----
Featherweight reluctantly stepped in through the doorway, watching as the world went dark as the door behind him slammed shut and any chance of him changing his mind disappearing behind it. He stared at the door, his hooves shaking slightly.
Before him was a short hallway, silhouetted by a faint red glow with the distant sounds of giggles and gasps muffled in the distance. An audible gulp from was the only sound before he began my dissent further down the hallway and deeper into the ominous red glow. He finally stepped up to the second door, a tiny sign faded by time read 'watch your step' stared right back at him.
With a shuttering breath, he reached out and opened the door, and was instantly hit in the face by the pungent scent of alcohol and other toxins. The site before him was one I've heard Snips describe of his dream house, childish illusions of mares across his lap, cigar smoke tinting and tainting the air around you with a sick grey.
Other than the obvious whorses, whom made no haste to ignore Featherweight following his entrance, Snips and Snails sat on one of the dark couches holding drinks and scandalously appearing mares.
"Hey, hey!" Snips cheered, raising a glass. "Look who finally decided to show up!"
Featherweight could taste the foulness of the air, walking over towards his friends and shying away from the sitting mares reaching out to him with their socked hooves. "Y-Yeah...here I, uh, am." His confidence as visible as the air freshener in the room, his face a turning a deep crimson.
"This place is awesome!" Snails said, followed by the giggle of the mare on his lap.
Awesome. I show up with the only two shameless colts I know and some how that exclamation is still lost on me.. Featherweight grinned, nervously.
"Say..." Snips grinned, turning to the mare in his lap. "I think our friend here needs some company."
The only company that I needed had left nearly minutes ago, that or the bed I slept in the hour before.
"Why don't you two find yourselves someplace nice and uh-" He pulled out a bag of bits, placing it in the hooves of the mare. "-quiet?"
"No problem, cutie." Her perky voice, shrouded in the filth of her profession brought Featherweight no comfort as she stood away from Snips and approached him. She reached out and held a hoof to his chin, her strong scent leaving his throat a desert wasteland. "No need to be shy...follow me."
Her hoof left Featherweight's bright red face as she passed, allowing him to release the breath he didn't know he held.
That's when something tugged at his hoof. He turned back to the couch, Snips reaching into his coat and placing an item in his hoof.
"Ya know, just as a safety precaution." He winked, nodding towards the direction the mare went.
The condom burned in Featherweight's hoof, setting fire to his already inflamed face and his final opportunity to leave. "Now don't just stand there!" Snips urged him. "Or are you just a wimp?"
Featherweight turned to where the mare waited by the hall, his stomach tied into a slipknot as he trudged over to join her and further down the hall.
His mouth was as dry as a desert, the lump in his throat refusing to go down and threatening to choke him as the mare led Featherweight down the lone hallway. They passed doors baring numbers, the stallion from the door came down the opposite end of the hall. As he slipped by them, he took a second glance at Featherweight, tutting and shaking his head.
They rounded a corner and she him into a darkly lit room. Featherweight yelped as he was tossed onto the lone bed as the mare turned to close the door. Cold silk met his fur as the mare's figure moved in the darkness. He jumped when he felt a hoof press against one of his hind legs, then again when the mare crawled on top of him and stroked his chest.
She let out a sigh in the darkness. "You're a shy one, I can tell. Well there's no need to be."
Her voice, sultry and soft she leaned down and nuzzle Featherweight's neck. Her hooves seemed to have minds of their own as they slid up to the neck of his jacket and licking the zipper into her teeth. In a slow motion, she slid down his body, groping him and unzipping the only barrier between his body and hers.
This is messed up... Featherweight paced in his mind, his eyes shut tight. This. Is. So. Messed up!
Once finished, she pulled opened Featherweight's sweat jacket and rubbed his chest. Featherweight grimaced at the sensation, his limbs frozen under the mare's acts.
His heart raced, the excitement getting rejected physically by his body as the mare crawled back up to face him. Her warm breath hinting nicotine and cider greeted Featherweight's nostrils and his stomach turned.
"Shh...is this your first?" She asked, a hoof stroking his now pale cheek. Featherweight gave no response, his jaw clenched tight refusing to shake. "Now now, it's alright...I think its quite cute."
Her words didn't matter and had no effect on me. I could feel part of myself dying as she groped and nicked my innocence away.
My face was hot, I bit my bottom hard as she went on. "I promise to be gentle...just go with it."
As the mare's rouge lips touched Featherweights, a snapshot image invaded his mind.
And that's when he knew what he had to do.
Featherweight's eyes shot opened, his hooves extending out and pushing the mare off as he sat up and rolled off the bed, gasping for air.
"Oh my!" He heard her exclaim, leaping off the bed and running to his side. "Are you alright? I wasn't too much was I?"
I've got to get out of here... He thought, panting quick before standing to his hooves and running out of the room. He flinched as he heard the door slam against the wall, bolting back down the hall and through the room where Snails and Snips still sat.
"Whoa, whoa!" Snips stood up, rushing over. "What the hay happened, did ya kill her?"
Featherweight barred his teeth, turning to Snips. "I'm not doing this."
"Are you really bitching out?" Snips asked, annoyed. "We came all this way for what, Rumble getting you to back outta this?"
Featherweight narrowed his sight on the unicorn. "What did you just..."
Snails tutted, waving a hoof. "Can you believe he tried to get us to back out of this, man?"
Snips sighed. "I know, saying all this crap about how its bucked up or whatever. He's just mad that there aren't any stallions that work here."
"W-What?" Featherweight stared, nearly dropping the condom.
Snips shook his head. "What, he didn't tell you himself yet? Wow, and after all the fuss about not telling you about this."
Snips shrugged. "Dude's gay, Feathy. And by my guess, he didn't want us to take you here because he's gay for you."
A shattering plate of glass fell a hundred flights in Featherweight's head, a freeze frame of Rumble flying away from him, hitting him in his core. "You threatened to tell-"
"Tell everybody." Snips said, waving a hoof. "But that doesn't matter right now." He said, standing up and placing a hoof on Featherweight's now shaking shoulder. "What is important is that mare waiting in the back with your name all over her."
Featherweight's eyes narrowed, swatting Snips's hoof away from him. "Whoa! What's your problem?"
"Guess!" Featherweight snapped, pushing the unicorn back against the couch and Snails as he stormed off towards the exit.
"Featherweight?!" He heard them call, but his hooves and wings wouldn't stop. His heart pounding in his chest, Featherweight burst through the front door of the brothel and turned back down the street towards the hotel.
----
Featherweight flew as fast as he could down the streets of Manehattan, his throat and stomach burned as he looked up and down the streets. His eyes scanned the many ponies still walking the sidewalks late into the night, the bright lights of the street lamps, shops and buildings proving difficult to find his friend
Eventually, he finally found him. Featherweight spotted Rumble standing outside a restaurant a few blocks from the hotel alone, unaware he was closing in on him. Featherweight landed right in front of him, causing Rumble to jump back against the wall and yell.
"Whoa!" He screamed, earning weird looks from passing ponies. "What the-" He took a closer look at the panting pegasus. "What the hay happened back there?!"
"You didn't tell me?!" Featherweight stomped. "Much less talked to me about it!..."
"Tell you what?" Rumble asked, holding Featherweight up.
Featherweight stopped to catch his breath. "Snips told me...everything. How you didn't want me to go through with it, because you..."
Rumble stopped, slowly realizing what had happened. "Alright, alright." He pulled Featherweight off the sidewalk and into a nearby alley away from onlookers.
He turned to Featherweight, crossing his hooves. "Okay, so I probably owe you an expla-"
"Why did you run off that night?!" Featherweight snapped. "Why, after all the time I've known you up to this point, all we've been through, did it take Snips trying to whore me out to a whorse for you to tell me how you feel?"
Rumble opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by Featherweight's continued ranting.
Not only that, you go ahead and avoid me!" He poked at Rumble chest, watching him flinch. "You know how that made me feel? If you were confused, fine but at least show me that you aren't just dropping me so you can go hang out with your marefriend-"
"It's not like that!" Rumble stomped. "Yeah, how I've acted towards you the past few days held no merit but..." he stopped, rubbing his forehead. "It's-"
"Don't you play the bucking complicated game again!" Featherweight stepped away, shaking his head. "Did you say yes?"
"Feath-"
"Did. You. Say. Yes?" His gaze narrowed, Rumble shrinking under his sudden change from the weaker pegasus.
Rumble's guard failed, taking a step forward. "Feath, I-"
"Don't bucking Feath me, either!" He shouted. "Back on the cloud, I...I..." Featherweight fell back on his haunches, his head bent forward. "Why didn't you tell me?"
...And silence. Painful, bitter, weighted silence. The two pegasi stood alone in the alley, a flickering light above spotlighting the shattering stage Rumble then found himself, standing before his broken friend.
Just before Featherweight could even look up, the distance between him and Rumble was closed save the few inches as he was brought lifted up on to his hind legs, Rumble holding him against himself.
"I'm sorry." Rumble choked, holding the broken down pegasus in his hooves. "I'm sorry, okay? I was confused. After Scootaloo asked me out, I..."
Featherweight's heart was going crazy, the warmth of Rumble's breath on neck sent shivers down his spine. "I don't know how to say it." He sighed, pulling away from Featherweight, bringing them muzzle to muzzle.
Featherweight shuddered as he looked into Rumble's eyes. "Just...when we leave here, from back on the cloud...what are we?"
Rumble gazed into Featherweight's hazel eyes for what he felt was years, the pale pegasi's brown mane hung off to the side. He breathed in deep, taking in his friend's scent and closing his own eyes before he spoke. "No."
Featherweight blinked, stray tears sliding down his cheeks. "Wha..?"
Rumble smirked. "No...Actually, the words I think I used were-" He mock cleared his throat. "-I couldn't, because there was something I had to know."
Featherweight shook his head, disbelief filling his mind with his hooves at Rumble's shoulders and his eyes lost in his. "W-What?"
Flash. Like a picture being taken, Featherweight's mind was in complete whiteness as Rumble closed the distance between them and kissed him.
His heart was on fire. The warmth of Rumble wrapping his hooves around him, the overall nirvana that had washed over him in the moments of the kiss, the forcefulness of it causing a shiver to run up his spine. Featherweight wrapped his hooves around Rumble's neck and pushed back into the kiss, opening his lips and pushed Rumble's tongue back with his own.
He was Featherweight's first and then second kiss. And hopefully every after.
Every laugh we shared, every hoof bump, every joke, every single occasion or time they shared together came together and morphed into each other like a puzzle piece. Any skip of heart beat and pit in Featherweight's stomach, it was all made clear to him in that moment.
Both were out of breath when they pulled away from each other, their lips separating and leaving a trail of saliva between them.
He grinned, panting. "And now I do."
Featherweight, blushing and breathless, could only laugh. He leaned in and rested his head on Rumble's shoulder, nuzzling his chest.
Rumble tightened his hold on him. "We should probably get back to the hotel..." He pulled away, looking his friend in the eyes. "Ya know, before we get in even more trouble than we already are in?"
Featherweight sighed, laying a hoof on his chest. "I...alright."
----
Featherweight laid motionless in his hotel bed, under the covers with hooves atop each other resting on his chest. He watched them rise and fall with his breathing. Finding sleep had become a challenge, his mind proving difficult to slow down as the night's events played itself on rapid loop.
He sat up, hearing a light tapping on his window. Featherweight stood up and out of bed and walked over to the window, opening the curtains and staring wide eyed back at the flying Rumble, holding a bottle of what looked like discount soda from his hotel room.
Featherweight pushed opened his window, smiling at the pegasus. "What are you doing here?"
Rumble shrugged. "Not star gazing, let me in."
Featherweight stood aside as Rumble came in through the window and landed beside him, grabbing the pale pegasus and pulling him towards the bed. "Whoa, wait a minute!"
Rumble chuckled, sitting on the edge of the bed with Featherweight besides him. "So...I wanted to tell you something."
"O-Okay." Featherweight said, scooting to sit closer to his object of affection. "Shoot."
"I talked to Scootaloo." Rumble grinned, only to grimace seconds after. "She's kinda...upset."
Featherweight stared.
"Miffed."
"..."
"Okay, she's pissed." Rumble sighed. "So If you don't mind, I'm just gonna hide in here for a bit." He grinned, wrapping a hoof around Featherweight's shoulders.
Featherweight blushed, leaning against Rumble. "Not at all...wait." He said, turning to Rumble. "What did you tell her?"
Rumble shrugged. "Just that I wasn't interested and what I wanted to know turned out true." He said, a smile growing on his lips. "So now I'm taken."
Featherweight started to sweat. "Did you tell her who would be taking her spot?"
"Maybe."
When Featherweight responded with silence, Rumble stopped. Slowly but surely, the realization came to him and a look of horror grew on his face. "...She doesn't know what room you're in, does she?"
And in the silence that followed, there were three knocks.
The End...?