Author's Note

Fluff. Self-indulgent.

Spit it out

Batenberg was busy wearing a groove in the carpet of her bedroom. Her friend, Country Slice, sat on Batenberg’s bed and watched with detached though obvious amusement. Batenberg had been doing this for a while now, and so had Country Slice.

“So, we going to do anything or… ?” Country Slice ventured, since after all she had been ostensibly invited around for a reason, even if Batenberg had been vague on what that reason might be. The insinuation had been girly fun times. These had not been what had happened. Batenberg turned on the spot and started back on her circuit, brow furrowed.

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“Yeah I noticed that, just wondered if you were ever gonna stop.”

Batenberg stopped, or at least stopped pacing - whether she had stopped thinking or not was less clear. Country Slice assumed not. Country Slice assumed right. The brow of Batenberg remained resolutely furrowed.

“I have issues,” she said.

“Yeah, you do,” Country Slice said, one eyebrow cocked to maximum effect. When this failed to land she dropped it. “This the cinema going trip thing you told me about?” She asked, and Batenberg nodded. Country Slice sighed, shaking her head. Figured.

Country Slice had had the full and detailed rundown of Rob and Batenberg’s previous encounter. Something about hooves. Batenberg had treated the whole thing as a possible momentous turning point in her and Rob’s friendship and had unloaded it all on Country Slice in the solemn expectation of understanding and support. She hadn’t really got it, because Country Slice didn’t quite understand what it was she was supposed to see in any of it.

Her personal experience of humanity - and men more broadly - may have coloured her opinions. She had more of it to go on than Batenberg did, and had always approached in a much more casual, relaxed manner. It had served her well.

“What’s the big deal, anyway? Thought you guys went out to the cinema like every week or something,” Country Slice said, dipping into memory and recalling that, indeed, Rob and Batenberg had indeed made a point of repeated visits. Batenberg looked sour.

“It was every other week and that was years ago when we lived together. Orange Wednesdays isn’t a thing anymore and we’re old now and live in two literally separate worlds. We haven’t gone to the cinema together for ages and he springs it on me now, out of nowhere. Says we can get something to eat after too, if I want,” she said, the last part sounding as though it caused her actual, physical pain judging by the wince on her face.

“So it’s more like a date, then,” Country Slice said, frowning as she then ran through what it was she’d just said. Her expression then cleared. “Oh. Oh okay I see the problem.”

“You see the problem! She sees the problem!”

“Hey look I’m a little behind you because your brain has shot off a bazillion miles ahead of me and is probably somewhere scary. You’re thinking scary thoughts, aren’t you?”

“No! Yes! Maybe! I don’t know!” Batenberg snapped. Country Slice nodded sagely.

“Told you. Scary thoughts.”

Even though she could now see the problem Country Slice did not view it with the same level of gravity that Batenberg did. To Country Slice, this sort of thing would be met with delight, for it beckoned exciting opportunities and fun times ahead. Not so much Batenberg, who was filled with creeping dread.

Her mind kept going back to The Event, as her brain had unhelpfully started to think of it. Of that moment within her and Rob’s week off. It was meant to have been a casual and relaxing window of friendly banter and videogames and snacks and what have you, and it had been that, and then The Event had occurred, and all of that continued but with a new, strange sheen on top of it that had been very distracting indeed.

He’d started looking at her differently. Like he’d started seeing something there he hadn’t before. Had he? Or had that been her imagination? Or was it her imagination that it was her imagination? Or had it been there before and she’d missed it? Or was that her imagination too? Her brain was in knots, to say nothing of her guts, which practically writhed anytime she put any thought to it all.

None of this would have made sense to Country Slice, obviously, even if Batenberg had been able to properly articulate it to her, which she couldn’t.

“It’s not, like, a romance film you’re seeing or anything, is it?” Country Slice asked, the thought popping into her head out of nowhere.

“No. Unless you think haunted spaceships are romantic.”

An old film, back in the cinema for reasons neither she nor Rob felt fit to question. They both liked it, so whatever. Country Slice shrugged.

“You guys are kinda weirdos, so I don’t really know about that. But if you say so. That’s a plus, right? Or a minus? Or both? I really don’t know which you’d like to hear right now,” she said. Batenberg blinked, thinking furiously to try and come up with an answer. When she couldn’t she threw her head back and wailed:

“I need help!”

Country Slice took her friend’s outburst in stride. This much was obvious.

“Alright, well. Human guys are easy, alright? They got this spot - think it’s like here-ish, if they’re standing up - and if you just get your tongue and you-”

“That’s not what I meant!” Batenberg said hurriedly, cutting in before things got any more detailed. Country Slice gave a masterfully executed shit-eating grin. She’d got everything she could have hoped for out of that.

“Hurr. I know. Just messing with you,” she said, then serious-ing up she continued: “But for reals though think you guys should just go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Batenberg stared at her in silence a moment.

“We could ruin our friendship?” She said, laying out the obvious syllable by careful syllable. Country Slice wafted the obvious aside with a contemptuous wave of her hoof.

“Ah, I can’t see that happening. You guys are pretty good friends,” she said. Batenberg stared at her again, mouth hanging just a tiny bit open.

“That’s why I’m worried about ruining it! Agh! Why did I talk to you about this…” She groaned, a hoof pressed to her face in despair, eyes closed.

“Because I know about these things! Especially know about the human guys. I mean, did you know the tongue thing? I do!” Country Slice happily declared. Batenberg flopped to her haunches so she could press both hooves to her face in despair, one simply not being enough given the sheer amount of despair present.

“Eurgh…” she gurgled, despairingly. In despair.

Country Slice regarded her (despairing) friend, her regard brimming with pity. She may not have entirely understood what Batenberg’s deal was with all of this, but she understood enough to sort of understand. She could understand on an abstract, intellectual level, even if it made no sense to her personally. Certainly, she could understand enough to stick her oar in and offer some advice. Slipping from the bed she moved over and flopped herself, settling besides Batenberg.

“You’re worried,” she said. Wise beyond her years was Country Slice.

“Noticed that?” Batenberg mumbled.

“You wouldn't be worried if you didn’t care, yeah?” Country Slice asked, and Batenberg was set to choose a response somewhere between sardonic and sarcastic when she realised that not only had what Country Slice said been sincere, it also had substance.

“...yeah…” Batenberg said, uncertain where this was going.

“And I am gonna guess that what you care about here is him liking you, and not him not not liking you. Not not liking you? Think that’s too many nots - nevermind, you get what I mean.”

Batenberg did not.

“...nah…?”

“You want it to be something! Otherwise you’d be cool! You’re not cool right now! Because you want it to be something! That’s what you’re worried about, yeah? You coming at him like it’ll be something and him saying that it’s actually nothing?”

As much as she might not want to, Batenberg actually did what Country Slice meant this time. It wasn’t how she’d put it, but she got it. Not that it cleared anything up for her or made anything better, obviously.

“...but what if it ruins everything…” she mumbled some more, downcast. Country Slice put a comforting foreleg around her, pulling Batenberg into her side.

“It’d take more than one thing to ruin you guys. Like, I’ve been saying ‘you guys’ over and over, right? You guys, you guys, you guys. I haven’t been saying ‘You and Rob’ or whatever. That’s because you two are kinda like a package deal anyway. Besides, it’s just a film, don’t overthink it! Go, something happens, have fun. Go, nothing happens, you saw a film, yay. Oh, and dinner too. Food is good! You can’t not win!”

In all honesty it was the kind of situation that Country Slice would have been delighted to find herself in. No part of it was bad as far as she was concerned. Except maybe she’d pick a different film. Everything else was great though.

“You’re making a surprising amount of sense,” Batenberg said, with some reluctance. Country Slice beamed.

“I’m, like, really fucking smart, you know,” she said.

A nice hug between the two of them followed.

“And if things do start happening you can always come back to me and I can teach you my hidden techniques. Not kidding about the tongue thing, for real,” Country Slice then said. Whatever comfort and security and warmth had come from the nice hug took something of a dent.

“Please, please, please stop with the tongue,” Batenberg said through gritted teeth, giving Country Slice a pat on the back - since the hug had still not actually broken by this point.

“Heh hurr first time I’ve heard that one, heh… too easy.”

Batenberg refrained from cheap, easy jokes. Country Slice made them anyway, inside her own head, and chuckled a little bit more. Then the hug broke.

“Seriously. You guys are, like, pretty cute already as friends, so I think this’d make you, like, super-cute or something. If it works. Which it will ‘cos, like, yeah. You guys. And I am fucking smart, like I said just now so, you know. I have a point.”

“Noted. And if it all goes horribly wrong and he never talks to me again and looks at me weird forever afterwards I can blame you?” Batenberg asked, but Country Slice just shook her head solemnly.

“No, that’ll be your fault. I’m smart, it can’t be my fault.”

Batenberg clucked her tongue. Fair play.

“Worth a shot,” she said.

-

They were right in the back of the cinema, in their usual spot. Rob and Batenberg liked a dark and cosy corner, they did.

Typically, Batenberg wouldn’t have paid all that much attention to the darkness and cosiness of the corner - indeed, she wouldn’t even have noticed it at all, beyond being happy they’d got their preferred placement. What with all she had swishing about inside her head, however, she was paying attention to it. They were, after all, quite cosy, and quite swathed in darkness, quite tucked away nice and private.

Some could even suggest the setup was, daresay, a little romantic?

The sight of the other couples that they’d passed on the way in hadn’t helped. Not that they were a couple, obviously. So just the sight of couples then, she supposed. That sight hadn’t helped. Couple human couples, couple pony couples, couple couples of pony and human both. That was the sight that hadn’t helped. All those couples.

(Not that any of those couples she’d seen were there to see the movie she and Rob were. They were probably here to see something that didn’t involve haunted spaceships. Their loss.)

Batenberg knew that Country Slice had said that she should just go for it and she knew that she herself had come around to seeing that she really had nothing to lose from just taking a shot and all that and by the time she’d said her farewells to Country Slice (the two of them had ended up going to for milkshakes, which had been pleasant) she had been dead-set and certain. She knew all that. But that had been before, when he hadn’t been there. When it hadn’t been just the two of them in a basically deserted cinema screen, all snug in a corner.

Now it felt like she had quite a lot to lose, actually.

“You’re being quiet,” Rob said, jolting Batenberg out of her brooding and making her laugh nervously.

“I’m not nervous!” She blurted.

Even in the cosy darkness the odd look he gave her was obvious.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. It’s hot in here.”

She got no disagreement from him on that one. It was uncomfortably hot in the screen. Felt like they were sitting under a duct. That it was cosy to start with certainly wasn’t helping.

Apparently satisfied that her weird answer was just a result of the heat, Rob had turned away and started rummaging in his bag, much to Batenberg’s relief. As she watched him rummage she reconsidered what it was she’d been planning on doing. Then she reconsidered reconsidering. Then she got confused over what it was she’d actually been planning on doing to start with. Then he finished and turned back around to her clutching snacks and grinning and she lost the thread completely.

“Look what I smuggled in,” he said, brimming with pride at his cunning.

Lost thread still flapping aimless in her brain, Batenberg could only awkwardly smile back mutely, at least until a rogue thought bobbed up and burbled out before she could stop it:

“You know they let you take that in now.”

Rob blinked.

“What?”

“Yeah there’s a sign out front. Didn’t you see?” Batenberg asked. Rob’s pride melted to nothing.

“...oh. Sort of takes the illicit edge off.”

“I could pretend?” Batenberg offered.

“Could you?”

Batenberg widened her eyes (no joke, her being a pony - you could have fallen in and drowned) and put her hooves to her cheeks in shookness.

“Ooh, look what you smuggled in!”

“Thanks, knew you’d appreciate my efforts.”

This little sliver of ridiculousness gave them both the gigs, at least low-key like, and punctured a lot of the tension that Batenberg had been feeling. She took her bag of cheap, own-brand popcorn from Rob and ably ripped it open with her teeth - regretting missing the opportunity to freak him out further by using her hooves. Oh well. Next time. At the least she was able to start eating it by using her hoof to scoop some out, to his obvious consternation. She made a show of it and he watched sideways and shook his head.

“Nope, not getting to me again. I’m over it,” he said.

“Are you suuurrreee you’re over it?” She asked, brandishing a hoof-full of popcorn at him which he studiously ignored, eyes front.

“Shh, film starting, shush.”

“We’re literally the only ones here, no-one’s going to help you.”

“Shush.”

She shushed, if only out of ingrained respect for the sanctity of the cinema silence.She’d got what she’d wanted out of him anyway, at least for now, and sharing eyerolls at the trailers would be a pleasant diversion from her nerves. It’d be almost normal!

So the adverts were greeted with mutual contempt, the trailers with wry amusement (and not much actual interest), and then the film itself started proper. They were both familiar with the beats, both having seen it before, and whenever a bit they both knew they were fond of was set to happen they’d glance at one another and share a grin or a knowing look. This was sort of the whole point of going, really - less about seeing the film itself, more about being next to each other as the film happened.

And happen the film did. Its familiarity - alongside the stifling, brain-choking cosiness of their corner of the cinema - soothed and relaxed Batenberg’s nerves (or clouded her thinking) enough that she even, perhaps half an hour or so in, pushed up the arm separate her chair from Rob’s and twisted in place so she was sat leaning against him. As the soporific warmth got to her more (along with a pat on the head he’d given her), Batenberg’s boldness ratcheted up. With a surge of confidence she actually wriggled up and plopped down into Rob’s lap proper, craning her neck then to ask him:

“You don’t mind?”

To which he, bamboozled, said:

“No?”

Which settled things. Made it a little bit harder for him to eat what remained of his popcorn, her occupying his lap-space, but given the choice, at that moment, he knew which he’d prefer to have sitting on him out of Batenberg or a bag. Didn’t do much for his muddled state of mind, but he was frazzled enough from warmth that it was difficult to worry. Complicated things could wait. For now, horror movie nonsense and squishy soft pony. Good things were allowed to be enjoyed on occasion.

At length the issue with the bad spaceship was resolved (or was it?) via the time-honoured method of space-explosions and the credits began rolling to some soothing and tonally-appropriate nineties EDM. The house lights went up, revealing a still-empty screen, and a human with a pony still snuggled happily upon his lap.

“Film’s over,” Rob said as the credits continued rolling and shit continued to be funky. Batenberg did not move. The can could be kicked no further down the road. It was now or never, do or die. Or, more accurately, do or bottle it (and bottle it up) forever.

Time to bite the bullet.

“I had, uh, something I kinda wanted to tell you…” she mumbled, tapping her hooves together and staring at them. Something in her tone - and something in the way she resolutely stayed planted on his lap - made Rob’s stomach lurch, and brought his muddled thoughts to the fore.

“You did? I did too. Well, something to tell you I mean,” he said, only barely avoiding mumbling himself. Batenberg’s turn to have her stomach lurch as she whipped her head around to look at him.

“W-what?”

“S’probably not as important as yours, I just, uh, it’s - y-you know what, you go first,” he said.

“No, you!”

“How about we do it together?” He suggested. She blinked at him.

“... that’s a terrible idea!”

“Hey, I’m hearing a lot of problems and not a lot of solutions.”

“You first! Bagsie! No take backs!” She said, poking him. That settled that.

“Fuck, fine. Um. It’s just that I was thinking that, well, you and I have known each other a long time and, uh, the other day when we were hanging out - it was a lot of fun, by the way - we were hanging out and you kind of ended up on top of me and, like, that’s happened before and everything, but that time it, um, it made me sort of realise that I maybe - maybeactuallylikeyoumorethanafriendandsortofhopemaybeyouareokaywiththat?”

“...what?” She asked, dumbfounded. Rob, blazing red and utterly unable to look her in the eye, gave a non-committal hand gesture.

“It’s your turn,” he said.

Batenberg considered her words in light of the words that had just blathered over her, and then squirmed around in his lap so that she was fully and properly facing him - or would have been, had he been able to look at her, which he was not.

“Was kinda gonna say the same thing,” she said, and he jolted.

“Y-you were?!”

“Well, probably more articulately and elegantly, maybe with some witty jokes in there or something too, but basically the same, yeah. Same core message. Same, uh, you know, thrust.”

Awkward grins were back in fashion between the two of them, along with racing hearts this time.

“We both came to the same thing? Because of the same thing? At the same time?” Rob asked, with a certain (waranted) level of incredulity. Batenberg, frankly delighted with how her day was going, shrugged.

“We are pretty in-sync, you know. People and ponies alike have noticed,” she said. Again, like with bringing food into the cinema, this was something fairly obvious that she knew and he really should have.

“They have?”

“Oh yeah,” Batenberg nodded gravely.

Rob let this fresh knowledge roll over him, and his grin became a little less awkward.

“Guess we have no choice in the matter, then,” he said.

“Seems like.”

“Is this a thing? Is this a thing that’s happening?”

“Seems like.”

No question about it being a thing and a thing that was happening.

“Was expecting something… more complicated…” Rob said.

“You wanted something to go wrong?”

“No! I just didn’t think it’d be so seamless.”

“Still plenty of time for it not to be seamless,” Batenberg said, ever the voice of hope and ever-keen to dampen Rob’s spirits for the sake of a joke. He let this roll over him, too.

“Great. We sure this is a good idea? Chromeo told me and lovers n’ friends don’t mix,” he said.

“I respect Chromeo’s views on romance as much as the next pony but maybe there’s exceptions?” Batenberg said. She hoped so. So did he.

“Could be…”

“You know, if you’d made that joke with anyone else I really doubt they’d have got it,” Batenberg pointed out. Rob had to concede this.

“Probably. You did though.”

“I did.”

“That’s probably meaningful. Right?”

“I think so.”

A lot of the warmth the pair of them were presently experiencing was no-long on account of duct in the ceiling. A lot of it was, sure, but a lot of it was now just the heated moment between them. Buoyed, joyous, and far too warm, Rob decided it was his turn to do something unusually affectionate (and one-up Batenberg with her lap-clambering) and also something he’d idly given thought to many times over the years without any serious consideration of it actually happening: he quickly leant in and planted the briefest of pecks right smack in the middle of her forehead.

It had felt singularly weird doing that, given they’d entered the cinema solely as friends, but it was also the sort of weird he could do with a lot more of, frankly. Batenberg was now the one who had gone incredibly red.

“You’re cute,” Rob said.

“S-shut up.”

“This is already off to a great start.”

“Shut up again,” she said, not unkindly, and recovered enough to follow it up with a whipcrack fast lean-in-and-peck of her own, hers aimed at his cheek.

Now both of them were red, and the credits finally wrapped up.