//------------------------------// // Deals and Reels // Story: A Cog in the Machine // by Zoom zoom //------------------------------// You lay in your bed looking at the ceiling for some time. You were not sure when Pinkie had gotten you home and broken up the party, but that mattered little as you continued to remember the look in Applebloom’s eyes. “Did I really have to turn her down like that? I could have just taken her aside and not made it so public. I could have been far gentler about this.” These thoughts flooded you as the pain in your chest increased. You needed to do something to take your mind off this. With little else to do in this way you went back to look at your school books. Suddenly you were not as confident in being able to catch up to everypony else. All the contents of these books looked like nothing but gibberish. Even your mind wouldn’t let you hide from figuring out what to do with Applebloom it seems. But what else could you do? Just then you hear the door to your room open as Featherweight and Sweetie Belle come through. You see them through the reflection in the glass, only now noticing it has gotten dark. How long were you out of it after what you said? Based on the way the two are holding themselves Featherweight was originally on his way alone when Sweetie must have noticed and joined him about halfway up the stairs and he was already at the top by the time he noticed, otherwise you would have heard him falling down them from the shock of being this close to his crush, which even now was making him quake in his hooves. Normally you’d be happy at the fact you were able to do what some of your favorite book heroes could do, but now it just made you more aware of things that were making you feel uneasy. Sweetie didn’t seem angry with you, but she was still obviously upset. Her attempts at setting you up with Applebloom had blown up to nothing. She apparently thought she was going to make a good match maker in the future. You were mad enough at her for encouraging Applebloom into such an embarrassing position you wanted to spoil what her real talent was to her right now, but you thought better of it. It wouldn’t help anything and really she hadn’t done something to outright hurt you. And still no matter what, at the end of the day she was still a friend to you. “Scootaloo is still mad,” she said with a tone that you could tell was supposed to come off as both informative and cold. She was attempting to be so, but while not the closest to you of your friends, she must have known you better than anyone besides Applebloom and Pinkie to even encourage such behavior. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you anymore.” “How’s Applebloom doing?” you asked simply. You had to know sooner, even if she was crying her eyes out you could at least start putting your mind at ease and agree there wasn’t anything you could do about it. And yet something in your gut hurt at even the thought of that. What was this nagging feeling? “Not good,” the filly’s replied. “I guess I shouldn’t have gone and told her to dress up. She wasn’t too sure about you feeling the same way in the first place. Guess I pushed her too much and now she’s shut up in her room.” It was obvious what Applebloom was feeling. But you couldn’t let that get to you. It shouldn’t involve you. You should really care beyond the fact a friend of yours was hurt by you. But the more you tried to control this flow of emotions, the more it was getting to you. You kept swallowing the first things coming to mind to say. Such things were irrational, and it led to more hurting if you said them. So instead your lips parted to say in a dull tone that you made sure came off as uncaring as possible. “Well at least it’s all said and done. She’ll be over this by the time school starts and we can all just forget this ever happened.” That if anything finally got Sweetie Belle to try to lunge at you. Featherweight gained some composure enough to hold her back from doing it. You flinched as she shouted every other word in anger. “You THINK Applebloom with just get OVER THIS like it was NOTHING! She’s so torn up about what just happened I don’t think she’ll come out all WEEK.” You kept your acting up. It was hard to swallow whatever it was trying to bubble out of you, but you had gotten used to hiding emotions you did know from others in the past. Dilly Dally would likely have given you scars otherwise. “It’s just a simple crush she has.” You made a laugh that any actor could call robotic, but for a girl who wasn’t in the know of her true talents to strengthen them yet it was working fine. “It’s just the fact I’m the new guy and didn’t have a reason to laugh at her anyway. It’s not like we have anything in common that we like. I can’t think of one besides hanging out with you and Scootaloo. We’d get bored in an instant.” The pain was increasing but you continue. “I’ll bet she’ll forget all about this when somepony else catches her fancy.” You prepared yourself. You needed to sell this. When Sweetie Belle hits you, you can play the bad guy. Applebloom will hear about this and be out of her stupor even faster. Granted the result will be seeing you as the enemy of all girls but you can live with it since time heals that kind of thing so best you suffer instead of a friend. It doesn’t come however. “Look me in the eyes and say it then.” “I hardly,” you began. “Face me right now!” Her voice shook you to your core and you complied. Her anger seems so hot and yet as she sees you look at her it cools almost immediately. Did she see something? You were keeping your face as straight as you could. Was there something you didn’t notice? “Look at you. I could tell you liked her, which was the strange part. I still don’t get why you are keeping up lying to yourself and to her. You only hurt each other doing this. Applebloom doesn’t have a small meaningless crush on you. I tell you that much.” Now this was getting to you, who was Sweetie Belle to tell you all this? Your gaze fell to your friend sitting there with not much to say because of his contact with the girl and slowly a plan crawled into your mind. “Okay,” you finally say, “I’ll make a deal with you. It will prove if you’re right or not. The downside is you can’t tell Applebloom or Scootaloo about this bet I’m about to throw at you so Applebloom won’t be recovering as fast as a result.” Sweetie looks as if she noticed you say something but you keep going. “You get Featherweight here to act lovey dovey with you and date you for two full weeks. Even if it doesn’t really get serious, two weeks and at least two dates where every single time I see you two together you will be all over each other. Let’s see how you like being forced to be with somepony. And if Applebloom doesn’t have her little crush gone by then I’ll do anything you wish of me then.” At this Sweetie Belle all but laughs, “Is that all? I can do that easy. You are on!” Then she remembered there was a pair who had to agree to this and turned to the white Pegasus who had gone even more pale than usual. With Sweetie now at full attention to him to give him a wink, which was forced but still honest if that gut throb would just go away. “That is if that is okay with you Featherweight.” “F-Fine,” was all the poor guy could manage. It was enough though and Sweetie pulled him out of the room before looking back at you to confirm. You nodded as Sweetie did an odd gesture that ended with poking her hoof in her eye. She still refused to leave so you copied and she finally was satisfied and left. The house grew quiet after that. You could hear Sweetie talking to somepony before leaving. Then you caught her talking about the details of what she would need from Featherweight outside but didn’t hear what it was about. Your friend was either going to bash your head in or give you a giant hug the next time you saw him, maybe both. Part of you was glad though, if this worked out maybe Sweetie would at least clear the air with Featherweight so that even if she didn’t like him like that he could stop the entire issue of going completely stupid around her. Waspinator hummed loudly into the room along with Pinkie and Gummy. How had you not noticed the bug wasn’t even in your hair all this time? Was that was Sweetie noticed? That you were off your game a bit? What seemed more pressing was that Pinkie was carrying in a large projector with a roll of film in her mouth that she sets down before turning her attention to you. “So you wanna talk about what just happened?” You say nothing. Pinkie went back to setting up the projector. “Twilight ordered a new one of these so she let me have this one since it’s still in pretty good shape if you line up the audio tracks with it. I don’t get how it works with a newer film like this though.” “I’ll help,” you suggest trying to get something to do that didn’t go back to Applebloom in some way. The system was easy enough to figure out from sight, but the audio set up for this newer film was indeed tricky as you had to point out that it needed an attachment. Pinkie looked disappointed but not defeated. “Oh well. This stuff is better with audio but just visuals is enough anyway since all it would be is sounds since I don’t think you would pick up the language, comes with subtitles at the bottom to follow along too. I’ll ask Twilight for that tomorrow. You should watch this with me. I bet you’ll love it.” “I’ll bite,” you say not wanting to point out that since it is set up in your room you can’t avoid watching it anyway. “What is this movie?” “Only one of the finest examples of a little genre called Kung fu. Ever hear of it?” You shook your head. “Well then let’s watch. You need some schooling in this before I can let you move on.” You were not sure what that meant but sat down as Pinkie started up the movie and got Fresh Popcorn from under your bed. You just stopped questioning it at this point.