After-Thoughts, or How to Express Yourself in a Way that Makes Sense
Gallus sighed softly, tapping a claw against his desk while holding his head up with his other. He stared blankly to the front of the classroom, staring through Applejack as she taught her students everything about honesty and friendship or whatever. Maybe just apples.
He knew that he should have been listening, he would be tested on whatever knowledge the apple mare was putting out eventually, but he just couldn’t seem to focus.
Taking a look to the side for the 11th time in the past hour, the poor griffon casually and stealthily scoped out the sleeping stallion sitting next to him. The stallion was his roommate and friend, Sandbar. It wasn’t exactly a new sight for him, the sea green stallion spending most of every class taking a nap, but somehow still passing every class.
What was new, however, was the feeling that bloomed in Gallus’ chest when he looked over at his friend. A feeling of both tightness and warmth.
It had been just a few days since the events of Friends and Family Day and in the days since then, Gallus had found it very difficult to even look his close friend in the eye, much less have a normal conversation with him. Any attempts to do so just ended with him embarrassing himself more. All he could think about was those lips against his beak.
So instead, Gallus employed the classic griffon strategy of bottling his feelings, avoiding his problems, and pretending everything is alright. By this point Gallus had only been spending his time in their shared room to sleep and nothing else. Finding things to do in that time was difficult, but he made it happen.
Gallus let out a longer sigh as he continued to stare at his confusing friend. He was so distracted by watching the sleeping stallion, he was completely caught off guard by the loud ringing bell that signaled the end of class. The poor cat/bird hybrid jumped out of his seat, letting out a somewhat loud squawk as he did so. Thankfully, not many ponies around him ended up staring as, at this point, this had become the new norm.
Conversely to Gallus’ reaction to the bell, Sandbar lazily lifted his head up at the noise, letting out a soft yawn as he looked over at his friend. He ran a hoof through his messy mane, stretching his back and yawning even louder before stepping out of his seat to stretch the rest of himself.
As he did this, Gallus stared on with a gentle blush emblazoned on his face. This blush only grew more severe as Sandbar looked over to him with a tired grin.
“Guess I slept through class again.” Sandbar grumbled tiredly. “Did I miss anything important?” Without even waiting for an answer, he slung his saddlebag over his back and strapped it around his waist.
Looking away from his friend, Gallus cleared his throat while attempting to avoid the question by grabbing his own bag, then looking around for anything to distract with. Finding nothing, he simply shook his head with a sigh. “Nah, I dunno. I wasn’t paying much attention myself.” He awkwardly used a claw to straighten a few stray feathers, but they flopped back in his face just a moment later.
Sandbar giggled gently. “Well, that sucks. I guess we’re just gonna have to study in our room. Speaking of,” the pony stipped to walk between the desks, approaching the griffon, “The five of us were gonna get together for some gaming later tonight. We were gonna try to invite you, but you’ve been so hard to track down lately.”
Gallus grimace just a small bit at that, scratching the back of his head with a claw. “Sorry. I’ve just been so… distracted lately.” Mentally, he chided himself on his poor response, but he forced a smile nonetheless.
Similarly, Sandbar forced a chuckle. “Well, the offer’s still there if you want it. We’ve all missed hanging with you, Smolder especially.”
Gallus was given pause by this, looking down and deeply considering the option to hang out with his friends once again. And yet, the thought of spending any extended period of time hanging out with that ball of fluff and kindness caused very confusing feelings to bloom in his chest once again.
So he shook his head. “Sorry man, I’ve just got so much stuff to do.” He chirped out noncommittally. “I’m gonna be in the library all day doing… stuff. But I can do my best to try?” He then just gave an unsure grin.
Sandbar nodded, looking like he had something to say before simply letting out a sigh. Instead, he gave a shrug and a casual smile. “Well, I’ll be hangin’ around our room preparing some stuff until, like, 6 or 7. Come by and visit if you change your mind.” The pony gently smacked Gallus’ shoulder with his remark, then left the classroom as quickly as possible.
Now mostly alone, Gallus let out another sigh before leaving the room as well, attempting to figure out what he’d be doing to kill time until he could return to a Sandbar-free room.
After mulling about the halls of the school, watching the ponies all around flittering to their after school activities, Gallus decided that walking around the halls for another sixish hours would probably not be the best of ideas. It hadn’t even been an hour at that point and already he wanted to get off his claws/paws and take a long rest.
Trying to avoid all five of his friends was proving to be difficult anyway. It seemed that no matter where he turned, he came within a thin feather of bumping into them. Maybe it was due to the fact that he was the only griffon in the school and, as such, was extremely recognizable, but he couldn’t seem to duck any of his friends.
So, he decided to go exactly where nerds and Breakfast Club-esque outcasts were absolutely never willing to go:
The library.
Gallus shuddered at the thought of Sandbar knowing exactly where he was going to be, but it was going to have to do. And thankfully it wasn’t too far. All he would have to do was get to the library without getting spotted or drawing any attention to himself.
Ducking close to the ground, the catbird prowled slowly onwards while keeping close to any pillars to hide behind and keeping careful track of all the goings on within his surroundings with his eagle vision. It wasn’t the quickest methods of travel, but it was still effective enough. It only took him ten minutes to get close to the library, just one more turn left.
Knowing he was close, Gallus let his guard down for a moment. He stood up fully from his prowl, righting himself and adjusting the feathers on his head. He let out a sigh while turning the corner to his hiding place.
And almost immediately did he bump into someone leaving the library. He couldn’t see who it was, but from their small stature, orange scales, and inability to knock him over with their weight, he had a very good idea of who it was.
Looking down at the fallen friend, he gave an apologetic grin as he saw the familiar dragon staring up with annoyed blue eyes. As he extended a claw to help out his draconic friend, he decided to cut all losses and lean into his friendship. So long as talk of Sandbar stayed far away.
Ignoring the offered claw, Smolder stood up on her own and shot Gallus a grin. “Well when I thought we’d be running into you today, I didn’t think it’d be literally.” She said as she brushed herself off just a little.
For a moment Gallus was thrown off by the ‘we’, but seconds later his eyes were drawn to the source of a familiar, cheerful giggle. Coming up a few seconds behind Smolder was the only hippogriff in the school, Silverstream, who waved a claw at him.
But Smolder drew his attention right back almost immediately, punching him gently in the shoulder. “So, where’ve you been lately? Even Sandbar couldn’t track you down for a while.”
Gallus scratched the back of his head with a claw. “Well, I’ve just been so busy with all kinds of stuff.”
Before he could continue, Silverstream finally approached the conversation with a large smile. “Busy trying to dodge Sandbar and those pesky feelings, huh?” She asked, her smile widening a bit.
As her smile widened, Gallus’ face flushed a red that shone brightly through his blue cheeks. His first instinct was to deflect to anything within his eyesight, but upon seeing nothing noteworthy around him and knowing it wouldn’t help any, he decided to just give up the ghost instead.
“Yeah.” He admitted gently, scritching the back of his neck as his blush grew heavier. “To make a short story shorter, something happened between the two of us and now I don’t know how to feel.” Almost instinctively, he cracked a small grin while shrugging.
Smolder shot Silverstream an uneasy glance, to which the hippogriff shot back an eager grin. Silver bounced a little bit where she stood, giggling happily as she was both proven correct and would also not have to pull any painful confessions out of him.
In response to Silverstream’s glee at his troubles, the blue bird boy gave a somewhat larger grin. Somehow, just sharing his woes seemed to help him just a little bit. It was about a five pound weight taken away from a 300 pound load on his back. But it was a start.
He cleared his throat and nodded his head as he continued. “I’ve got no idea how to handle any of this alone so…” Trailing off, Gallus gestured over to his two friends.
“Hey, I don’t know if we can-” Smolder began to protest before Silverstream quickly stepped in front of her.
“We’d love to help, Gallus.” The light pink hippogriff told him, a caring smile on her face. She glanced behind her to the door to the library, Gallus’ former route of escape, then looked back to her friends. “So how’s about we sit down and just, like, figure this whole mess out?”
Looking at Smoler somewhat cautiously, Gallus shrugged as he saw no way out of it. He walked on forwards past his two friends, who followed right behind him straight back into the library.
Luckily for the three, Spike was the librarian on duty for the day, so they could talk at a normal volume without being constantly shushed. He was just too busy reading his comics to care.
The group plopped down at the table far from the entrance of the library, not wanting any interference to their conversation.
The two girls sat across from Gallus, Smolder crossing her arms and staring anywhere but at Gallus while Silverstream gleefully waited for her friend to begin explaining his woes. The poor griffon couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d be getting interrogated with this unintentional good guard/bad guard routine.
“Let’s just get to the point.” Gallus said, pressing his claws together and breathing a gentle sigh. “Sandbar kissed me on Friends and Family Day. Not, like, a big one though. He just gave me a little peck on the beak, but…” Gallus trailed off again, tapping his beak with a claw as if to show off where the horse lips met his face.
Using the pause to her advantage, Smolder rummaged through her pockets for a moment before pulling out a small black pouch that she immediately handed over to Silver. Gallus shot a curious glance, to which smolder gave back a shrug.
“What?” She asked with a very pointed glare. “I thought you two were fighting, she thought you were dating. I lost the bet, obviously.”
Before Silver could even start counting her winnings, a claw quickly reached across the table to search the bag away. Gallus toyed with the bag, rolling it between his claws as he leaned back in his chair. “Hey, I never said he and I are dating. I don’t even know if he likes me like that.” This brought a small scowl to his face. “I don’t even know if I like him like that. All I know is he kissed me.” He then grumbled to himself as he set the bag onto the table, tapping a claw against it while thinking.
Thankful she hadn’t lost yet, Smolder looked back at the griffon. “Maybe it’s just one of those weird pony things. They’re way more touchy than dragons and griffons are.” She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out. “I mean, I caught Ms. Dash and Fluttershy kissing after classes once. Pony friendship is weird.”
Both Gallus and Silver gave Smolder a questioning glance.
“I don’t think that was just a friend thing.” Silverstream told her friend before Gallus shushed her while Smolder wasn’t looking. Nodding softly, the hippogriff added an addendum to her statement. “I mean, like, does Sandbar ever kiss the rest of us?”
At this point, a grimace overtook Gallus’ face as he made a realization. Letting out a somewhat loud groan, he cradled his head in his claw as he gently brought it down onto the table. “None of you helped him through a serious life thing though, not to get too detailed about it.” A few more grumbles were emitted from the bird before he sat himself back up. “I’m such an idiot. He was just thanking me.”
The hippogriff and dragon both questioned Gallus with their eyes, then Smolder with her voice. “So you two aren’t dating? If not, I’ve got about ten things I could spend those bits on instead.” With that, she eyed the bag wantingly.
Silverstream elbowed her strangely greedy dragon friend, then leaned in to regard her birdfriend. “Honestly Gallus, I don’t think there’s much we can do but listen to you. At the end of the day you have to ask yourself whether you like Sandy like that or not.”
“Or you could just talk to him and work it out together.” Smolder suggested. “He’s probably the only one who knows what he meant by it.”
As illuminating as their statements and suggestions were, it only served to scare Gallus further. It was like he took a torch into a cave and only found a group of gerblins. Confusing, romance gerblins. Tons of them. And he’d have to beat them down with his club of Being-Honest-About-Problems. Or something like that. The metaphor got confused somewhere.
Resolving to figure it out for himself on the way, Gallus slowly stood up from his seat. “I… think I’m gonna go back to my dorm. I’ve got a lot to think about, and I need one heck of a nap.” Without saying anything else, he gave a quick nod goodbye before stumbling away slowly.
Seeing her bit bag left alone on the other side of the table, Smolder snatched it back without much hesitation. However, after looking it over for a few moments, tossed it right back to Silverstream.
Propping herself up on one claw, she breathed out a sigh. “Yeah, there’s no way I’m winning now.”
Although he was full of confidence when he left the library, all of it abandoned him the moment the door closed behind him. He froze to a halt in the small alcove, sweating lightly as he attempted to force himself onwards.
He dipped his head, taking a few deep breaths to center himself. “Just… go back to your dorm and talk to him.” He told himself, silently thankful that no one was around to hear him talking to himself. “He’s not into you, he’s just a dumb, stupid pony.”
As he reminded himself of this, his paws and claws unstuck themselves from the ground, though he was still apprehensive to continue. With one more deep breath, he took a few steps forward and, after reaffirming that his legs still worked, slowly embarked on over to his dorm room.
Thankfully, the doorway to the dorms was just a stone’s throw away from the library. It seemed like whoever designed the school wanted her students to be able to check out a book and immediately be able to go to their room and read it. Of course, Twilight only meant it for things like textbooks and other study material, but that didn’t stop said students from checking out ocean wildlife books or travel magazines.
Gallus still had to walk a fair bit, his room being a decent distance back due to his late re-enrolment, but it was only moments before he was stood in front of his door.
He hesitated for a moment, staring down the two names etched on the door before realizing he couldn’t just stop there, instead pressing forward. His bed was calling to him, and he just needed to get through that pesky social interaction to get to it.
He pushed the door open slowly and quietly, hoping in the back of his mind that Sandbar was asleep or off doing something else. As he poked his head in, his blue eyes scanning the room carefully, he spotted Sandbar standing over his bed, looking over notebooks while putting some sizable books into a saddlebag.
He was also wearing a wizard hat. A replica of Starswirl the Bearded’s historic hat with a bell at the tip that jingled with every movement the sea green pony made.
Hearing the door opening, Sandbar dropped what he was doing to bring his attention to this new development. Upon laying his eyes on his best bird friend, he gave a small and gentle grin. “Oh, hey Gallus.” He said, then went back to organizing his books as his hat jingled. “What brings you back so early? Got done with all that stuff already?”
Debating whether or not to respond to that probably unintentionally biting comment, Gallus finally entered the room fully and closed the door behind him. He gave a soft sigh as he tossed his own saddlebag onto his bed, then flopped onto the bed himself.
“I guess all my stuff was just way less complicated than I expected.” He said softly, leaning back into his bed and running a claw through the feathers and fluff on his head.
“So you’re free tonight then?” Sandbar asked. “We still need our bard.”
Gallus turned to face his friend, seeing the hopeful look on the poor pony’s face, and let out a soft sigh. “I dunno, man. I just don’t think y’all are ready for Constibiular Jayfeather, Jester to the Stars.” He cracked a small grin at this, waving a claw in the air. “I think I’ll sit out tonight. Dealing with stuff is exhausting.”
That smile on his face faded moments later. As much as he’d gotten over Sandbar and how distracting he was, things seemed to be drifting back to how they were as he’d just put out another bad excuse for why he had to avoid hanging out with his roommate.
And yet he couldn’t find it in him to retract his statement. He just stared up at the ceiling and hoped it’d blow over well.
A punishingly long silence followed this realization. Gallus clenched his eyes shut and hoped it’d pass soon.
And pass it did.
“Did I… do something wrong?” Sandbar asked quietly, breaking the silence with his sad squeak. Gallus looked over to him once again to see a sad, hurt look on the pony’s face. “Listen, I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been avoiding me. And I can tell you aren’t angry at me, but I can’t tell what I did to… scare you?”
Before responding, Gallus tried to see if he’d unlocked any latent invisibility powers. Having not, he instead sat up in his bed, turning his body in order to face Sandbar head on. And he got to catch the full brunt of that sad look on his face.
“I don't hate you.” The blue bird boy explained. “I’m not scared of you. I have been avoiding you, but it’s not something you did wrong.” He pressed his claws together, breathing out a sigh as he tried to figure out phrasing. “I just… wasn’t expecting the kiss?”
Sandbar blushed, opening his mouth to respond but, before he could, Gallus shook his head and waved a claw to interrupt him. “I know, I know. It was one of these dumb pony things.” He explained his thought process with a somewhat forced smile before scratching the back of his head. “I guess I’m just not used to pony affection just yet. Us griffons don’t even hug unless it’s, like, super important.” He gave a small, awkward chuckle at that.
Sandbar gave a very awkward laugh in response. “Haha, yeah. Just a pony thing, yeah.” He stammered on further for a few more moments, twiddling his hooves as his talking fell to silence.
But the silence told Gallus all he needed to know, a huge blush covering his face. “That wasn’t just a…?” He trailed off, his implied question leaving all it needed to.
“It was not.” Sandbar admitted succinctly, giving a loud sigh as the truth was finally out in the open. “I guess I thought you were giving off signals you obviously were not.” With a grimace, the pony waved off the entire thing. “Listen, can we just pretend that none of it happened? Let’s just say that we hugged, nothing else happened, and we can stay friends.” He looked pleadingly at Gallus.
In response, Gallus nodded gently to which Sandbar smiled thankfully. But when Gallus stood up from his bed, it spooked the pony something fierce. The griffon hesitated before crossing the room, resuming a seated position right beside his best friend.
Gallus looked over to Sandbar with a cocky grin before extending a blue wing around him. “Nah, I don’t think so.” With that, he wrapped his wing around Sandbar, gently bringing him closer with a hug. As Sandbar was gently, and somewhat awkwardly, pressed against him, GAllus looked down at him with a small, unsure smile.
“You’re my best friend, Sandbar.” Gallus continued after a few moments of silent hugging, his wing pulling a bit tighter as he said that. “When you kissed my beak, I got so scared that I’d ruin everything that I ran. Even if I ended up nearly ruining it anyway.”
Sandbar attempted to pull away from the griffon, which was allowed so long as the wing stayed around him for the comforting. “You don’t have to do this, Gallus, I just wanna move on and-”
“However,” Gallus interrupted, nudging his wing just a bit closer to him and drawing a squeak from Sandbar, “I’ve realized in the past five minutes that running from this kind of thing is super dumb, and I’ve probably screwed up our friendship a heckton already.”
He paused for a moment, raking his claw through his headfeathers as he breathed out a heavy sigh. “So, I’m gonna try and make up for it with a more direct approach.” Without any remaining hesitation, Gallus removed the wing around his friend and instead wrapped his arms around the pony somewhat tenderly. “ ‘Cause, yeah, we’re best friends. But who’s to say that we can’t try and be more?”
A heavy blush covered Sandbar’s face, almost matching the heavier blush on Gallus’. He looked up at the griffon who was currently holding him oh so tenderly, looking for any hints that Gallus was joking, which would have really ruined that friendship. But, finding nothing but a gentle smile to warm his heart, Sandbar was forced to wrap his hooves around the big bird. He pressed his muzzle into Gallus’ fluffy chest, turning the single hug into a double hug without another word.
Gallus crooned softly in response, nuzzling softly against Sandbar’s green mane.
Their hug lasted for a long few moments, Sandbar snifflinf against Gallus and wiping small tears against his chest, an act that Gallus would have found very rude were they not hugging it out right then.
However, a tightening feeling grew inside of Gallus’ chest as the length of the hug grew longer and longer. With a bit of a struggle, he tapped Sandbar’s back just a little roughly to try and break it before he panicked too hard.
To Sandbar’s credit, he jumped back quickly, though still remained close to the griffon by laying a hoof on his thigh. “Heh, sorry… I guess I got a little too into it.” He mumbled softly, scratching the back of his head before reaffixing his wizard hat onto his head, it having fallen off due to the sudden hugging.
Gallus chuckled softly as he slowly regained his breath, going back to wrapping his wing around the wizard pony. “Nah, you’re alright. I’m just… not comfortable with hugging just yet.” In response to the hoof on his leg, he placed a claw on Sandbar’s thigh as well.
And the two sat there for a few moments, just enjoying each others’ company with soft, warm grins on both their faces. That was, until Sandbar looked over to his alarm clock, noted the time and shot up as he registered what time it really was.
“Oh frick!” He shouted as he scrambled up to grab his books and notebooks, shoving them into a saddlebag before throwing it onto his back. “O&O starts in 30 minutes and I haven’t even started set-up.” As he grabbed a few more books and a bag of figures, he turned to face Gallus. “Last chance to join if you wanna.”
Gallus chuckled softly as he jumped off the bed as well, though more gently, and reached under his bed to grab a folder, an eyepatch, and a small lute before giving a cheeky grin. “Constibular Jayfeather will ride again, my friend.” He crooned in an accent that was, by all accounts, the worst.
Sandbar smiled thankfully in response, though he cringed at the voice. “Help me set up?” He asked extremely hopefully. “I’ll take you out to dinner after if you want.”
Gallus nodded in agreement, grabbing what Sandbar was struggling to hold in his hooves. “Heck yeah, it’s a date.” He said with a grin. “We can talk about what we call ourselves while we’re at it.” With that, he rubbed his beak against Sandbar’s cheek in what could be assumed was an attempt at a kiss.
Sandbar eagerly reciprocated the kiss, then nuzzling his friend’s cheek just a little bit. “Terrifying. We’ll get to that when we come to it. But first, Ogres. Oubliettes. Adventure!” With that, he rushed off to set up his game, figuring Gallus would follow along.
And he did, but first he breathed out a sigh of relief, running a claw through his feathers. He slowly stepped out of the room, turning off the lights and shutting the door behind him.
Then he rushed off to join Sanbar, hoping to himself that he could get a chance to perfect his kiss before his friends arrived.
