibbling and sucking on me.

Every little tug sent another rush through me, I was burning like crazy, c’mon, lemme go so I can shove you over and ride you ‘till—

“Hey, woah! Two downs means you’re out!” I heard one of the guys outside shout.

“Yeah, get some ice on that bruise,” said another. “I think we still have some in the fridge.”

I hissed, not from the intensity of Creed’s teeth around my areola, but from getting cockblocked at the least opportune moment. I was so close...

I pushed Creed away by his head. He lost his balance and fell back against the couch, while I spun around and grabbed my bikini top. I wrapped it around my chest and tied the strings in record time, pulling the last knot just as I heard the door open. I wished it wouldn’t work, but damn my crafty hands, it did.

“Wow. Almost forgot there were two halves of a door here a second ago,” said the guard as he intruded upon Creed and I. He was wearing a pair of combat boots and some swim trunks of his own, colored red, which went nicely with his black coat and white spots.

“That’s White Knuckles,” Creed whispered to me. “White for short.”

White waved to us as he opened the top door of the fridge (which was the one designated for guards, thank goodness) and brought out a pack of ice. He placed it on his black eye and leaned against the counter. “How you doin’, Creed?”

“Never better,” Creed replied, his voice unusually peppy. He cleared his throat to cover up how strange he sounded. “I think we’re all done here, actually. Now we won’t have to sleep in our cars.”

“Ballin’,” said the guard. He looked over to me. “Oh, you must be Bloomer. Creed talks about you a lot.” He clicked his tongue as he examined me. “I can see why. Way to rock that two-piece.”

“Well, thank ya, sir,” I said. As I stood up, I showed White a mock curtsy. “So, are you two fightin’ out there, or somethin’?”

“Rough housin’,” he said, flexing his arm and patting his bicep. He was nothing compared to Creed, but still, he was handsome and strong enough even with the black eye. “We’re actually encouraged to when we’re off duty. Trainin’ up to defend the innocent from any and all threats. That sort of thing. Wanna join us?”

Creed looked at me with a tilted brow. “I don’t know if street fighting is your cup of tea.”

“I know some moves,” I said, flexing my arms and showing off my fists. “Let’s go for it.”

White mimicked my gesture, followed by bumping his fists together. “Lookin’ forward to it, Bloomer. But you don’t stand a chance against a trained soldier. That’s just a fact of life.” He set the ice pack down, pointed at me with a challenging expression, and then left the cabin.

“Don’t hurt yourself, okay?” Creed said. “I don’t want to bring you back to Caramel in pieces. He’d murder me.”

“Honey, you don’t have to worry about a thing,” I said. My head was lowered as I shot my piercing gaze at Creed. He looked cute, the way his fierce eyes suddenly looked so wimpy and concerned. I appreciated his sensitivity.

That’s why I pounced on him. It would only be for a few seconds, so I relished every second. A bead of his sweat rolled off his bare pecs onto my right breast. His chiseled jaw became hot with a sudden blush. He inhaled deeply as I pressed my lips around his muzzle and gave him a taste of my tongue. “...Mwah,” I sounded out as I pulled away. My lips begged me not to, so I sated them a little by kissing Creed’s ear. I restrained my country accent when I whispered to him, “Tell me when, and I’m yours.”

He licked my cheek. His tongue was just as long and chiseled as the rest of him. “That so?” he said all huskily. “All mine?”

“Oh yeah,” I purred. “Ya can do whatever ya want with me.”

“You won’t wait long, then.”