Date with the Delivery Mare

Horseapples!

The first thing Brisk did was put on a smile, that was step one, step two was to actually come up with a good answer. It's not like she didn't have an answer; it was that saying: 'I was bored, and it was funny how freaked out you were, so I did something spontaneous that I thought was even funnier.' Probably wasn't a nice thing to say.

That, and...

Well...

Emanuel was nice.

The remnant idea that this was a good practice date for when she eventually wanted to find companionship on Earth, if they ever let her stay permanently, was fading. He liked her sarcasm, and he was actually listening to the words she was saying. It also didn't hurt that he knew what leaving home at an early age was like, the way he said 'I know' and then moved on? It spoke to her and made her heart flutter with barely contained excitement that she'd randomly managed to find someone that understood her.

He'd shortly described his own life, and despite her digging, he didn't dig back. She wasn't sure how to feel about that, she left home too, but it didn't seem the same. She'd left because everything always just felt wrong. Her family didn't feel like her family, as soon as she had the split second, she packed a bag and left. Ponies tended to not believe that story, most were family oriented, or simply couldn't comprehend the idea of not having a support structure so early on in a young life. No, I wish he asked... She would have wanted to explain it to him, it seemed like he would have understood.

Brisk wouldn't brag, but she'd still say she was an excellent judge of character, and while normally talking about her own life was usually met with confusion or discomfort; Emanuel liked her, she liked him.

Uhhhhhhggg, what am I doing!? Pay attention silly filly!

"Well uh-" She started saying, hoping her brain would handle the rest of the sentence, "I... You didn't know what I was." Yup, that works. Brisk wasn't a personal fan of twisting the truth, but it worked, and she'd be embarrassed to say she was good at it because of practice. "I haven't met a human yet that didn't already have something thought up for me."

"So I was a blank slate, at least when it comes to you?"

She her smile became easier, glad that he had accepted that reason. "Yeah." Throwing a single affirmation out wouldn't cut it. She didn't just want the conversation to die there, so she kept talking. "Everytime I meet someone, they've always got this predetermined understanding of ponies from front to back. They think we're super peaceful, naïve, or cheery."

Emanuel's hands moved, gesturing forwards in a sideways open palm. Brisk was beginning to learn, at least for him that most of his body language came from his hands. "The only thing that I gleaned from my 'bout of research, that seems accurate, is that ponies tend to be more trusting." He folded them up again.

It was actually starting to get pretty annoying. Brisk had spent nearly half the year familiarizing herself with human expression, and the first guy she goes on a date with has total control over his facial expressions. She learned enough to know that he was giving measured smiles, but his eyes told the biggest story. He was a thinker, just like her. There was intelligence there that didn't match the relaxed posture, or his soft, if vaguely scraggly, face.

As cliché as it was, almost straight out of a romance novel, this was going incredibly well. Brisk had that rising feeling, despite the obnoxious amount of thought required to make such a claim, and evidence she lacked in full...

Emanuel seemed... compatible.

Functionally, Brisk could see herself with him. In a literal sense, she was with him right now. She needed a lot more details though; like what he wanted out of life, what he wanted out of a romantic partner. She needed to know who he was in different settings, and when he wasn't focusing on presenting a good version of himself. What she really needed was to not try and fit years of familiarity into what was likely to be an hour long time frame. She needed to chill the hell out, trying to speed run puzzlifying a relationship she didn't have yet.

Hit the breaks for a second Brisk. She mentally prodded herself, One step at a time, maybe stop talking to yourself first.

Drawing herself back into reality, "I suppose that's true enough." She nodded, "Do you find me extra trusting?"

"In comparison to humans? Absolutely." He gave an massive exaggerated nod and then chuckled, "I've gotten called all sorts of names for being so direct in public before. Humanity's trust in the everyday passerby is in the friggen hole. People don't just ask each other out in the streets anymore."

Being so direct? What's that mean? She thought to herself as he finished. Best to ask sideways, "What kind of names? Surely being direct is something to trust rather than not right?"

"You'd think that." He joked and lifted a hand to count off on his fingers, "Creep, pedophile, rapist, all the grossest dregs of society."

She scrunched her muzzle and disregarded her attempt to get an answer without asking, "What? Why? Just for asking people out?"

He rolled his eyes, and did the rotating thing he did with his hand when he was trying to piece together something to say. Eventually he settled on, "I think it's more because they didn't know me. So, obviously I must be a murderer or a stalker."

Brisk gave off a measured snort, aware but uncaring at their rising volume. "Hilarious. Did they forget the whole point of going on a date is getting to know the person in question?"

Emanuel gave off the most emotional physical response she'd seen, and so suddenly too. He gestured out with his hands, his long arms filling up most of the table, his eyes lit up and he laughed. "Thank you! That's what I'm saying!" Once he got his laughter under control, he continued, "It's all 'the game' or 'mindless shenanigans' now. People think-" he cut himself off, "No, that's not right, the problem is that people don't think."

"Ponies too, seems like mindlessness is a multi-dimensional affliction." She said, putting a bit more force than necessary into the complex articulation.

"More like a curse. Honestly." He quieted down, his chuckles dying down along too.

Brisk laughed along to cover up mentally pushing away her rising attraction, and the awkwardness that was starting to try and take hold of her conversational instinct. She really did not want to mess this up.

After the moment passed, Brisk leaned forwards again, "So what'do'ya do for work?"

He waved his hand and she saw the way the other gripped the edge of the menu. "Nothing special. I'm honestly in the wind right now, when it comes to work. I got a decent paying desk jockey job 'cause of some college friends; but I hate it. I'll be looking for the door as soon as I can find something else."

"Sorry about that, what would you be looking for?"

He responded immediately, letting go of the menu and smiling as he relaxed. "Something that keeps me on my feet. I like actually working-" He let his hand drop in a 'yas girl' pose, "-crazy I know-" before waving it back and setting it down, "Office jobs drive me crazy, I've honestly thought of doing dishwashing again."

She leaned forwards a little bit more. "Ever thought about Amazon?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "Does right now count?"

Dunno what you're looking for here Brisk. Brisk tilted her nose up, just a little, to match his inquisitive brow. "Well that depends on what you're thinking."

A hand rose to his chin, and he looked off to the side. "I suppose it does." He said sagely, still staring off and to the side.

Oh-ha ha. Emanuel was becoming increasingly silly. Not that Brisk minded, quite the opposite; that particular brand of being funny was as equally funny as it was entertaining. His eye snapped over to hers to confirm that he was ignoring the question on purpose, shifting, as it was her own turn to raise her eyebrow. She failed to hold off a breathy chuckle, and decided to roll her eyes.

The pair of actions brought a smile to the man's face, and he continued. "Honestly? No. Though it sounds like it's right up my alley." He shifted back into his normal sitting position, and Brisk almost missed the subtle prompting to explain more about the job.

"Well, it's boring." She monotoned, "I can't lie about that. Almost all of the jobs on the assembly line aren't very challenging, the workflow is basic, and it's long hours."

"Sounds like a job that requires music." He responded, clipped, and then took a quick inhale and waved his hand. "But! We're not here to talk about work are we?"

She tried to send him a kind smile, "Only if you want too." Brisk didn't care, either way. This was going well, she'd not royally messed this up yet, he didn't suck, and everything was going well. The rising emotion that told her so made her feel like they could talk about anything. Get a hold of yourself mare. Focus. She kept up the warm smile, mostly on accident, and who could blame her? Success, even belated, felt very good. "Why? Got something else to ask?"

His waved hand continued to wave, "This may be a bit of an awkward question, but I didn't want to google it just in case that side of the internet had already gone crazy."

Oh?

The hands clasped together, flat, and he pointed them at her while blocking her line of sight to his face. "Biology?" He asked with an inflection. "Alien species and-well, only technically alien. Does-" He pointedly cleared his throat. An expression Brisk defined as 'shut me up now if this is an awkward question.' "How different are we? Biologically speaking? You have a heart, I take it? I can see you breathing-" More hand waving, "Just a... general question."

This was good opportunity to join him in being silly, and to get back at him for dodging her question at first earlier. "Ponies are mammals." She answered, clearly and succinctly. Then she: bounced her mane, tilted her head to the side, just a little, and smiled.

Emanuel visually waited for her to continue, when all he got was an 'I'm totally innocent' he snorted, and Brisk watched the stress slide away from his posture. "I see." Was all he said as he leaned back. "I take it the lack of explanation implies that it's less complicated than I think?"

"Yup!" She chirped.

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes, "You could have just said that." He sent her a half smile, half fake frown in mock annoyance.

Her response was to wave a hoof and then awkwardly set it down on the table after, she let her head fall into the limb, cupping her muzzle and leaning into it. "Oh come on-" This is the wrong pose for this "Where's the fun in that?" Came out a little more softly than intended, though, it was clear by Emanuel's chuckling that he knew it was mostly a joke.

Brisk didn't believe in being serious. There was a time and a place, of course, like there was a time and a place for everything. She may take it a bit far sometimes, but hey, laughter was a tenant of her society's moral social contract. Humans tended to be all over the place when it came to perspective. Not one person thought the same thing about the same thing, so not only was it a breath of fresh air for the man sitting across from her taking the same kind of approach to what would have been a stressful situation...

Had she struck gold?

Was mainly the question she was asking herself. While she was mostly focused on making sure not to accidentally say what she was thinking about, and instead, say something relevant to the current back and forth; it was just the way he was responding that was only serving to give her more butterflies.

It was a bit premature to be thinking all of that, though, and Brisk didn't like to boast this but... As a young mare, even in Equestria, it's practically a survival skill to be a good judge of character. That being said, Brisk was an excellent judge of character, and the feel she was getting from the man was all positive, in all the right wa- you're staring.

Brisk blinked, and heat rose to her cheeks as she pulled herself out of her thoughts and into the sudo-staring contest she'd started. He was staring right back at her with a warm smile that only served to make her blush a little bit more when she realized that she was still leaning forwards into her hoof like a teenager straight out of a chick flick. There was, again, a sort of inquisitive depth practically filling his eyes that she nearly got sucked into, before leaning back, fixing her pose, and readjusting her beanie out of nervousness.

He just stared, slowly his smile morphed into interest mixed with curiosity to match his eyes. The good news was that his expression seemed like the first unmeasured one she'd seen thus far, giving her a hint at what was really going on in his head. The bad news was that she had no idea what it meant.

"Sorry" She said, attempting to apologize for staring.

"Got lost in thought?" He asked in a way that sounded less like a question, and more like he was guessing at something he already knew.

She added in a little inflection to a, "Yeah." Despite the embarrassment, he didn't seem to mind, in fact, her little fumble seemed to have totally changed his disposition.

The moment was interrupted by Sarah returning. "Hey, do either of you need drink refills? Are you ready to order?"

Brisk's gaze lingered on his for a moment, as they both slowly turned away from each other to look at Sarah at the same time. He spoke first, since he knew what they were getting, Brisk pulled up her glass of lemonade again and took a long draw from the straw to help settle herself down.

"The uh-" Emanuel started, taping the menu with his spare hand, "Eggplant pizza, do you think they could make it bigger?"

The woman looked from him to Brisk with and her face showed her putting together the context with the request. "I can't say for sure, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue."

"And I'll-" Brisk watched him look down at the menu again, and she watched his right hand grip the edge of the table. "I'll just go simple then, eggplant parmesan?"

Sarah nodded, smiled, "I'll go put those in for you two."

Brisk offered, "Thank you."

Emanuel did the same. "Thank you very much."

Brisk met his eyes again as Sarah walked off. "So..." She trailed, "What do you do for fun?"

He made a face like he bit into a lemon. Then let out a light chuckle. "Oh dear, this'll be a weird on. The short answer? Nothing. No hobbies, no passions, what I do have is people."

That was quite an answer, sounds rehearsed. Despite immediately feeling the need to comment, Brisk remained silent.

He broke eye contact, and flipped one of the menu's over. "Most people don't tend to notice the depth that interaction goes down, call it..." He made a wincing face, "My area of study? I guess?" He shook his head, "Point is, I've never found anything more important than people, so that's what I do for fun."

"People?" Brisk raised an eyebrow.

"I get involved. Sometimes, unwelcome, but I try to help people, or just have fun." He gestured with his hands again, ridgedly closing them together as he spoke, "I got from place to place, do some stuff, meet some people, live my life. Nothing special, but it's what I do."

Brisk thought a lot about that. First and foremost, it was an answer.

"I think that's pretty special."

Silence, followed by his first genuine expression. It looked like trepidation mixed with enthusiasm, if that made any sense. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then seemingly cut off his own thought. "Okay- This might be really rude to ask but-" His entire disposition changed.

Uh-oh

"Why did you leave Equestria?" He said, almost half an accusation. His eyebrow went up, and it was clear the question was more complicated than he initially intended, evident by the fact that he continued. "And I don't mean 'come to earth' I mean, 'leave Equestria.' You... if there was a wall here, you could fool me that you were human, easily. You know the slang better than I do, and the way you talk about living here... I just get the feeling that you want to stay."

Brisk frowned, and her mind tried to work at figuring out how to respond to that.

"What are you running from?" He asked, "You didn't just come here for foreign exchange. It's obvious. No-one just... perfectly learns an alien language if they're only on a short stint to another universe."

She didn't. He was right, but... how the... how am I supposed to respond to that? She didn't notice, of course, that he wasn't... mad or anything like it, but she still felt the anxiety of being put on the spot. "I've never... had somebody size me up like that before." She nervously tacked on a chuckle at the end. "I... uh-"

Brisk was suddenly pulled from her projections of the future by a mild bout of panic as she figured she'd accidently hit a roadbump in what was a date going well. Something fundamentally her fault. Ponies didn't like baggage, which was part of the reason she struggled to hold onto friends for very long. It seemed that humans were similar.

"Sorry." He stood up, and stepped out of the booth.

Wait! "Wait!"

He turned and held out his hand. Much to her suprise.

"This is dumb. Neither of us think conventional dating makes any sense. Right?" His hand moved a little bit closer

Brisk was stunned by the sudden heel turn, her mind sending her a simple warning, I think we're missing something here, Brisky

"A fancy restaurant?" He laughed once, "Let's stop pretending this, or either of us are normal, and get the heck outta here."

Brisk's mind churned, and she stared at his hand.

The fuck are you doing you drama hungry-insane-half a scoop of peanut butter for brains-nincompoop!

As of thus far, Brisk had hit every green flag in his head besides one. It was his fault too, neither of them were being themselves, he could see the version of her sitting underneath the veneer of respectable politeness that comes with the territory of doing what they were currently doing, as he had presented the same façade.

Emanuel had an idea of what he was doing. Dates were not a complex science and he had a bit of experience under his belt too. The whole thing was going alright, until the part of his mind that had been shoved down into the corner of 'don't look in here'; the part that demanded real companionship took the wheel and jerked the metaphorical car into a sideroad with no signage.

In the split second where his mind made the slightest assumption that they might be the same, his everything just went: 'fuck it, we ball'

Which lead to him doing what he was currently doing. Holding his hand out, offering to help her out of the booth, with the intent to leave, and do whatever the hell happened next. His nerves were, of course, not excited about this development.

Brisk had apparently not been following his hastily made short speech, and was blankly staring at his hands with wide eyes, with her ears perked all the way up to face him. She'd been doing that for five seconds, a time which was shortly about to double itself as he stood there, awkwardly in front of the table, praying to any lord in any heaven that he hadn't just majorly committed 'un-alive' on the current social setting.

Brisk looked up from his hand, and he saw realization dance across her eyes.

Emanuel pulled his wallet out, and threw a pair of twenties on the table with one hand. He probably shouldn't have felt as impressed with himself as he did, but hey, it's the little things right?

She watched the money as it fell to the table, then looked back at Emanuel, then down at his hand again.

A beat passed.

"Okay." And a navy blue furred hoof found itself in his grip. She was soft and warm, and the contact, at least to the average touch starved adult male, was electric. He gave a light tug, moving mostly on muscle memory, not fully believing that that had actually worked. She moved, stepped out of the booth, and he helped her keep balance. They started walking to the door.

Holy shit, that worked. Holy shit-oh my gosh.

The implications of success said a lot about her, and him.

One of the waitresses gave them a confused look as they left.

It was dark enough now for there to be a wind chill but Brisk didn't seem to mind.

Emanuel broke the silence. "Do you like loud music and greasy food, and don't mind someone else driving?"

Brisk silently nodded, a wide smile on her face.

She liked that. She's in. I'm in. Holy shit, I'm on a real date with a pony in the current year. I'm actually planning on being myself, the hell is going on?

Emanuel laughed, letting some of the anxiety bleed itself out through what he hoped sounded like natural laugher. "Well let's not waste any time." He let go of her hoof and started jogging, "It's damn cold out here!"

"What? No it-hey! Wait up!" Brisk followed after him, he sped up as she caught up, and they both laughed when Emanuel threw himself over the hood. "What are you doing!?" Brisk giggled as the little red car beeped, Emanuel hit the unlock button on the keyfab.

"I have literally no idea!" He answered in complete honesty; but it was time to have fun, it was time to be on a date, now was not the time to ask questions of himself, or her. Emanuel was the kind of guy to have completely zero pacience when it came to making friends, real friends, or otherwise have relationships. If there was even a little hint of compatibility and reciprocation, he was all in, right from the start.

They both stared at each other through their respective glass windows before giggling like goons and pilling into the car.