Sensation (SFW Version)

by Vivid Syntax

Chapter 10 - Seeing Red

It had been one hell of a day, and with how exhausted I was, I probably should have slept on it, but every fiber of my being was screaming, "Go find Braeburn right now!!!"

Holli peeked out from behind my bed, then slowly stood and walked over to me. She stopped and looked me in the eye, and her posture was off-center, like she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Eventually, though, she smiled and nodded her head. "Go get 'im, Sugar."

I stood up tall, and my lower jaw quivered. I couldn't stop smiling, but I found the self-control to bring my voice back down to a talking level. "Thanks, Holli." I reached around her neck and brought her in close for a tight hug. It was probably too tight, but she didn't seem to mind.

Holli offered to help clean up my bedroom. It was nice of her to lend a hoof, but I was fidgeting the whole time. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking her to move faster, and after what seemed like hours, we headed downstairs. Holli grabbed her scarf from the floor and put it back on in one fluid motion.

We both ignored the mess in the parlor. I knew it was still there. I knew it would still be waiting for me the next time I walked in the door and that I couldn't just leave it a mess forever, but I couldn't bring myself to clean it up. No, I had more important things to do.

Outside, Holli flew away with a quick, "Good luck!"

I walked outside and locked the door, and there were no more distractions.

I dashed away faster than at any show I can remember. A lightning contrail crackled behind me. I wanted, I needed to get to the orchard, to tell Braeburn how sorry I was, and the sooner I could get to him, the better off we'd both be.

I didn't just need to apologize, though. I wanted to make sure he was okay and listen to what he had tried to tell me. I had to thank him for spending time with me and being the friend that I needed, even if I didn't deserve his kindness. I had to... make it right. That’s what Dad would have told me to do.

I also wanted to tell him I'd been thinking about him while screwing a mare. Figured he'd appreciate that.

A cool late-afternoon breeze pushed me from behind, and I smelled a storm on the wind. Everything rushed by me in a blur, but the world felt clearer than it had in months. I had a mission. I could see exactly what I needed to do, and I knew all the steps I needed to take to do it. The only thoughts that surfaced were about my route to the orchard.

Fly west. Punch through the clouds. Find the lake. Hey, good lookin'. Rooster tail. Across the beach. Up the path. Smell the apples. Almost there.

The apple orchard came into view, and my drive hit its first big hurdle. My head throbbed just thinking about trying to navigate those trees again. "Dammit," I spat. I pulled up just before getting to the trees. The wind changed direction on me, and I hovered a couple meters above the orchard, surveying it and shaking my head. 'This orchard's huge,' I thought. I'd been passed out for most of my little tour with Braeburn, so I didn't even have much of a memory to help me navigate.

My pulse felt irregular, and I cast glances in a million directions. I chewed on my lower lip, waffling between two choices: my adrenaline was telling me to keep flying, but the logical part of me wanted a plan. The sun was starting to set, and large, black clouds were heading my way. Looking for a yellow needle in a green haystack was hard enough, and it wouldn't be any easier with the lights out and rain pouring down.

Panic beats logic, so with a grunt, I took off. I tried to fly in a lattice pattern over the orchard, but I kept getting off course whenever I thought I'd spotted something. I'd fly down to one area just to find an old cart or a patch of dirt where I'd thought I'd seen a pony. I wasn't getting anywhere – the trees were just a little too dense to see anypony walking around under them, and I was constantly trading off higher altitude and a better view for the chance I'd miss a pony in the trees.

After an hour or so, I noticed how hard my heart was pounding. My wings quivered. I had to really focus to keep myself going at a decent speed, but I couldn't spare the extra brainpower without risking missing something. My eyes felt heavy, and the initial rush I'd gotten from leaving my house had long worn off. Instead of feeling driven to keep going, anxiety was taking over. My brain kept showing me images of failure and injury and all the worst case scenarios of an exhausted flyer high up in a storm. They were all becoming uncomfortably likely.

My lack of success wasn't helping. 'What if I can't find him? What if he won't talk to me?' My heart sank. 'What if he's totally over me and talking to him just reopens an old wound?'

It was getting dark, and a raindrop splashed on my ear. It was a bad sign, but at least it got me refocused. I shook off the fog that was covering my mind long enough to have a few lucid thoughts. "Okay." I spoke out loud to keep my mind on track. "It's stormy, it's late, and I haven't seen anypony." I had to take deep breaths as I worked it through in my head. "If he's not out here, he'd be... at his aunt's farmhouse. Okay." I sucked in more air. "Okay. Find the house, find Braeburn, and crash for the night." My heart skipped a beat, and I had to laugh at myself. "Ha! Sleep for the night."

My wings protested, but I flapped them harder to gain some altitude. After spiraling upward and faltering a few times, I had a good view of most of the orchard. Rain was starting to fall more regularly. I heard thunder in the distance. The sun had almost set, but I dug deep into my memory to narrow down where the building could be.

The twilight wasn't helping, but with a few more scans, I found the clearing with the farmhouse in the middle, a tiny red dot in a green ring of grass – my target.

My whole body locked up for second when I realized I was about to face Braeburn. I faltered enough that I dropped a few meters, and I swore myself for being a coward.

'Don't be an asshole. Time to go, Soarin'.' With a mental kick to the flank, I rocketed toward the farmhouse. My body felt tense and on the brink of shattering, but by some miracle, I didn't veer off course. Rain came down harder, and wind thrashed my face, and my lungs burned while I gasped in air that was heavy with moisture and the smells of apples and tree bark. I flew forward with all I could muster, holding back just enough to keep a contrail of lightning from forming behind me. Didn't need to tempt fate any more than I already was.

I came in at a steep angle, and when I got close the house, a light came on in the kitchen that nearly gave me a heart attack. I landed on the muddy ground and skidded to a stop. My hooves hurt, but I galloped forward, closing the distance between myself and the white door. My breathing was heavy. At that point, though, I couldn't have stopped myself from sprinting even if I'd wanted to.

The house got closer as my hooves pounded the soft earth.

Twenty meters.

Ten meters.

I was there. I jabbed a hoof at the door and flung it open. "Braeburn!"

"GAH!!!" It wasn't the right voice. The pony inside toppled out of his chair, and I died a little when I saw his red coat with a green spot on the flank. My jaw was clenched tight, and I shook my head violently before taking another look. The pony stayed the same color. I stood there, completely immobilized, with one hoof holding the door open as the rain began to pick up behind me.

It took the red earth pony stallion – dude was built like a beast – a long time to collect himself. He gave a snort from the ground, then slowly stood, stretched, and shook out a dirty blonde mane. With a deep breath, he picked up the chair he'd been sitting in and set it upright. There was something fluid about the way he moved, something I wouldn't have expected from such a big guy.

The rain pattered outside, and a breeze brought the smell of wet plant matter back to my nose. The room was still, like the whole house was groggy. I felt my muscles relax as some of my anxiety and excitement melted into tired indifference.

After a long pause, the red stallion finally looked my way. His head tilted while he eyed me up and down, and his lower lip stuck out. There was another uncomfortable silence before he finally spoke in a low, folksy voice. "Evenin'."

"Uh... hi." He hadn't invited me in, but he hadn't tried to throw me out, either, and my foreleg was getting tired of holding the door open. I took it all as a sign and walked in, wiping my hooves on the mat and shaking the rain off my coat. I felt like I was in a fog again. I still had a sense of purpose, though, so I took a few more steps into the house. A rusty spring let out a haunting whine as it swung the door closed.

The kitchen was the same as I remembered it, but it felt much colder this time. The warm sunlight didn't come through an open window, the smell of pies was all but gone, and instead of the hot yellow stallion with the soft mane, I had this big guy with half a green apple for a cutie mark. I was able to put two and two together – this was probably a relative. "I'm... looking for somepony. Is Braeburn here?"

"Nnnope." He still had that contemplative look on his face, but I didn't think anything of it. His eyes flickered to something on the counter, and his ears folded against his head in embarrassment. I wasn't worried until he moved to the sink and rinsed out an empty whisky bottle. The slow movements and speech raised a few red flags – I thought he might be drunk, and with his size, I had a lot to worry about if he was an angry drunk. Plus, ya' know, I'd just barged into his house!

Still, I'd made it that far, and I wasn't turning back. "Oh, uh... Do you know where he is?" It didn't come out as smoothly as it had sounded in my head.

"Eeyup." The red stallion shook out the bottle, then set it down and closed the window above the kitchen sink. The latch gave off a loud crack as it sealed the window tight.

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to deal with another smart-aleck that night. I was having enough trouble handling myself. I gestured with a foreleg and said flatly, "You know, you're not being very helpful."

"Nnnope." His voice had an edge, one that I barely picked up on – I was too distracted wondering where Braeburn could have gone. The red stallion walked into the study, and I trotted after him.

I couldn't hide the annoyance in my voice, but at least I'd figured out to avoid yes-or-no questions. "Well, where'd he go, then?"

"Away."

'Dammit!' He sauntered over to another window and latched it shut, cutting off the rain and fresh air that were rolling in. Lightning flashed across the sky just outside, followed closely by a loud crack of thunder. I wanted to shout at him, but I was too tired to put much energy into my words. "Ugh. Then can you at least tell me if he's okay?"

The red stallion sighed and walked towards me, then past me. He would have plowed into me if I hadn't moved. "Well..." he explained, "If ya' must know, he's a bit shook up." That didn't surprise me, but it still hurt to hear. The stallion walked back into the kitchen and stopped just short of the door. "Said he had a visitor that was none too kind." My wings drooped.

There was another pause, like he was still calculating something. He stared at the door handle for a second, and then slowly rested a hoof on the deadbolt. Through my mental fog, I realized something was off about the way he was acting. "And seein' such a nice pony mistreated just burns. Me. Up."

He bolted the door shut with an ear-splitting thwak, and it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyes went wide, and all my limbs felt like they were made of lead.

He turned his head slowly towards me. His stare was as icy with loathing as it was fiery with rage. He scowled, and he growled at a terrifyingly slow pace that leaned heavily on every word. "But Ah... don't s'pose ya' know anything 'bout that, do ya'?"

I forced myself to breathe, and my eyes darted all around me. Everywhere I looked, I was cut off. Windows: latched. Doors: bolted. The only exit from the ground floor seemed to be the stairs on the opposite side of the house though the kitchen, and he stood between them and me. Even if I'd managed to make it outside, I knew I couldn't fly in the storm, and he'd catch me in the orchard before I got to the first tree.

He was huge. I was fragile. He fumed. I shivered. He could snap me like a twig, and my mind flashed with the thought of each bone in my body breaking, one by one, starting with my wings.

His voice got even lower and more gravely. "And Ah also s'poooooose..." He drew out every word. He lumbered toward me like a giant thunderhead about to smash a tiny, impossibly sexy butterfly with just a fraction of his power. "...ya' wouldn't know nothin' 'bout all those..." He looked at my wings and gritted his teeth, snorting hot breath across my face. "...blue feathers Ah swept up by the couch, would ya'?"

My knees shook. My teeth clattered. My throat sealed shut. Thunder roared outside as the stallion got up in my face, and even with his neck bent and his face so close that I could count his eyelashes, he loomed over me like a tsunami of red fury.

I gulped. As much as my thoughts raced with ways to get out, something in my heart pushed me to squeak, "Wh-where's B-Braeburn?"

He stomped with a forehoof and broke a floorboard with a sickening crack. Lightning flashed through his eyes. "That don't matter none! Ya' ain't gonna hurt him again, got it!?" I absent-mindedly looked down just in time to see his hoof fly up to my face. He knocked me on the chin – hard enough that I bit my lip and immediately tasted blood – and forced me to face him. "Look me in the eye and tell me ya' ain't gonna bother counsin Brae no more, or you'll be sorrier than a fox caught in a henhouse,” he fumed, and there wasn't anything slow or relaxed about his words. I hesitated, and he snapped, "Now, son! You gonna leave him alone?"

I squirmed. I hesitated. I needed to get out of there, but in the dim kitchen light behind him, I saw he had green eyes. They were angry, but they looked like Braeburn's. Seeing them calmed me down just enough to whisper, "I-I can't."

"Hm?" He pulled back his head and raised an eyebrow, keeping his hoof on my jaw.

I was exhausted in every sense of the word. My legs were still shaking, and I thought I would collapse, but I kept talking. "I-I can't. I screwed up, and he got hurt." My breathing was ragged. "He's the kindest, g-gentlest stallion I've ever met, and he took me in when I needed help, and I flipped out and insulted him and I can't even remember all the bad shit I must have said, and I-I need to fix it." My eyes were a little wet. "I have to apologize to him."

The other stallion set his hoof on the floor, but I barely noticed. Instead, I kept blubbering, my eyes still fixated on his. "I'm so, so sorry! A... abandoning him like that was the stupidest thing I've ever done, and I’m sorry, and he at least deserves to know that much, doesn't he!?" Emotion kept pouring out of me as I remembered every little detail of that afternoon. My voice returned to something resembling normal, and I felt my face relax a little into a frown. "Braeburn's special, and he's had it rough lately, and he needs more support than he's getting, right?"

The big red pony sat down, breaking his gaze and looking out the window at the storm. He took a deep, slow breath and thought for a second. "Eeyup."

I was cautious, but little by little, I felt my body stop quivering and relax. All the fury was gone from him, and what was left felt more like quiet sorrow and cool, easy contemplation, and my heartbeat went back to normal. It was like he had this aura around him that made you feel secure, like you were safe as long as he was with you and didn't consider you a threat.

I looked outside, too. It was raging out there. I sat down, and for a few minutes, neither of us spoke. All we could hear was the drumming of rain against the windows with an occasional thunderclap to keep us from getting too comfortable.

I'd stopped shaking, but it still took a lot of willpower to break the silence. "Sorry about barging in."

He turned back toward me and sighed. "McIntosh Apple." He extended a hoof. "Friends call me Big Mac."

I looked at his giant hoof, then finally reached out and shook it. A small smile found its way across my face. I spoke slowly. "I'm Soarin'. Nice to meet you, Big Mac."

"Don't call me that."

My head rocked to the side. "But you just..." My body sagged again. "Oh."

"Eeyup." He stood and walked slowly past me. "Ya' can stay upstairs tonight."

"Yeah, I should probably head – wait wait wait wait what?" He walked back to the study, then grabbed a crumpled blanket and laid it on the couch. That couch. I moaned a little, both at the memories on that couch and the fact that a stranger that didn't like me was inviting me to stay the night. "It's okay," I mumbled half-heartedly. "I can fly–"

CRACK! Right on cue. My wings trembled as I remembered all those awful flight safety manuals I had to read growing up. The only thing worse than crashing was getting hit by lightning (and then crashing). "Nnnope!" He finished setting up the bedding. "Besides, if yer serious about mendin' fences with Braeburn, then, well..." He looked down at the floor and squinted his eyes. I knew that look – he was wrestling with his thoughts. "There's something ya' should see."

My ears swiveled at him. "Really? What is it?"

McIntosh yawned. "In the mornin'." He flopped onto the couch, and after some wiggling, he was able to fit most of his body on it. His legs hung off the side.

I sighed. "Do you at least want the bed?"

"Nnnope. Always sleep down here when Ah visit Aunt Honeycrisp. Just hit the lights, will ya'?" He snuggled in and closed his eyes, so I turned, walked through the kitchen, and turned off the gem lamp at the base of the stairs.

I looked up at the mountain of wood in front of me, barely visible in the dark house.

My wings wanted to fall off, and I didn't want to bump into anything in mid-air, so I resigned myself to limping up the creaky steps. My whole body was heavy. I was hungry, my hooves ached, and the mere thought of sleep made me start nodding off. I wanted to just give up and fall asleep on the stairs.

But I didn't feel that hole in my chest. As exhausted as I was, I felt something there instead. It's... kinda weird to describe. It was like a little flame that told me to keep going, but not like a fire that burns you. More like that warmth you feel when you do something right. I think that makes sense.

No, I hadn't found Braeburn, but I was trying, and that counts for something, right? I had started, and as much as my body told me that I desperately needed food, rest, and some aspirin, what I needed more than anything was a little reassurance, something to tell me that I was doing the right thing and that this wasn't all just a massive waste, something to let me know I was getting closer to that little yellow pony.

I heaved myself up the last step, and the floor squeaked as I walked down the narrow hall. The second room on the left had a bed inside, and after a stop to the bathroom across the hall, I went in.

It was dark – dark dark – but I didn't want to risk a worse headache from turning the light on, especially since the lightning outside gave a clear enough silhouette of the room every few seconds. It was sparse, with just a bed and some dressers and probably a few things on the walls. The bed was tiny, barely big enough for me, and it hadn't been made since the last pony had slept in it. 'Heh,' I chuckled to myself. 'No wonder he doesn't wanna sleep up here.'

At the next flash of light, I moved over to the bed and sat down, looking out the window. The storm kept growing, and rain kept pounding against the roof, and I was suddenly very, very glad to be inside. In a weird way, I was too exhausted, too strained to sleep, and the thunder was too loud anyway, so I just sat there staring out into space for a while.

"Just stop." It came out barely above a whisper, and I hadn't really tried to say anything. I didn't even know who I was talking to. "Please, just stop." I closed my eyes and lowered my head as the water beat against the old, dark house. I thought about everything that had happened that day, from getting cut to from the roster to destroying my parlor to freaking out at Holli to coming here, and I felt... dizzy.

"Just... stop, okay? I can't deal with this much shit all at once." I looked down and caught a glimpse of my cutie mark. It made me remember Braeburn's bruised apple. "But I will if I have to."

My whole body shivered. It wasn't that the room was cold, but I was fatigued way beyond my limit. I wanted to just break in half and die and be done with it. Instead, I let my body fall sideways and crash onto the bed, ready for another sleepless night.

But then my head hit the pillow.

With a soft puff, a familiar scent of apple and sweat filled my nose. It was sweet and sexy, and it made me feel like somepony had applied a soothing balm to my brain. I moaned at the feeling and crushed my face into the pillow to smell him again. "Mmm..." It was faint, but it was there, and I shuddered as I rubbed my face into it. My joints stopped aching. My wings relaxed and folded in naturally. I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent, and every part of me felt just a little bit better.

After a few more deep breaths, a soft smile spread across my face. I pulled the blanket up and nestled in, whispering, "I'll be there soon, Brae." I yawned. "Be there soon."

It was the fastest I'd ever fallen asleep.