Sprout's Second Chance

Hitch slowly came to, with his 7 AM phone alarm going off. He slowly opened his eyes, and discovered that he had passed out on the couch. He remembered pacing around the den after last night's 'incident', and he was hoping Izzy would take his text seriously, hopefully before Sprout woke up.

He headed to the kitchen, filled a pot of water, and set it on the stove to boil for oatmeal. He had just turned on the burner when there was a knock on the front door. He turned the burner down a little before heading back out to the small foyer, and opened the door, and as if on cue, Izzy Moonbow was standing there, so bright-faced that you wouldn't think the sun was just coming up at just after seven in the morning.

"Morning, Hitch! Don't you just love waking up to a new morning? It's just so new and morning-y!" Izzy sing-songed in greeted.

"Good morning, Izzy. Thanks for being so quick," Hitch replied.

"Well, I did give you the tea, so if you two are having a problem with it, I wanted to see what it was as soon as I could," Izzy told him. "So what's up?"

"Yeah, I'd certainly call it a problem. You said that tea would, well, infantalize his mind? It did that and a bit more. Last night, after giving him his bottle, I told him it was time for bed, and then he..." Hitch paused as his face flushed red. Of course Izzy was going to want an explanation for what went wrong, and he hadn't really gone through this part in his head. He stepped forward onto the doorstep and closed the front door behind him. "...He started grinding against me."

Izzy seemed practically unfazed, other than widening her eyes ever so slightly.

"Oh. Well, honestly, Hitch, can you think of a better way for a stallion to get ready for bed?" the unicorn asked innocently.

Hitch's blush deepened, and Izzy could tell that he was not at all amused at her teasing.

"Sorry, Hitch. Alright, so the tea does a liiitle bit more than that. It brings out an infantile side, yes, but it also lowers inhibitions, and in doing so, sort of, well, causes feelings which may be buried to come to the surface."

Hitch thought about Izzy's words very carefully.

"Izzy... Are you saying Sprout... Has a crush on me? That he has for some time?" the stallion asked.

Izzy nodded softly.

"That's the most likely explanation. Sorry if you two found out this way," Izzy replied.

"Well, other than making the rest of this weekend super awkward, I'm afraid that this is something that he perhaps didn't want to come to the surface. Sometimes ponies bury feelings and emotions for a reason," Hitch told her.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Hitch, but I disagree. Burying feelings like that never does any good in the long term. It might be a little awkward or uncomfortable, but if I were you, I'd give some honest thought to whether or not you feel the same way."

Hitch's eyes widened.

"I'm headed downtown to pick up more supplies, we're gonna be super busy putting together the basement of the Brighthouse," Izzy told him.

Hitch nodded as the color of his face started to return to normal.

"Alright. Thanks, Izzy. I'm still not sure what to make of this, but I appreciate the explanation."

"I hope you know how happy this new side of Sprout makes him feel. And if you come to conclusion that you don't feel the same way about him, I just hope you can figure out how to let him down easy, alright?"

Sprout was wide awake in the guest bedroom, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling in stunned disbelief, as he laid under the comforter in his moderately wet diaper.

'Gods above, did I just do what I think I did last night?' He thought to himself.

He was beside himself, because he had never made any sort of advances like that towards Izzy when she gave him that tea back in Bridlewood. Why had he done so with Hitch?

'Because Izzy had already told you she was with Sunny,' he told himself.

Sprout was pulled out of his thoughts when the bedroom door opened, and Hitch stepped in. He saw his friend's cheeks tint red when their eyes locked.

"Hitch... I'm... I-I'm really sorry about last night, I had—"

Sprout stopped talking when Hitch held a hoof up.

"It's okay, Sprout. I just had a chat with Izzy. Neither you or me had any idea what it was going to do. So let's try our best to just forget it, yeah?" Hitch said. Pulling the covers back, his eyes went down to Sprout's diaper. "Let's get you changed. Breakfast is almost ready."

Sprout let out a breath in relief, but as Hitch pulled him to the edge of the bed by his hind legs and began to untape his wet diaper, he had a feeling that 'just forgetting about it', wasn't going to be that easy at all.