If You Give a Little Love...

by Quillamore

Act II, Scene 10: Love Runs Out

By the time she’d finally noticed that Bambi had somehow sneaked into the gala, Coco was so desperate for some room that she didn’t even care about how her roommate could have accomplished such a task. If it wasn’t some stuck-up pony who wouldn’t give her the time of day had she not been escorted by such a rich Manehattan socialite, it was some celebrity-crazed mare or gossip enthusiast. As much as she should have been enjoying the attention, somehow something about it just felt empty to her. Somehow, she’d always thought this sort of renown would come to her from something that she’d done, from the costumes and performances that were beginning to consume her life. But take Mosely out of the equation, and she’d just be out on the streets like any other third-rate Manehattan E-lister, starving for even the slightest of acknowledgments. Even at that, even in the place she was in now, she was still disposable. That, more than anything, was what the confrontation with Suri had taught her.

With that in mind, though, Coco regardless tried her best to retain some shred of respect towards Mosely in spite of the public humiliation. She’d been in Manehattan long enough to know that he was far from the only pony to do such things to others, and while that didn’t make it right, she certainly wasn’t shocked at such spectacles anymore. For Celestia’s sake, Suri had even been the one doing the rejection more often than not. That wasn’t to say that she deserved it either. More than anything, Coco just wanted some reason, any reason to justify still staying by Mosely’s side, and the last thing she needed to plague her already overloaded brain was these sorts of doubts.

After all, he had warned her up front from the first date that he would do just this sort of thing to Suri, and yet she still agreed to the deal with little thought to it. What right did she have to change her mind now?

In the midst of all these thoughts, she tried her best to retain what little bit of focus was needed to idly trot through an art museum. As if sensing her discomfort towards the crowds and the entire situation in general, Mosely had whisked her off to the second-highest level, thankfully where most of the exhibits were on extremely obscure art forms that not even rich hipster types particularly cared about. As he guided her along the odd paintings and sculptures, he spent most of the time filling her in on what each one was supposed to represent and drawled on about the strange histories behind most of them. Had it not been for the fact that he had also felt the need to point out every twenty items or so which ones were of his own family’s donation, it might have come across as rather sweet. Even with the slight bragging, Coco still found this side of him much preferable to the extremely unfamiliar and harsh presence she’d seen only a few hours before.

“How do you even know about all of this?” she asked, trying her best to make some semblance of romantic conversation with this stallion she was so unsure of. “I mean, I know some of it came from your family and all, but you still seem to know the other ones well enough.”

“My ex-wife was an artist herself, so I guess you could say it flowed into me a bit. You wouldn’t believe it, but I tried so hard to impress her, I would make a total fool of myself. I mean, no wonder she ended up leaving me, with the way I obsessed over her and all. But that was the past, and there’s no need to talk about such things now. I’d much prefer to live in the present, with a much better mare by my side.”

“You really see me as being better than your wife, even?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have asked you out otherwise,” Mosely replied. “Then I would’ve just looked like a huge jerk. But I really do believe that you are the pony I was supposed to spend my life with. And there I go embarrassing myself again when it’s only been a few dates…”

“Um, can I talk to you about something?” Coco questioned. “Because, honestly, there was a part about tonight where I was worried about you. A part where, if I hadn’t known you better by now, I would’ve thought you really were a huge jerk.”

“You mean with Suri? I had a feeling you’d get hung up on that. See, what you don’t know is that I’d tried to get her off my tail, before, in a much nicer way, of course, and I needed to get it into her thick skull, so…”

Just as Mosely was continuing to try his best as usual to explain his acts away with a heap of lies, an all-too-familiar figure had found his way in between him and Coco. Namely, his own daughter, having shown up completely out of the blue.

“I know this is sudden,” Bambi began, putting on her best innocent act, “but once I heard Manehattan’s next biggest costume designer was starting a love affair with its most eligible bachelor, I simply couldn’t resist an interview. Mind if I break you two lovebirds aside for a moment while I ask your lucky marefriend about how she ended up collaborating with you in the first place?”

“Yes, but don’t you think it’d be an even bigger scoop if you interviewed both of us?” Mosely wondered.

“Sorry if I’m wrong, but I was always under the impression you didn’t take interviews. If you’d like, though, we can make it a two-week feature and interview you separately. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve procrastinated on my deadlines enough already and so I really need to talk to Miss Pommel as soon as possible. Enjoy the rest of the party!”

Before Mosely could respond any more, Bambi had already dragged her off into an even more secluded part of the museum.

“Um, why are you pretending not to know me?” Coco questioned. “You never told me you had an interview planned about me or—“

“Never mind the interview. That was a lie to get you away from him. You need to know something, and you need to know it as soon as possible. If there was one thing I didn’t make up back there, it’s how important it is that I tell you this.”

“But how did you even get in if you weren’t invited? And who’s taking care of Babs if you’re not at the house?”

Bambi's face had been tense throughout the short conversation, but she only seemed to be getting worse the more she talked. Fear shot through Coco's mind once more, wondering just how much her roommate had really caught onto.

“I sneaked in, and Babs is at a friend’s house. I lined all this up because I had to know who you were seeing. I’ll just say that I don’t regret spying on you one bit, because I know that stallion back there. And before you say anything, I don’t just know him because he’s Mosely Orange. I know more about him than just that celebrity rubbish; I know too much about him.”

“Because you’ve interviewed him before?” Coco wondered.

“No. Because he’s my father. I’ve had to deal with him for longer than you can imagine, and the gist of what I have to say is this: run as far away as you can. Whatever he did to Suri, he can do to you.”

“Okay, I should really be responding to the whole father thing, but didn’t you just hear him say that I’m different from her? I mean, I’m just as unsure about him as you are, but he even said he may like me more than his wife.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Bambi confessed. “Not to dismiss you, of course, but I don’t think anything in Equestria can ever stop him from thinking about my mother. And for good enough reason, I guess. She really was an amazing pony. I wish there was some way you could have met her; maybe then you’d realize what he does to those he falls in love with. If he really does love you more than her…all I have to say is that you’ll end up even worse than her, too.”

“There’s something I don’t get, though,” admitted Coco. “From what little I remember you telling me about your father back when I first met you, you made him out to sound like this terrible pony. Yet Mosely seems so different from that. I mean, he might not be the nicest one around either, but at least he really seems to care for me.”

Hearing such words of opposition coming out of Coco’s mouth, her voice traced with such naïve ignorance, Bambi couldn’t help but grit her teeth slightly, cursing the entire situation in the deepest parts of herself. Now more than ever, she was beginning to comprehend what had driven Scene so over the edge, the way Mosely was able to target a mare who could help everypony in Equestria. Somepony so sincere, like her mother, who claimed to know the world, but knew nothing. Such a shining figure would be a shame to break, a shame to see break down just like Cameo had.

But it was the only way.

Honesty was the only way.

“You only think like that because you’ve known him for a week or so,” she began. “Everypony’s like that when they first meet Mosely. Before I say anything, though, I want you to know that I don’t mean any of this to hurt you. I’m not doing this because I’m resentful of you adopting Babs or anything. I’ve come to terms with that a while ago; in fact, I’m finally beginning to see you as family. And as family, it’s my job to protect you from the not-so-good family members. As you can probably tell, Mosely Orange is Public Enemy Number One in that sense.”

“But I don’t understand,” Coco answered. “I mean, I remember you saying some things about him blaming you for Babs’ foalnapping, and I don’t want to diminish your suffering from that at all, but looking at it from his side, couldn’t that just as easily have been guilt? For all you know, he could have just not wanted to think about how he might have been involved, and—“

“You’re right on one thing: he didn’t want to think about what he’d done. But not in the way you'd assume. See, by the time Babs was born, my mother had moved onto another stallion, one that, frankly, treated her better than anypony ever had. When that stallion died, she was inconsolable. Couldn’t take care of anypony, much less herself. She didn’t like it one bit, but since there was still a part of her that trusted him, she sent Babs over to live with him. Mosely, Babs, and I got along well enough for a little while. But the key to that peace was that my father didn’t know she was my mother’s foal. She’d only told him that Babs was a relative of his. And once he found out she was what he considered to be most illegitimate, a child of rich and poor descent, he couldn’t take it anymore…”

As she often did while remembering the incident, Bambi went into some of the worst panics she had ever felt. Just telling about it was enough to plunge her back into that moment, when she had finally realized that she couldn’t save anypony. Remembering that she could at least save Coco from facing a similar fate had been enough to keep her going for most of the night. But in those few seconds before the revelation, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was really saving anypony or just transferring bits of her own pain onto Coco, ones that would scar her every bit as much as they had already done to Bambi.

“This may sound unbelievable, and depending on how hard you’ve fallen for him, you probably won’t want to believe it,” she finally whispered. “But you have to promise above all that you trust me if we’re going to make it out of this. Don’t take his side anymore. Not when I’ve finally managed to find somepony else who cares about the two of us. Don’t let him take you and turn you into the same thing as he did to my mother. Please.”

As everything inside her was telling her to shut down, Bambi realized that if Coco wasn’t already convinced enough by her making an emotional wreck of herself, then she couldn’t expect to get the truth to her through softer means. She had hoped so much that she could draw it out and sugarcoat it enough to where Coco wouldn’t end up getting hurt. But then she realized that she had gone on long enough. What Mosely had done couldn’t be sugarcoated.

In this world of lies, there was only one truth left. And nothing in Equestria could keep Bambi from telling it, not even imagining how it could affect everything to come.

“Mosely could have saved Babs from getting foalnapped. He had the money, the influence, he could have done anything, all it would have taken was to open the door and let her into his life again. He could have done anything, but he watched the foalnappers drag her away. That makes him just as bad as the ponies you’ve been fighting all this time. He wants to drag you straight into the darkness just like he did to Suri…and to Babs.”

A stream of silence emanated through the air for several minutes, both ponies fearing that the other would turn it into a storm. Tears, insults, the newsmare was acquainted enough with these sorts of situations to figure that she would know what would happen when it was finally broken. She couldn’t have been more tragically wrong.

“I’m sorry, Bambi,” Coco responded, her voice edged with a monotonous tone nopony had heard from her before. “But I’m afraid he can’t drag me any more into the darkness than I already am right now.”

“Coco, please, that wasn’t what I meant. Not at all. Whatever made you come running to Mosely, we can fix it ourselves. You always said that’s what family was meant to do.”

“Except now I’m not so sure we should have been a family after all. The more I realize it, the more I see how right you were when I first met you, Bambi. I’ve always heard ponies say that even the most unselfish of actions can be done for unsavory purposes, and I thought I could fight that idea with everything I had. But when it really comes down to it, wasn’t that the whole reason I adopted Babs in the first place? I mean, sure, I love her more than anypony, but are those feelings even real? Or is it just my heart trying to come up with a way for me not to feel guilty anymore? All this time, was that all she ever was to me; somepony to use to make me forget that I used to hurt other ponies?”

Before Bambi could respond, Coco continued, “The answer to that question would be no, but not because I believe I had good intentions. It’s because I know now, after what you said, that I never really stopped hurting others to begin with. All this time, I tried my best to become a better mare, but I guess all it takes is one pony to really ruin that.”

“So does that mean you’re blaming me for this?” questioned Bambi. “That you hate me?”

“Of course not. I never did, even back then. The only one I really blame is myself for not seeing it sooner. I mean, it’s not like Mosely would’ve directly said anything about it to me. But I should’ve known that somepony trying so hard to win me over was hiding something. Nopony’s ever gone after me like that before, so I guess I should’ve figured he was up to something when he picked me over somepony like Suri. After the way he acted tonight especially, I should’ve suspected something. And yet I wanted to believe the best about him. I…I didn’t want to believe he could be like this. I didn’t want to believe things could ever get any worse than they were back then.”

“They aren’t. I know it’s hard to believe, but if you just let us, we can help you. I even talked to Scene, and he said he regrets leaving you behind, too. You may think you’re a bad pony, but I’ve seen what he’s done to my mother, and she was the same way. I’ve spent the rest of my life regretting that I wasn’t able to do any more for her, and I don’t want to have to feel the same way about you. I don’t want to have to lose both of Babs’ mothers to him.”

“You still don’t understand,” Coco whispered. “If I’m dating her abuser, the one who hurt her more than anything, then can I even keep calling myself her mother? What if I were to say that I enjoyed being around him, that no matter how hesitant I was, there was a part of me that still wanted to be his marefriend? That if I hadn’t found out the truth about him so early on, I might’ve actually ended up loving him?”

“Then I’d say you’re being completely normal. It’s not your fault he was able to charm you, or even that you ended up taking the job with Suri so long ago. Please, just start blaming the ones who’re actually behind this instead of tearing yourself apart. I know you think you’ve ruined everything for us, but…”

“You’re right about me ruining everything. This is something I should deal with on my own, and nopony else needs to get involved. I’d told Babs a while ago that she shouldn’t have felt bad for hurting her cousin and all, but I knew even back then that it was too late for me to start following my own advice. Even back then, I had too many regrets to start living like that. Babs is still young enough to change herself, but Mosely was wrong about one thing. Suri isn’t the lost cause. I am. And it’s time you started treating me like one.”

Just as Coco was about to trot away, back towards the very pony who’d made her this way in the first place, Bambi realized that this could be her last chance.

“If you feel so eaten up by what he’s making you do to your family, then why are you going back to him? Why keep falling further into his darkness when we can pull you out?”

“Because it’s something that I have to do,” Coco responded, too afraid to tell anypony the truth about the deal she’d made. “If I were to tell you why, you’d lose any respect you still have for me. You’d see how weak I really was. Besides, it’s too late for me to escape, anyway.”

And with that, anypony else who would have been there to see would wonder if she had ever really changed after all.

****

“The past should stay in the past.”

Every day, every chance she got, Coco approached Mosely with a single question in mind. Every time, she dreaded the confirmation she knew she would receive from him. And every inquiry would have the same answer: that that was the past, and this is now. Anything that he had once done no longer mattered.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much the past could really define a pony. Any time she had in between sewing costumes for two impending shows and going out with Mosely against her desires, she spent thinking. Thinking about how much her own past would never really leave her, no matter how much affection she’d tried to show towards Babs in the ten days after the party. Thinking about how, should Babs ever find out, any form of happiness she had left would be over. No matter how much she felt she didn’t deserve to even be around the filly anymore, she still couldn’t help but fear life without her.

Even when she tired of thinking, she still tried her best to avoid the two young mares she shared her home with. Better if they lost their patience with her sullen mood and kicked her out, that way they wouldn’t have to know and that way she could get some of her guilt off. At least without her, they would be without Mosely for once. So in the few hours she got away from her work life, she would continue to hole herself away in the prison she called a room and delve into a fantasy world. One where hope still existed.

Coco’s chambers at night were scattered with letters, all of which she would eventually clear away at morning so nopony else would ever have to know about them. Every night, she would write several, all addressed to the same pony, never to be sent. She didn’t even need to send them in the first place, not for the game she played with them.

All she really needed to do was to write the name at the top, pour out all her guilt and inhibition, and imagine that Rarity would receive them all the next day. She would wake up to the chatter of ponies all over Manehattan talking about how Rarity had transferred Mosely over to the princesses so he would never have to be in her family’s life again. Then, the whispers would fade and the nightmare would return until the next night. Another night, another piece of guilt, another letter.

She thought to herself that she ought to have at least been thankful that he hadn’t abused her in the time they’d been dating, never lifted a hoof to her or even called her disparaging names. Instead, he’d acted just like how he had at the museum, with the utmost of false kindness. Yet somehow, that hurt just as much to her, seeing as she had to try with all her might to jolt herself out of feeling any sort of love for him. And in her eyes, hurting Babs was really the same as hurting herself in the first place. As always, she clung to the idea of her as a daughter, even amidst all this uncertainty.

On the tenth night, Coco had arrived at the condo especially late, and though she tried her best to deny it to Bambi, it had been due to some party Mosely had begged her to go to. That was the hardest part of it all: with all the fear she held about him, she couldn’t help but indulge even his smallest demands, convinced anything less would be sacrificing everything. Sometimes, it was as small as changing the way she carried herself about him. But all too often, it involved following everywhere he went, no matter how early she was required to go to work or how much she still needed to do.

It was on that night that Bambi, having regained her spirits slightly, finally decided that she had had enough. Though Coco had never explicitly revealed to her why she seemed to come home later and later every day, a part of her already knew. Even then, as thoughts of Coco holding out some feelings for Mosely still clouded her mind, she still didn’t harbor any anger towards the mare herself. From the way she’d been acting lately, love appeared to be the last thing on her mind. There had to be something more to why she had chosen to stay.

And so, going up the hall to Coco’s room, too concerned to even think about knocking, Bambi found her roommate stooped over a desk, only barely managing to keep herself awake, her already pale fur whitening even more. Strewn about were all the other letters she’d written, and before Coco could say anything in response, Bambi took them one by one.

“So you’ve been writing to your friend all this time?” she questioned. “Doesn’t she know the princess? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if you just—“

“It would be, but that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Coco replied, a slight slur to her voice. “Doing that would be too much of a hassle. Newspapers all over Manehattan declaring his imprisonment. Saying that I accused him of something he didn’t do. Never work again. Really…not worth it. Better still to go along with it…keep my job.”

“What would keep you from losing your job if you stayed with him? Isn’t your work life supposed to be separate from, you know, who you choose to date?”

“He says there are ponies above him who don’t like me. Told me on my first date that if I stay with him, they won’t fire me. He can put in a good word. Don’t stay with him, can’t put in a good word, I lose the job Rarity got for me.”

“Coco, the producer is the highest-ranking pony on the set. Are you sure you heard him right when he said that?”

As Coco was about to drone on in her barely-comprehensible voice, Bambi cut her off and mumbled, “No, of course he did. Of course he would. Should’ve known he’d put you up to something like this. Wouldn’t put it above him to extort you into a relationship like this.”

“He didn’t extort me. Had a choice. Could have refused.”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but giving up your job because you don’t want to be with some guy doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me,” Bambi countered. “He threatened you into being with him, and that’s that. That’s why you’ve been basically killing yourself all this time with taking on all these things. He’s making you do it.”

Coco failed to respond to what she had said this time, only lowering her head and making a slight humming sound in response. At this point, everything around her seemed to fade away, to the point where she could barely keep her eyes open.

“As soon as you get to bed, I’ll put all these in envelopes and send them off. I’ll make sure the papers get the right story about you, I swear. You won’t have to worry about anything anymore. I owe at least that much to you. No matter what you say, I’ll always believe that you don’t have to go through all of this, and while I’m disappointed you had to go through this alone, I understand. Once, I was just as scared of him as you were. But you don’t have to be like this anymore. I promise.”

When she lost control of everything around her, the last thing Coco thought before her head hit the table was that this was just the sort of thing she'd always been warned about. Her parents, her bosses, even Suri had told her once when she was in a more compassionate mood.

If she bent herself far enough, after all, she was bound to break someday.

****

On the next day, Rarity’s boutique in Ponyville would find itself bombarded with two dozen mystery letters sent from Manehattan on top priority shipping. They all carried the same hoofwriting, all but one. Piqued by a scrawl she didn’t recognize from any of her friends or acquaintances, Rarity chose to open the one that didn’t match first, and it was perhaps the letter that contained the most urgency within only a few words.

“Coco Pommel. Manehattan Municipal Hospital, room 113, emergency division. Fell into a coma at approximately 1:30 this morning. Said to have been due to overwork, sleep deprivation, and unsafe psychological pressure at job. Has not yet regained consciousness at time of writing.”

Comments

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

“Coco Pommel. Manehattan Municipal Hospital, room 113, emergency division. Fell into a coma at approximately 1:30 this morning. Said to have been due to overwork, sleep deprivation, and unsafe psychological pressure at job. Has not yet regained consciousness at time of writing.”

OH NO! COCO!!!

[Orrm]

“Coco Pommel. Manehattan Municipal Hospital, room 113, emergency division. Fell into a coma at approximately 1:30 this morning. Said to have been due to overwork, sleep deprivation, and unsafe psychological pressure at job. Has not yet regained consciousness at time of writing.”

"Time for War Haka."

"Manuka Whakawa?"

"Of course."