“Oh, heya Dearie. Heya Lockstone.” Spike said from the seat beside me.

Dearie stood at the doorway, tearing up. I stood up from my seat, albeit shakily, and tried to walk over to her. Only to have her dash over and connect with my midsection causing me to fall over.

She buried her face into my stomach and started mumbling.

“I think she missed you gramps.” Spike said from his bar stool before sipping his fizzy drink.

“I can see that Spike… and you must be Lockstone.” I said, focusing on the stallion that walked into the bar.

“That I am, it's been a long time Clean.”

“Yeah, sorry I didn’t recognize you. It's been a couple years, and I didn’t expect to see y’all so I’m kinda tipsy.”

Dearie pulled away from me and started hitting my chest with her hooves.

“Hey! I get i- Will you ju- Stop!” I said grabbing her hooves.

“You stop! What are you doing here?!”

“In case you didn’t notice, the sun stopped yesterday! It was my job to make sure it turns back on!”

She pulled her hooves out of my hands and bites my shirt, pulling me out the bar.

“Yu nd t gt ot o hr.” she mumbled through my shirt.

“Spike, just gimmie a minute. And what the hell’d you just say?”

She didn’t answer and kept pulling me, so I decided to ease up and follow her out. Once we passed the door frame and got outside, I held my arm up against my eyes. I felt Dearie let go of my shirt.

“Lovie, water.”

“Wait, Lovie is here too?”

The twinkling of unicorn magic filled the air and the sun was blocked, letting me see easier. What blocked the sun was an undulating orb of water floating about a foot away from my face.

“Oh, water.”

Which proceeded to drench me. Causing me to sputter and wipe my eyes.

“Well that's a little rude, dontcha think?”

“Now, you’re going to sit there and explain EVERYTHING!” Dearie said, glaring daggers.

“Well, you saw the Princess pardon me and all that, didn’t you?”

“That's besides the point, what are YOU still doing in town? And at a bar no less?”

“Well, I didn’t know y’all were here for one, if I did I woulda visited you first. And I wanted a drink, I was thirsty.” I said, pulling out a pack of smokes from my pocket and a zippo from the other.

Lovie magiced the pack out of my hands before I could open it and held it away from me.

“Oi, what's that for?”

She smirked, “You’ll get these back when you’re done answering our questions.”

“Alright, fine.” I said, twirling my fingers and showing the smoke I sneaked out before she could take it.

“Wait, how did you-?”

I put it in my mouth and lit it up. “What, you think just cus I don’t got magic I don’t have other ways? I got slippery fingers you know. Anyway, about the questions.” I pulled in and let out a puff of smoke. “Ahhhh, good shit. Anyway. Apparently Nightmare Moon came back, so I put her down. Simple as that.”
Both Lovie and Dearie gasped, and Lockstone and Keystone grimaced.

“Not like that dammit, I just held her down while Twilight and her friends blasted her with magic. I’m not some kinda murderer.”

“Your track record proves otherwise.” Lockstone said.

I pointed a finger at him and glared. “I’m talking to my daughters here, not you. Wait in line. And I never murdered anypony. I took her horn off is all.”

“Yeah, and you know what happened after that?! She went through intensive magical therapy to get her horn back on.”

“And she hurt my granddaughter, what more do you want from me? I’m a grumpy old man who saw his baby get hurt, would you not do the same?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I would have her punished in a court.”

“Look, what does it matter? I put myself in prison and served a long time. Plus, you just said her horn got put back on, how does that work anyway?”

“It's a magical bone, of course it can be put back on.”

“But i thought-”

“It doesn’t matter what you thought Clean, it's too much work to explain it to you anyway.”

I sat in silence for a couple seconds and let her fume.

She glared daggers at me.

“Look, I know you both hate me, so I’ll just leave. This is too serious anyway. I just came for a drink.” I said, standing up and grabbing my pack of smokes from Lovie, causing her magic to cancel and put it in my pocket.

“Pawpaw?”

“Aw fuck.”

“Ditzy! I thought I told you to stay at home!”

Ditzy ran up to us, followed by filly.

“But I heard that pawpaw was back! I wanted to see him.”

Dearie stopped ditzy, but the filly ran past both of them and latched onto my leg.

“Woah, little one. Aren’t you the same one from the other night?”

She looked up at me and started to tear up. “Are you my great grandpaw?”

I kneeled down and placed and hand on her head. “I’m sorry to tell you, but yeah I am.”

She looked back at Dearie and Ditzy. “But… but you told me pappie passed away.”

Dearie looked over at Lovie and kneeled down, getting to her level. “Well, sweetie, the truth is-”

I cut both of them off, and picked up the little filly. “Now listen here, don’t go getting mad at them.” I held her in my arms, the same way I did her mother when she was a filly, and her grandmother when she was a filly. “I made a couple mistakes before you were born and had to go away for a long time. It's much too detailed for a filly your age, but just so you know your mother and grandmother love you very much, and didn’t want you to worry about me. They probably thought I DID pass away, figuring out how old I am.”

I set her down on Ditzy’s back and kneeled down myself. “Now I’ve got work to do, and I have to talk with your grandmother and grandaunt, so you be a good girl and go home with your mama, alright?” I patted her and Ditzy on the head and turned to the two older mares. “Now you two, come with me.”

I started to walk back into the bar, expecting the two to follow.

Inside the bar, I tossed a couple bits to the bartender and ordered a couple drinks for all of us, picked Spike up off the bar stool and carried him and his drink to one of the booths.

Dearie, Lovie, and their husbands walked in after a couple minutes and joined us at our table.

“So, let's hash this out before things get out of hand. What I did, I did in the heat of the moment. I do not regret what I did, but I do admit it was horrible. I only have myself to blame. I knew Celestia wouldn’t punish me, or rather, didn’t WANT to punish me, so I punished myself so she wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt. I knew she would take care of y’all in my absence.”

They sat in silence for a couple seconds, as the bartender came up with our drinks. Alcoholic for me, and soda for the rest. I slipped a couple more coins on the table and whispered to him, “Bottle please, and a tip for yourself.”

They continued to sit in silence and sipped from their drinks. I lit up another smoke and pulled a portable ashtray out of my pocket and opened it, setting it on the table.

“Clean… I missed you so much…” Dearie finally spoke.

“Papa.. Why…?” Lovie said, choking up.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat.

“When I first came to Equestria, it wasn’t as peaceful as it was nowadays. It just so happened that it was in the middle of a war. A two front war, between the griffons and minotaur. The world I came from was just as dangerous. My old man, he died in a war. I thought I would join him, go die for my country and all that, so I was prepared to fight. But I chickened out, never went. I got stuck taking care of my grandfather and working to pay some bills, by the time he passed I was just working to live. I had a friend, name was Allen. Poor bastard was a legend…”

The two mares and stallions listened in, while Spike sipped his own drink.

“I considered him my brother, we always had each other’s back. A ‘you scratch mine, I scratch yours’ kinda deal, but more blood brothers than that. Hell, we even made a pact.”

“A pact?” Dearie asked.

“Yeah, we both cut our hands and shook on it, not very clean mind you, but still. Anyway we were both travelling through the city on our day off. We were both a little drunk, maybe high, but that's besides the point. Anyway, while we were walking some fucker came up to us with a gun. A guns kinda like magic, except made to kill. Too much to explain, but just use that as a base reference. He wanted our money, as most muggers do. But Allen is a crazy son of a bitch.”

I took a puff of my drink, thinking back on him. Tall and lean, always wearing a robe and a long scarf. A messenger bag always full of goodies whenever he needed it.

“That fucker, he pulled out a knife and stabbed the guy.”

All the ponies gasped by the sudden change in the story.

“At some point the gun went off and blasted a hole in his side. In one side out the other, but we were both so fucked up he shrugged it off. Turns out, this fucker had friends. So we both panicked and ran. We ran for… probably fifteen minutes until we thought we got away. We slipped into a side alley and laughed it off.”

“Does this story have a meaning? Or are you just talking.” Lockstone said.

Ignoring him, I continued. “Well, we both made it home, and he taught me how to patch up gunshot wounds. Was amazing seeing his thread work, but that's beside the point. A couple weeks later we found ourselves out again completely forgetting about what happened when we did it before and who do we run into but the same fucker and his buddies.”

I finished my cigarette and snuffed it out. I grabbed my drink, brought it to my lips and downed the rest of if, the ice clattering against my nose. I grimaced, the rough taste and harsh burn settling down to my stomach, causing me to shiver. Strong stuff this time around. Setting it down, I filled it back up from the bottle. I grabbed my pack of smokes and whispered to it. The pack changed color and size, from its normal steel grey with no markings to a cardboard pack with blue colors and white letters.

“Chesterfield. These were his favorites. Super cheap, but an old brand. Used to call them ‘Goldfinger Classics’ whenever he did. Anyway, back to the story… The boys from before were pissed, arguably so of course. Allen didn’t get to pull his knife out before the gun fired. Two shots to the chest. We both panicked, but since we were both fucked up and now we were pissed. Don’t know how he didn’t die immediately, hell, I don’t know why neither of us died immediately.”

I took another sip from my drink. Lovie put her hoof on my hand.

“Clean, please slow down.”

I looked at the bottle, noticing it was already half empty. I pulled my hand away and took a puff of my smoke. Taking a swig again and setting it down, I finally let the smoke out of my lungs.

“Fuck it Lovie, just… fuck it. I don’t remember much of what happened that night after that. Allen died, of course. I was left with bruises and a hole in my chest. Literally and figuratively.”

I pulled my shirt collar down a bit, showing a bit sized impression on my chest with a scar half a foot long cutting it in half. “This is where the bullet went in, there's another on my back, they had to cut me open to make sure nothing was left inside and to fix my lung… Anyway, when I woke up I learned that Allen died that night. Worst part? Those fuckers were never caught.”

They remained silent as I brought the cup up to my lips and finished another glass. I reached for the bottle and missed, knocking it off the table and causing it to shatter.

“Well fuck… sorry guys…” I said, shakily getting out of the booth and started picking up the shards.

“Good job you stupid piece of shit. How you gonna solve this situation? Telling stories they didn’t need to know?”

Looking down at the shards, I saw my reflection in the shards of glass. Cleanly shaven and wearing my old suit. The same way I looked before I put myself in that cell.

“You really think they give two shits about that little story? Like it will get you sympathy? A bit manipulative, dontcha think?”

I raised my fist and brought it down on the glass, shattering the shards even more and splashing alcohol everywhere.

“Clean! What are you doing?!”

Lovie used her magic to start scooping the shards of glass up, and Dearie pulled me up and pushed me into the stool.

“What was that for?!”

I looked down at my knuckled, red and starting to bleed. I picked a piece of glass out of my skin and dropped it into the ashtray. “Sorry, bad twitch. Thought I saw a bug.”

Lovie levitated the shards to a trash while Dearie started looking over my hand. I pulled it away and reached into my pocket, grabbing a handkerchief and wrapping it around my hand.

“Look, I’m fine, let's just get back to what I was talking about… When I saw Ditzy get hurt, it made me think back to then. I thought I was going to lose someone important to me, so I flew into a rage. It was stupid, I should have known she wouldn’t be trying to kill anyone, especially me, but it was like a switch flipped.”

Dearie looked at me with pity, waiting for Lovie to finish.

“Dad… we forgave you years ago. We just… We felt scared. We never thought you would do something like that. Sure you’ve been harsh to people, maybe even vindictive, but that was a sudden shift in character for you. It's like you were a completely different pony…”

“Yeah… but I’m gonna work on making up for lost time. Celestia has me staying in this town and watching over Twilight. So I’ll be going back to my ‘slice of life’ as it were.”

Lovie spoke up next, “Well, we’re not all going to be in town, Dearie and I have to go home, but Ditzy lives here in Ponytown. You may even see Trixie, she’s been travelling around the world as a magician.”

“A magician? That doesn’t make much sense… wait, is she trying to copy some of my old ‘magic tricks’ I used to show her?”

Lovie laughed, “Apparently so! She’s been doing fairly well as well.”

“Well I’m happy for her… so, should we head out?” I said, standing up and grabbing my ashtray, keeping the shard of glass in there.

I pulled the pack of smokes out of my pocket and looked at it.

“Heh, Goldfinger Classics… I hope you’re resting in peace buddy.”

Author's Note

Little did Clean know, Allen is going through his own adventures...

Heres the final big story stuff till it goes back to how it was meant to be. A slice of life story.