//------------------------------// // Ails What Cures You // Story: Tiger and Demon: A Manehatten Love Story // by Brony_Fife //------------------------------// Breaking What's Fixed, Part III: Ails What Cures You “You don’t ever learn the truth. You just pick the lie you like best.” ~Marilyn Manson It's an hour or so before we get to the hideout the Commissioner picked out for her merry little band of "hired" vigilantes. A neighborhood of Neightalian immigrant families, many that might not be here legally. Most of the buildings are poorly maintained and degraded, leanin' sadly on the shoulders'a their neighbors as if lamenting how nopony remembers this end of town when it thrived. Kids play in filthy streets, kickin' trash at each other. Dogs fight over a female in heat. We speed through the street, stray cats and stray children makin' way for us. I'm kinda concerned. One, we're in a very valuable piece of recent technology in a very poor and crime-ridden neighborhood. And two... "Hey, AJ." She looks up as she turns the car into an alley. "Yeah?" I think over what I want to say. The Doctor is still out cold from the beating Crest gave him before. Coldsnap, well, I don't expect him back for a while yet. I think over what I want to say before they wake up, while AJ and I still have time alone. "What Crest said. You were..." "Ah don't wanna talk about it," she says flatly. At the end of the alley, she pulls the key and sends the car back to Dreamland. We both sit there in that sleeping killer car for a while. AJ's so terrible at lying, I almost laugh. Then again, AJ's already proven she's all about the truth. She said she don't wanna talk about it, but she never said she don't need to talk about it. If she felt she didn't need to talk about it, she'd be outta the car already. So I start. "Was it something I said?" "...Not really. But... Maybe, k-kinda." Good girl. Be honest. I do the math. "It's the Commissioner, ain't it?" The tears that start swimming in her eyes tell me I'm right. She looks away. Good girl. Tough girl. Keepin' it together. Her hoof makes a move to the door's handle. I think of something to say before AJ opens that car door and leaves. "Y'know, lotsa ponies been in that spot before. We think we got friends. Then they turn on us. I think what hurts the most is that at first, we dunno why." AJ leans on her door and sighs. "Thass the thing, Tony. Ah arready know why. Iss cuz--iss c--iss..." Her voice trails off as the tears finally stop swimming and start leaving, crawlin' down her face like spiders escapin' a fire. Her hoof goes from the car door handle to her eyes. She swallows. "Iss cuz she's so...eaten up by what happened. She wants revenge, an' she wants it so bad she don't care who she hasta hurt t'get it." She stops leaning on the door and buries her face in her hooves. I hear a sniff. I seen mares break down and cry. I seen 'em do that when they really only want a guy to just put it in 'em. So I got a pretty good idea when it's fake. But these tears? They're real. Those shakes and those shivers and the way her voice breaks and warbles and her posture... All of it is the cold, honest truth. AJ is not the type to lie. Prob'ly never was. That's when I realize I had it all wrong. "It's not 'cuz she hurt'chu, is it, AJ? It's because..." Do I really wanna say it? The first time I told her anything honest, it tore her world in half. But I already figured out AJ. AJ's all about the truth, even if it hurts. Even when it tears her whole world in half, she wants the honest-to-Celestia, cold, hard, truth. "...It's 'cuz you can't help your friend. You tried everything you could, but you couldn't help her at all." Then I hear it. The sniffling stops. I hear the silence, and it confirms everything. Come on, AJ, keep it together. Be the tough girl. I inhale deeply and sigh. Hang my head. Not sure what else I can say. Then I think'a something. "Y'know. I think it's 'coz she's changed so much that she thinks she doesn't need your help. Or maybe even she thinks she can't be helped or saved." Silence. "When you start doin' awful things, 's hard to take at first. Your sins, I mean. You start out by really thinkin' over what it was you did. Then it haunts you. Then you find yerself goin' and doin' it again. Then they start pilin' up, pilin' until they start to suffocate you. Some of us... finally snap from all the horrible things we do." More silence passes. AJ speaks up. "True. She's... Twi's snapped. She's not the Twilight I knew back in Ponyville. She's not the Twilight who loved her friends, or loved to read books." She laughs. "Use'ta love crammin' her noodle with any scrap'a knowledge she could find." The humor fades. "Everythin' about her just... came back wrong after they took her horn. Ah think that what hurts the most is that Ah should'a figured all this out a long time ago." I put a hoof on her shoulder. Despite her natural feminine softness, I could still feel the muscles she's earned from the farm life. "You held onto hope that you could still help her. That's no act of stupidity. Holdin' onto hope is what ponies do to get them through the day. Even stupid, heartless crooks like me." Her hoof meets mine. Those emeralds shimmer from the shed tears. I get lost in them. They're a labyrinth of emotions, and I'm lost in them, and so is she. I try to lead her back out. "I think the most important thing to remember right now is that, unlike when my hopes get dashed, this ain't your fault." Silence as those tears cease flowing, as she and I both escape that labyrinth she was lost in, closing the door behind us. "It's not your fault," I whisper. I suddenly notice our hooves are still together. Those emeralds get closer and curtains of orange fall over them as her warrior lips greet mine. They're softer'n I thought, soft but still tough. And hot. She leans into me, melts into me, her tongue finding mine and invitin' it to dance with hers. It's an invitation I can't turn down. I close my eyes, wanting to melt into her. To merge into one. My eyes close and in the darkness, there's the wire. Don't do it! It slips around her neck... Don't do it, she's the only good thing I have left! Those warrior lips find themselves pushed away. Those orange curtains snap open and the emeralds they hid become little green dots of surprise. It takes me a second to realize I pushed her off, slamming her against the door. I'm breathing hard and I feel cold and I feel the sweat runnin' down my forehead. AJ looks at me in confusion. The hurt comes back to her. She's back in that labrynth, and I just threw her back in there. "I'm sorry, AJ," I say. "I-I didn't mean..." But before I finish, AJ's out of the car. She walks around the side and opens it up, draggin' the Doctor out. She lifts him like she's pickin' up an empty cardboard box. Even for an earth pony, that's just crazy-strong. She pulls him out and takes him to a door on an abandoned building. Before she closes it, she looks at me. Still lost in that labrynth. The door doesn't just close. It slams. Its sound gets eaten by Manehatten, but it rings in my ears. The slam echoes, sounding like Manehatten's laughter. Great going, Baritone! she cackles. What a total ladies' stallion! Ain't YOU the little gentlecolt? I groan and throw my head back onto the headrest. You got your laughs, ya stupid donkey bitch. Laugh it up. Hardy-har-har. Fuck you, Manehatten. The one thing I've come to know about Manehatten is that news is her drug of choice. I could call news Manehatten's blood, but the fact is, the bitch bled dry years ago. She's sick, sick and being pumped full of the drug called the press. I'm Manehatten's doctor, prescribing the drug that keeps her going, gives her the false hope she KNOWS is false. I distort the information however I can, making it all as believable as possible. I never allow reporters to ask me questions. I tried that a few times in the past--allowing the press to get nosy. A few reporters mysteriously disappeared. Nowadays, I just go up to the stand, state the Facts As We Know Them, then leave while the mob of ambitious journalists murmur and demand a Q & A they won't receive. I groan as that same mob pushes and shoves their way to me. Always the same. I remember the first time I fed Manehatten her drugs. AJ was there. She was there, in my apartment (She usually occupied the place; I tend to sleep in my office), waiting for me. She'd tell me how utterly disgusting I was. How it was so easy for me to be totally deceiving. It almost makes me smile as I go back into my car. She's right. She's a dumbass, but she's right. Doesn't use her horse sense, and she can still tell when I'm being dishonest, and she can tell how easy it is for me to lie. Yet she kept with me for years. Even after Rainbow Dash decided to bail, AJ still stood by me. Idiot. When I get to my apartment, I'm greeted by silence. Everything is meticulously clean, unlike my office. Books I don't read anymore line the shelves in alphabetical order. Furniture, fixtures, and various sculptures and oddities occupy the places that accent them the best. Everything is order. Feels like I just fell through a time portal, into the past... Walking inside, I feel like I'm trespassing. As if this place doesn't belong to me. Like this is an apartment, not my apartment. It's an apartment the old me would have lived in. A living space for a dead mare. I don't belong here. Spike greets me as he walks down the hallway carrying a plate of small sandwiches, breaking me out of my thoughts. Lockdown apparently did what I asked and brought Spike home. We sit down for our lunch and we talk. At first, it's the same question he asks me every time I come home. It's the same question I ask myself when I get up in the morning. "Twilight, are... are you sure you wanna do this?" And every time he asks that question, I give him the same answer I give myself. "Yes, Spike! I want this. You know I want this." We share some silence, and it tastes sour, and it smells like vomit, and it sounds off-key, and it feels prickly, and it looks ugly. I get to making us some tea to go with our lunch. We try talking a little more. Spike tries to remain as upbeat as he can. Tells me I'm doing well for only being the Commissioner for three years. Keeping up the good fight, whatever that might means. Suddenly, he asks me about one of my current cases. "So, uh... any luck on the Plague Doctor case?" I raise an eyebrow. Chew my sandwich a little, then swallow. "Not much. The only thing we really have is that we've come across a few of his 'cleaners.' They expired by the time we got to the scene. Either he's losing his touch and they don't last as long anymore, or it's some copycat or apprentice." My eyes wander and fall on a scar across Spike's belly. It's half-hidden by his shirt. He nods. Out of all the crooks and killers running amok in Manehatten, running all over her like ants on a corpse, the Plague Doctor terrifies him the most. A crazed Germane immigrant who fled his home country's law enforcement, he continued his sick experiments here, spiriting away prostitutes and hobos to make into his "cleaners." Spike saw what a "cleaner" could do one night. It left him a present on his belly. He's had trouble sleeping since. That was a year and a half ago, when the Plague Doctor was the biggest threat to Manehatten since Coldsnap's rampage a few years before that. I know what I should say. Spike is terrified that the Plague Doctor might be seeking revenge. Revenge on me? Maybe. But I'd never let him hurt Spike. I'd never let anypony hurt Spike. Not even my own monsters. Not even Baritone. I look at Spike for a long time, but for one reason or another, I say nothing. No words of comfort can leave my mouth, no matter how bad I want to say them. I'd never let anypony hurt Spike. Never. Yet. Yet there's proof that you didn't hold up your claim, Twilight. It's right there on Spike's belly, half-hidden by his shirt. One of the Plague Doctor's toys gave it to him. You were lucky you got there in time before it killed him. I sigh. Swallow. Go for another sandwich. Try changing subjects to something Spike might enjoy. I try, but I can't think of anything he might like. Swallow. Go for another sandwich. Swallow. Go for another. Swallow. Another. Swallow. Another. Swallow. After lunch, I get back in my car and drive. At first I think I'm driving back to the precinct. Get some work done. But then I notice I'm driving to my Laughing Place. It's a name AJ gave it, the Laughing Place. "Everypony has one," she said. "'Swhere we go when we're upset. Mebbe we go there t'think, or relax or whatever. But we all got one, an' juss bein' there sets us up straight." She never showed me hers, but I have a pretty good idea where it is. My Laughing Place. Over by the bridge connecting North and South Manehatten. At the bank, where the ocean slaps against the dirt, dragging the trash into itself like a greedy diner that doesn't care about his calorie count. My Laughing Place. AJ named it. Or rather, it was a name she borrowed from the Br'er Rabbit stories, since AJ couldn't ever think of something that clever on her own. My Laughing Place. I park the car in my Laughing Place. Nopony here but me. I rest my hat on the dashboard and get out. I feel the dirt under my gloves and boots. Feel it as it takes my weight, recognizes me. My Laughing Place has missed me. Been too long since I've been here. I stand there on my Laughing Place. I scream. I cry. Whatever it is I do, I never laugh.