Recuperation, Relaxation, Realisation

Chapters

It's a miracle!
Hose me down
The door opens and lets the future in
The laziness of acceptance
Fumbling at the obvious

It's a miracle!

Author's Note

Yes yes yes, what a miraculous recovery.

I've learnt my lesson! I'm no Nico-Stone Rupan. I can't sustain this many interlinked sequels.

So for the rest of this arc- FOR IN MY HUBRIS I HAVE DECIDED THERE SHALL BE ARCS - all shall be put here. Which shall cover the recuperation, the relaxation and the realisation. Hopefully.

I hope this is making sense to you.

It's a miracle!

I hurt. Every bit of me hurt.

All up one side and down the other hurt. My arms hurt, but one a lot more than the other. My fingers hurt. My legs hurt. Trying to open my eyes hurt so I stopped trying. Breathing also hurt, but I couldn’t really stop doing that.

“Fucking ow,” I said. Speaking hurt too, which was not a surprise in the slightest. My throat was as dry as anything.

Nearby, I heard something move, and whatever it was I was lying on - and it was at this point I realised I was lying on something - shifted a little and creaked.

“Hmm?” I heard, the sound of someone sleepy seeing something. Then a gasp. “You’re awake. You’re awake!”

I’d recognise that voice anywhere.

“Rainbow, wha-” I about managed to croak out before she latched onto me.

“You’re awake!” She squealed and I could have sworn she kissed me on the cheek but I may well have been imagining things because of the sudden, roaring symphony of agony that filled me on being so roughly handled.

“Rainbow...the most...the most pain…” I wheezed, tapping her on the shoulder with my good hand. My other hand was at that moment pinned against my body by Rainbow, along with my other arm which didn’t seem to want to do what I told it to do. That would be the arm that hurt most, and while Rainbow was not especially hefty and was lovely and soft, having her pressing on it was still agony.

This she finally seemed to get, as after a few moments of tapping she disengaged.

“Oops, heh heh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. I - ow - what, uh…” I struggled for how I should finish that sentence but was too confused to be anything other than general: “What?”

By then I’d managed to open my eyes in a squint. I saw a white expanse of what I took to be a bed stretching away from me, which explained why I was at least semi-comfortable. I’d been propped up into a sitting position, or at least reclined. Rainbow was - unsurprisingly - sat right on my lap. Luckily for her my legs seemed the least-painful part of me, so I didn’t mind. Everything else in the room was an unhelpful blur.

“What what?” She asked, and I could see this conversation getting very tiring very quickly.

“‘What happened’ what? ‘Where am I’ what? Stuff like that. Why do I hurt?”

“You don’t remember?” She asked, with what sounded like genuine worry.

“I’m meant to be the one asking the questions here, why don’t-”

But then I stopped, because she was right. I couldn’t remember.

“Wait, wait, I know this one…” I said, holding up a hand.

What could I remember?

Everything important like my name and who Rainbow was and how to breathe and so on was there, which was nice, but anything about what I’d been doing before being here in a mysterious bed and hurting all over? Not so much. Lunch with Rainbow the previous day. A friendly cuddle before she went home. Going to bed. Waking up. Leaving the house. Walking. And then…?

Bloop. Nothing. Cut to right there in a bed with Rainbow on my lap staring at me.

It was uncomfortable, There was just a void. A big gap where there should have been something. Like reaching into a box you expected to be full and finding it empty, knowing that it shouldn’t be, constantly expecting to find yourself grasping what it was you were looking for but only ever brushing it.

So to speak. Even trying to remember made my head throb even more than it already had been. I stopped bothering, but it didn’t feel any better.

“I’m sure it’ll come back to me,” I said, smiling weakly. “But, uh, until then how about you fill me in? I appear to have a broken arm, so this’ll be a good story I know.”

“W-well, you went to Twilight’s. And she had a thing she’d built to try and get you home. Only a bit was loose. And it broke. And - and - it went wrong. Hurt you.”

None of this rung any bells. Then a thought popped up.

“Did it hurt Twilight?” I asked. If I’d been this badly hurt from being near the thing then what had happened to her? She was, after all, only little. Like all of these ponies. Such little ponies.

“No, she’s fine,” said Rainbow, and I felt a pleasant sense of relief. Even though the accident had - presumably - had nothing to do with me I still would have felt oddly responsible. That’s the English for you. If someone punched me in the face I’d apologise for being in the way of their fist.

“That’s a plus,” I said. Then: “She built a thing to get me home?”

Rainbow nodded.

“Yeah. Broken now though. Exploded.”

“Figures. Probably just as well. Doesn’t sound like a safe way home if it blew up.”

By now my vision was clear enough for me to notice that Rainbow’s eyes were looking watery. I blinked, but they stayed looking like that. Her bottom lip was quivering, too.

“Rainbow, are you cry-”

She lunged in for another hug. Harder this time, and more all-embracing. She wrapped around me like a straightjacket, her whole body quivering with what were obviously barely-contained sobs.

“Rainbow...again...the pain…” I wheezed. My own eyes were watering now, but for different reasons.

“You’reokayI’msogladyou’reokayIdidn’tknowhowlongitwouldbeno-oneknewandyouwouldn’twakeupanditwasdaysandyoudidn’twakeupandIwassoworriedsosoworriednevereverdothattomeagain!”

I’d got about half of what she’d said. That she was squeezing me half to death while crying didn’t make it any easier to pick apart the noise that had just come out of her mouth. More a blast than an actual sentence.

“I’ll do my best not to be injured in freak teleporter accidents from now on. Can you just...maybe loosen up a little?”

Her grip relaxed enough for the hug to not be painful, but the hug itself did not break. She stayed clung on to me, face buried in the crook of my neck, breath coming out in a little puffs that tickled across my skin. Fairly sure I could also feel her tears starting to trickle down my back.

I hugged her back, at least as well as I could with one arm. She felt so tiny all of a sudden, and so fragile. I kind of wanted to just keep her there. Safe.

“You were really worried, weren’t you?” I asked, as gently as possible.

“You wouldn’t wake up…”

“How long was I out for?”

“Four days.”

“Fours days?! Jesus. Is that, what, a mini-coma? I have no idea how that works. How am I fine now?”

I blamed Equestria. Probably magic something. Magic air. Or maybe I was just ridiculously lucky. Both seemed plausible to me at that moment.

I then coughed, and my dry throat became impossible to ignore anymore.

“You wouldn’t have any water, would you?”

“Uh, yeah. Don’t go anywhere!” She said, as though I had a choice. Jumping off the bed she moved of to the side, stood up, manhandled a jug and poured the water in it into a cup. She then balanced the cup on top of her head and brought it back to me.

You’d have thought a pony-centric world would have been more ergonomic for them. Maybe this counted as easy. I didn’t know. I just took the water and downed the whole thing. This made me feel much, much better.

Tapping my fingers against the glass I cast my eye around the bed and noticed a few things. There was a handful of get-well cards, which was a surprise, but more than that there were signs of someone having spent an extended period in here with me. Rubbish from snacks scattered here and there. A stacked book or two. A blanket. The chair barely a foot away from my side. The Rainbow-shaped dip in the covers that I doubted I’d made.

A suspicion started to form in my head.

“Rainbow, you haven’t been here the whole four days I was out, have you?” I asked.

“I didn’t want you to wake up alone…” she said, avoiding my eye, still stood by the side of the bed.

My gut swooped. Ever gone over a bump in the road at speed? Or a dip? That little whoop-up-down feeling? Like the world’s tiniest rollercoaster. My gut did that. She was just the cutest thing I’d ever run into. And so sweet! And lovely! Who else could have been so devoted? And to me of all people!

I patted the Rainbow-shaped dip.

“Come up here,”

She was there without a moment’s hesitation, settling into what was obviously a well-worn spot so close-in against me I could feel her warmth and her heartbeat through the thin hospital covers.

I gave her a scratch behind the ears and it was immediately obvious how much she’d missed even that tiny bit of friendly contact, all worry leaving her face, at least for a moment. I’d missed it too, even though really I couldn’t remember that much time having passed. My hand missed it, let’s say.

“What did I do to deserve meeting someone like you?” I asked.

In the good way, obviously.

Rainbow blushed furiously and tucked her head in against me to hide her face, but there was no easy escape from pleasant scratches.

“It’s not a big deal,” she said, muffled. “Anyone would have done it.”

“No. No they wouldn’t have. Only you would have done this for me. Here or back home. So thank you. It means, uh, well it means a lot to me.”

Not even kidding. Back home I didn’t think there was anyone willing or able to rush to my bedside. More my fault than anything, but no less true because of it. And while I hadn’t expected to fall asleep in one place on earth and wake up in a different place on an entirely separate level of existence, that I’d run into someone so loyal seemed the far more unlikely thing to have happened.

Which might say more about me.

Rainbow had stopped burying her face in my side and was instead looking at me again, and though her eyes still brimmed with tears she was smiling. The sort of smile that turned me at least partially to jelly. I never really understood tears of joy, but here they apparently were.

“Sorry to be soppy,” I said.

“Soppy’s okay,” she sniffled.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Both of us jumped. Out of nowhere a third party had appeared, completely silently and with no warning whatsoever. A unicorn. In a lab coat. With a stethoscope. Because obviously

You’d have thought I’d be used to this sort of hodge-podge nonsense by now, having been stuck in Equestria for a not-inconsiderable amount of time. But every day there seemed to be something new to baffle and confuse me and make me think that maybe I’d just died and gone to a very strange type of afterlife.

Probably not. But maybe.

“I’m Doctor Horse,” the unicorn said and it was a struggle to keep my face straight.

“I was going to go and find you to tell you he was awake!” Rainbow said, furiously wiping her eyes and shuffling to put a modest amount of distance between me and her. “I just...didn’t yet…”

Doctor Horse did not appear overly concerned and was just casually flipping through a chart. My chart, I realised with a twinge. Never had a chart before.

“So what’s the damage?” I asked.

“Hmm? Oh, I see. Colloquialism. The ‘damage’ was mostly superficial. Burns, bruising. The broken arm was probably the most serious injury but it was set easily enough. Your biology is surprisingly similar in many ways to pony biology.”

I did not believe this for a second. Ponies were, obviously, made entirely out of marshmallows and sunshine. Or so ran my theory at least. But I was hardly in a position to argue. I was still alive, so clearly the guy in the white coat had something going for him, even if it was just blind luck. Always best not to question a good thing.

“Fancy that,” I said. “Apparently I was in a freak lab accident?”

“That is my understanding, yes. From what I have been told semi-magical discharge from Miss Sparkle’s - ah - device struck you. That would be the cause of the burns. The broken arm and the bruising would be from where you were flung across the room.”

Discharge? Gross.

“Discharge? Gross,” Rainbow said, tongue sticking out in disgust. I knew there was a reason I liked her. Reaching out with my good hand I gave her mane a ruffle and chuckled as she pushed back, not so keen on keeping appropriate distance that she’d turn down a ruffle.

“Being flung across the room sounds about right for this level of sore,” I said.

“Quite.”

Awkward silence. Doctor Horse put the chart back.

“So can I go or what?” I asked, figuring I should try my luck. Rainbow’s ears perked up and she sat noticeably straighter. Doctor Horse eyed me and tapped a hoof to his chin.

“I suppose there’s nothing especially pressing about you staying here. All that’s required at this point is your recovery is bed rest. Oh, and applying salve daily. But that’s not too strenuous.”

I grimaced. ‘Applying salve’ was not something you typically were able to do on your own. That was the sort of thing that people had to help you with, and that thought did not make me happy. Being looked after was not my idea of a good time.

“Salve?” I asked.

“Hmm? Oh yes. For the burns. They’ve healed remarkably well but I would hate for them to get infected now. It should only be for another week or so, I would think. But we shall see.”

‘We shall see’. This was the sort of casual, laid-back approach to medicine you just didn’t see anymore. Probably for a good reason. I was surprised he didn’t go the whole hog and offer me a cigarette and some brandy to stiffen my constitution.

“I might have a bit of difficult salving myself,” I said, waggling my broken arm for emphasis and wincing with regret immediately.

“I’ll do it!” Rainbow blurted. Me and the doctor looked at her, bewildered.

“Uh, Rainbow,” I said. “That’s very kind of you to offer but you know that there is - it’s not a fun thing you’re volunteering to do, right?”

It wasn’t. Necessary, but not fun. I’d had to look after people who couldn’t look after themselves. No-one involved ever enjoyed it. I didn’t want her to have to do that. Certainly, I didn’t want her to have to see me like that.

As much as I might enjoy watching a pony do something as fiddly as applying salve.

Rainbow schooched around in place to face me, pointing an authoritative hoof in my direction. That she was so little sort of undercut the drama of this - as did the fact she was sitting on a bed just beside me - but the intent was clear: I better listen up.

“It’s not about fun. You’re hurt. It’s about looking after you and making sure you’re okay. I can do that. I want to do that,” she said.

Well that showed me.

“If you’re sure…” I said lamely, shrugging and sinking into the bed.

“I am. I’ll take care of you.”

Never had I heard anything that I believed so wholeheartedly. Here was someone for whom taking care of me was obviously a high priority. No ulterior motive, no sense of sufferance. She just wanted to see me better. It was written across her face. I could tell this because we were looking each other dead in the eye for what felt like a long time.

Doctor Horse cleared his throat and when I looked I found him checking a watch incongruously attached to one leg. That was just silly looking.

“Well that’s settled. Unless you have any other questions…?” He asked, with the air of someone who hoped you didn’t.

Unluckily for him, one did pop up in my head:

“What about the arm?” I asked. He cast a lazy eye over me, cast and all.

“That may take a little longer. Just try not to break it again and come see me in a month and we shall see how things are progressing.”

Sounded about right. I was at that ‘wait and let the body do the work’ stage, it seemed.

“Great. In which case,” I said, nudging Rainbow to get her off the bed and then whipping the sheets off so forcefully I hurt myself a little bit. Didn’t let it show though, and I was distracted enough by noticing - for the first time - that I wasn’t wearing anything of mine.

“Uh, not my clothes. Did my clothes get washed or what?” I asked, hopefully, crossing my fingers that I’d be told they were laundered and folded and waiting for me.

Doctor Horse pulled no punches.

“They were, I’m afraid to say, damaged beyond the point of recovery,” he said.

Not a surprise, but still a pisser. I hadn’t arrived here with many clothes, and now I had even less. Still. Could have been worse.

“Shame. Suppose I can rock this tasteful gown. Made up of several gowns taped together.”

The more I looked the cruder it got. Doctor Horse sniffed.

“We had nothing in your size. Or shape.”

“I could have guessed that.”

With some effort I swung myself sideways on the bed and eased by legs down, wincing as I did so. My legs were stiff and they ached as I put my weight onto them, but I could walk. I’d had worse.

There was a moment of a wobble as I hobbled for the door and Rainbow rushed up to brace me. Thankfully though we didn’t have to find out whether she could support my weight because I recovered before she was able to try. We both laughed nervously.

“Whoops, nearly,” I said, giving her another well-deserved ruffle. “Good to know you’ve got my back.”

“Always,” she said, smiling.

And with that we shuffled awkwardly out of the hospital and emerged blinking into the daylight, pausing only briefly to pick up salve from a helpful nurse on the way.

Or at least I shuffled awkwardly. Rainbow sort of just hovered behind me, clearly being driven out of her mind by how slow I was moving but knowing she couldn’t really say anything because I’d almost died and all.

Good to know she hadn’t changed while I’d been gone.

Hose me down

Author's Note

Did I mention I was moving? The combo of going to work, coming in, spending six hours packing and hoofing boxes around has distilled a fine blend of total exhaustion in me. Plotting this thing through in my head is a sweet release, but the tiredness may well mean the practical results are, ahem, garbled.

Which is to say I'm fucking knackered and if this reads weird that's why.

I can always clean it up later, right? I just want to keep this going!

Hose me down

Rainbow and me got back to mine sometime when it had start to approach evening.

Once in I was immediately herded upstairs and confined to my bed - despite my protests - and then told in no uncertain terms to stay put while she went off to ‘get stuff’. What this involved was unclear, but from the little I could spy from my window it seemed to involve a lot of coming and going and a lot of flying around. I felt lazy just watching her go back and forth

I kind of wanted to get up and wander around, if just to stretch my legs if nothing else, but was worried about the chewing out I might have got from Rainbow if she found me out of bed. So I stayed put and twiddled my thumbs and thought about how much I disliked being constrained so.

Eventually, some time later, Rainbow finished getting stuff.

“Right! That’s everything we’ll need to get you better! I’m back for good now. How is the patient?” She asked, coming into the room and putting on what I assumed was a medical tone of voice. Or a Rainbow-like approximation of one. Just sounded adorable to me.

“The patient is fine, really, thank you,” I said.

Then I squinted at her. Something was different, but I couldn’t work out what. Then it hit me and I wondered how it had taken me so long to notice.

“Are you wearing clothes? Are you dressed as a nurse?”

She was. Specifically as a pony-esque version of what people would think of if asked to picture a fifties-era American nurse - white dress, white hat and all that. Probably completely wrong, but it got the point across immediately.

It was actually the same as what I’d seen one or two ponies wearing back at the hospital, and I wondered if Rainbow had asked to borrow one. And I wondered why they’d said yes if so.

Only at that moment did I seem to appreciate that every day I’d seen Rainbow since first meeting her she had been stark-bollock naked. At the time it hadn’t even crossed my mind, but now it was the only thing I could think about.

But it was fine, right? I mean, it just seemed to be the thing around here. Just about everyone was naked all the time. Except maybe the occasional hat or whatever, or the ones who wore a costume just to show what their profession was for whatever reason. Just how ponies rolled. But still. Weird, to me, as a human to strut around nude constantly.

And me, in turn, probably weird to them for insisting on being clothed all the time. Right?

It was about then I also realised that I’d just been staring at her a little slack-jawed while thinking all this, and that she had gone very, very red.

“L-look, I’m going to be taking care of you and it just...I thought it was what you meant to do!” She all-but shouted.

I swallowed.

“Well I think it looks good on you. I mean it suits you. I mean you look good. I mean, uh…”

I didn’t know what I meant, really. She looked cute. Incredibly cute, in fact. So cute I kind of wanted to just keep looking at her. And and grab her and pull her in close and squeeze her while making squealing sounds of glee.

On top of which my brain was still methodically going back through all the time we’d spent together and updating it with my fresh horror at her having been nude throughout. Her writhing adorably on my lap took on a whole new meaning now, as much as I might like it not to.

This sort of human prudishness was no use for me here, but damnit if I couldn’t make it go away. I was the weird one here, despite what my brain was telling me! Everyone else was on the same page in Equestria, I just needed to get on it as well.

“You okay?” She asked, snapping me out of my tailspin of a thought spiral. My face was burning and, I imagined, beet-red.

“Me? Y-yeah! Ab fab, me. Just a little hot. I’ll just - ah - just open that window, hang on,” I said, making to get out of bed, but Rainbow beat me to it.

“I’ll get it!” She chirped, zipping across the floor in a blur and fiddling it the catch while i did my best not to look at her arse.

Her arse had always been there! Only now with the rest of her covered up it seemed so, so much more obvious! Why should it matter! There’s nothing new about it! It’s the same as it’s always been! The only new thing here was that you were noticing!

This was madness. Pull yourself together, man. She’s your friend and she’s not even human. If she noticed you looking at her rear she would be appalled! Then where would you be? All alone, that’s what. Back to being a stranger in a strange land.

Oh God. If she noticed she’d probably tell everyone. Or everyone would find out somehow. You’d be branded the weird, alien pervert and shunned accordingly. You’d have no-one.

Oh God again. What if Twilight refused to cooperate with you as a result? What if she stopped trying to figure out how to get me home? I’d be stranded and alone! Until I died!

Okay, maybe getting a little dramatic but still, somewhere in there is a point of sorts. It would not look good to be found staring at anyone’s bum, no matter who it was, though the bum of your best friend probably ranks higher on that. So I settled instead on just watching my hands. It seemed a safe option.

“Better?” She asked, returning with a smile. Now that she was facing towards me again I felt it was safer to look up.

I had to admit, the breeze coming through the window certainly was nice.

“Yes, thank you. I could have done that, you know.”

“There’s lots you could do, but you won’t be because I’m looking after you. That’s how this works,” she said at least semi-sternly. Weirdly, the outfit actually gave her a certain whiff of authority and I was suitably cowed. I ended up looking at my hands again, fiddling with the blanket.

They only had blankets here, not duvets. This had offended me deeply at first but now I was used to it. Generally too warm for anything heavier anyway, though it did make me worry about winter. I assumed they had a winter.

Would I still be around then?

I wondered, briefly, what Rainbow would look like in a scarf. Overwhelmingly adorable, probably, and for a moment I enjoyed the thought. But then further thoughts about nudity reared their unhelpful head and ruined everything.

This wasn’t fun at all.

“You sure you’re okay? You keep zoning out,” she said, concerned now.

“Yes, yes, totally fine. Sorry. Deep in thought.”

“About what?”

I could feel myself turn red again and I couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Oh you know,” I said helplessly, shrugging, tugging at a loose thread. “Just human things.”

Glancing up I could see she didn’t believe this.

“Uh, okay. Have fun with that. I have a plan for this evening,” she said, changing the subject much to my delight. I was able to look at her properly again.

“A plan?”

“Yes! It goes like this: First I feed you, because you have to be hungry. Second, you get sponged down, because it’s been days and you smell ripe. Third, I put that salve stuff on you. Fourth, we hang out. This is the plan.”

I scratched my chin.

“A reasonable plan. Do I get to ask questions?”

“You get one question.”

“‘Sponged down’?”

It seemed the most urgent one.

“I went to the nurses at Ponyville General to ask how you were supposed to show with that thing on your arm and they said you should have a sponge bath. So I asked them what a sponge bath was and they told me. You have a bath here, I know you do I’ve seen it, and I got a sponge.”

“Oh. Oh great. That sounds great,” I said, grimacing. Nothing boosts the dignity like being dabbed with a damp sponge while sitting naked in a tub of water.

“Hey, you need it. You’ve been stuck in bed for days. And you’re going to be stuck in bed for a few more days, too! So you better get used to it,” she said, entirely reading my reaction the wrong way.

“It’s not that. I mean, it’s kind of a step down for you though, isn’t it? Controlling the weather one day, fighting evil the next and then rounding it all off with a pleasant evening spent rubbing down some dickhead in a bathtub.”

I’d clearly crossed some sort of line with that one, because she looked cross with me.

“Listen,” she said, glaring. “You’re my friend, I’m looking after you. Stop trying to make it sound like I don’t want to because I do. This is what being friends is about - you don’t leave when the bad bits happen!”

You know, as grim, gritty and adult as it might be to spurn anything that isn’t punching angry monsters in the face while you eat raw meat, there’s a lot to be said for loyalty, honesty, generosity, laughter and kindness. I mean, they’re pretty great if you think about it.

I was suitably cowed.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Just stop being so down on yourself. I don’t like it. You’re a cool guy but you’re whining too much. And you should smile, too.”

I had to, after that. Couldn’t help myself.

“Anything else you’d like me to do while I’m at it?”

“The smiling is good for now. I’ll tell you if I get any other ideas.”

“I wait with bated breath,” I said.

My stomach then butted in by growling loudly. Damn stomach. Rainbow looked triumphant though.

“See? My plan predicted this. I’ll be back!”

And off she went.

Sort of wished I’d been left with a book or magazine or something. I could only twiddle my thumbs so much before they got sore.

Fortunately, Rainbow was indeed right back. Turned out that her idea of what to feed me was simple, and it was just soup with bread which she brought up by somehow managing to perfectly balance the bowl on the plate and the plate on a tray which was, in turn, balanced on her back. Having wings helped but still - impressive stuff!

“Soup?” I asked as she expertly slid the tray off onto my lap. The soup steamed at me.

“Ponies - er, people? Is that the word?” I nodded, she beamed with pride. “People who are sick have soup. So soup!”

“...can’t fault that logic. Thank you.”

I ate. Ravenously. So ravenously I didn’t really mind having Rainbow watching over me the whole time. From the satisfied way she took the tray away from me I got the impression if I hadn’t eaten it all she would have told me off. Got to keep my strength up and all that.

She took it back downstairs and while she was there I even heard the brief sounds of washing up - to my amazement! - before he reappeared, perky and energised as only rainbow could be. Lovely lady that she is.

With some food in me I felt much, much better. Settled. More able to think clearly. Obviously that had been the problem - low blood sugar. I was on top of the world again now, and calm of mind.

Which meant that I could say:

“Did you really think you had to dress like a nurse to look after me?”

With a clean conscience, and fully enjoy the aggrieved look on Rainbow’s face and the little stamp of the hoof she gave as well.

“Shut up!”

“Cutest nurse I ever did see!” I said, reaching out for an ear-scratch since she’d foolish come too close. This knocked the little hat askew, which somehow just served to make her even cuter looker. Were such a thing possible.

“S-shut up!” She said again, far less forcefully than before, trying and failing to resist the allure of the scratch, which became a more general stroking, then me just pulling her in towards me as I leant up for a strange half-bed-half-her-standing cuddle thing.

Yes it was awkward and yes if I’d had both arms free I would have just lifted her up onto the bed with me, but I was injured and I’d just wanted to hold her. Was that wrong?

“You can hop up here, if you want,” I found myself saying before I’d even really had the chance to think about it. Some part of me perhaps just thought it was what should be happening at that moment. Rainbow had a look that suggested she might agree, then her earnest desire to nurse me back to health kicked in and she pulled away.

“No,” she said, then, more softly: “I mean, I’d like to, but I have a plan.”

“Oh yeah.”

I’d forgotten about the plan.

“Just wait here, I’ll run the bath. Just wait here, okay?”

She spoke in tones of such gentleness that I could do nothing but obey, sitting and listening to the sound of running water, feeling a certain sense of building unease about what was to come but knowing I couldn’t really do anything about it. Had Rainbow even seen me with my shirt off before? I did not think so. The robe from the hospital was probably about the most risque thing I’d ever worn around her.

Certainly, whatever happened next was going to be an experience for both of us.

Once the water stopped running she came back to get me and I shuffled stiffly out the bedroom and into the bathroom. It wasn’t a big house. In all senses of the word. It had not been built with my dimensions in mind. The number of times I’d forgotten to duck and caught my head on doorframe were now beyond counting.

“I’m going to have to take my clothes off for this, aren’t I?” I asked, standing before the tub. Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“That’s how it works, yeah.”

I continued to stand staring at the water.

“I’m shy,” I said.

“Oh for the love of-”

Before I could work out what it was she was doing she moved in, took a chunk of the cobbled-together hospital robe between her teeth and pulled. The robe - which was flimsy to start with - came apart immediately. I was not wearing anything underneath, and covering myself when I had one arm broken was not easy.

“Holy hell Rainbow what are you doing! At least warn me first. Or buy me dinner, Jesus,” I said, trying and failing to remain both dignified and modest. She’d turned away to spit the robe out and stayed looking away.

“Just get into the bath. I won’t watch,” she said. So I did that. This was not a turn of events I’d expected, and I was a little surprised at how not-horrified I was by the whole thing. Probably tiredness.

At least the bath was nicely warm.

I settled into the water. Suddenly, having a pony-sized bath was a good thing because it meant that I was scrunched up with my knees by my chin, which meant I was not just spread out and exposed. Which at that moment was about the best I could hope for.

“You done?” I heard her ask. True to her word Rainbow was still looking the other way and I was about to thank her for that when I noticed her position relative to the bathroom mirror and her eyes that I could see in said mirror. If I could see her eyes, well - I wasn’t as impressed anymore.

Bit late though.

“Done,” I said.

“Okay. Now don’t make this weird,” she said,

“Oh! We wouldn’t want that!”

I glanced over my shoulder at her and saw that she was somehow holding a sponge with her hoof. I’d stopped worrying about how that was meant to work some time ago. Turning back forwards again I let out a breath, relaxed, and just let things flow over me.

Rainbow attacked the task with admirable professionalism. She dipped, she scrubbed, she was delicate with me and - as far as I could tell - the fact I was sat naked in front of her was not a big deal.

How was she so bloody casual about this? Was this a pony thing? They were all nude all the time - as I couldn’t stop thinking about, now! - so maybe they just didn’t care? I was kind of getting that impression, though the way her eyes kept darting around made me suspicious.

“You’re very smooth,” she said, out of nowhere.

“...thank you?”

“You know what I mean. Not like a pony. No coat. It’s...different.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I like different.”

Couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Didn’t trust myself to say anything to that. So I just stayed quiet, and she was quiet too.

Every so often the sponge would go over or near one of the burns and I would wince and she would apologise and go just that bit more gently the next time. This made the whole thing take much longer, or at least made it feel like it took much longer. The sun was well on its way below the horizon by the time she said she was done, certainly.

“I’ll get you a towel,” she said. She then got me a towel.

Sometimes things are simple.

“You’ll need to be dry for the salve stuff. They told me so.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Uh. Can you just…”

I glanced towards the door, hoping she’d get the hint. She did not.

“Can you just step outside for a second while I get dry?”

Again Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“Alright. You guys really have a thing about this, don’t you?”

“We do!”

“Alright, alright…”

Out she went, and then I spent a minute or two clumsily drying myself using only one arm. Results were mixed, but I judged them good enough.

And with that done the next stage of Rainbow’s plan started. Salve application.

The salve applying was the most horrendous thing that happened to me in recent memory. Nearly dying didn’t count, because I hadn’t nearly died I’d just been knocked out for a few days and - besides - I couldn’t remember it anyway.

At least for the bath I’d been able to hide in, well, the bath. For this there was no hiding. I had to be there, nude, and hold still while rainbow put this unpleasantly cold stuff onto me.

“How many times do you have to do this?” I asked.

“Daily. Until it runs out.”

“How much is there?”

She showed me the pot. It was a big pot.

“Great.”

I must have had a lot more burns than I realised because Rainbow took a long time doing what she was doing. By the time she was done the strain of having to stay still for so long was starting to show, and I was starting to shake. That seemed to sped her up, and she was soon finished. I sat and stank of medicine for a bit until it either soaked in or evaporated or whatever and I could actually put some nightclothes on.

Nice not to be naked anymore.

Rainbow’s plan had derailed somewhat by then, as things were so late - and both of us so exhausted - that we mutually, silently agreed that sleeping would trump hanging out. At least for right now.

She made sure I was properly tucked in first. She actually tucked me in and everything, and I actually let her. It was a novel experience.

“I’ll just be downstairs so if you need anything - anything! - you just ask me, okay? Okay?”

This was not a question with any available answer other than ‘Okay’, so I decided to just let it pass as assumed and ask my own question instead.

“Downstairs?” I asked.

She was staying with me, apparently, and had set herself up on the sofa. This she told me.

Weird how she was totally fine with falling asleep on top of me whenever, wherever, but the thought of specifically settling into a bed with me to go to sleep was too far. One of those distinctions that seemed flimsy but really ‘meant’ a lot more than seemed apparent, I supposed.

Would I have minded?

I didn’t know. And it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Because then I’d think about it too much. So I forgot I’d even wondered.

Or tried to.

And so she went downstairs, which left me alone with my thoughts. Which wasn’t ideal.

I was thinking about Rainbow, which was normal. Even if I hadn’t just spent the last few hours being looked after by her I probably would have been thinking about her anyway, because I tended to end up thinking about Rainbow most of the time.

Either I’d be thinking about where she was if she wasn’t around. Or what we might do together. Or how she’d react to something I might want to tell her. Or what thing I could tell her to make her smile. Or how nice her smile was. Or stuff like that. You know, normal stuff.

But right now I was thinking about just how bloody nice she was. I didn’t care what she said, she was going above and beyond. None of the friends I’d ever had back home would have done half of what she’d done for me. Some of them probably wouldn’t even have called to check I was okay. Rainbow had practically moved mountains. And sponged me down, obviously. Couldn’t forget that.

And she’d waited for me to wake up. Right beside me. She hadn’t needed to do that. I wouldn’t have expected her to. Wouldn’t have expected anyone to. Wouldn’t have held it against her if she hadn’t.

But she had. And she’d done it for me. Me.

I didn’t really know how to wrap my head around that.

You know, back home that sort of behaviour from a girl would have had significant implications. It could mean they liked you more than they were letting on. Would warrant some introspection and perhaps a reexamination of other past interactions, just to see if anything else significant had been missed.

Here?

Here not so much. Probably.

No, it’s probably normal.

Right?

The door opens and lets the future in

Author's Note

I still don't really have a good grasp on how emotional beings with thoughts and feelings actually interact or behave so most of this is me just stabbing in the dark, making wild guesses and throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

The door opens and lets the future in

Things got uncomfortable after that. Something had changed.

Was it me or was it her? I didn’t know. Was her not looking me in the eye and being much quieter than usual just in my imagination, or was it actually happening? I didn’t know. Why was I too scared to just ask, even though the room seemed far less casual and friendly than it had even just twenty minutes previously? I didn’t know.

Was not a fan.

Rainbow was still looking after me, obviously. Lunch was made and brought and I was kept confined to bed - though, really, I didn’t need to be at all - and later on the salve happened again. Only this time it wasn’t a horrendous and embarrassing experience for both of us. It was just clinical. Which somehow I found far worse.

Again, not a fan.

She didn’t get back to me about learning some grim medical history from back home. It wasn’t even brought up again. Not even hinted at. I was more upset about than I would have expected.

What had I done? Clearly I’d done something. Everything had been pretty much fine until I’d opened my mouth and vomited out that rambling, inarticulate speech about how much she meant to me.

Had it been that? Had I not got myself across clearly enough? Had she taken it the wrong way? Wouldn’t have been the first time I’d said one thing and the person listening had heard the exact opposite.

The sensible thing to do would have been to ask, but I was far too terrified to do that. I couldn’t just ask someone what they thought, least of all my best friend! That would have been crazy.

Not sure why, but it just would have been. This was how I’d been raised.

Time passed so, so slowly without Rainbow to help speed it up for me. I mean, she was there, but she also wasn’t. She mainly wasn’t. To an outside observer it would have looked as though she was there and everything was normal, but to me I could tell she was - at least in her head - somewhere else. And wherever that was I’d apparently put her there.

And at one point she just left the room and didn’t come back.

At first this wasn’t something I thought muc h about. She’d been dead quiet most of the day, after all, so she wasn’t exactly going to tell me where she was going or what she was doing - she’d just do it. I figured she was...preparing something, I didn’t know. But then as time wore on I started to get a little anxious. And then I heard something.

Not a sound I could readily identify. My brain struggled to try and define it, leading to all sorts of strange possibilities running through my head. The brain does that, I’d heard. Without a frame of reference it just makes stabs in the dark until you give it more to go on. I felt I had to give it more to go on, because the strange noise was coming from inside the house.

Knowing that I was defying orders from Rainbow I got out of bed unsupervised and lef the room as quietly as I could.

On the landing the noise was louder, and I could now tell that it was coming from downstairs. I also had more of an inkling of what it was and my heart sank somewhere down to about my stomach. That was the sound of someone being unhappy.

I did my best to creep down the stairs but they creaked with every step I took. Not that Rainbow - sat facing away from me on the sofa - seemed to notice. Or if she did, she just didn’t care enough to say anything about it.

She’d taken off the little hat, but the rest of the uniform was still on. Her wings droops, her shoulders shuddered. I came up ever-so-slowly behind her.

“Are you crying?”

“No. Go away,” she sniffed, while crying.

Someone blatantly lying about themselves crying is always a bad sign.

The sensible, adult part of me that I kept locked away somewhere knew that this was something I had to confront openly, honestly and as soon as possible. Every other part of me whined that life was unfair and asked if someone else could do it. I ignored those other parts and listened to the adult part. First time for everything.

“Come on, even I know something’s up. You can tell me,” I said, as delicately as I could manage. Which probably wasn’t very delicately. I knew I should move around the sofa sso I was speaking to her from the front rather than from behind, but I was still shit-scared and I could only be so adult all at once. Baby steps.

“No!” She half-sobbed, waving a hoof through the air while the other rubbed at her eyes. “It’s fine! Just go back to bed!”

Up until this moment I hadn’t even considered the possibility that Rainbow Dash could cry. I hadn’t ever imagined any situation where she’d need to. Apparently I’d created one. Go me.

I moved around in front of her.

“I don’t really need to be in bed. And I can’t leave you like this. I don’t like this. And, uh, I kind of figure this is my fault. Somehow. It’s what I said, isn’t it?”

That got her to look up. One eye hidden behind her mane, the other locked onto my face. I might have gone a bit pale. I coughed.

“That thing I said. I - I probably fluffed it. Probably came across wrong. Probably wasn’t clear?”

She scoffed - actually scoffed - and looked away, again wiping his eyes and noses on the back of a hoof.

“Oh, you were pretty clear.”

Well that was bad. If I’d just been misunderstood then I could try again and fix it up and that would solve it. But if I’d been understood and that had still been wrong then I didn’t know what to do. That would mean that what I’d said had been the problem, but that I just didn’t know why.

That idea was nauseating, so I instead just grasped hopelessly at the slim chance I’d been misunderstood, but she didn’t think she’d misunderstood. Feeble, but I was running out of options.

“I was just trying to say how much you meant to me, as a friend,” I said, hoping to straighten things out.

Apparently it was the wrong thing for me to have said.

Rainbow sat up straight and finally stopped trying to hide her face, hitting me with the most powerful look of miserable, desperate anger I think I’d ever seen. On a pony this expression was no joke. I flinched.

“I know what you were trying to say! I didn’t want to hear you say it! I sat through that whole thing and waited and waited but you didn’t say what I wanted you to say! We’re better than friends and we should be more and I want to be more and I’ve made it so obvious and you’re either just an idiot or you’re not interested and just won’t tell me!”

I’m sorry, what.

I stared. My mouth moved but nothing came out. My brain sort of fizzed.

“And now you’re just staring at me!” She shouted. I flinched again and shrunk back, looking dejectedly at everything in the room that wasn’t Rainbow Dash.

“M-more than friends?” I mumbled.

“At first when we met I just thought you were weird. Then I thought you kind of cool and weird. After that I knew you were weirdly cool. Past that I started to realise that you’re my kind of weirdly cool. The kind that I sort of want - really want - to have around. In my life. Properly.”

I couldn’t parse any of this. It didn’t fit anywhere in my brain. But there she was, saying it.

“I’m just a guy…”

“You’re the only guy like you. And the only guy who I like like this. I’ve never worried about anyone else like this. Or thought about from the moment I woke up. Or saved up things to talk about with. Just you.”

I kind of wished I was sitting down at this point, as standing up for all of this just made me look ungainly and uncomfortable. I was both of those things, yes, but I didn’t want it to be so obvious right then.

Even I wasn’t dense enough to not get what she was saying. Even I have limits. But I still couldn’t hack it. Wasn’t this something forbidden? Wasn’t this going to be looked down on? She seemed awfully relaxed about that part. She just seemed mainly angry with me, which was understandable.

But still. A pony and a strange, extra-dimensional stray? Wouldn’t people talk?

“I thought it wasn’t something that happened here,” I said, fidgeting.

“What?”

“Didn’t think that...ponies and...anything else would...do...that…”

“What?” She said again, the tiniest bits of annoyance starting to creep in.

“I don’t know. Back home there’s just one species you can have a conversation and getting into a relationship outside of that is, well, difficult. And frowned upon. Here you got dragons and ponies and griffons and all sorts and I just...I don’t know...kind of thought everyone kept in their lanes.”

That was a terrible analogy and I felt appropriately ashamed of myself for using it. Lanes indeed.

Rainbow’s patience - already strained - snapped.

“What does that even mean?!”

“It means I thought you’d be grossed out if you thought I liked you too!”

Well, that slipped out.

Rainbow’s whole aspect change. The annoyance at my mangled, useless explanations vanished. The exhausted, desperate anger at my totally inability to read between the lines dropped away. She just looked stunned. Eyes wide, jaw slack.

“You like me too?”

‘Like’ like, not like like. God talking like this was dumb.

She had me dead to rights though. I’d said it, and I’d also meant it.

“Well obviously I like you. I said you’re the most important pers- pony in my whole world. Any world. You mean a lot to me.”

“But not just as a friend, you see me as more than that, right? You can see me as more than that?” She asked, pointing at me, trying to pin me to an answer. I squirmed in place.

“I - yeah - I mean, I don’t - I was worried that If I liked you like that it’d be bad. Thought I’d be seen as some...offensive, rocing monster from another world getting ideas. You don’t rally see ponies...getting affectionate with anything other than a pony. You know?”

“You don’t see it all the time but it still happens! No-one cares! It’s fine!”

“...really?”

“Yes!”

I’d have to ask her for more details on that later, I felt. Right at that moment wasn’t the time. Right at that moment all that was important was that no-one cared, that it was fine. This was important information. It changed things. At least in the world around me. In my head gears were still grinding. Things in your head can’t change quite so easily or so quickly.

“So, socially speaking, there’s nothing to worry about?” I asked.

“No!”

“This sort of thing is...fine?”

“Yes!”

“And I won’t end up getting chased out of town by an angry mob?”

“No!”

“So this is all up to me?”

“Yes!”

Shit. That sounded a lot like responsibility to me. Like something I could do wrong and be held accountable for without anyone else to blame. Those were the worst.

I grasped at the air as though it might hold some answers for me. But it didn’t. It was just air, and therefore useless for this. So I just had to come up with something on the spot. Again. Always worked well for me in the past.

“I’ve always liked you. Lots, really. All the stuff about you? The things that make me fond of you? They made me really fond. Squishy-inside fond. But I guess in my head I just never...made a connection between...because I always just saw you as ‘Rainbow Dash’ but not as, uh, anything...else. But then you put on that nurse outfit and something just kind of, er…”

This was going to go South fast again, I knew it. But at least I was consistent in being terrible.

“Think it just gave me a little nudge. Not sure why. Must have rattled something up here,” I tapped a finger to my temple. “Cleared things up enough. Still worried me though, at the time. Because of the thing I said. The interspecies thing. But it helped. Saw you differently. Thought about you differently.”

Rainbow looked utterly incredulous, which was bad as I’d rather been hoping for ‘happy’.

“All I had to do was dress up?!” She squealed, voice popping. Bad sign. Damage control!

“No! No, it wasn’t just that. I mean, it helped, but, ah fuck I don’t know. I don’t know! This is new! I was shit at girls back home and I’m still shit at them here. Sorry.”

Best way to impress girls? Complain about how bad you are ‘at girls’ in front of them, as though they were an event at sportsday you weren’t much good at. They love it.

I’d finally had enough of standing up. Looking back I found the chair and flopped into it, head resting in my one good hand.

“Ah I’ve fucked this up. Why did you even ever like me? Me!”

I laughed bitterly and melted backwards into the chair, just letting it embrace and, not removing my hand from my face, talking into my palm and at the room in general.

“I just - you’re great. You’re so, so great. You can fly, for one - that’s a great place to start from. You got cool hair. Your laugh is great. You’re just so overwhelmingly lovely and considerate and you’d go twice around the world if a friend needed you too and you wouldn’t even need asking twice. Hell, you’d do it without being asked. And you’re funny. And you’re a hell of a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for. And just - all of this stuff. So much of it! All in you. In this person in my life. This person - pony, fuck! Hate that - who makes my life, now. Is part of my life. Couldn’t imagine a life without you. Wouldn’t really want to. There’d be a gap and I don’t know what else could go in it. I’ve never had that. Guess I should have thought that a bit more. God I was an idiot. Worrying about all the wrong things. And never just asking!”

“Well, you were being an idiot.”

The floor creaked. I peeked through my fingers and saw Rainbow standing right in front of me, smiling just enough to make my heart twinge.

“Probably still am, aren’t I?” I asked.

“Little bit,” she said, holding up a hoof for emphasis.

“I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

My head rolled onto the back of the chair and I stared at the ceiling. Again the floor creaked as Rainbow climbed onto my lap. Automatically my good hand went to rest on her, to help her balance. Pulling my head back I look at her face, now bare inches from mine.

“So this is something we’re really doing?” I asked, utterly unable to look anywhere other than her eyes. So big, but so pretty. Just filled my world right at that moment.

“If you want to,” she said.

“Well, yeah. Assuming you still think I’m worth it.”

She gave me a pound on the shoulder. The one not attach to my broken arm. Still hurt.

“Don’t say that.”

“Sorry. Yes, I want to. It’s either that or ignore the big swooping in my belly everytime I hear you coming my way. I don’t think that’d be healthy.”

She chuckled, most for politeness than anything. That’s a keeper.

I ran my thumb across her coat. So very, very soft. Her hooves rested either side of my head.

Time passed.

“So do we kiss now or what?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, my heart pounding in my ears as though it thought I was back in my teens again rather than being a big boy. Rainbow felt like she was trembling.

“If you want,” she said.

And so we did.

Not going to lie. Bit weird. The facial geography didn’t quite match up. Neither of us knew where to put ourselves.

But it wasn’t really about that. It didn’t matter whether it was good or bad or - as it was - a complete shambles. What mattered was that we’d done it at all. That was what was important.

“We’re going to have to work on that,” I said once it was over and we’d pulled back.

“Yeah,” she said, then her eyes gleamed. “We might have to work on all night, once you’re better.”

Uh, eep?

The laziness of acceptance

A day or so later she slept in my bed. There was no fucking.

There wasn’t much of anything, really. Other than cuddling. Which was fine by me. I lay down, she cuddled up, we nodded off. Or she did, I mostly just held her in my one good arm and stared at her in abject disbelief at how things had worked out. It was lovely.

Weird how a little shift in definition can make you feel really very differently about things. Rainbow had fallen asleep on me before and - though I’d never admit it - the reverse had probably happened at least once.

But that was back when we’d just been buds doing bud things, and I hadn’t thought twice. Now, with us making a go of it as a, you know, ‘item’, I was hyper-aware of everything. How warm she felt against me. The little noises she made. How she wriggled into me every now and then. Where my hand was (her flank? At least I think that’s what it was called). All of these things seemed overwhelming now.

She was very cute when she slept, I noticed, waking up before she did. This I’d noticed before, obviously but back then it had been ”Huh, Rainbow’s kinda adorable when he dozes” but now it was “Rainbow - who I am an item with! - is adorable when she dozes!”

Eventually this novelty would wear off, I knew, and everything that had been old but was now new would be old again. I would stop grinning and thinking I was funny by using the word ‘item’. But I wasn’t looking forward to that. I was loving the novelty. I liked having everything make me so excited I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t often feel things so deeply.
I trailed my hand up to the base of her wing, the one that had draped itself over the top of me. That kind of shit was cool. Wished I had wings. I could enfold people in a feathery embrace. And also fly. Both would be good.

Rainbow twitched in her sleep when my fingers touched where the wing met her back. She did it again when I did it again and then she mumbled dozily and wordlessly, stretching out against me before curling up tighter, facing running briefly through sleepy agitation and then melting into contentment as she settled comfortably. It was so cute I was reduced to just staring with my mouth open.

This was amazing, and I could have had all this sooner if I’d just been paying attention.

Things were the same, but different. The circumstances were hardly normal - what with her nursing me and everything (though she’d ditched the outfit now) - but were still normal enough for differences to be noticed. It was still us just hanging out, only now there was an edge to everything we did. A sort of giddiness. Touches lingered longer. Eye-contact went unbroken. Smiles didn’t leave faces.

Also kissing. Couldn’t forget that. That was new.

I couldn’t believe it, honestly. Couldn’t believe any of it was happening. At every moment I expected the other shoe to drop and the whole thing to turn out to be some elaborate long-con practical joke of Rainbow’s. But it never happened. It continued to be real. I couldn’t believe it.

Leave aside that she’s not human. Leave that to one side, put that in your pocket. I didn’t ever expect to have anyone get so close to me. It had been years. I’d long-since concluded that it was just me, that no-one would or could be interested. I’d got comfortable with the idea. Not exactly happy, but comfortable. I had come to accept it as the way things were. The bits and pieces that made up me added up to someone who was just unlikeable and someone who would, therefore, remain alone. That’s what I’d decided.

Only not, as it turned not. Not at all. Wrong.

And so there I was. Holding someone - somepony - special. And grinning like an idiot.

“Snnrrff,” Rainbow snuffled, one eye opening. “S’what’s goin’ on?”

I rubbed around the base of her wing again and she shivered, eye fluttering shut again. My grin widened. Never known it would do that. Would have to remember.

“Nothing much,” I said.

She snuffled again and rolled onto her back, her head resting on my belly, wings now tucked in. No idea how they managed to fit underneath her without getting bent out of shape, but who was I to argue?

“Good. Don’t wanna do anythin’,” she said, smiling at the ceiling and giggling when I scratched her behind the ears.

“Just hanging with my gi- my girlfriend.”

The words hadn’t felt right in my mouth at first, so I’d had to start over, had to remember that they were right and would - hopefully - continue to be right. I even got butterflies! What was I? Twelve?

“S’marefriend,” she said. I blinked. Did they really need another word for that?

“So that’d make me your...what?” I asked.

“Coltfriend.”

Of-fucking-course. Why did I even need to ask?

“I can learn to live with that,” I said. Then I laughed. Just a little one.

“What?”

“Just thinking,” I said. “Never thought I’d have anything like this again. Never have anyone. When I woke up here I thought it’d just be...loneliness and hoping for a way back. And now this. Didn’t see it coming. The whole ‘has four legs and comes up to my waist’ thing is pretty unexpected as well. Not a dealbreaker, though.”

In all honesty I was still working on that, at least internally. Right at that moment I was just letting it sit on the backburner, as it were. Getting used to most of my company being tiny, brightly-coloured and non-human had been difficult enough in the first place - anything more than that would take just a little more.

Rainbow rolled her head towards me and pouted. This was adorable.

“I am taller than your waist,” she said.

True. If anything she came up to just below my chest. Maybe a little lower.

“Well yeah, but that doesn’t sound as snappy.”

“Just as long as you know,” she said, settling back again. Then she paused, eyes opening.

“Never thought you’d have anything like this?” She asked. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that. It seemed pretty self-explanatory to me.

“Yeah? No? Why?”

With a grunt she rolled over and wriggled inelegantly on top of me, hind legs either side of my torso, hooves resting on my chest. She looked oddly concerned. Her whole manner was serious.

“Why’d you say that?”

“Say what?”

I got pounded for that, right on the chest. Oof.

“The thing you just said! About never having anything like this. Why’d you say that?”

I couldn’t think of any way to answer this, again. The answer was in the question. I’d just never thought it’d happen. That was it. That was all there was to it. I floundered.

“I, uh…”

That was as far as I got. Shrugging - or at least shrugging as much as I could while pinned beneath her - I shook my head. She was staring at me, expecting something she could work with. I would disappoint her.

“I got nothing. Sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. Just figured it’d never happen.”

Rainbow frowned.

“Did you think no-one would ever like you or something?”

Again, all I could was shrug, this time helplessly. Didn’t exactly want to lie to her face. The frown got worse.

“Okay, we’re going to work on that, alright? That’s dumb and I don’t like it. We’re going to work on that. I like you a whole lot and I don’t want you thinking that if I didn’t no-one else could. That’s dumb,” she said, resolutely.

“If you say so.”

“No, I mean it. I don’t want you saying that. I don’t want you thinking it. You’re better than that. I know you are, I want you to know you are too. So we’re going to work on that.”

“Going to work on my self-esteem?” I asked, perhaps more jokingly than I meant to. The pressure of her hooves resting on my chest increased as her weight shifted, her face coming closer to mine.

“Yes. It’s important,” she said, expression oftening as she seemed to notice how we were now inches apart. I felt her relax and she slithered lower, laying flat on top of me, hooves around my neck, wings unfurling, curling in either side of us. A neat trick. “You believe me when I say I like you, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

Didn’t have much of a choice at this point. Couldn’t understand it, but couldn’t deny it. What else could explain the position I found myself in?

Without really thinking about it I gave her a kiss on the cheek. Because I could reach. She giggled at that - always cute - and because I could reach further I put a couple more kisses her way, moving down her neck. She squirmed.

“S-stop that! I’m trying to say something!”

“Sorry, I got carried away,” I said. I wasn’t really that sorry.

A little odd, I felt, how quickly whatever reluctance I might have felt about the species-divide had evaporated. It had only really plagued me for a day, but it had been a day spent exclusively with Rainbow and the more we talked and laughed and did all the things we always did the less and less of an issue it got to be in my head. I suppose my justification would be that she was just as rich and valid an individual as any human would have been, just differently shaped. But I didn’t need to justify it, because I was stuck far from home and far from anyone who would have wanted answers anyway.

I barely noticed when I just started to dole out the dashes of random, intimate affection. A kiss on the head here, a nuzzle to the neck there. Hands coming to rest perhaps a daring inch or two lower than they might have done back when we were just friends. I’d just started doing it perhaps a day after things had come to a head. It had been fun to do, she’d liked it, and so it had kept going.

One of those things, I supposed. Wouldn’t do anyone any good to dwell on it. Others might have torn themselves to shreds over this sort of thing, but I was never one for worrying in the first place.

Lucky me, I guess.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Rainbow said, turning her head and tucking it in beneath my chin. “We’ll work on it. Just a little bit here and there. I want you to know the you that I know, the you I like.”

She had to work that last part out in her head as she said it. So did I. There’d been a lot of ‘you’s. It all seemed to fit together and, as she confirmed this to herself, she grinned up at me, obviously pleased. I gave her mane a ruffle. Could never go wrong with that.

“I can’t object, really,” I said.

“No, you can’t,” she said happily, eyes closing again as she settled properly.

From there we enjoyed a few quiet minutes of nothing much at all. From the sound of things Rainbow dozed off again, and I just took the time to fully appreciate how nice it was to feel the soft, warm weight of her against me. It’s the little things.

Wasn’t doing the arm she was resting on any favours but, hey, you can’t have everything.

Later, we’d probably have a late lunch, maybe wander back to Ponyville General to see about getting the bloody cast taken off and then who knew what next? Been a while since I’d sat and watched her fly - that would be fun. Maybe some ruckus would happen in town that she’d need to take care of. Had been a while since any of that, too.

Maybe we’d tell everyone about us. I’d probably get laughed at for being so dense, but I’d be okay. Maybe we wouldn’t tell anyone and just keep it to ourselves for now. After all, who really needed to know?

We had options. We could do anything we wanted and, more importantly, do it together.

Right then though, I was plenty happy doing absolutely nothing with my marefriend.

Fancy that.

Author's Note

Not exactly a thrilling conclusion but that was never really the point. The point was to drag out dense-as-bricks human and Rainbow, get them together and then finish on that. And I've done that.

Anything else I can do after this is gravy.

But I'm burnt-out as fuck on this so I think I need to go and have a lie down and do something else for a minute.

Fumbling at the obvious

Author's Note

So much talking! Ye Gods! But that's sort of the point, I suppose. If you didn't like it you wouldn't be here.

Ah, I better be able to make the payoff for all this worthwhile, though. That's going to be interesting.

Still! Aside from being riddled with typos things seemed to be ticking along nicely.

Fumbling at the obvious

The details of my dream were fuzzy, but I had the impression it wasn’t a happy one.

This still did not make the curtains whipping open and the room flooding with sunlight any more welcome.

“Morning!” Said my self-appointed carer Rainbow Dash, trotting from the freshly-opened curtains to my beside and - I could just about see while squinting - smiling broadly at me. How could anyone be so chirpy so early?

“Oh my God, is that the sun? Why...why is it so low in the sky?” I asked, trying in vain to escape.

“It’s not even that early! I’ve been up for hours waiting for you. Couldn’t take it anymore. It was lonely,” Rainbow said with a pout.

“That’s...I don’t...can’t…” I mumbled, then opening one eye as I ran through again what she’d just said. “Lonely?”

She drew circles on the floorboards with her hoof.

“It’s quiet when you’re asleep…”

I noticed that she was still wearing the nurse outfit, but I decided not to comment on it this time. Clearly it was something she wanted to keep up, and who was I to argue? It was, after all, a very cute look on her.

I also noticed a sudden, overwhelming desire to seize her and cuddle her. Poor, lonely girl! Not on my watch! But I fought down this urge. Didn’t have enough energy anyway.

Instead, I just sat up in bed. Not as easy as it sounded in my head, but I got it done.

“We’ve never stayed over before, have we? At each other’s.” I asked.

“Well, you can’t come to my house,” Rainbow said. I’d quite forgotten about that.

She’d told me about her house. Made of clouds, in the clouds. And big. And awesome. Had columns and all sorts, she said. And a tortoise. It sounded pretty fucking cool and the fact that it was too unsafe for me to go there was still a sore point.

Pegasus could just straight-up walk on clouds, which was no harder to believe than the fact they were also in charge of controlling the weather. I, being human, was not so lucky. There were spells and potions and such that could impart on non-pegasus the ability to walk on clouds, I’d been told, but my sketchy relationship with magic made it far too risky.

Or so I’d been told.

For whatever reason magic could never seem to get a grip on me. Sometimes it worked, sometime it didn’t, and even those fews times it did it never seemed to work as well as it should. Memorably, Twilight had once almost dropped me out of a window. So that was why I’d been given a hard no on the cloudwalking.

And why I’d never slept over at Rainbow’s. As much as I might have liked to. Can you imagine? Kickin’ all night and then just slumping over for the morning? That would have been great.

“Oh yeah,” I said, now downcast. “How come you’ve never stayed over here, then?”

“You never asked.”

“...shit. You’re right. Okay, once this is done and I’m better you and me are having a proper sleepover, right? I don’t know what we’ll do but we’ll do it. It’ll be great. Sound good?”

“Yeah!”

Genuinely I had no idea what we could do all night but I was sure we could work something out. I had time to think about it anyway. Being awake wasn’t so awful.

I stretched out and enjoyed all of those aches and bumps and bruises coming back to remind me that, yes, they were still there.

“Ow. Still though, it’s super-nice to be back in my own place. My limited experience with, uh, medical emergencies had me expecting an extended stay. Guess things are a little different here.”

Much rather be feeling beaten-up at home.

Rainbow cocked her head.

“What’s it like back where you’re from?”

Had to scratch my head for that one. Big ask.

“Would depend on where you are. Bad answer, I know, but it’s true. Where I’m from - me specifically - it’s pretty good. A bit more involved than what you guys have here, it seems. A bit less, ah, casual.”

I mused for a moment, then:

“Things used to be worse back home, obviously, but that was before my time.”

“Why? What did it used to be like?”

“Uh…”

I panicked. Through my head ran several hundred years of humours, of assuming mentally ill people were possessed, going to Bedlam and paying to watch the lunatics, bloodletting, trepanation, taking mercury and radium and other such curious piece of questionable medical history.

A broad range of examples I’ll admit, and none positive, but that was where my mind went.

Why was all of human history so terrible? I mean really. A lot of this is probably just me being a naturally morbid person but it just looked to me that a lot like the good parts of humanity were just easing up on the bad bits from time to time.

But, again, that’s probably just me. That, and being in Equestria just makes home look all the more grim by comparison.

And Rainbow was still staring at me, expecting an answer,

“Uh, it used to just be...worse,” I said, lamely and to her obvious disappointment.

“Oh,” she said.

“You really don’t want to know,” I hissed behind my hand, not wanting to just be left as the guy who gave a bad answer. For an instant she looked confused, then she got it.

“Oh! Oh. Oh okay. Let’s stick with worse. Though if I ask later will you maybe give me a few of the...less-worse bits? Just one or two?” This she asked while grinning. Grinning conspiratorially. Which - as is well known - is some of the best kind of grinning to be on the receiving end of.

Still ever-curious about the grisly stuff. Again, another reminder of just why I liked her so much. Never had I met anyone who could stand to hear me talk for so long about so little.

“Alright,” I said, giving her a scritch. “You’ll get one or two. Or three. But if you end up getting put out of joint again don’t go blaming me.”

“It’s okay, I’ll just cuddle up to you when you’re asleep and I’ll feel better in no time.”

“I don’t have to be asleep for you to do that, you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re cuter when you’re asleep.”

I probably went a little pink at that.

“Kind of you, but doubtful,” I said.

“No, really,” she said, earnestly, eyes fixed on mine. “I mean, you’re always mostly cute but when you’re snoozing and you’re all curled up you just look so peaceful and, uh...cute...yeah…”

She tailed off, still looking at me. And I was looking at her. Eye-to-eye.

This wasn’t unusual. Being buddies, we did have occasional moments of eye contact. But not like this, and not for so long. And it just kept going, and going, and going...

“Rainb-”

The tension of the moment was thoroughly deflated when someone downstairs knocked on the door. Loudly.

“I’ll get it!” Rainbow said, shooting off at speed.

What had I been about to say? I didn’t know. But I was glad I hadn’t said it, whatever it was. Would probably have put my foot in it.

Up the stairs came the sound of hooves. Ponies were just so noisy!

“You have a visitor,” Rainbow said, reappearing, and a moment after that there was lavender in the room.

“Ah! Twilight! You are alive! I was worried they might just have been stringing me along,” I said. I was only halfway joking. The suspicion had been building in my head that they’d told me she’d been fine just to keep me from worrying. Which, ironically, had started to make me worry.

Worry about nothing, as it turned out. For which I was thankful.

Twilight looked very sheepish and only fully came into the room when Rainbow ushered her. She was looking at me as though I was at death’s door, which I wasn’t, and she seemed to think that if she moved too quickly or too loudly I might shatter.

“Your lab alright?” I asked, hoping to maybe get things moving and unctured the silence that had swaddled the room. No-one laughed, so I had the horrible feeling they were both taking what I’d said seriously. Oops.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“Well. Great. I’m glad.”

Dead silence. Rainbow coughed and briefly caught my eye.

“I’ll go and make breakfast for the patient,” she said, and I got a smirk with that one.”Are you gonna be staying for breakfast Twi or…?”

“No, no, I don’t want to intrude, I just wanted to see how he was doing, that’s all.”

“Alright, well, you do that, Rainbow said, going downstairs again and leaving me and Twilight alone in the room.

A moment passed.

“So yeah-”

Twilight was over and bawling before I’d even started on the third word.

“I’m really sorry!” She wailed, half-hurling herself onto the bed and burying her face in the blanket. “I should have checked! I could have k-killed you! I’m so sorry!”

“Jesus, calm down Twilight, it’s alright,” I said, kind of wanting to comfort her but also afraid to touch her. Also mostly just wanting her to stop crying.

“But you got hurt and it was all my f-f-fault!”

“It’s fine! Accidents happen, Twilight. I’m not dead. Focus on that.”

“But you could have died!”

“We all could always have died, just - it’s fine, really. Trust me. Please,” I said, clumsily giving her a pat on the head.

This did wonders, and seemed to calm her down almost at once. Mostly through how incredibly pathetic it was, which did a good job of demonstrating how okay I was. Or maybe making the thought of me dying horribly more palatable to her. Either way.

“If you’re sure…” she sniffled, wiping her eyes on the back of a hoof.

“Totally sure. On hundred percent. No hard feelings, no nothing. Everything is fine. I’ll pat you again if that helps.”

Immediately she pulled back way from the bed and out of patting range.

“No, really. It’s fine,” she said.

Then, she glanced to the door. Downstairs, cupboard doors could be heard opening and closing. Breakfast was still being prepared. Rainbow was sure taking her time.

“Rainbow’s dressed as a nurse, huh?” Twilight asked, quietly. I smirked.

“Yeah. It’s a thing. I already made fun of her for it, it’s cool.”

“Made fun of her?”

“Well, yes? I mean, it’s a good look on her but it’s still, you know, weird. Right? Rainbow Dash? A nurse? Just, looked kind of...unexpected...you know? Didn’t see it coming.”

“I suppose I can see that,” Twilight said, in tones that suggested she and I were coming at this ‘Rainbow Dash dressed as a nurse’ thing from two very different angles. I found the whole thing low-key amusing. Twilight obviously found it...something else...

The conversation petered out then, because I had something specific I wanted to ask her but wasn’t wholly sure on how to go about it. Something that had been pecking away at the edges of my concern.

“Twilight...can I ask you something?”

“Whatever you like,” she said, smiling in that damnededly , totally sincere and friendly way that all ponies seemed to do all the time. Why couldn’t at least one give me a smile that didn’t reach the eyes? Then at least I’d feel at home for one brief moment.

I had to think of how I was going to say what I wanted to say, too. I cleared my throat. Which I did a lot, I felt. But it was a force of habit so I couldn’t do a lot about it.

“Hypothetically - I mean, you know, just for the sake of argument - if a p-pony liked - you know, like, liked liked - someone or, uh, somepony who wasn’t a, uh, pony, how would, uh-”

Fuck. What did any of that even mean? Were you still speaking English at this point? What the hell is wrong with you?

Twilight was looking at me like I’d spouted a lot of gibberish. Which was fair, because I had.

“Could you maybe run that by me again?” She asked.

I was all set to try and repeat what I’d failed to say a moment ago but, taking a second to think about it, I realised this was a waste of time. I’d had no idea what I’d meant to try and say, so there was no way it was going to work a second time.

Taking a breath, I started over.

“In a world with so many different, sentient species,” I said, dotting my hand around the blanket for emphasis and also so I wouldn’t have to look Twilight in the face as I spoke. “Where do ponies fall on...affectionate...relations between...these...species...yeah.”

That was probably about as good as it was going to get.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at me.

“Why are you asking me that?”

I shrugged as only a man who’d backed himself into a corner can shrug.

“Just, you know, hypothetical. For someone I know. I know a guy. He wants to know.”

Seamless. She’ll never guess.

Twilight gave me the single most inscrutable, unreadable look I had ever received in my mouth and was about to respond when Rainbow returned, breakfast in tow.

“Breakfast!” She declared with pride, doing the tray-slide trick again with the wings and everything.

“I love the way you do that,” I said. Because I did. It was pretty cool. She went a touch pink, which was all I could ask for, really.

Oats for breakfast, it seemed. Suited me down to the ground, because I fucking loved oats. Presumably she’d taken so long to get them upstairs deliberately, because otherwise how else could anyone take so long putting oats into a bowl?

Rather than immediately getting stuck in I looked back to Twilight, still expecting my answer, but her mouth had closed and her look was - somehow - even more unreadable than it had been before.

“I’d better go,” she said.

“But-” I started, only then to realise that even if she had been about to answer my question (which seemed unlikely anyway) I was uncomfortable about her answering it with Rainbow in the room. Not sure why. Just didn’t like the idea.

Best to leave it.

I passed off what I’d started to say as a cough. I was sickly, you know. At death’s door.

“Cough cough well, yeah, you’re probably very busy I’d expect. Don’t let us keep you here.”

“Yuh huh? You enjoy your breakfast,” she said, eyes flicking between Rainbow and me before she left.

Now that was just weird. From the look Rainbow gave her departing friend I could tell she thought so as well.

“So...what were you guys talking about?”

“You know. Catching up. She apologising for blowing me up, me saying it wasn’t a big deal. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. Right. Well. Breakfast good?”

I remembered breakfast. I hadn’t touched it.

“Looks good!” I said, tucking in. Rainbow did the thing again where she watched me eat but she was still playing caretaker so whatever. I wolfed it all down and then relaxed, watching her sweep the tray onto her back again and feeling lazy from not actuall doing anything myself.

Then, out of nowhere, a feeling came rto me. Not even a proper thought. Nothing so coherent. Just this sense. This knowing of something. Out of fucking nowhere.

Thos oats had been important to me.

It was just breakfast, yes, but in my head it was representative of something much, much greater than that. That delicious bowl of oats was, in microcosm, what Rainbow meant to me.

Wait, that’s terrible.

No, not the oats themselves. That she’d made me breakfast. That she’d decided to look after me and do that. That’d gone out of her way to do it. Like she’d gone out of her way to do everything she’d done for me since we’d first met.

I needed to try and explain some of this to her, before I lost the guts. It was something I felt she had to know. I had to try and pack down this wordless feeling into, well, words and get it across to her before I realised what a bad idea it was.

“Rainbow can I, uh, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Immediately her guard was up. She stopped in mid-step on her way to the door and ever-so-slowly turned back to me.

“Why are you asking me? Why aren’t you just doing it?”

“Because I - I don’t know why. Just come here a sec, I’ll try and keep it as quick a I can.”

She did so, setting the bowl off to one side and approaching cautiously, looking at me as though I might do something stupid. Which was appropriate. I tapped my fingers together and thought about words. Then I just splurted out the first to arrive on my tongue.

“You’re my friend Rainbow, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah you are. But you’re my best friend. Here and at home. That means a lot to me. I kind of just want to…”

I was losing the thread already. Time to start over. Give her some context. Help her understand right from the start.
.
“When I first arrived - I mean, you know what it was like when I showed up, right? What happened?”

She shook her head.

“Nope.”

“I haven’t told you?”

“Well, I asked once but you kind of just zoned out and didn’t answer so I figured you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I did? Oh yeah, I did. Uh, sorry about that. But that’s kind of the point. It was touchy for me. I was taking a train from - well, you wouldn’t know where - but I was going home on the train. Late at night, bag on my lap. I fall asleep. I wake up here, middle of the day, with trees. Still got my bag, still sitting on the train seat only now the seat is just...here.”

This probably wasn’t getting across just how jarring it had been.

Imagine, if you will, that you were in my position. You are sat on a train at night, just going from A to B. It’s been a long day and you are tired, so you nod off. The most you might reasonably expect is to be rudely awoken by the guard (are they still called guards?) or some well-meaning fellow commuter.

Instead, you wake up in broad daylight. Outside. And the train is gone. And you are alone. In a field. And there are trees.

The disconnect was so abrupt and so total that for a few seconds I simply froze up, totally blank. I could not comprehend it. My brain was lacking so much information it couldn’t do anything. So nothing happened. I sat and clutched the bag on my lap and stared into space and was just blank. For a few seconds, at least.

When I was younger I once fell out of a boat and into the sea. Only a small boat, mind, and it wasn’t going very fast at the time. But this was the sea off the coast of Wales. This sea was cold.

For the briefest of moments, this fleeting sliver of an instant, I felt nothing. But once that instant was over the cold hit me like nothing else.

Me, snapping back to the moment on that disconnected train seat in that field with those trees and that blazing sunshine when I’d been expecting train tracks and night time was like that. A shock.

Are you following this?

“How did that happen?” Rainbow asked, bringing me back to what I was meant to be doing rather than remembering things I would have preferred not to remember. I shrugged.

“Don’t know. Twilight doesn’t know. Doubt we’ll ever know. Just one of those things.”

Grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change.

“You’r surprisingly chill about that.”

“Now I am, yeah. At the start I wasn’t. Acted like I was, but I wasn’t. At the start I couldn’t sleep, kept worrying about ending up somewhere else...and yeah. But that passed. And then it all starts to sink in for me that I am not where I’m from. That I am a long way way from where I belong. Took a train expecting to just be back at my place inside of two hours and instead, uh…”

Just thinking about that feeling again gave me vertigo. The first few days had been anxious because I’d constantly been worried about falling asleep and opening my eyes to something else taking me further away. Then, once that seemed not to be a risk, I realised that I was always pretty fucking far away.

I swallowed and kept on going:

“Instead I’m here and I’m not having to step over drunks on my home, no-one’s threatening to stick me with a needle, I’m the tallest living creature for a dozen miles or more, weather is controlled, magic exists and multiple, sentient races co-exist more-or-less harmoniously. And everything is lovely. Just so lovely all the time. And everyone is nice. This sort of thing doesn’t fit into how I’m put together.”

Her face was wrinkled in shock. Might have been the bit about needles.

“Your town sounds...interesting.”

“It’s a shithole. But that’s sort of what I’m saying. This place is so overwhelmingly not a shithole. I was not prepared. I’m configured to relate to a world that works a particular way and this world doesn’t. Square peg, round hole. Do you guys have those here?”

“Holes?”

“Pegs. And holes. You know what, nevermind. Point is - agh - the point I’m trying to make is -”

I genuinely didn’t know, and I was getting frustrated. That Rainbow was being so overwhelmingly patient with my rambling only made me feel worse. Wouldn’t want her to have to sit through all my nonsense for nothing.

“It’s okay, take your time,” she said, holding my hand in her hooves the way she always seemed to whenever I left it lying around for too long. How could anyone be so soft?

“I was - I was scared. I think that’s the best way of saying it. I was scared but I didn’t want to let on.”

“Scared?”

“It’s the closest I think of. Everything was different. And I was alone. And I was somewhere far away from home. And I didn’t know how anything worked. I didn’t know how to do anything. Scared and helpless, you know? Heh. Even when I started getting help I was worried it might get taken away and I’d just be left. What would I do? I didn’t know.

Back home I’d been alone as well, of course, or at least as close to alone to be practically alone. But that had been fine. I’d understood vaguely how earth had worked. I could muddle along there.

Here, everything I’d spent my life figuring out was whipped away. Like learning to swim and, while you’re comfortably treading water, someone steals the bottom of the pool. What are you meant to do? What can you do?

Soft idiots like me do not do well in adversity. We do not rise to the occasion. We sink, and drown.

Rainbow was still looking at me to continue and I wasn’t finished anyway so I just plunged on. When you’d dug yourself as deep as I had done there was no harm in keeping on digging.

“For the longest time here I was just keeping a lid on it. A real thin lid. Every day I felt like I was two bad decisions and one good shock away from just losing it. Remember I used to giggle more?”

This would have been roundabout when she and I first met, some time ago now. I had, indeed, been a very giggly so-and-so. I’d giggle at anything. Sometimes I’d giggle at nothing.

At the time they’d seemed to just think it was a habit of mine and technically it was, just not one I normally had. The giggles had diminished so gradually in the time since then that none of them seemed to have noticed.

Indeed, me mentioning it brought a flicker of recollection to her face.

“You don’t do that as much as you used to,” she said.

“No I don’t, because nowadays I’m not inches away from freaking the fuck out anymore. I’m not as scared as I was, and I think that’s because I started to feel more like I’m fitting in. I’m comfortable now. Not constantly worried about being left on my own to just flounder. I don’t feel so much like an intruder who’s where he’s not meant to be. And a lot of that is down to you. Okay, pretty much all of it is down to you.”

I was getting close to reaching my point. Both of us seemed to realise this.

“This is a very, very long and complicated way of me saying thank you. And not just for this, not just for looking after me right now. Just kind of a blanket thank you for being you. I don’t just want to say ‘thank you’, I want - need - you to maybe kind of grasp just how desperately I have to thank you. I’m not good at things like this but I just, ah, I don’t know…”

She was hanging on my every word, and since I’d started I couldn’t exactly stop, however garbled I was being.

“You’re...you’re important. To me. Probably to others, too, but I can definitely say that for me you are important. The most important thing I have in this world, in fact. If you hadn’t - if we didn’t have this? I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know where I’d be. No pressure, you know, but you’re kind of my rock here. So thank you. A lot.”

There. That was what a heartfelt speech sounded like coming from me. Probably a horror story but, hey, it’s the best I can do. I’m not equipped for that sort of thing.

I waited for a response.

For anything.

Rainbow had gone unusually still.

“Uh, did I - do I need to repeat any of that?” I asked.

“Igottagochecksomethingberightback,” she blurted, blasting from the room so fast she genuinely left a dust cloud. Coughing, I wafted it away and found myself alone.

Clearly I’d fucked up.

“Shit,” I breathed to myself, slumping in bed.

But me making a mess of my fancy-pants speech was only part of tit. The other part was more of a problem, and was also probably one of the irrational, insane things that had pushed me to give the stupid speech in the first place.

I was starting to worry that the swirling mess of affection tumbling end over end in my gut was taking on a non-platonic edge. Or, to put it a less wanky way, I was worried that I might be developing a thing for Rainbow. A thing.

This was bad.

I liked ladies. That was just how I was wired. Some chaps liked chaps, some chaps liked chaps and ladies, others liked whoever they liked. That was cool, that was just how things should be. Speaking only for myself, I liked ladies. Maybe I just hadn’t met the right guy yet I didn’t know, but for now, ladies.

Rainbow was a lady.

This wasn’t new. Rainbow had always been a lady, just liked she’d always had an arse, too. But until now I had not seen her as a lady. I had seen her as Rainbow: friendly non-specific entity who I hung around with. Not as ‘Rainbow Dash who is nice and a lady’ but as ‘Rainbow Dash who is nice’.

Now I could not think about her as anything other than a lady. The scales had fallen from my eyes. That particular bell was not getting unrung.

And after that, all I could think about was how all those qualities she possessed that made me so very fond of her were the sort of qualities that - in a lady back home - would have made me far more than just fond. Would have made me quite besotted, in fact.

Had made me quite besotted. Quite besotted with her, right here and now.

That was probably a bad thing. It had to be, right? The sort of thing that could get me into trouble with everyone and make everyone - Rainbow included - upset with me.

Twilight hadn’t answered my question. She hadn’t had time, but her initial response had told me a lot. She’d looked concerned. Unhappy. That couldn’t mean good news. Not that I should go jumping to conclusions but you’d think if interspecies...stuff...was alright you’d see at least some trace of it, right?

Right?

This was bad.