Stay In Formation

“Blunder!” Captain Spitfire screamed, “if you miss-time that damn turn again I’m going to rip off your wings and feed them to the seagulls!”

“Yes, Captain!” He pulled his legs tight, letting the conserved momentum speed the twisting of his body. He raced out of the turn, only a few hooves away from Rainbow Dash. Too close. He grimaced, bracing himself.

“BLUNDER! Be happy I don’t see any gulls around today! You are two more crappy days away from being relegated to the reserves, Rookie! Get your shit together!” Several flyers in formation ahead of him whipped their heads back to see the error. Commander Soarin didn’t turn to look, but Thunderlane saw him shake his head slowly.

Thankfully he was only a final aileron roll from completing the routine. The stallion shifted a wing, letting the movement carry him back into formation. He shifted his weight, pointing one wing down towards the ground and the other skyward, and saw his squadron do the same. As one, the ponies shifted their wings, letting the lift carry them upward before twisting over, rolling down and around until they were below the starting point. They then rocketed off in different directions—Thunderlane having the easiest path, simply forward. It was a rookie move, but the complexity was all about the timing, about being perfectly in sync with your team.

“Okay!” Spitfire crowed. “That’s more like it!” She zipped down towards the cloud below, and the flight team drifted down to meet their captain. “Showers, team, hit ‘em!” Thunderlane moved a hoof up to unzip the hood of his flight suit. “Not you, Blunder!”

Thunderlane slowly lowered the hoof.

“You’re working on that sixth dive turn until you stop fucking us.”

“Uh, Cap?” Soarin landed lightly beside Spitfire. “You’ve got that reserves admin meeting, remember?”

Spitfire cursed loudly, a string of expletives filling the air, some in combinations wholly new to Thunderlane.

Soarin just smiled through the blistering heat of the captain’s displeasure. “I’ll tend to the rookie.”

Spitfire sighed. “Thanks, Commander.” The captain flapped her wings violently, her sudden departure leaving whirled eddies in the cloud ground below her.

Soarin turned to Thunderlane, his gaze firm and unwelcoming. “Get to it, Blunder!”

Thunderlane looked longingly at his departing comrades and fought down an exasperated sigh he felt forming in his chest. “Aye, sir!” he responded, flapping his wings and sending himself airborne once again.

Thunderlane’s wings hurt. His back hurt. The spots around his eyes where his flight goggles had pressed hurt. Perhaps most injuriously, his pride hurt. But after spiraling out of the rising climb and ripping the air asunder in that dive turn more than a dozen times, he was sure he could make the maneuver in his sleep.

Commander Soarin, who had only barked single word instructions as guidance nodded slowly as he came to rest in front of the gray pegasus. The commander had stayed aloft the entire time, hovering in space. Thunderlane knew from experience that in some ways that was the more strenuous activity—the pale pegasus had had his wings moving the entire time with no gliding to take the pressure off. The older pony stretched his wings languidly, the primary feathers stretching apart and shivering with the movement. Thunderlane settled for rolling his shoulders.

“At ease, Rookie.”

Thunderlane sucked in a long, slow breath. He shifted his forewing and wrist, easing the pressure of his wings off those extended bones and back towards the thick humerus bone.

Soarin’s face shifted, losing the stony edge of his drill sergeant mask. “So you were paying attention.”

Too tired to feign professionalism, Thunderlane snorted in amusement. “As much as I could in that scenario.”

Soarin turned quickly to face the training complex. “One more task before you’re free, Rookie.”

Thunderlane groaned.

“You made me miss my massage with Blaze, and I’m overdue. You don’t want to skip wing massages. Good way to tear a scapular.” The commander turned his head back to look at Thunderlane as he lifted off the ground. “You better hope you’re a quarter as good with your hooves as with your wings.”

“Oh no way!” Rainbow Dash cried, spotting Thunderlane taking a seat on a bench in the locker room behind Soarin. “You’ve got Thunder giving massages?” She scoffed. “Now I’m even happier I got Blaze today. Thunder gave the worst massages on the Weather Team back in Ponyville!”

“And who gave the best ones, Crash? You?”

The blue mare tilted her head back arrogantly. “You know it!”

“So you’re saying you should take the next masseuse rotation?”

Almost before the words were even out of the commander’s mouth, the rainbow-maned pegasus had zipped out of sight. “Huh? Oops-can’t-hear-you-byyye!” said a voice that got more distant by the moment.

Soarin chuckled softly. “Your reputation precedes you, Rookie.”

Thunderlane snorted, exhaling strongly through his nose. “I’m not bad, I just wasn’t as eager as some ponies, is all.”

The commander pulled the towel that had been draped across one shoulder up to his neck, exposing his wings and uniformed back. “Not excited about helping your teammates stay healthy?” Through the skin-tight fabric, Thunder could see the muscles on either side of Soarin’s spine tighten, and pale wings spread about a hoof apart, giving Thunderlane access.

“No,” he replied without much heat, “nothing like that.” The gray pegasus softly tapped a hoof in an open jar of massage cream, feeling the thin, creamy substance collect on his frog. “Let’s just say certain pegasi were more inclined to try and make their female compatriots moan with pleasure.”

Soarin laughed out loud, the movement making the muscles along his back and wings wiggle. “You’re saying our walking, talking pride flag has a thing for mares?” His laughter subsided slowly. “Shocked, I tell you; I am shocked.”

Thunderlane smeared the massage cream into his other forehoof. He suddenly felt his mouth go dry, and he found he couldn’t blame dehydration or the always-humid locker room air. He needed to take Soarin’s suit off. He could always ask the commander to do it himself. It was difficult but certainly not impossible for a pony to remove their own flightsuit. But that was foolish. Thunderlane was giving the stallion a massage. He just needed to reach over with his mouth and pull the small, hidden zipper down. He felt his heart beating fast, his arousal building as he realized that was the only reasonable path forward.

Thunderlane leaned forward slowly, until he could see his breath stir the wispy edges of the older pegasus’s mane. It smelled of mint and sweat, layered pleasantly one atop the other.

“Can you see the zipper?” Soarin asked. Suddenly a pale blue hoof reached back and wandered across the back of the head. “Sometimes the thing gets stuck in my mane.” The leg brushed Thunderlane’s jaw and faded hooficure oil was added to the scent story around the other stallion. “I swear to Celestia, they make these more and more difficult every iteration.” The hoof shifted, the short fur of the forelock tickling Thunderlane’s jawline. “Aha, there it is!”

The blue hoof pulled away and Thunderlane felt its absence dearly. He spotted the tiny silver zipper poking up just below Soarin’s mane. He took the zipper in his teeth, trying to ignore all thoughts of putting his mouth on the commander’s back, dripping kisses down his spine. Blessed tailwinds, Thunder thought, he was suddenly very glad at the restrictive nature of his own flightsuit. The zipper slid down, nearly silently, the dark blue of the suit yielding to the sky-blue coat of the pegasus underneath. With the exposed flesh came the smell. Celestia help him, the smell, which he drew in greedily through flared nostrils. Rich, raw, musky stallion. The sweaty fur glistened, not rank or rotten, not quite sour. Thunderlane wasn’t sure even the tight suit would hold his arousal in for long, not here in the presence of this magnificent stallion.

Thunderlane reached the end of the zipper’s path, just above the wings. Soarin lifted a hoof and slid the connected mask off his muzzle. Then he flexed, easing one forehoof out of the suit, then another. The gray pegasus sat utterly still, enthralled with the small, efficient movements. The wings slid out of their housing, and the suit drooped down formlessly around the commander’s hips. Thunderlane took the briefest moment to enjoy the view before he raised his own hooves, placing them firmly on the fur just below Soarin’s wings. He pushed firmly, letting the massage oil smooth his movement as he slid hooves to each side of the other stallion’s spine. He shifted outward slowly, pulling gently but insistently at the muscles that connected spine to wings.

Soarin sighed, the sound bursting from his lungs but fading into a quiet hiss. “So far so good, Thunder.”

The gray pegasus bit his lip, overcome with the pleasure of hearing his name in the other pony’s mouth. He shifted his seat on the bench, glad once again that his flight suit was holding his growing erection tightly against one leg and not bouncing free against the commander’s back. That thought didn’t help calm him down any. Shooing the intrusive but entirely welcome thoughts away, he refocused on his hooves, bringing them up the scapular bone. He moved his hooves in tiny circles, feeling for tight points in the surrounding muscles.

“Crash and company were clearly missing out.” Thunderlane felt himself beaming at the compliment. He pushed onwards, bringing pressure to the muscles in the stallion’s upper back. “Nopony out there wanted some of that stallion strength in their massage?”

Thunderlane remembered one drunken night with Flitter and Cloud Chaser. “I wouldn’t say nopony.”

Soarin grunted. “Not you and Rainbow, surely?”

Thunderlane laughed, his arousal subsiding under the absolute absurdity of the question. “No. Sweet Celestia no. She had her run of the team, pretty much. Plus, I think that Applejack would’ve killed me if I somehow bedded Rainbow before she finally worked up the courage to ask her out.” He moved his hooves to the base of the commander’s wings, pressing oh so lightly at the connective tissue.

“Ah,” Soarin replied quietly. “So you like mares.”

Thunderlane rubbed at the other stallion’s wing in silence. The question hung in the air.

“Sorry,” Soarin mumbled, “not really an appropriate question.”

“No, no,” Thunderlane interjected, talking over the end of the commander’s apology. “I just…” he let his hooves fall still. “I don’t talk about it much. There aren’t that many stallions in Ponyville, you know? And…” he struggled to find words about things he never discussed. He moved his hooves outward, onto the fibrous tissue that covered the humerus. He pulled inward, tugging gently with the corner of each hoof. “I like mares, I do, Celestia knows I’ve been with enough, but…”

Soarin let the silence hang. The only sounds were the distant sounds of the fans in the showers. Everypony else was back in the barracks or in meetings. The absolute privacy of the moment existed as this surreal state between them. He forced his hooves to keep moving, their motion more mechanical than intentional.

“…but there was a stallion once…” Thunderlane laughed, and as much as he tried to keep the bitterness out of it, he was sure it sounded hurt. “She’s not even a stallion now, you know?” He sighed. “And good for her and all, but…” It was hard to bring himself to say it aloud, even though he’d known it for truth for years. He moved his legs outward again, onto the thin forewing of the other stallion. He rubbed the remainder of the massage oil into the thin skin, pressing ever so lightly into the feather follicles. “It’s selfish to even think it, but… I miss when she was him. He was the one who made me realize I prefer guys.”

The admission hung in the air. Thunderlane could hear Soarin’s breathing—deep, slow, and even. He almost peeked to see if the commander was asleep before the pony opened his mouth. “I don’t tell many ponies about my preferences.” The primary feathers beneath Thunderlane’s hooves shimmied. “I’m not hiding it, you know,” Soarin continued. “Just… not advertising.” He huffed quietly, an almost laugh. “Seems like every year some news rag has some rumor about me and Rainbow Dash being the hot new item.”

Thunderlane snorted.

“Right?” Soarin agreed. “They clearly don’t know her!” He sighed. “But I’m no more into mares than she’s into stallions.” He took another long, slow breath. “It’s always been stallions for me, Thunder.”

Maybe Thunderlane imagined the longing in the other pony’s voice. Maybe it was just tiredness, not desire, in his tone.

Thunderlane removed his hooves, having finished the massage. He lived a vivid fantasy in that moment, of wrapping his still-oily hooves around the blue stallion’s neck and kissing him. Holding him tight in the empty locker room.

Soarin shook his head slowly. “Crash is so full of shit. That was one of the best massages I’ve had in a long time.”

Bravery spurred the gray pegasus’s tongue. “Maybe because it was a stallion doing the work?”

Soarin turned, twisting his torso without shifting his seat. His relaxed muzzle and calmly out-turned ears contrasted starkly with the intensity in his eyes. “Maybe so.”

Their muzzles were so close. Thunderlane realized for the first time that he could feel the heat rising off Soarin’s back, could feel the warmth between them.

Soarin’s face moved towards him, bridging that minute gap. Thunderlane closed his eyes. Movement, air brushing the side of his face. And then something tugging at the back of his sculpted mane. The quiet sound of a silver zipper rippling down his neck. The feel of another’s stallion’s chest pushed into his own. He made a small, involuntary sound he hoped wasn’t a whimper. Soarin breathed deeply, his chest expanding into Thunderlane’s own. Thunder felt his tail twitch and his erection solidify against his leg. Felt the hot puff of air as Soarin exhaled.

Thunderlane moved a forehoof up and touched Soarin’s barrel softly.

The older pegasus made a voiceless sound, and for the briefest moment his head turned so that their necks were resting against each other. Soarin’s body went stiff under Thunderlane’s hoof, and the warmth between their bodies faded as the commander pulled back from the seemingly inadvertent embrace.

Soarin cleared his throat. “I’ve…” he shook his head. “Hit the showers, Thun—Blunder,” he said, his voice rough, “Long day tomorrow.”

Thunderlane let his hoof fall from the commander’s side as the blue pegasus stood and quickly walked out of the locker room, the half-disrobed flight suit dangling awkwardly on the ground.