//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 : Here's the Truth // Story: Shout At The Devil // by Bucket of Skies //------------------------------// What do you do after a night of doing things that you didn't feel control in doing? Oh wait, did I ask that earlier? I think I did. Yes, you technically did. And I also don't appreciate you muting me in the last chapter. I could have saved the reader all that unbearable awkwardness of a chapter. Sweet Lucy you could have done so much better before- Stop right there. We haven't gotten there yet. Oh right. Please continue Sir Mutes Alot. Right. So it was the morning after me and Sunset’s night of our date and an apparent night of heavy drinking. I was waking up with an aching headache that had only lasted for a second or two. This was strange because a typical hangover like this would probably last for the whole day depending on if I am not too lazy enough to not take headache medicine. It lasted for a second, and then was gone like there was no hangover at all. It was bizarre because it was a very similar feeling that happened when I first met Brim. I grabbed my glasses and looked over next to me to see Sunset Shimmer naked, still asleep from the night before. Now I knew that what happened wasn’t just a dream. It was all real. I was happy that I was able to spend the night with her, but at the same time it just didn’t feel right. Like it wasn’t supposed to happen. I began to try and put the pieces together in my head about how this could have worked out.  In my thoughts, I jumped at the sense that I was being watched. I looked over to my couch to see Brim sitting there without a shirt on smoking a cigarette. He had a devilish grin on his face. Not a kind that I liked the look of. “Look at my little boy growing up. First he talked down to his piece of shit boss, and now here he is scoring with a girl who for some reason smells of bacon. It nearly brings a tear to my eye. You were even smart enough to use the condom I gave you.”, He said puffing a cigarette. “You saw the whole thing last night? Oh good grief!”, I exclaimed sitting up and putting my hand over my eyes embarrassed. “Oh I saw everything!”, He said with an emphasis. When he said that, it made me feel a weird suspicion. Not one that I liked. “What do you mean everything?”, I asked him. “I mean, everything. While you were out there, I was watching. So many times I wanted to scream out to you and call you an idiot. But that would make me look crazy, or well, the person I had possessed.”, He explained puffing again. “Wait a second. You mean to tell me you were there at the restaurant the whole time? As the Waiter?”, I said coming to my realization about what was off about the waiter. “Close, but no cigar…..ette. I was everyone up until the bartender at the bar. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to pull off a Horsy accent.”, he explained. “I thought I told you to stay out of this. I kept feeling so off during the date last night because of you.”, I said. “Let’s be honest, did you really expect the reader to believe that I would stay put like an obedient dog?”, he asked me rhetorically. “Wait what reader?”, I asked realizing what he said. “Don’t worry about that part. Besides, if it weren’t for me spiking the drink you wouldn’t have been able to keep Sunset as a girlfriend.”, he said calmly. That last part hit me suddenly. I almost thought that that part wasn’t true and that I was hearing things.  “Back up. Did you just say that you spiked that drink?”, I asked in a serious tone. “That’s right. It was a rather quick process, no wonder so many people fall for it.”, he said puffing his cigarette again. “Are you honestly fucking kid-”, I yelled out before I heard Sunset next to me roll over onto her side still asleep with a moan. “What?”, Brim asked looking confused. I hopped out of bed quietly to not wake Sunset. I saw on the floor our clothes was flung off to the side. “You and me, Bathroom, now!”, I demanded Brim. Not caring that I was completely naked in front of Brim, I dragged him into the bathroom before shutting the door behind us. He then gave me a look that said that he was confused by my sudden attitude. “What the hell Rocky? I was in the middle of a cigarette.”, He said aggravated a little. “Do you realize how wrong the thing that you did was her!?!?”, I scolded him. “What are you talking about?”, He asked. “You mean to tell me that you don’t see anything wrong with spiking our drinks, essentially making me date rape her?! I could go to fucking jail for that!”, I explained to him. “What?! This is what it is all about?! My god you are really fucking stupid are you?”, he said arguing with me. “You’re calling me the stupid one?!”, I told him. “You really think I’m that bad of a person because I live in hell?! I know right from wrong Rocky! If my goal was to get you in jail for a long time for date rape, I would not only be a bad demon, but I would also be a really shitty friend. I didn’t drug her, I drugged you!”, He explained aggravated. “What?”, I asked. “In your half of the drink, I slipped you a little bit of SATD to calm you down and to be more honest with what you wanted. You wanted her to be with you as a significant other, and the only way to do that was to end up sleeping with her. But I knew you wouldn’t do that. You wanna know why?”, he asked. “You’re lying. Your trying to save my skin by telling me this.”, I told him calling his bluff. “I wouldn’t be lying to a friend now would I? I drugged you because you are such a weak fucking sister! You are far too sensitive and anxious to try and make moves to try and be a strong boyfriend. If you hadn’t had done this, You would’ve been stuck on the third date so many times that it would end up not working out in the end.”, he explained. Those words really bothered me. It wasn’t that he was speaking a little bit negatively about me, actually a lot negative about me. But it was the fact that looking back at last night that I was starting to believe everything that he was saying. I don’t think I could’ve pulled it off if I wasn’t drunk on Shout At The Devil. I was going to say something, but then Brim spoke. “I could totally try and call you an idiot a little bit more, but now we have another issue to fry. You need to come clean with Sunset.”, He said. “What? If I tell her that, she absolutely won’t stick around with me. She’ll be disgusted with me.”, I assumed. “No, that is between us. What you need to tell her the truth about is me. You need to tell her about me.”, He clarified. “What, Why?”, I asked confused. “If you want me to stick around and have this make sense for her so she doesn’t see me and become scared of you because of me.”, Brim explained. “Wait, See you? I thought you said that I was the only one who could see you.”, I reminded him. “That is until you have sex with someone with the condom I gave you. The way it works is-”, Brim said before being interrupted by the door suddenly opening slowly. “Rocky?”,  Sunset said slowly coming into the bathroom. I looked back at the door to see a glimpse of Sunset. When I turned back to face Brim, he had vanished and I couldn’t find out where he was. Before I could look around, the door had opened up with a nude Sunset Shimmer following behind. I was blindsided be her walking in the way she did, but for some reason it didn’t feel awkward. Like I didn’t mind seeing her naked and her seeing me naked. If that was a side effect of SATD, then it was super strong. “You okay?”, Sunset had asked me. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Super duper.”, I said nervously. “Oh, god that must be my hangover with me hearing things. I could’ve sworn I heard you talking to yourself.”, she said wiping her head. It was true. She could possibly see Brim. She must’ve heard a little bit of Brim and I’s arguments when she woke up. At least now I knew that Brim wasn’t bullshiting me. But now, we were all alone, just me and Sunset in my bathroom together. “Hey, listen. About last night, I know we were drunk and all that but, everything I said prior I meant a hundred percent honestly. You do know that right?”, I asked her. “Why of course I do Rocky. I wouldn’t have kissed you if you didn’t.”, Sunset said tilting her head. “Oh okay. I was just making sure.”, I said while nervously chuckling. “You are a strange guy Rocky.”, She told me. Sunset then walked over to hug me while nustling her head into my chest. I was taken by surprise by this because I had never hugged a girl before. It was a lot of firsts for those couple of days. Not knowing what to do, I simply let my arms wrap around her. “But you are the good kind of strange.”, she said with a genuine tone. “Heh, I guess I am.”, I said with a slight blush. “Thank you for last night. I really did enjoy everything you did. Well, besides the hangover, but that isn’t your fault.”, she said. “No, thank you. I think I managed to get a lot off of my chest from last night and now I feel good about it. I feel just a little bit better about it.”, I told her. “Well, that's good. Promise me that this won’t make anything weird between us because we ...you know.”, she said referring to last night. “No no not at all.”, I answered. “Well that’s good. You’re the first person in a while that I could feel like that.”, she said still in my arms. We stood there silently for a little while longer. I could see why some people like hugs and all that kind of stuff. I felt a very warm fuzzy feeling in me whenever I was hugging her. Like it felt that I was being loved, and that the other person could feel that from you. After a while, we decided to let go. “I think I’ll let myself out. I need to go home and rest a little to try and get over this  headache. Again, thank you for the amazing night. I hope to see you again Rocky.”, she said with a small smile. “Oh yeah absolutely.  I’ll let you know Susnet.”, I nervously said. She leaned in to give me a soft peck on the lips before walking back into my room to put on her clothes. I followed suit and threw on some clean clothes. In all honesty, it felt a little bit weird to be changing with Sunset. More specifically when I watched her a couple of times. I thought that her bra and panties looked cute on her and it grabbed my attention. I quickly averted my gaze when she had looked over at me. In that moment, she did make fun of me a little bit for looking at her, but she took it as flattering. When we were all done, I walked her out the door of my apartment. “Again, thanks again for last night. It was really fun.”, Sunset told me at the door. “It’s no problem. I’m glad it was as fun as it was.”, I told her. We shared one last hug before she had walked away, but before that, she pointed out a picture. “Say, that is an interesting little picture you have.”, She said pointing it out. I looked over at it to see a picture of what looked like an old time street thug with a sledgehammer and top hat. I never once remembered getting this picture until I got a better view of the criminal, that criminal was Brim in disguise as a picture. It looked really good for a disguise. “Well anyways, I’ll go home now. Thanks again Rocky. I’ll see you around.”, she said with a smile before kissing me on the cheek. I felt a bit sad to see her go, but considering that I needed to tell her the truth about Brim, I needed to be alone with my thoughts and my demon for a moment. Closing the door behind me, I gave myself a pity sigh and sat down on my couch. I finally got a chance to breathe and take it all in, right before the demon had to intervene. "So….. how do you want to approach this.", Brim said.  "What?", I asked in a serious tone. "So, do you want to do a more direct approach. Or do you want to take it in nice and easy, that's what she said.", Brim said. "You're an asshole.", I told him clearly pissed off. "Whoa hey. Earth to Rocky. I'm not the enemy here. The real enemy is you my friend.  Now are you gonna discuss the deets with me on what you want to do?", Brim said. "Stop! Just stop Brimstone. ", I argued with him. "Okay, what's this about? Did you not finish off enough last night in Sunset? What's got your balls in a bind?", He asked. I finally snapped.  I needed to let it all out. "Everything! Everything involving you has got my balls in a bunch! I feel like every single thing I have done was for you and not for me. Every single thing I did training,  every wrong thing I did to quit, and even fucking cheating on my exam to get me out of here. I got fucking abused because of you. ", I screamed at him.  "Okay I may have made a mistake here and there, but if you just listen to my reasons-", Brim said before I interrupted him. "What other fucking reason could there be. I don't care that you know right from wrong, you still are the same very thing that you are: a fucking demon in hell. You don't live life like you should. You live life on the edge because you can't die. You won't ever know what it's like to live with regret. ", I said to him. "Rocky just let me expla-", he tried to speak.  "No! I want you to leave me alone! You don't know shit about me and how I work! Just fuck off! Good Fucking Grief!", I said to him slumping down onto the floor. The look on Brim's face said that he knows that I was seriously pissed off. It was the moment a lot of people see as the moment to try and win back the partner in those buddy cop comedies. Or even those moments in a horror movie when the band of heroes are spread apart but still end up trying to get back together to find a giant clown or some shit like that.  His shift in tone was declared by the sigh in his voice. He  walked over next to me by the couch and slumped down next to me. "Did I ever tell you about my life before I was a demon?", he said in a serious voice. I looked over at him. I was confused about what he meant by that. "Before? Weren't you always one. I thought the devil produces those like it's a production line.", I assumed. "Not since 1934, long story,  but she started selecting people who end up dying and going to hell. I was one of the  selected. But anyways, I was around your age when I met a girl who I was head over heels for. She was a little similar to Sunset, just not as tall. I met her back in my old job of a biophysicist. She was super smart, probably gonna change the world one day. I was feeling like she was the one, but like you I kept second guessing myself and ended up never once telling her how I felt. What ended up happening was that she moved onto another person who clearly had enough to tell her that he was better for her. The two ended up getting married and well, I got left in the dust with my sorrow and ended up doing a lot of bad things because of it.", Brim explained.  If it were a different tone of voice, I wouldn't believe Brim in the slightest. Quite honestly,  I would have elbowed him in the eye again for trying to lie to me, but I could tell deep down in his voice that he was being honest and down to earth with me. "Wow, was she pretty?", I asked him.  "The most gorgeous girl in the world. She had a golden heart that cared about anything in need. But sadly,  she ended up with someone else because I couldn't pull the trigger. Then I ended up creating the formula for the atomic bomb", He said  taking out his box of cigarettes.  "What? I thought Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb.", I assumed.  "No! That bastard stole my idea while I was in jail for being drunk, that damn nasty jew! Oh sorry,  forgot about you being Jewish.", Brim said apologizing.  "No no it's cool. It's more my parents than me.", I said to him. "But look my point is, I regret not pulling the trigger to tell her how I felt about her.  And when I died and became a demon, I swore to myself that I would help people who were in a situation like I was: feeling stuck and not having a way out of it. It's what I tried doing for my past people, and well ...they weren't ready for me yet. You were the first to make it this far and to be honest,  you're first best friend in the real world that I have had in awhile.", Brim said to me. I couldn't believe that I was now being considered a best friend. I know being a boyfriend was something else, but it was strange to have a friend who cared about me that I wasn't attracted to. It made me feel like I mattered a little more. "Oh my god, I have been a real jerk these past two days.", I said to Brim. "No, it was partially my fault for taking a bad approach into this. I should have been honest, but not too honest with you. ", Brim said apologizing.  "We are a weird match for each other as friends.  How the fuck did we somehow get mixed together?", I rhetorically asked. "I don't know either, but all I want to do right now is smoke this cigarette and try to start over with you. You want one?", he asked offering me one. I had never ever thought it was cool to smoke. It is literally just inhaling tar to mess up your lungs and age you twenty years faster, but at that moment it was something I didn't feel like it could go wrong to accept it from a friend. "Yeah. I'll take one.", I responded taking it from him. "This your first time?", he asked. "Yeah, but might as well try everything at this point. Light me up.", I asked him. He took a lighter he had in his other hand and lit me up. As soon as the flame hit the end of the cigarette,  I felt the smoke creep into my mouth as I sucked in. For my first puff, I lasted for about four seconds before coughing up like I was choking. The taste then came in as I tasted nothing but tar and disappointment.  "Jesus! You actually enjoy this? ", I asked Brim.  "You get used to the taste after a while.", Brim explained to me as he lit his. He and I just sat there smoking our cigarettes in our hands just talking to each other about stuff that didn't pertain to what we had planned to do next. I don't exactly remember it all that well, but it was just about what to friends hanging out would talk about. Not once did we move or do anything else,  there we just sat and talked. If we were supposed to discuss what we were supposed to do to explain all of this to Sunset, we most definitely didn’t do that. We were too busy talking and trying to start back from scratch. Ha ha ha ha! Nice call back to chapter one. Right. It hit me that we needed to tell her eventually, so I decided that later in the afternoon I would tell her the truth about Brim. I grabbed my phone and decided to text Sunset about meeting up for coffee later that afternoon. I kept it casual, not important. I didn’t want it to seem like I needed to see her right away since I literally just spent the night with her. However, she took me by surprise by texting me that she could go get some coffee now since her headache was gone suddenly. Great, now the plot can move forward. Hey! I’m the only one who can fourth wall break here. Get your own story to do that. Okay okay, sorry for trying to have a little fun with it. Anyways, after getting that text, I got up off the floor and changed my shirt so I didn’t smell like ash. “So, You just gonna go right in head first for this?”, Brim asked me. “I don’t know. I’ll probably do whatever feels right. At this point, let's just do it and see where we go with it.”, I told Brim. “Fair enough. I’ve always preferred improv. More skill involved by working on the spot.”, he said getting up and snapping his signature red varsity jacket. Without saying another word, we walked out the apartment to go head to the one place that we knew about: Loo’s Diner. On our way to meet Sunset, Brim and I were discussing a way to introduce him before just straight up just showing her Brim. We couldn’t really decide on an exact set of words to say, but we decided that the best way to do was to show her the source in which Brim came from: Shout At The Devil whiskey. Finally, we decided that it would be best if I went in alone for the moment as I began to talk a little bit more and try and decipher a few words to speak about how this all happened. Sounds easy right? I made it to the diner and sat at a nearby booth. I only ordered water because it typically calms my nerves in the moment when alcohol isn’t around. Yeah I know, I’m probably an alcoholic in denial, but over these past couple of days it’s only been in pleasure not stress related. I promise you after this you won’t see me do something stupid with Sunset. You know exactly what I mean. If you still don’t know, then check on those abuse stories and then look us in the eye and say you don’t know. As I sat there alone for the moment, I saw Sunset walked into the diner wearing her usual clothes that she wears. She was looking a lot better headache wise. She was a lot more alert than usual. “Hey friend! Long time no see.”, Sunset said sitting in the seat across from me.  “Yeah, how are you feeling?”, I asked her. “Much better. It’s strange, I thought the headache would last all day but literally as soon as I laid down on my bed, it was like I never drank at all.”, Sunset explained. “Well that’s good. Figured it would be a long shot to ask if you wanted to get some coffee, but you surprised me when you said you were down.”, I told her. “Well of course I would. If I felt better and you weren’t doing anything then I would like to spend some time with you. After all, you’re having a coffee with me for the first time.”, Sunset said placing her head on her hand. “Yeah, but I was also hoping to…..”, I said before going silent. I blanked out on the words. But I wasn’t worried. After all, Brim did say that improv was more difficult than planning. “Hoping to what?”, Sunset asked. A waitress came by to pour us some coffee. I sipped it a little bit before finally coming up with the right words. “Okay, I need to confess something about me. More specifically about that friend of mine.”, I told Sunset straight. “Okay?”, she said looking a bit confused. “Alright…..Here’s the truth. This friend of mine I met at a bar and well, it is a bit strange how he came to be.”, I tried to explain. “I don’t understand.”, she responded. “Well…..oh god, this is gonna look crazy on my part. Look, whatever I tell you, you promise to not think I’m crazy or you’re gonna freak out?”, I asked her. “I mean, of course I won’t think your crazy. Unless of course you did something seriously bad like kill someone.”, she told me. “Okay good. Okay…….so this friend he came from…...oh jesus this won’t work. Okay, I can’t really explain it, but I can show you. You need to promise that you won’t freak out about this.”, I warned her. “I told you I won’t freak out, but what are you talking about?”, she asked. “You’ll see. Just, don’t freak out okay?”, I asked her. She nodded letting me know that she won’t think any differently of me. I trusted her, now was the time to show my cards. I pulled out the bottle of Shout At The Devil out from under the table and put it out in front of her. At first, she gave me a look of confusion. “What does a bottle of whiskey have to do wi-”, she said as she grabbed the bottle before feeling it shake. She had dropped the bottle on the table quickly in fear of what she had grabbed. The bottle shook more and more before the cap of the bottle flew off as the smoke and small flames came out. Sunset gave a small scream from this, but it was to be an expected reaction. As the flames died down, out came a humanistic shape taking form right next to our table. Then what came next was a faint and scream of excitement from the one out of the bottle, the one, the only, Brimstone! “Two Thousand Minutes can give you such a crick in the neck!”, Brim said pushing the bottle away. Sunset’s eyes were as wide as they could be. She had a very hard time adjusting to what she was seeing. “Oh, How rude of me! I really need to break that habit. Name’s Brimstone. Or Brim for short.”, He said holding out his hand to Sunset. She was still silent, letting her mouth drift open. “Uh Rocky ...I thought you said she was a very nice person, she is leaving me hanging.”, Brim said to me. “Sunset. I know it’s a lot but I’ll try my best to answer any questions you have on him.”, I told her. “What...the hell is that?”, She asked pointing at Brim. “I prefer the title of ‘who’ please. I just told you my name was Brim.”, Brim said to her. “He is…my demon in hell. He can only be seen by you and me. Everyone else here cannot see him right now.”, I explained to her. “Okay, how did he come to meet you?”, Sunset asked. “Well, it’s a magic whiskey that summons him based on the problems that you have. For me it was quitting my job and…...well, asking you out.”, I explained to her. “Wait, so you have been listening to him the whole time?”, she asked me. “Well yes, but you should know that he wasn’t there when you and I were going out. Or at least he wasn’t by my side, he was just watching over it.”, I explained. She looked back at Brim and then back at me. “But look. I didn’t listen to everything he said. I really only listened to the majority of things he said about me thinking for myself. All that stuff I said last night about how much you mean to me and even this morning, that was all true. All I did was listen to advice from Brim and did what felt right. Look, I do really like you Sunset. Like really really like you. I wanted to tell you about him before well, you thought differently about me well, hiding a demon from you. Can you forgive me for seeming a bit weird for hiding him?”, I asked her. She was silent for a moment before she looked back at Brim. "Is he being honest about this?", she asked Brim. "I've been with the guy for the past two days. If he wasn't being honest,  then all those jerk off sessions were for nothing. ", Brim said. "BRIM!", I said to him in disapproval.  "What? It's not like its gonna be weird since you two already had sex.", He said to me. "Yeah but you don't just say that information out loud in front of her.", I told him.  "She was gonna find out one way or another Romeo. ", he said. "Guys!", Sunset said interrupting our argument.  I looked back at her.  "I don't think I could ever turn you away for something like this. Yes, it's gonna be a little weird having this, demon around us, but I think I could live with him.", Sunset said with a small smile. "You really mean it?", I asked her. "Well yeah. It's not the strangest thing I've come across. ", Sunset added. "Wait, a demon from hell is not the weirdest thing to you? Are you sure you're not a demon as well?", Brim asked. "No, I'm not. But, While we are on the subject of confessing some strange things,  I have one to make Rocky. ", She said suddenly blushing.  "What is it?", I asked her. "Okay, don't get weirded out by me admitting this or think that I'm lying. I'm being serious about this. I…...am not from this world.", Sunset admitted. "What?", Brim and I asked confused.  "You see, I'm actually…..a pony from another alternate universe.", she said embarrassed.  "Whaaaat!?", I exclaimed suddenly.  "Holy shit that is a plot twist! Well for us it is, I don't know about you reader, did you know something about this?", Brim asked at nothing.  "I know. It sounds weird and completely insane,  but I'm telling the truth. ", Sunset said to me. I had nothing to say. Nothing in my mind to try and ask about this. All I did was the first thing that came to my mind. After a few moments of silence, I began to laugh. As every second passed, the laughs got louder and more and more hysterical. I was on the verge of tears from laughter.  "What are you laughing about?", Sunset asked me confused.  "Uh yeah. I would like to know as well. Your not going simple on me are you?", Brim asked me. I managed to calm my laughter down to speak. "First, I managed to get drunk on a whiskey that spawned a demon that helped me out with my problems, and now the girl I'm dating is apparently a pony from another universe. Oh my god my life is fucking crazy!", I said before erupting into laughter again. Sunset had given a small chuckle before erupting into laughter with me.  Brim on the other hand stood silently.  "Oh my Celestia we both have these crazy lives.", Sunset said in the middle of our laughing.  Soon we had stopped laughing and just looked at each other in the eyes before leaning into kissing one another on the lips. It was the only thing that felt right at that moment. We had just shared the most weird confessions to stuff that people would think we were crazy about. Our kiss only lasted about five seconds before we were going to say something to each other.  "I love you.",Sunset and I said at the exact same time. Brim, looking at the situation appearing before him, threw up next to us. "Oh Lucy, that is fucking gross. Ugh I fucking hate the sight of new love.", Brim said after he threw up.  Both me and Sunset laughed at Brim a little more before we decided to finish coffee that day. We both shared one last goodbye kiss before we went home. Brim was calling me gay the whole way home for doing that out in the open, but I didn't care. The person I had a crush on had shared the interest of having crazy experiences happen in her life. That's what let me know right away that I chose the right girl. When Brim and I got home, we had continued right where we left off, only I didn't smoke. Too gross for me. After that, things were looking perfect. The very next day I sent in that recommendation letter and got told that by next week I would be working. Sunset had managed to make it out of her class and try out for the job I was working at as well. And well, Brim was making my day a little bit more enjoyable. Everything was coming together. The perfect ending to a story right? Wrong! What, you thought this was gonna be the ending of this story? You are oh so predictable. Instead of telling you about what happens next, I'm gonna leave you on a cliffhanger. What you gonna do about it? Nothing.  You are just gonna sit there and wait for the next chapter. Don't like it? Well that sucks don't it. See you next chapter horse fuckers.