Several days later…
With a patience that could only be described as ‘endless,’ Flicker waited for Piper to work up the nerve to change his bandage. This was good for her, learning how to apply a field dressing, how to bandage wounds, how to patch up flesh that the job destroyed. His mother, Twisty, turned away as she scooped up Knick-Knack and she covered his little sister’s eyes with her wing.
Piper took several deep breaths to prepare herself, then began.
Taking the bandage off wasn’t so much a problem, but what lurked beneath it was. Piper hissed a bit as she worked, and then, with a snort of self disgust, she made herself look at Flicker’s wound. The flesh had been pulled taut, stretched over the open gashes on his ribs, and there was a long incision that had been made going from rib to flank, the soft, delicate place that existed between his ribs and his hip. The muscle had been repaired, sewn together, and right now, there were about a hundred stitches or so, inside and out, along with many staples at stress points.
“It’s looking better,” Piper said, her eyes glittering in the lamplight as she made herself look. “You’re a very fast healer, I think, I mean, I have nothing to go on, but every day this looks a whole lot better than the day before. Meanwhile, my legs continue to look pretty awful.”
“And what muscle did I tear?” Flicker asked.
There was a bit of a delay in Piper’s response. “Are you going to pop me a smart one on the neck if I get it wrong again?”
“Yes.” Flicker saw no need for anything but brutal honesty.
“The external abdominal oblique,” Piper replied, unflinching and confident in her answer. Using her telekinesis, she lifted up her supplies as she examined the wound, looking for diseased flesh, infection, signs of swelling or places with fluid build up that might need to be lanced and drained. Flicker had been a more than competent teacher in this subject, along with necessity, and she felt confident that she could do anything required, should it need to be done.
“I don’t smell any sickness.” Hennessy moved closer, his ears pinned back, and he leaned his head down a bit. He sniffed a few times, his nostrils flaring, and his brows furrowed as he examined both the gashes from the bear’s claws and the long surgical incision. “Nothing should heal that fast. I ain’t no doctor, but I’ll be damned if that’s natural. I done been ripped open, gashed, beaten into a bloody heap, and kicked into submission too many times. I done spent a lot of time healing and I gots me a good feel for it.”
Looking a bit bewildered, Hennessy backed away, sat down on the floor, gathered up his art supplies, and with a charcoal pencil in his mouth, he began sketching the wound on Flicker’s side as Piper began the wound care. Holding a pair of tweezers, Piper looked for any hairs that might be growing in which might have grown into the closing wound, and cause an ingrown hair. That was a means to infection that could be prevented. Piper had a keen eye and an even keener confidence.
“Most ponies would be bedridden,” Twisty said, unable to bring herself to look as she held Knick-Knack.
Grimacing, Piper lifted up the spray bottle of iodine in her telekinesis, now finished looking for stray hairs growing in. “I won’t lie, Flicker, I’m going to enjoy this after all of the pain you’ve caused me. I’ll try not to gloat too much about it though, not with your mother sitting right here.” Piper laughed a little, a grim sound. “You deserve this…” And without further ado, she began spritzing Flicker’s side with iodine.
The stoic colt did not make a sound and his side quivered with every spray.
Piper used a sheet of paper to fan the wound, drying it a bit, and when she was satisfied with how it looked, she began applying the moisturising gel to the red, almost scabby edges of sutured flesh. Applying the wet pack was important. Humming to herself, she stuck a few gauze sponges to the bone deep gashes on Flicker’s ribs, using the gel to hold them in place, and then she taped them securely. Unrolling more gauze, she began to apply a wound dressing that ran most of the length of Flicker’s side.
“I’m going to make certain you get a commendation for this,” Flicker said, his voice absolutely flat and emotionless. “Work this good demands recognition and getting a good list of accomplishments will help you begin your promotions. It stinks being at the bottom. Trust me, I know.”
Blushing just a little, Piper nodded and said, “Nothing needed packing this time. There was a couple of spots that I thought might be need to stuffed with gauze, places where they didn’t stitch to allow for drainage I guess, I don’t know… but I just had a hunch that they don’t need packing.” The filly sighed, dreading what was coming next.
“Now it is your turn… prepare yourself, Piper…”
As evening settled in, as it had for the past few days, Flicker noticed a distinct absence of Hennessy. This bothered him, though he would never admit to it, and he wondered where his companion was going during these unexplained absences. Not even a half an hour ago, Hennessy had been colouring with Knick-Knack, helping the little filly get over her case of the sads after witnessing yet another wound care session.
As for Knick-Knack herself, she was yawning and saying that she wasn’t sleepy, nope, not sleepy at all, and she was a big filly that didn’t need to go to bed. Flicker knew from recent experience that she’d drop over in not much longer, then his mother would take the little filly to her bed, carrying her by the nape of her tiny, precious little neck.
Pacing around, Flicker looked at the front door.
Doing so set off a chain of events, and Flicker had no idea that many had been conspiring against him, his family and his friends. For whatever reason, now was the chosen time to strike, and strike they did, moving with coordinated effort. Piper, limping a bit on four legs but able to move, picked up Knick-Knack in a bubble of magic and headed for the kitchen door, so she could get to the back of the house where the bedrooms were. After a moment of hesitation while also glancing at her husband, Twisty gave a nod and then she followed Piper out of the room.
“Son, we need to talk,” Conk said to Flicker, who was still looking at the door, oblivious to everything that had just taken place.
“Can it wait?” Flicker asked, still staring at the door, and thinking about his missing companion.
“No. Have a seat, Son.” Conk gestured at the old threadbare sofa, the sofa where Hennessy had been sleeping at night. When Flicker was slow to respond, Conk added just a little more authority to his voice. “Son, please, have a seat.”
Being the dutiful son, Flicker obeyed. He went over to the sofa, sat down, frowned a bit, and looked at his father, his eyes curious and flashing in the lamplight. He waited as his father appeared to collect himself, and he did his best to ignore the itching in his dock and tail where new hairs were growing in. It dawned upon Flicker that the living room was now empty, save for himself and his father.
“Son, I have to ask you a question, and we need to have a talk.”
“That’s fine.”
Conk took a deep breath, and unable to look at his son, he looked at the ornate clock instead. The stallion reached up, scratched his neck, and then chuffed a few times, nervous and out of sorts. After much delaying, he asked, “Son, are you gay?”
Flicker’s gaze became a thousand yard stare as his eyes went vacant. The lights were still on, but at the moment, nopony was home. The clock ticked away the seconds, and thirty seven seconds later, one of Flicker’s ears gave a half-hearted twitch. Eleven seconds after that, his nostrils flared—quivering for the span of nine seconds, and then went back to normal.
Conk waited as the second hand on the clock began to go round again.
Lost in a state of intense concentration, Flicker wrestled with his father’s question until at last, the second hand on the clock began its third go round. Twenty six seconds after the second hand began its third turn of the clock face, Flicker made a near-whispered response.
“Is it okay to be gay?”
Frustrated to the point of reaction, Conk snorted. “What sort of question is that? I raised you better! I tried to make you tolerant… is it okay to be gay? Of course it is! You were raised in a multi-tribal house! We might not be the smartest ponies around, but we’re not intolerant hicks… of course it is okay to be gay! Damn, Son, sometimes you are so thick headed!”
Forty nine seconds later, his father still chuffing and snorting, Flicker replied, “No, I mean, is it okay for me to be gay?”
A vein in Conk’s temple began throbbing and below it, his eye twitched in a fitful manner. The stallion facehoofed, once, twice, and on the third time, he let out a groan, then asked, “Son, why wouldn’t it be okay if you were gay?”
“I…” Flicker’s utterance trailed off and his response died on his lips. Thirty two seconds later, he recovered enough to speak. “I don’t want you disappointed in me or anything I do. I don’t want you or my mother feeling let down or otherwise disappointed by my actions. I couldn’t live with myself if either of you were ashamed of me for any reason. So I don’t know what’s okay.”
“Son, your mother can’t help but notice that Hennessy spends just about every waking moment staring at you when he thinks you’re not looking. Have you even looked at what he draws in his sketchbooks? It’s all pictures of you! And a few of Piper, too. He draws you from every angle. When he thinks you’re not paying attention, he just stares at you, and I’ve even seen it myself. He looks at you in the same way your mother still looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching, and how she used to look at me when she and I were the same age as you and Hennessy.”
Flicker blinked.
“And you, you Son, you spend a lot of time staring at Hennessy.”
“I do?” Flicker asked.
“Yes. You do.”
“I like his colour,” Flicker admitted, which was a huge, meaningful admission for him.
“It is very distinctive,” Conk replied.
“Mother will want grandfoals. Family. I think about it, sometimes, when I’m laying in my bed at night and staring at the wall. I’ve tried planning my adult life, but I keep drawing blanks. Sometimes, I’d feel ashamed about it, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. It was easier to just exist in the moment and not think about anything.”
His hard, blustery demeanour softened and Conk looked at his son with weary, sad eyes.
“There was only me and the mask and I couldn’t picture anything else.”
“Son, I’m not a learned pony,” Conk began, and then he coughed to clear his throat. “I never finished primary school. I’m not all that wise in the ways of the world. I’ve learned a few things though. Twisty… she was my playmate growing up and I figured it out pretty early on that the pegasus filly playing in the birdbaths and the fountains and the puddles was a pretty special pony. I knew that if I didn’t catch her, she was going to fly away some day, and I lived in fear of that day happening.”
With a slow, almost mechanical turn of his head, Flicker looked at his father.
“As you know, I was raised by my uncle. After I was weaned, my mother took off to do whatever it was that she took off to do, and she left me with her brother. Now, Twisty, she didn’t have no parents either, and she just drifted in on the breeze one day when she was just a tiny thing. Our relationship started with an apple butter sandwich that I shared with her. That turned out to be the smartest thing I ever did, Son, and your mother might say I ain’t done nothing smart since.”
After a moment, Flicker nodded to acknowledge his father’s words, so Conk could continue.
“I became friends with that flighty little bird, but I lived in fear that she would fly away one day. Or worse, somepony would come along and take her. It was common for the young to leave home and find their way, but she was still really little… after a time, I convinced my uncle to let her stay with us, and she could’ve lived in the house, we tried to get her to come into the house, but she wanted to live in the barn up in the hayloft where she could make nests. Now, that peeved my uncle something awful, because it made him look bad, because he had an orphan living in his barn. He thought it made him look calloused.”
Flicker knew all too well his mother’s nest making problem.
“Come morning, she’d start crowing before the roosters did, she’d be up on the barn roof making a ruckus, and my uncle was a thankful sort for this happening. It meant an extra hour of work in the cool of the morning, before the heat of the day set in. My uncle said that was how she earned her keep, she was the most perfect alarm clock ever.” Conk smiled as he recalled many fond memories.
Still silent, Flicker waited and listened.
“Son, if you have any kind of smarts at all, you’ll catch you an earth pony.”
“What do I do with him once I catch him?” Flicker asked, giving his father a blank stare.
Again, for the fourth time now, Conk facehoofed, and it made a sound very much like his namesake.
“This stuff is complicated. I don’t understand it. Hennessy likes a whole bunch of stuff I can’t even begin to understand and it seems impossible to talk to him about it.” Flicker’s stoic exteriour shattered and he slumped down where he sat, looking miserable. “I’ve wanted to talk to him about it a few times, but I just couldn’t get the words out… just earlier today, even.”
“Son, you need to develop a personality of some kind. You seem to have lost yours somewhere between here and Canterlot. Honestly, I think it got dropped down a well someplace after you pummeled it into submission and maybe stabbed it a few times.”
Not at all amused by his father’s joke, Flicker’s cheeks and eyes bulged as he stared at his father. His face grew darker and the fuzzy tips of his ears quivered. The colt stifled his anger, as he could not remain angry with his father, lest he be disrespectful, and Flicker couldn’t live with himself if he did that. He’d have to toss himself down a well if he behaved poorly.
“Now, listen to me, Son, and you listen good. Hennessy has been going off to watch the moonrise and he prays to Princess Luna… he’s talked to me about it while we were out working in the fields. He wants acceptance… he feels like an outsider and it hurts him plenty. He figures that Princess Luna knows how it feels to be an outsider, and not be accepted, not be wanted, so he’s taken up praying to her that she fixes his mind so he’ll know some peace.”
For Flicker, it felt like an icicle had been driven through his ribs, into his barrel, and right through his heart.
“He reminds me of your mother, Son, back when she had a crisis about herself, and she couldn’t figure out if she was pretty. I suppose we all go through that phase where we try to sort ourselves out. But Hennessy, it’s worse for him, because he’s scared shitless on account of how he grew up. There’s a lot of hurt there, Son, a whole lotta hurt, and I doubt this is gonna be easy. First crushes or infatuations are supposed to be hoofloose and fancy free, but you ain’t gonna get that, Son. Not much in your life is gonna be easy, I figure.”
Sighing, Flicker slumped down a little bit more.
“No, I reckon that if you want to claim you an earth pony, you’re gonna need to lay siege to everything hurting him and then batter down those doors of his. You’re gonna hafta find a way to slay those demons of his, because, let me tell you, Son, he’s troubled. Son, to help you understand all of this, some ponies... some ponies, they have rats in the cellar… Hennessy… well, Son, Hennessy has rats in his soul.”
Flicker’s blank look of despair became one of seething rage and the sudden change startled his father, who jerked his head back in alarm. The murderous expression upon his son’s face was a painful reminder of how much Flicker had changed, and what his son had become. Conk, now silent, watched as his son rose from the sofa, shook himself a bit, and then headed off for the door.
When his son had passed though the door and shut it behind him, Conk wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake in saying what he had said. The cold, icy, murderous eyes of his son were unsettling, unnerving, and Conk squirmed in his seat. Sighing, worried, he got up from where he was sitting, and went to go and say goodnight to his daughter, while also worrying about his son.
Conk hoped that Princess Luna was listening, because it was bound to be a long night.