A Secret Crush

by Kill Joy

First Place

Kissin' Cousins

By: Appleloosan Psychiatrist

Wait, Braeburn tried to tell the foals he didn’t know except through blood. The word came out as a gasp for air. The room was dark, and Big Macintosh disappeared into it first, like a sacrifice to an eager evil. Braeburn tried pushing back but before he could muster even another syllable of protest, he was shoved into the closet. Applejack, with a dozen grinning foals behind her, leered at the two of them for a second, her face silhouetted in the faint light, before slamming the door shut.

The two colts were bathed in the instant darkness. The closet was cramped, but despite Big Macintosh being only a few inches from him, all he saw as an formless moving mass to represent his cousin. He couldn’t see the dust, but the disturbance made it’s existence obvious – Braeburn barely held back a tight sneeze.

Braeburn backed up from Big Macintosh, uncomfortably close as they were. He stood up and began pacing as well as possible in the meager space. He walked a step or two, then spun. There was a muzzle on him whenever he was in front of strangers, but now that it was just he and Big Macintosh, he felt at ease enough to be furious. The words rushed out of him in a frantic whisper. He knew his ranting was childish, but he felt so in the presence of his older cousin, even though Big Macintosh was still a few years from adulthood himself.

“I can’t believe your sister, doing something like this,”

“She’s your cousin, too...cuz.” Big Macintosh added.

“She should have got us out of this, what was she thinking,”

“Braeburn.” Big Macintosh said.

“You could have talked some sense into her, you know, I don’t see-”

“Braeburn.” Big Macintosh said.

“I’ll just stay home next year, not even bothe-”

“Braeburn!” Big Macintosh said, slightly louder.

“What?” Braeburn suddenly rounded.

“She pushed us in here, didn’t she?” Big Macintosh asked.

Braeburn was quiet as he awaited a conclusion to this waiting for a conclusion to this.

“So?” Braeburn eventually said.

“Well, normally, we should have kissed in front of everyone, right? So if no one’s lookin’...” Big Macintosh said.

Braeburn blinked in a direction that he thought might be his cousin’s face.

“Oh,” Braeburn said. He sat down, and felt himself growing warm. Or maybe he’d just now realized how crowded and hot the tiny closet was.

“Mhm,” Big Macintosh said simply.

“Oh,” Braeburn said again, and stared into the darkness.

“I sure have a clever pair of cousins,” Braeburn added a few seconds of silence.

Big Macintosh gave a snorting, not-quite-laugh in way of a reply.

Braeburn simply sat and listened. There was nothing else to do; nothing else to see. The muffled voices of the foals waiting for them outside the door were too blurry and quiet to be anything more than indistinct noise.

Just like his memories of the last hour. They were a mess of noise and formless images of fillies and colts he’d only recognized in dusty photo albums. The adults had all gone to bed – the traditional family reunion dinner long over – and as their parents curled up in various corners of Sweet Apple Acres, the foals had gathered conspiratorially around a single empty bottle, and they chose Braeburn as the first to spin it.

“This sure is gonna be a long wait,” Braeburn said. Big Macintosh didn’t reply.

Braeburn heard his breathing. It was loud and heavy, and each breath ended in a small grunt. He heard a thumping, and thought it was simply his own heart. It was quiet enough that he felt he’d be able to hear the slightest shift, and even his own beat. It was Big Macintosh’s, though. That’s what he heard. His cousin’s heart sounded like it was a racing. He was that close to Braeburn – he could hear his heart.

“Big Macintosh, you okay?” Braeburn asked.

“You’re the one I should be asking that. You were actin’ like all of our cousins were a bunch of ghosts out there.” Big Macintosh’s voice was as calm as ever.

Braeburn coughed. “They’re all...they’re all strangers to me. I’ve never seen one of them out on the homestead. I don’t know these people like you and AJ and Granny Smith do. My folks and their folks visit you all the time, but no one comes out to visit me.”

He heard Big Macintosh shuffle, and he blinked as if that would somehow clear the darkness from his eyes.

“You live a mighty ways off, being honest.” Big Macintosh said.

“Ain’t an excuse,” Braeburn rejoindered immediately. “‘Sides, you saw the way they were picking on me in there. Making me go first and all. It’s like they hate me or something.”

Braeburn realized his eyes were wet. He never wanted to say something like this, and would never have found the strength to tell his parents. In this dark room with Big Macintosh, a stolid stallion who never had an outburst to throw at anything, he might as well have been confessing to a wall.

“You know that’s not true,” Big Macintosh said, “You know how kids are.”

“I ‘spose,” Braeburn replied, leaving unsaid that they were both still practically kids themselves.

“But if it’s bothering you that much, me and AJ will make sure nopony else says a cross word to ya while you’re here. Last thing I’d want is yo-, last thing I’d want is a cousin being uncomfortable at Sweet Apple Acres.”

Braeburn opened his mouth to object, but Big Macintosh interrupted him as if he could see the words forming.

“And don’t worry, we won’t let anypony know. Like you said. AJ and I are clever. It’ll be okay, Braeburn.”

That’s all it took. The last word wasn’t an assurance or a promise. It wasn’t meant to soothe Braeburn’s worries or give him the knowledge that he could run to Big Macintosh and demand correction when reality subverted that promise. It was fact. It was an indelible, irreproachable statement. When Big Macintosh told him that it would be okay, Braeburn knew: It would.

“Okay, Big Macintosh,” he replied, “Thanks.”

Big Macintosh didn’t reply. He didn’t really need to. Braeburn still heard his heart pounding in his chest, and felt like it was time to leave the closet, for both of their sakes.

“When are they gonna let us out here?” Braeburn wondered aloud, his eyes wandering to the thin slit of firelight that creeped under the edge of the wooden door.

“Hey, Braeburn?” Big Macintosh said.

“Yeah?” Braeburn turned towards his cousin.

In the dark, all he saw a flash of red rushing towards him and he almost jumped back and shrieked but then there was a pair of forceful lips pressing against his greedily. Braeburn’s eyes went wide and he stared into Big Macintosh’s face. His entire body went stiff, paralyzed, unable to move as he tasted Big Macintosh’s tongue. His cousin’s breath smelled like burnt cinnamon.

Braeburn couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t think. Just the sensations of Big Macintosh’s lips running over his, his snout pushing into his forceful, a kind of strength Braeburn had never seen his cousin use on another pony. His body quivered, and all of his senses melted and shook like gelatin. His feelings didn’t make sense to him anymore.

Big Macintosh pulled back, and Braeburn remained frozen in place, his mouth still wide from where his cousin had forced it open. He stared at the darkness past Big Macintosh’s head.

“Sorry.” He heard, distantly, his cousin say. Big Macintosh sounded out of breath, somehow.

Braeburn couldn’t respond.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Big Macintosh said with tracing gentleness.

“Okay,” Braeburn managed to whisper, still staring, wide-eyed.

“I’m serious,” Big Macintosh said, his voice getting tense, but not angry.

“Okay,” Braeburn said again, barely.

Big Macintosh sighed.

“Braeburn, you don’t know how long I’ve w-”

A pillar of light flashed on Big Macintosh’s face and widened across the entire room as the door was pushed open. Both colts brought up their hooves to cover their faces from the dull light that still burned on their sensitive eyes.

“Time’s up!” Applejack’s excited voice echoed in Braeburn’s ears, sounding suddenly foreign and insufferably loud. “Did you two lovers manage to have a good time?”

Without skipping a beat, his sentence abandoned and fragmented in Braeburn’s ears, Big Macintosh picked himself up from the floor and walked calmly past his sister. He reached up and nonchalantly pulled Applejack’s hat over her eyes as he passed, making the filly shout and rush after him.

Braeburn sat in the dark closet, ignored. He managed to find the power to stand, and tried to walk out and back into the crowd of foals, his legs wobbling. As he looked up, he saw his cousin staring back at him, frowning. Their gaze met for a second, lingered, then broke.

Comments

[Fimbulvinter]

You don't see an issue with the same author taking both first and third places?
That seems kinda odd, given that there were more than five submissions, or am I missing something here?

[Kill Joy]

2518043
honestly it was a merit based contest, and we did allow for two submissions. AP put a lot of heart into it, and as a result scored really well on our judgment criteria. our next contest will be altered a bit to avoid such controversies.

[TheNaughtyPony]

is their more to this story or is this it? i don't like cliff hangers other than that it was cute

[Kill Joy]

2575129 for that you must contact the authers?... But. Hey, im glad you enjoyed their stuff, and im sure if you droped them a nice comment it would make their day.

[Turai]

Well...I'm not a fan of BraeMac, I almost skipped reading it, but then I tought "Hey, it must have earned first place for a reason!"

And while I'm still not a big fan of it (because of the pairing) I can't deny that it was cute and well written!

[Kill Joy]

2652254
Contact the authors, they would drool to hear from you... Possibly.

[Turai]

2653037

They are more likely ask themselves why the fuck this retard won't leave them alone.

[Crisslunarflame]

D'aww I really liked these short stories!