"If you need anything... come by. Please."
Cloud watched as Blue came to a halt, then nodded before continuing up the stairs. Most ponies would have been insulted by such little acknowledgement, with clearly no intent to commit, but Cloud felt a spark of happiness in him at that mere motion. Because Cloud knew what it really meant. He'd been watching the unicorn, as neighbors were want to do. It had started months ago, when Blue had first moved in...
Cloud had been at first merely interested in the squirrelly little neighbor he'd acquired, nothing more than that. But as time passed, and Blue had ceased to be an interesting novelty to the others in their building's hallway, he'd still captured Cloud's attention for entirely different reasons. At first, all Cloud had seen was a (cute) stallion that seemed to be a little nervous. However, the longer he'd watched and the more he'd learned, the more he felt connected to and almost protective of the unicorn.
He'd seen how Blue would avoid eye contact with other ponies, his gaze skittering away from their eyes as his hooves shuffled and he almost retreated into himself, how the tiny tics and shifts that he'd learned indicated anxiety and fear slowly increased the longer a conversation wore on. He'd seen how Blue tensed at the slightest physical contact, how his pupils shrank to pinpricks when he was cornered. He'd noticed how Blue had had to build his confidence for thirty minutes once, when he'd accidentally locked his keys in his apartment, not to mention the near-panic attack Blue had had in the hallway. And he'd felt a pang of pain in his heart every time he passed by the door, and heard the muffled sobs that came through it.
Cloud didn't expect eye contact. He spoke softly and succinctly, and knew when to push and when not to. He didn't make physical contact unless Blue invited or initiated it, always making sure that Blue had an easy escape route. He'd sat with Blue from the moment he'd noticed the unicorn having a panic attack in the hallway, had calmed him for a whole five minutes before slowly walking him down the stairs and to the ground floor, where he'd sat quietly with Blue for the entire time, patiently waiting for the unicorn to be ready. And...
Cloud knew what was happening behind that door. More fear, and self hatred, and sadness. Slowly, he turned around in the stairwell, after he'd waited for the sound of Blue's door to shut. he trotted back up the steps and into the hallway, all the way down to the twenty-second door, pressing his ear to it.
An expression of anguish slipped across his muzzle as he heard the sobbing from the pony within. He drew back a pace and rapped his hoof twice against the door, as gently as he could, then waited. To his surprise, after a moment, the door locks disengaged and the door swung in a little. Trotting carefully, Cloud slipped through the crack and closed the door behind him. And there, for anypony to easily say, lay Blue. Curled up in a ball, the occasional sob or sniffle coming from him. The expression of anguish was still there, but this time...
He stood over the slightly smaller unicorn stallion and licked his lips.
"Code?"
Blue shifted slightly, shivering a little, but he replied in a shaky voice.
"Blue."
Cloud breathed a sigh of relief, then gently laid down and pulled the unicorn up against him. Blue went limp, but that was okay, because Cloud held him close and stroked him gently, each time in one direction two times before stopping and going the other direction. Slowly, the sniffling and sobs died out, Blue now just pressed into his warmth.
Cloud couldn't do much. But he could do this.