Justin’s PoV
“Nononononononononono, you are NOT giving me a bath!”
“Ah’m sorry sugercube, but yall are gonna have ta get a bath before we let cha in the house. Ah don’t mean ta be rude, but yall are riper than a rotten apple!”
“You still don’t need to give it to me! I can do it on my own!”
“But how’ll ah know you did it right?”
I groaned in aggravation. I’d been arguing with Applejack for a good ten minutes about this bath problem, and it kept going in the same loop. Nick and Fluttershy had joined back up with us since she apparently had some animal or something to see to. Nick had jumped into the cart with me, but I’m not sure if Big Mac noticed (seriously, I can’t read that man- err, pony’s face to save my life).
Nick kept laughing at my situation before I turned to him. “So why isn’t Fluttershy giving you a bath?”
He shrugged. “Told her that I could do it on my own. Also mentioned that it was very inappropriate. She seemed to have gotten the message.”
“Well you gotta help me out here.”
“Why? I’m interested to see where this goes.”
“Because if you don’t help me, there’s gonna be applesauce, dirt, a broken barn door, a lead pipe, and probably a trip to the hospital.”
“What is this, CLUE?”
“It will be if you don’t help me outta this.”
“Ok, ok, hold on.” He turned to the side of the cart where Fluttershy and Applejack were having a side conversation. “Hey, Applejack?”
“Yeah sugercube?”
“You really don’t want to give him a bath.”
“Yes ah do! Ah have ta to make sure he cleans himself up proper.”
“Well, it’d be extremely uncomfortable.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, the only times a human is ever bathed by another human is when they’re too small to do it themselves, or they’re with their special somebody. And I don’t really think Justin likes you like that.”
Applejack stopped to think before blushing furiously. A loud slap could be heard as I epically face palmed myself in the background. Fluttershy started blushing too; hiding behind her mane, and Big Mac simply chuckled. Applebloom had been strangely quiet on the journey, and it was starting to worry me.
I looked back at Nick and deadpanned. “Did you really just go there?”
He started laughing again. “Yeah, but I think you can take your own bath now.”
Applejack nodded furiously. “Eeyup, yall can bathe on yur own, we won’t be helpin’.”
I nodded in acknowledgement. “Thanks for understanding, Applejack.”
“Don’t worry about it. And yall can call me AJ if ya want.”
“Alright, will do.”
We sat for the next five minutes or so in relative silence. It was quite comfortable, and I had thought it would stay that way. I discovered how wrong I was when Applebloom brought up a subject Nick and I had always tended to avoid.
“So, did yall have a special somepony back on your planet?”
I looked at Nick as he shifted about uncomfortably. “Well, uh, you see-“
Applejack spoke up next. “Ah’ve been wondering too. Luna told us about how nice you fellas were, and that she was surprised that you never had any mares over.”
“I was wondering if you could tell me too…if that’s ok with you guys that is…”
I sighed and looked at Nick. He nodded for me to continue. “Well, first of all, our females aren’t called mares, they’re women. Second…we never had any.”
Fluttershy gasped. “B-but, why not? You two seem so nice…”
“Well that’s the thing. We are nice, but we aren’t what is considered to be attractive where we come from.”
“Does that matter?”
“More than one would think. The majority of women we came across only wanted fit, athletic jerks, not smart, average looking gentlemen. But it didn’t really matter; we had given up on that stuff before Luna showed up.”
“But why? Everypony deserves somepony, and you shouldn’t give up just because of a few bad females.”
“Fluttershy, you don’t know what some of those girls did to us. I mean, the rejections, the stand-ups, the dissing, we could deal with that. It was the last two girls we tried dating that did it for us.”
“What did they do, if it’s ok to ask…”
“Well, when Nick was a sophomore in college, so about last year, he went on a date with this really hot cheerleader. After a typical date of dinner and a movie, she told him she wanted to go to her house for some ‘special fun’. They get there; she gets his clothes off, and then opens her door to reveal several of her friends and about half the basketball team, all laughing at him. He ran back to our dorm naked and covered in food that they threw at him. He eventually convinced me to not take my gun over and shoot them all.”
Fluttershy looked at him with tears in her eyes. “N-nick…I-I’m s-so sorry…”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t be, it wasn’t your fault. Besides, I got over it.
She sniffled while nodding before turning to me. “W-what about you?”
My face darkened and I looked down at the wooden planks making up the cart floor.
Noticing my face, she immediately apologized. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to! I was just curious…”
“It’s ok, Flutters…”
Nick’s PoV
I saw Justin’s face darken as the memory came back. I put my hand on his shoulder and said “I know you don’t like talking about it, but do you mind if I tell them?”
I could just barely make out the words “Go ahead…” while he nodded slightly.
“Alright. This happened about four years ago, in high school. He had his eye on this one really cute girl, but I always thought she was trouble. She was always hanging around with the jocks in school, flirting with each and every one of them. I thought she was a whore. And the guys she hung out around the most hated our guts. We never found out why, they just did. Always trying to pick fights with us, spreading rumors, and those sorts of things. One time though, Justin got sick of it. They had destroyed his computer and vandalized his car, so he finally decided to get back. He snuck into the weight room and loosened the bolts on all the weight benches. Well, they found out it was him, and swore they would pay him back. Around that time, word of his crush got to them. So, they persuaded her to take him out on a date, had her treat him really nice, and then had her lead him into a back ally. They were waiting for him, and jumped him with whatever they had. One guy had a tire iron, a tool we used to fix our cars. This girl, who everyone thought was so nice and couldn’t hurt a fly, sat there and laughed, saying he deserved it for ever thinking he had a shot with her. The weight bench thing never even needed to happen; she apparently planned on doing it to him later anyway.”
Everyone present was crying, including me. Fluttershy kept sobbing as I continued. “I remember hearing on the news that he had been mugged and sent to the hospital. I visited the next day and saw him covered in bandages. He was lucky to be alive; the doctor said he had internal bleeding and a destroyed kidney. They ended up removing it, and he woke up that day. He told us everything that happened, and all those guys got arrested.”
I jumped slightly as Justin spoke up again. “All except that girl. She didn’t touch me, so nothing happened to her. But, it doesn’t matter. I got over it, and moved on in life. However, those two girls did make us swear off women.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Even though I was so emotional at the time, I found AJ’s next comment hilarious.
“So does that mean yall are gay?”
As was Justin’s reaction. “NO! WTF AJ?!?”
A/N---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, here it is, chapter six. Comment, thumb, favorite, and if you have any ideas or concerns, please do not hesitate to tell me. Oh, and no Celestia or Pinkie this time. Pinkie's planning her party and I gave Celly some cake. Maybe next time.