Stay In Formation

The hot water of the shower washed over Thunderlane’s body. His wings ached. His back ached. His neck ached. Heck, even his eyes ached. He leaned his neck down, and the water rushed down his head and face. He felt long strands of his mane fall wetly against his cheek, his usual mohawk collapsing under the added weight of moisture.

“Rough day?” asked a friendly voice. There was a rumbling sound from the cloud wall as the adjacent shower was turned on, the condenser pulling moisture from the structure and feeding it through pipes toward the water heater. The noise became a hiss as the water forced its way out the shower head.

“Just tired,” Thunderlane replied, trying his hardest to engage the commander as little as was socially permissible.

To his chagrin, the effort failed. “Chin up, Rookie!” Soarin’s voice always sounded warm and friendly, even when he was running drills on Captain Spitfire’s admin days. “You’re not even ten days out of the Reserves, and you’re already slouching like a ten-year vet.”

Thunderlane sucked in a deep breath and pulled himself into parade posture. “Sir, sorry, sir!” he responded in his best drill voice.

Soarin sighed. “At ease, Blunder.”

Thunderlane managed not to flinch at the nickname. Rainbow Dash had told him about the tradition, so he had at least been forewarned. “Aye, sir.” He nodded acknowledgment and relaxed his shoulders again, shifting so the shower splashed across his back instead of his face.

The dark gray pegasus heard his commander sigh. “You can relax your wings, too, lieutenant.”

Thunderlane shifted his hooves uncomfortably. He lifted his wings away from his body.

His commander chuckled. “What are you..?”

Thunderlane grimaced, knowing he had somehow screwed up again.

“Why are you holding your wings at the ready?”

The dark gray pegasus shook his head and shifted his wings outward.

The commander laughed. “Oh, for Celestia’s sake! Didn’t your parents ever show you how to relax your wings after a strenuous flight?”

Thunderlane had had long practice burying the hurt that came thinking of his parents before it could reach him. “No, sir, they passed away when me and my brother were pretty young.”

A long moment passed. Thunderlane had learned to expect that, too. Ponies were often uncomfortable learning he was an orphan. “My apologies, rookie,” Soarin replied quietly. A moment later his brisque tone was back. “But what about your work? You were on some weather team, right? And what about in the Reserves?”

Thunderlane shifted his wings again, which just earned a groan from his commanding officer. “Well, I was the only guy on the Ponyville Weather Team,” he explained, “and they had segregated showers.” He thought he heard a grumble about backwater villages, but he ignored the jab and moved on. “And no, sir, nopony in the reserves ever brought it up.” He tucked his wings tightly to his side.

“No. No! Oh for… just stop. Stop! Look!” Soarin insisted.

Thunderlane looked over at his commander. To his recollection, it was the first time seeing his XO naked—no flightsuit, no parade blues. The other pegasus was a beautiful specimen of a stallion: wide but streamlined chest, muscular shoulders, and well-groomed sky blue fur. His usually bouncy blue mane was plastered across his face from the airborne moisture. It made him somehow even more attractive. Thunderlane stamped down on that line of thinking before his body could react. It was neither the time, place, or appropriate subject for such arousal.

Soarin clenched his wings tight to his side. “This is what you’re doing,” he explained. Thunderlane watched as the pale blue primary feathers fanned out subtly. “Relax, Lieutenant. See?”

Thunderlane grunted. He pulled his wings back into a more neutral position. He eyed the commander critically. Thunderlane shifted, stretching the muscles of his wrist to try and replicate the pose.

Soarin sighed, a long, slow sound that was barely audible over the hiss of the shower heads. “You relaxed now, Blunder?”

“…can’t say that I am, sir.”

“No kidding,” the senior officer grumbled. “Here, come touch my wrist.”

Thunderlane felt a hot flash of embarrassment at the intimate offer. “Sir?” Pegasi wings were tightly protected parts of their bodies. Thunderlane could count on one hoof the number of non-sexual or non-massage encounters where he had touched another pegasus’s wings. And that had been Rumble, when the colt had been too ill to bathe himself a few years prior.

“I’m not asking you to buck me, lieutenant, if that’s where your mind went.”

It had. No matter how hard Thunderlane might have tried to deny it, his mind had definitely gone there.

“I’m just giving a demonstration so one of my most promising young fliers doesn’t tear a scapular mid performance.”

“Ah, um, y-yeah,” the dark gray pegasus stuttered in shock. Him, one of the best young fliers! That group included Rainbow Dash, who was an obnoxiously talented prodigy. To be even in Dash’s airspace was an incredible honor.

“Any day now, Blunder,” Soarin chastised softly. Thunderlane again noted the warmth buried under the otherwise dry tone. “I’d like to finish this shower before my mane’s as gray as yours.”

Thunderlane pressed the lever, shutting the shower off. He took a step back and turned towards his XO. A small shiver crept along his spine. Surely from the sudden absence of hot water from the shower. Not because he was going to touch another stallion’s feathers. He reached a hoof forward tentatively. He looked up into Soarin’s eyes, silently asking permission. The older stallion just nodded.

Thunder brushed a hoof along Soarin’s wrist. He could feel the minute stirring of the bone and muscle.

“You’ve got a gentle touch for such a big stallion, Blunder.”

Thunderlane closed his eyes and tried to shove the rising attraction back down out of his chest. “Sir?” he managed, “should I press harder?”

Soarin chuckled. “No, not so long as you can feel what I’m doing.” The commander moved and shifted his wing, demonstrating the various poses and positions he could hold his wings while doing different tasks.

“You see the difference?” Soarin asked. The shower in the next stall shut off. The condenser went silent, and the showers were suddenly far too quiet for Thunderlane’s tastes. Surely the other stallion would be able to hear his heart racing at this close, unexpected contact.

When the gray stallion nodded, Soarin smiled a lopsided grin. “Good!” he said, gently pulling his wing away. “Show me, then.”

Thunderlane took a deep slow breath. The usual shower smell of soap, shampoo, and mildew was overlayed with a stronger than usual scent of stallion. Thunder felt it had been far, far too long since he had had a wet stallion so close to him. It was growing ever harder to contain his arousal, and he shifted so he was face-to-face with Soarin. That way, if anything dropped loose, at least his body would shield it from sight. Thunder then focused on his wings, on getting the muscles in his wings to just… ease. To relax and hold neutral the way he had felt Soarin do.

“Just nice and easy,” Soarin coaxed.

The pale-coated stallion raised one hoof and slid it along Thunderlane’s barrel, until his hoof brushed just under where his wing joined his body. Thunderlane shuddered and kept his eyes locked on the other pony’s face.

“There you go,” Soarin cooed, moving the hoof and letting it drift slowly along the leading edge. “Let go of that tension.”

Thunderlane closed his eyes, felt himself almost drifting, mentally. The residual steam from the shower teased the short hairs on his muzzle.

The hoof drifted back along the wing towards Thunderlane’s chest. The stallion whined softly, an embarrassing keening of pleasure. Soarin’s hoof drifted down off the wing and moved slowly to the front of Thunderlane’s chest.

“Good,” Soarin said, his voice just above a whisper. “That’s…” Thunderlane could count the heartbeats in the pause. “That’s real good, Thunder.”

Thunderlane’s eyes snapped open, and the stallion felt his breath catch. He hadn’t had an officer call him by his name since the first day of Basic. Soarin’s eyes were looking down, apparently at the hoof that was pressed soft but unmoving against the dark gray fur of Thunderlane’s chest. The commander’s lips moved softly, fighting to form words that never came.

Thunderlane felt a yearning pull that originated in his chest and his loins. He wanted to chastise himself, to call himself an idiot for even thinking it.

But it wasn’t thinking that made him want to kiss those silent lips. It wasn’t logic that wanted him to melt against the other stallion and hold him close.

“Commander?” he whimpered, his head moving forward without any thought, any intention.

Soarin’s eyes snapped up, met Thunderlane’s gaze with intensity.

Words were said with that gaze. Protestations and welcomes and joys and refusals. No words passed the lips of either stallion.

Soarin turned aside and quickly exited the showers.