Gallus sat in the waiting room. A dour look hung on his face as he hunched over. A number of different thoughts flooded his mind as he nervously tapped one of his hind paws against the tile floor. He was trying his best to calm himself down, but Gallus wasn’t doing well with such. particularly with the medical smell he hated so much. Antiseptic, disinfectant, and latex; this amalgam of scents that filled the air set his nerves on edge even more.
“You ready, Gallus?” a voice called to him.
Looking up, Gallus saw his best friend and roommate in front of him. “Oh, already done, Sandbar?”
The earth pony nodded. “Yeah. You ready to visit her?”
The griffon didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he turned his head to look elsewhere. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
“Come on, dude. You’re obviously worried about her and you already came this far,” Sandbar said, attempting to give a pep talk, “Besides, every other creature has checked up on her, so all that is left is you.”
Gallus sighed as he stood up, “Alright, I’m going. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Sandbar smirked as he made a snarky comment, “Yeah, you’re already dating her, I can’t think of anything worse that could happen. Unless, of course, she causes you to end up here as well.”
“Not funny!” Gallus quickly retorted.
The two friends trotted up to the destination. Next to the door, there was a sign that explained the creature within the room, their condition, and the details about visiting hours. Gallus reached out to grab the doorknob, however he froze up and didn’t turn it. Sandbar looked over at the griffon, seeing him stare directly at the door.
“Gallus?” Sandbar raised a hoof up and lightly pushed him in hopes of getting a response.
“I’m not sure if I can go in,” Gallus said. His outstreched limb was shaking as it gripped the doorknob.
“It’s going to be okay. Everything is fine. You should just check up on her now that she can have visitors,” Sandbar stated comfortingly.
“That’s not what I mean. This is more about….” he trailed off.
Sandbar knew what Gallus was referring to, “About the two of you, I’m guessing?”
Gallus didn’t answer that, but instead asked a different question, “Can you come in with me? Act like a buffer or something?”
The stallion shook his head, “No, because I feel you got this on your own.” He turned and began to trot, “Besides, I'd rather not be a third wheel and get in the way of your loving insults.”
The griffon turned his head and shouted back to the trotting stallion, “Stop saying stuff like that! And there isn’t anything wrong with being a third wheel! It adds stability and extra traction! That’s just physics!”
“Whatever you say, Gallus, whatever you say,” Sandbar said as he trotted off.
As Gallus saw Sandbar trot away, he turned back to the door his talon was still holding. With a few deep breaths, he did his best to calm his shaking limb. Before he knew what he was doing, he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open and entered the hospital room. Inside, the small room had a window on the far end where sunlight was coming in. A few tables lined the room, a couple holding some sort of machine that seemed too advanced for Gallus to understand. Between two small tables with machines was the bed that took up most of the space of the room, which housed an orange and yellow dragon.
“Hey, Gallus! Sandbar told me you’d be stopping by,” the dragon waved with her free claw. Her body was draped in a white gown.
“Hey, Smolder,” Gallus closed the door behind him. “You seem to be in good spirits,” he commented as he made his way over to the bed. He took a seat on the floor, to Smolder’s right.
“Totally! I get to eat food that doesn’t suck!” Smolder happily said as she sat up in her bed. She positioned herself so that the pillow was against the headboard of the bed and used it as if it were a makeshift chair. “I know Silverstream and Sandbar would always complain that hospital food is gross, but I think it’s great! Then again, anything is better than the mess hall back at the school, right?”
A small smile appeared across Gallus’ beak as he heard Smolder making jokes about the awful food at the School of Friendship. “And you already sound like your old self.”
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I changed or anything, I just had an accident,” the dragon insisted.
“Accident? You scared us all half to death! You’re at the top of the cheerleading pyramid during practice, and the next thing we know you fell down and got rushed here!” Gallus explained with concern.
Smolder waved her right claw in the air, brushing it off, “It’s nothing serious. I just had a sudden sharp pain in my gut, then I lost my balance and landed on my limb wrong,” she lifted up the left limb, showing it encased in a plaster cast. There were already a few signatures scribbled upon it. “Next thing I knew I was being checked out by the doc for both my arm and whatever the pain was.”
“Is your arm okay?” Gallus asked, taking a closer look at the cast on her left limb.
“It’s going to be in the cast for about five weeks, but other than that, no problems,” Smolder explained, “Too bad it’s not the claw I write with, I could have gotten out of so much homework. Oh, and remind me later so you can sign my cast too!”
Trying his best not to smile at her joke, Gallus still was asking about her condition, “Alright, but what was that weird pain?”
“Oh, that? The doctor said that I got sudden appendicitis, which has to do with whatever my appendix is. Anyway, they cut me up and took it out the next day. Want to see the scar?” the dragon shuffled a little in an effort to raise up her hospital gown. It was when she was doing this did Gallus notice that there was an IV tube attached to her right limb.
Gallus raised his talons to stop her, “No, no it’s okay.”
“You sure? It’s pretty cool,” Smolder asked again, but Gallus shook his head no. She continued, “Anyway, after the surgery, the docs told me I still have to stay for a few days to make sure I’m all okay. But I did get to see my appendix floating in a jar! I asked if I could keep it but they had to check if it was okay.”
The griffon snorted at Smolder’s comment, “You really want to keep your appendix?”
Smolder nodded, “Duh! It’s mine after all!” She paused for a moment and took full note of Gallus’ mood ever since he entered the room, “What’s with you though, asking all of these questions?”
Looking elsewhere in the room, Gallus answered sheepishly, “I was worried about you….” His face had a little pink tint to it. “I heard something happened and then you just disappeared.”
“Come on, I’m not gonna die,” Smolder brushed it off with a hearty laugh, “And if I were to die, you know I’m gonna take you with me.”
Gallus paused for a moment as he thought about what he just heard, “....are you threatening me or flirting with me?”
“Can’t it be both?” Smolder stuck her tongue out with a laugh.
As much as he tried to keep a straight face, Gallus cracked and shared a laugh with Smolder.
Finishing her laugh, she gave a reassuring smile to Gallus, “Look, you don’t have to worry about me though. My appendix came out with no problem, which is impressive since the doctor said it was their first time operating on a dragon, and my limb will be out of the cast next month. So no need to worry, dork.”
Upon hearing the last word that Smolder added, Gallus decided to return fire with his own jab, “But can you tell me this: did it hurt?”
“Did what hurt?” Smolder asked.
“When you clawed your way up from the fiery pits of Tartarus?”
Smolder snickered, “Wow, flirting with me while I’m in the hospital. Such a smooth operator.”
“This coming from the dragon with the breath that’s like the breeze off a landfill,” Gallus crossed his limbs.
“You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece,” Smolder shot back verbally with a smirk.
“I hope you get an itch inside that cast,” Gallus pointed at the cast that wrapped around her limb.
“Wow, that’s evil, Gallus,” Smolder genuinely chuckled at the thought. “But you shouldn’t talk so loudly, you might lower the IQ of everyone in the hospital.”
Gallus quickly returned fire, “Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t take you to a vet, since you’re such a wild animal.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who got fleas!” Smolder laughed.
The griffon was a bit embarrassed at being reminded of said incident, so he quickly retorted, “Hey Smolder, I just thought up a list of things I have that you don't: feathers, an appendix, and a grade point average above the number of wings I have.”
“Hey, the doc is still going to see if I can keep that appendix in a jar, so there!” Smolder quickly defended herself. “Besides, do you really think you’re one to talk about grades, you example of nature's carelessness? Didn’t you fail a multiple choice quiz by writing true or false?”
With a glare, Gallus replied, “Too bad I can’t just take that pillow and smother you with it until you stop breathing.”
“Your bedside manner has much to be desired, Gallus,” Smolder rolled her eyes, “I hope you weren’t expecting to heal patients with your so-called award-winning personality, because they would be flatlining so fast.”
The griffon spoke back, “I’m no doctor, so it doesn’t matter. Besides, normally it’s me in the hospital and you are the one who puts me there.”
“And you always deserve it!” Smolder called out with a laugh.
Gallus joined in the laughter with her.
“I enjoy these verbal spats with you.”
“I do too,” Gallus admitted with a small smile. However, it slowly vanished as he added, “That’s why I was really worried about you.”
This caught Smolder’s attention, “Hmm?”
Gallus held his talons together as he looked down at them. “I was worried because….well, you’re my best friend, Smolder. The one who I can call a snake and will return with an insult just as bad due to your competitive streak. You’re a dragon with such an attitude that it could sour milk. You have a skull that’s thicker than the reading material that Princess Twilight used to give us.” The griffon peered up to see Smolder giving him a glare that could shatter stone. Clearing his throat, Gallus wrapped his thoughts back around and looked back down at his talons, “But even with all of that, you’re still the creature I care about most. And just not knowing what happened to you freaked me out and I was….I was scared that I would never know….you know….”
Smolder looked at Gallus as he trailed off. She was quickly able to figure out what Gallus was inferring. “What we got?” she finished his sentence.
Gallus looked up at Smolder, with both surprise and anxiety at her concluding his thought.
She didn’t respond right away. Smolder’s glance went down from Gallus’ face to the limb that had the IV tube hooked up to it. “I don’t know what any creature would really call what we got. Official, unofficial, whatever. It’s obvious we aren’t any sort of conventional duo, like Yona and Sandbar. Or Counselor Trixie and her own reflection. But whatever it is, it’s what we got. And I like what we got.” Smolder looked up to meet Gallus’ eyes with a soft smile, “And I like you.”
Unable to hold back, Gallus smirked and fired a joke, “Easy there, lizard. If you get too happy you might go into cardiac arrest.”
“Hey, don’t call me that!” Smolder’s smile vanished as she suddenly shouted.
“Why not? You both got scales, are cold-blooded, eat things no other creature would, spit various kinds of venom,“ Gallus listed off as he tallied each on one of his talons.
With her free limb, the dragon pointed at Gallus, “Yeah, but I can breathe fire on you.”
Gallus raised his talons up in an effort for a truce, “Fair enough.”
Lowering her limb back down and quickly checking it to make sure the tube didn’t move from her, Smolder continued, “But what we got is so different that it truly is ours. I mean, if your insults don’t hurt, how do I know it really is friendship? And because of that, I know we have something.” Smolder paused for a moment before finishing her thought, “Something that’s hard to put into words or to give some sort of label to, and something that’s uniquely ours.”
Almost bashfully, Gallus avoided eye contact as he spoke, trying not to trip over his words, “But do you think….we could….give it a try? To figure out who we are and what we have?”
“Huh? Like what? Being one of those super-cutesy lovey-dovey couples those Cakes that run Sugarcube Corner?” the orange dragon had a bit of a chuckle in her voice, “I have to say that I don’t think that’s our cup of tea, bird-brain.”
“That’s not what I mean, Smolder,” Gallus said as he finally reestablished eye contact. His voice was filled with both conviction and pleading as he explained himself. ”We might sorta hate each other, but it’s sort of our thing. I mean how we know a lot about each other, more than any other creature. Like how I know you enjoy dressing up and taking part in tea parties. Or that you like eating self-toasted sourdough bread, or that you hate calculus, or that you have a birthmark on the back of your left elbow that looks like an avocado.”
“I told you that it doesn’t look like an avocado, it looks like a potato,” Smolder corrected with a hint of attitude.
“You’re a potato.” Gallus quickly said before continuing, “Or how I noticed that you have a scent of charcoal to you.”
“I what?! When?” the dragon asked in surprise.
“You always have that smell. I notice it most when we are, you know….fighting in private.”
Smolder’s face flushed red at Gallus’ term, “What the?! What was with that term?!”
Gallus couldn’t help but smile at Smolder’s reaction, “It’s a term that I heard from Ocellus and Sandbar."
Doing her absolute best to hide her flustered emotions, Smolder retorted with fiery furor, “That makes it sound like it’s far worse than it is! All we do is cuddle or whatever!” Her face was still a deep shade of pink at her own words. “Anyway, my scent is still better than your smelly wings.”
“I actually kinda like that charcoal scent. It makes you smell like a furnace. It’s very you,” Gallus admitted with a smile and pink cheeks.
Smolder raised her free claw up to cover her face, as if to hide. While she had only gotten a glance at Gallus’ face, she could easily tell that Gallus was sincere with his words and his expression. “Oh, just unplug the machine and let me flatline already….” She mumbled with a small sigh. She then lowered the claw and looked back at the griffon. He still had a genuine smile on his face. A gentle smile appeared across her face as well, accompanied by a tint of pink. “You really get under my scales, you know that? Like no other creature.” She paused for a moment before asking Gallus a question, “This whole thing we got means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she asked softly.
He shook his head as he answered, “Nah, you do.”
“Idiot,” she quickly fired back, the smile growing slightly.
“Pipsqueak.”
“Go cough up a hairball.”
“Easy there, scaly. If you get too agitated, you might start molting right here and make a big mess.”
Smolder sneered as she spoke, “You know, you’re the coolest griffon in Ponyville.”
“Thanks.”
“Except when, you know, Gabby, Grandpa Gruff, or any other griffon comes to visit the town,” Smolder expanded, a wicked smirk appearing on her face.
Gallus gave a glare to the dragon, “I just hate that smug look on your dragon face, you know that?”
“Yet it still doesn’t compare to your smelly wings.”
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart,” Gallus mocked in a heartbroken voice, raising a talon to his chest, “Does that mean the honeymoon to the Crystal Empire is cancelled?”
“Geez, if we were actually together, I’d poison your tea,” Smolder joked.
“If we were together, I’d drink it and ask for seconds,” Gallus joked right back.
A laugh escaped from the dragon. “If you’re not careful, I’m gonna cause you to end up in this bed,” Smolder raised up her free arm in a fist.
“Is that a threat or a promise?” the griffon snarked right back.
Smolder was a bit taken back by Gallus’ comment. With a pink tint to her cheeks, a smirk on her face, and a chuckle in her voice, she finally responded, “You know, I sorta want to kill you right now.”
Gallus couldn’t help but give a sly smile, “But that’s not the only thing you’d want to do, is it?”
“....you always seem to annoy me in just the right way.” The dragon admitted as she raised up her right limb toward the griffon, offering him her claw. She then asked a question: “So, we gonna give this the old college try and make this thing official or what?”
END
