Buggy and the Beast
Little Moments
"Home at last," gasped Beets as he flung open the apartment door while carrying his unwanted roommate in his magic. He floated the changeling across the floor and sat her carefully down on one of the dirty rag rugs covering up a thin spot in the carpet before turning around and closing the door behind him. "I'm beat."
"Aww, and I feel like a newlywed," said the disguised changeling with a giggle. "How about we spend all day with you feeding me grapes in bed to make the experience complete?"
Without even giving the annoying changeling a sharp look, Beets staggered into the kitchen and banged a pot down onto the stove. "We have artichoke chilli and artichoke chilli. And for grapes, I've got a half a box of raisins in the icebox. They're a little furry on top, but they should be fine."
"Any cereal?" asked the changeling. "You really don't want to smell what artichokes do to me."
There were a few wrinkled bags of various cereals in the tin box he used to keep the bugs out of his dry groceries, but together they might have been able to fill about half a bowl. Plus the half-carton of almond milk in the icebox had evaporated down to a thick sticky residue at the bottom of the carton which Beets had taken to using as coffee creamer.
While he stood there and considered their limited dining options, the changeling came padding into the kitchen, having shed her pegasus disguise and found Beet Salad's collection of stockings somehow. Generally, socks were only worn with winter boots or galoshes in the case of rain being scheduled during one of Beets' evening watchpony sessions, but she seemed to think that the fairly thin and slightly holey socks were just the most fantastic toys. She skidded around the kitchenette linoleum floor a few times, then lifted one hoof to consider the resulting dark stains on the cotton fabric.
“Don't you ever clean this place?”
“If you don't like it, leave,” grunted Beets, dropping the last can of artichoke chilli on the counter and looking for the can opener.
“Yeah, like this?” The changeling extended one holey, sock-covered leg. The chitin underneath the violet hoof shellac and elastic wrap seemed to have darkened to a much deeper and healthier shade over the last few days, although Beets could still spot the occasional wince of pain when the changeling put her hoof down wrong. “It’s still too much work to keep up the disguise, and I'm not going to find another gullible sucker to take me in without lifting my tail for them, so…”
“Suppose I'm stuck with you for a few days,” grumbled Beets, frowning up into his cluttered cabinets as if his mere hunger would cause a pizza to magically appear, or even a few dozen egg rolls. "Eating me out of house and home.”
“It’s a good thing I got a quick snack from the Royal Couple then, isn’t it?” asked the changeling with a flick of her tail against Beets’ cutie mark. “I’m good for a couple of days, so why don't you take your medical shampoo and the bottle of Thunderbolt! conditioner I bought for you, and go take your shower while I work on dinner. Or lunch. Or whatever you call it at this time of day.”
“I’ve got this,” grumbled Beets even as the changeling rummaged around in the bag they had brought back from the morning's medical appointment. Two shampoo bottles floated over in front of his nose, boosted by the lime-green aura of the changeling's magic and matching the same magic lifting the pot from the stove and over to the sink.
"A likely story," said the changeling with a smirk. "You need a mare around here so bad. Go on, before I change my mind."
* ♥ *
As much as Beets did not want to admit it, the medical shampoo actually felt good on his hide, tingling a little in the dry, flakey sections of his coat and smelling vaguely herbal. He took his time, as there was no critical deadline like his normal evening showers where lingering would result in penalty bits knocked off his nightly patrol. He even tried the conditioner, just to see what it was like, although Thunderbolt! was most probably meant for pegasi because it smelled vaguely of ozone and spring breezes. After drying off, he took a long look at himself in the cracked bathroom mirror.
It was a little disconcerting. The bruise on his side was purpling up nicely, and there were little lumps around his jaw as if he had been attacked by a beehive, but his coat looked smoother and more regular than it had since he was a colt. In short, the stallions who looked back at him from either side of the crack in the mirror did not really look like Beet Salad, but perhaps a relative of some sort instead.
"I'm turning into a changeling," groused Beets as he left the bathroom for the familiar refuge of his tiny kitchen, only to find his simple culinary refuge had changed even more than he had. From the heat he could feel across his face, the oven was obviously on, with two sauce pans sitting on the back burners and a flour-spotted changeling intently stirring whatever was in them with a wooden spoon.
“Finally!” huffed the changeling. “I’ve got the cornbread in the oven, the syrup is in the second pan so don't let it scorch. I set the timer for the cherry bars so when it rings, pull them and the cornbread out and turn the oven off.” She dashed by him with a quick kiss to the cheek on her way to the bathroom. “Let them cool before sampling!” she called back over her shoulder before vanishing into the bathroom.
Beet Salad regarded the kitchen range and the infrequently-used set of cooking utensils it now sported. He had never actually turned the oven on except for a frozen pizza or two. Only the back burners on the range top had ever been used, because he had doubts about the front two burners even functioning with the ages-old layer of blackened gunk on them.
Still, working the stove could not be too difficult if a changeling could do it, so he stirred the inky black stuff on the back burner while the sound of the shower indicated what the changeling was doing instead. After a while, he became so engrossed in cooking that he nearly missed a damp changeling slipping up behind him and taking a deep whiff of his mane.
"Umm, a hot stallion in his natural habitat: cooking for me. Doesn't smell too bad, either." She inspected the cornbread by putting her forehooves up on the edge of the oven in order to get enough altitude to look inside the pan before pulling a couple of paper plates out of the stack and loading them up.
He took his own plate and sat down at the kitchenette table, one of the few times he had actually used it for the intended purpose. After due consideration of the meal and the insect who had put it together, Beets screwed up his courage and took a bite of the cornbread which had been topped by a watery trickle of maple-ish syrup. It was not too bad, better than he could have done himself. Using sugar, water, and some artificial maple flavoring to make syrup was something Beets had never tried, and it went fairly well with the chunky cornbread.
"So?" asked the slightly-damp changeling, still thankfully looking like a changeling as she eyed him over her much smaller plate of cornbread.
"So?" he responded. "It's cornbread. So what?"
The changeling shrugged and used her magic to pick up the cherry bars which had just come out of the oven. "I was going to frost these, but if that's the way you feel about my cooking." She stood by the trash can, holding the cookie sheet of cherry bars over it like a supervillain holding a young mare hostage, complete with villainous smirk. "Last chance."
Beets shrugged. "The flour has weevils in it."
"What?" The changeling inspected the cookie sheet closely. "I thought those were just flecks or something. Why didn't you say something?"
Beets shrugged again as he finished off his cornbread. "Thought you were a bug, and they were bugs, so no big deal. The cornmeal was in a sealed container. What's the matter, afraid of a little cannibalizing?"
"No! It's just… Nevermind." The changeling scraped the remains of the cherry-bug bars into the trash and proceeded to wash what dishes were left after the paper plates and plastic silverware were thrown away. Beets simply sat where he was and watched, feeling too tired to even light up his horn and contribute to the cleanup but not tired enough to trudge off to bed. It was oddly weirdly strangely bizarre to have such an alien creature in his house cooking his food and cleaning up his dishes afterwards when Beets had never even had Nectarine stop by to make dinner once, let alone any female of his own species. He idly mused about how many lives the changeling had lived, and how many different jobs she had held over the years, whereas he had landed in this small apartment years ago and remained just as fixed and as solid as the crusty black stuff baked onto the front of the stove. She could obviously cook and clean, as well as do whatever office work she did in the Town Hall, and several unguarded remarks revealed she had once been a dental hygienist and knew how to play a guitar, but other than those few facts, the changeling had been a closed book.
"Bit for your thoughts," said the changeling as she dried the pots and cookie sheet on a questionable towel. "What are you thinking about? Because it's nice, just a low stream of emotions that I can suck on while wiggling my tush in front of the sink." She wriggled said body portion and looked back at him with a smirk. "Think I should get a saucy maid outfit, or just an apron with a few strategic holes?"
"Thinking is over," declared Beets with a yawn. "Going to bed now. Come on back when you—"
The changeling had just bent over to put the cookie sheet back under the sink, using the excuse to lift her tail and strike as sexy pose as it was possible for a banged-up bug to attempt, when she let out a piercing screech which most likely could have been heard up on the fourth floor. Backpeddling with her legs flying in all directions, the changeling scrambled up the kitchen chair, onto the far-too-small kitchenette table, and right up onto Beet Salad's back, screaming all the while.
"Spider! Spider! Kill it! Kill it! Die! Die!"
Beets' chair overbalanced with the weight of the changeling on his head and the two of them tipped over into a pile of cardboard boxes holding miscellaneous stuff he had been intending on throwing away but had never gotten around to it. The crunching beneath him on impact chronicled the progress of some of the stuff from 'useful' to the 'junk' category, and the category grew as the changeling's attempts to climb up on top of his head intensified with the scrambling of chitinous hooves in his face and his resulting stumble and fall back into the boxes.
"Just hold on!" he bellowed, lighting his horn and floating the frantic changeling up to the ceiling, where she was still waving her legs around but at least not doing any physical injury to him. Even her wings, covered in shellac and stuck to her sides, trembled as if to lift the insect away from the terrifying tiny predator she had found. For a brief moment he thought the changeling was going to calm down, but then he happened to drift her into some of the cobwebs still draped across portions of the ceiling and her shrieking resumed, although for a shorter period of time.
"Ow," he said, running a hoof across his face and looking at the red smear from where an energetic hoof had scratched him across one cheek. "Can't believe I have a bug who is afraid of bugs."
"Big spider," whispered the changeling, still hovering at the ceiling while suspended in his magic. "Big. Squash it. Kill it."
"Really?" Beets walked back into the kitchen and looked into the pile of old pans and trays he had inherited when his parents passed away. He had shoved them all under the sink after the funerals and tried to ignore their lurking presence, much as if they were metal memories which refused to be buried underground and left to rot. The smear of blood on his hoof was as red as the apple dumplings Mom made in the deep pan, still bearing a thin crust running around the edge which he had never been willing to wash away. He moved the pan to one side in order to look for the spider, only to find the heavy cast-iron skillet instead, nearly black with carbon from Dad's morning eggs. He had preferred them with crispy edges and the centers running yellow every morning before leaving for work, rich and flavorful, filled with the cholesterols which had eventually clogged his arteries and killed him. Beets shoved it back under the sink along with the rest, grabbing each metal memory and putting it away into the darkness where it would not haunt him.
...until he touched the egg poacher with his magic. It was such a simple kitchen tool, sitting on the top of the metal pile as if it were mocking him. He could hear the little colt who would thump one hoof against the kitchen table and chant 'Eeets!' while his favorite breakfast of barely solid eggs was being prepared. Sprout wanted to be just like his father, but instead of just smearing the inside of the egg around the plate to be sopped up by the rest of the egg white and the buttered toast followup, he would just—
Beets yanked his attention away from the innocent pans and towards a long-legged spider who seemed confused about all of the noise. He ever so gently reached out with his magic and lofted the spider up into the air. It spun slowly and silently, waving its long, jointed legs as he walked outside and placed it carefully onto a bush. The tiny spider with the entirely too long legs moved in little jerks as it moved for the shadows and vanished. The stubby shrubs and ragged short rough grass that Missus Spitonoikokýris had planted around the apartment building in order to make the building look less like a warehouse could have concealed a thousand of its kind, bugs hiding in plain sight, just like the changeling back in his room. Innocent or deadly, it did not seem to matter any more. He just wanted to…
The world was far too hot and filled with sharp edges for Beets today. It was far too late in the day. There was nothing stronger in the apartment than a few bottles of beer in the bottom of the icebox, if the changeling had not drank them already. The front door gave a sharp click as he stepped back into his room, rattling and clicking in a familiar pattern as he set the locks and crawled into his bed to escape from the world.
He did not even notice when the changeling finished turning out the lights and slipped into bed at his side.
Sleep took forever to overcome him, but eventually he gave in and allowed it to carry him far, far away, to a land where doctors could always cure the most fearsome illness, and little brothers did not die before their time.