Sweetie Belle huffed at Apple Bloom's insistent hushing.
"It's all fake, Bloom." she clearly tried for reassuring, perhaps annoyed, but it came out awfully fond, "You know how they're made, your family has a haunt every year."
"Ah know, Sweets but it's different." They argued quietly, "Some of these props are way more realistic. What if they're actually dead ponies?"
"Then something interesting might happen." Diamond Tiara huffed.
The couple blinked over at her then. Some horrid, confused shock on Apple Bloom's face and mild but unimpressed disgust on Sweetie Belle's.
Diamond rolled her eyes, "Did you forget I was here again?"
Apple Bloom opened her mouth, "No-"
"You make it so easy to." Sweetie stated. The boujee appearance lasted for a few seconds before she snickered.
"Yeah yeah," Diamond laughed back, "In my defense, you're too distracted to even see the blood dripping down the walls let alone your lonesome third wheel."
"And what a pretty distraction they are." Sweetie Belle deliberately glanced at her partner, who flushed an amusing shade of red.
"Gross." Diamond stated.
"Like you're gonna be much better."
A small part of Diamond wanted to argue, but she wasn't entirely sure the unicorn was wrong.
Logically, she should be scared, or atleast unsettled, this haunted house was far more realistic and gruesome than the Apple family's maze ever is. It was next to impossible to figure out where the scare actors would jump out from, even harder to tell which bodies were fake and which were costumed ponies lying in wait.
Diamond did get a little startled the few times somepony thought to be inanimate suddenly snarled at her, but it wasn't true fear and it left her after a moment with a little wave to the actor with an awkward smile and she kept on her way.
She wasn't bored. She wasn't. She was just playing it off as that. She liked horror movies, or rather she liked watching horror movies with her marefreind clinging to her. The other fully loved to let herself be scared, the adrenaline junky that she is, despite the fact that none of this stuff really bothered her. If it did, Scootaloo probably wouldn't be a scare actor herself.
And that's why the trio was there and not at the Apple family's hay maze, though they’d probably trott through it later. Partly because they were curious to see a more mature haunted house, mostly because Scootaloo was so unbelievably excited to be a scare actor here that her friends and marefriend had to come to see her. Or be scared by her, judging by the couples reactions thus far.
So Diamond was not bored, but she might have been distracted. She hadn't seen Scootaloo all day, both busy with their costumes. Diamond wasn't going to wear anything but Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and even Silver Spoon insisted she should. Though Silvey's vote shouldn't count considering she shot down the invite to come like it had attacked her.
Under the peer pressure, Diamond fished out some face & coat paint and some old, fluffy, black boots. Painting whiskers on her face and her ears black, and wearing those shoes, she was the laziest excuse for a black cat costume. She was still cute, mind you, but there was a clear difference in effort put in when she stood next to the matching skeleton couple who went all out for the holiday.
Diamond tried to focus on the props and decorations, trying to distract herself from the foal-like excitement of seeing her marefriend, and attempting to distract herself from the cuddly couple. Though it was admittedly amusing to see Sweetie Belle going from calm and collected, trying to help the other relax, only to hear her scream just as loud as Apple Bloom when an undead clown came towards them.
Diamond pulled her attention away from a blood splattered design on the wall when she realized the clown was attempting to scare her now. She blinked, feeling a bit bad that she really wasn't frightened despite the admittedly unsettling eye dangling from it's socket.
"Um, nice eye effect." she said before trotting right passed him to continue on.
It was stupid to be so preoccupied with her own longing. So she hadn't seen Scootaloo all day, she had gone on longer before, it was no big deal. Except Scootaloo kissed her goodbye last night, after spending at least an hour adorably rambling on about this haunted house, kissing her like that was just how dating ponies said goodbye, because it was. Like she was going to kiss her like that every time they parted ways, leaving Diamond dazed and giddy like some love sick fool.
Judging by her current distraction, that seemed to be an apt description.
Diamond wanted to kiss her again. The moment she saw her, no matter what dramatic makeup she has on. She wouldn’t, special effect make up did not seem like it would lend well to smashing their faces together, and also Scootaloo was at work and Diamond was fairly certain Scootaloo would be at least a little peeved if she ruined this for her. Besides, there was a donut and apple cider stand outside that Scootaloo said she could wait at until the pegasus got off work and out of costume.
The filly stopped suddenly, nearly walking right into another scare actor. “Sorry.” She blurted, stepping back.
The trio had been confronted by three ponies, looking to be in varying levels of rotten and dead, still all clowns for some reason. The clearly most frightening one was in the middle. A fake mouth filled with monstrous teeth looked akin to a gash across her face, she wore colored contacts making one eye fully black and the other completely white. She was covered in spikes, presumably because nopony could convince her to dress any less punk rock even when she was literally dressed as a messed up version of a children’s entertainer. And there was quite a bit of blood, and a hacksaw covered in more blood.
It was impressive and terrifying. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had screamed and outright looked like they were going to turn tail and run. Diamond’s chest felt like it had been punched out of air.
“Hi, Loo.” She said softly, completely by accident.
Scootaloo snapped her gaze toward her, laughing, in a monstrous laugh that Diamond had helped her practice for so really, who was she fooling?
“Um- Nice make up, all of you.” She glanced at the other two, “Very scary.”
One of the other ponies growled, jumping forward in an over exaggerated movement, sending the couple screeching in fear.
Scootaloo stalked forward threateningly. Inches away from her face, Diamond's heart stuttered. She just stared into the others mismatched eyes, trying desperately to not think of a dream scenario where Scootaloo is out of costume pushing her against a wall with her gaze alone.
Scootaloo ended her display with a minute lunge of the saw and a snarl that turned into a hacking laugh.
"I'll uh- see you later, Loo." Diamond said numbly, walking passed the performers.
They were all quiet as they walked.
"Sweet Celestia, I can't believe you." Sweetie laughed suddenly.
"Shut it, Sweetie!" Diamond screeched, face flushing.
"And you thought we were bad-"
"At least, I wasn't screaming my lungs out."
"Hey!" Apple Bloom cut it, "The make up was very convincing."
"Of what? My marefreind being a clown?"
Sweetie shrugged, "I actually think they all had the most dramatic costumes in the whole haunt. Hence that." She nodded to the door ahead, "They were the grand finally."
Diamond pushed the door open, blinking blearily at the light from outside. There were a few haunt actors strewn about, some bales of hay arranged for seating areas, and that cider stand probably run by one of Apple Bloom's cousins.
"Really, did none of that scare ya?" Apple Bloom asked.
"I was distracted." Diamond defended.
Sweetie laughed again, "You’re hopeless."
Diamond looked over at them, the couples sides pressed together, leaning on each other. "Pot meet kettle."
Sweetie stuck her tongue out then. Diamond rolled her eyes with a chuckle and trotted over to get something from the stand.
The three waited for a while over donuts and cider. Diamond was right, the pony running the stand had been one of Apple Bloom's cousins. He and Apple Bloom had talked for a bit as Diamond and Sweetie found someplace to sit, which wasn't hard being that it was still early in the evening and the real crowds didn't come until after sunset.
Once Apple Bloom came over, treats in tow and chattering away about their cousin, the pair started properly cuddling. The earth pony tucked themself into Sweetie's side and Sweetie in turn rested her muzzle in their mane.
Diamond caught Sweetie's eye and fake gagged at their cuteness. Sweetie squinted at her teasingly before refocusing on her partner. Diamond tried to focus on her friend speaking, she really did, but her mind kept going to the filly in gory clown makeup.
Her eyes snapped to the distance when she saw a few ponies stepping out of a door. A few moments later and a mental mane peaks out from behind it. Scootaloo was laughing at something one of her co-workers said, she then waved goodbye to them and started her trot to the cider stand.
Diamond was standing before she knew it. Distantly, she was aware that she was being pathetic but she couldn't help trotting over and meeting Scootaloo halfway despite the fact that Apple Bloom was in the middle of their sentence.
"Hey, D." Scootaloo said when they’re stopped in front of each other, "You didn't seem very scared." She laughed a bit.
"I was distracted." Diamond moved forward to lean her head against the other’s shoulder.
"By what? Bloody marefriend not enough for you?" Scootaloo's hoof came to rest on Diamond's mane.
"I missed you." she admitted.
"We saw each other last night?"
Diamond groaned, "I know. I'm being dumb, you were scary, I've just spent all day wanting to kiss you and I can't think about anything else." she spat.
"Oh, uh," Scootaloo coughed, "That- Can be arranged."
Diamond lifted her head with determination and leaned in quickly. Scootaloo made a startled little noise but she softened, hoof moving to cradle the other's jaw. Diamond finally relaxed with the familiar lips slotted against her own, she sighed in what could only be described as relief.
A loud woop was heard from behind the pegasus, she broke away quickly to yell over her shoulder, "Biscuit! I swear to Celestia!"
Diamond really couldn't help the hysterical giggles she broke into at that, and when Scootaloo's gaze turned back to her soft and loving, she really didn't feel all that bad.
Author's Note
Happy nightmare night! I woke up this morning and started writing this with absolutely no plans because i was procrastinating finishing another fic :))
hope you enjoyed!
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https://ko-fi.com/chillykitty
