Roots

by Storm butt

Chapter Sixteen: A Moment

“Caramel’s a weird name for you, huh?”

Caramel glanced up from the book that he had been staring down into only to see a pegasus stand before him. He hadn’t really been reading the book. In fact he had been sitting here for a good thirty minutes and probably in that time had only read a single chapter. But still, he was lost in thought. He supposed staring down at a book was a perfectly good excuse for ponies to realize he was busy and didn’t want to talk. The pegasus before him was either oblivious to this, or simply did not care. Caramel blinked, and realized it was a pony from his class.

“I-Isn’t Lance a weird name?” Caramel asked. He bit his lip at his stutter and cast his eyes away from the pale blue pegasus. His voice was tiny already, and around strangers it was even tinier. “What do you want?”

“Well,” The pegasus named Lance said with a shrug. “I dunno. You always just sit under this tree after school till your bro comes to pick you up.”

“Not every day,” Caramel mumbled. “Only when he has his after-school stuff.”

Caramel wasn’t sure why his face suddenly felt warm; or why he felt the need to justify himself sitting here. It wasn’t as if he were on any sort of private property. He was just sitting under a tree in eyesight of his school. Most days he either red or closed his eyes attempting to get an hour or so of sleep until Sage picked him up. He didn’t need to justify himself to anypony. Still, this pegasus who interrupted him sparked a defensiveness in his chest that he couldn’t help but bring up.

“What do you want?” Caramel asked. His eyes were still downward as he rolled a page of his book back and forth with his hoof with no intention to turn to the next page.

“Dunno,” Lance said. He sat down right next to Caramel in the shade of the tree without asking permission. This made Caramel feel only more uneasy as he tried to subtly scoot an inch or two away. “Just bored. I see you around all the time but I don’t even think we’ve talked.”

Caramel pursed his lips. He didn’t exactly talk to anypony either in school or out. Whenever he tried he usually tripped over his words or grew quiet when his voice wasn’t strong enough to pierce into a group conversation. It made him feel dizzy and warm in the face. He was starting to feel that right now.

“So?” Caramel asked. “There’s probably tons of ponies you don’t talk to.”

“Yeah… but…” Lance trailed off. Caramel allowed himself to give the pegasus a sideways glance. He looked to be thinking. “I dunno. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Lance fumbled with his hooves in his lap; rolling them on top of one another a few times until he let out a long winded sigh.

“So… Caramel, huh? I thought your talent was welding or whatever.”

“It’s crafting things,” Caramel said with a frown. “What’s that got to do with my name?”

“Nothing,” Lance said with a shrug. “Just… I dunno. Isn’t it kinda weird how our cutie marks always seem to match up to our names? I mean, most of the time. Like our parents are psychic or something. Anyway, just wondering cause I thought you’d be a candy maker or a sweet shop owner or something with a name like Caramel.”

“Well… I’m not,” Caramel said. He was frowning more now. He really was beginning to wish Lance would just go away. “I was named after my mom. Her name is Toffee. Caramel’s a sweet like toffee so it fits.”

“Isn’t that a little weird?” Lance asked. “Being named after your mom? I mean, usually it’s the dad’s who name their kid after themselves.”

Caramel’s face felt warmer.

“Our dad was named Earl Gray,” He mumbled. “So Sage was named after him.”

“H-Hey, I didn’t mean to tease you or anything. Caramel’s a cute name. C-Cool name, I mean.”

Caramel spared another glance toward Lance at the mention of the word ‘cute’. He wasn’t sure if cute was ever a word he would use to describe his name, or even his appearance. He had a feeling that Sage wouldn’t be called cute by a stallion despite the fact that they carried the same face. Sage spoke loud and always had his way while Caramel was happier alone in the corners waiting for a chance to slip out.

Lance was rubbing his hoof up and down the back of his head. A frown was crossing his lips now as he kept glancing to Caramel. Caramel blinked, and swore he saw a tint of color on the stallion’s cheeks. Lance was a pony who was popular, the sort who never spoke to Caramel. He wasn’t a bully or anything, but he was a jock. Not the sort of pony who liked Caramel’s company. A lot of ponies didn’t like Caramel’s company.

“Hey uh… You wanna like… go into town for a bit?” Lance asked. His words were slow and calculated. “I mean. You don’t seriously wanna wait here while your bro gets out of club, right? Aren’t you bored?”

“Sage’ll get… worried if I’m not here when he gets out,” Caramel said.

“C’mon, I mean, it’s not like you’ve never gone home without him, right?”

Caramel paused and stared down. His book was still open, and without him noticing it the pages had blown and he had lost his place entirely. He sighed as he closed it and hugged the leather bound novel to his chest. The thought of going home without Sage made his stomach feel funny. He was too embarrassed to say it out loud; because the only times he had ever gone home without Sage was when Sage was sick and hadn’t come to school in the first place.

“What’s that?”

“Huh?” Caramel looked up and over to Lance. Lance was staring down not into Caramel’s eyes but at his side where his foreleg had moved to hug the book to his chest. He was pointing out with his hoof, and a concerned look crossed his face. Caramel felt his stomach grow icy. On his side there was a bruise. A bad one. It was already dark and hurt whenever he walked the wrong way.

“Nothing,” Caramel said face as he covered it again with his foreleg. “I fell down last night and hit my side.”

Caramel had said it so fast so many times that he didn’t even stop to think if he sounded convincing. It was a lie; like every single other lie that crossed his lips so many times. Now, like every other time before, he desperately wanted to yell the truth. Yell what had really happened.

But he was still young. If he did tell anypony else there was no guarantee it would change anything. It could also change everything. Sage and him could be separated, and his brother was his only friend in the world. Now, like every other time he threatened to spill the secret he reminded himself of one thing.

Only a few more months until he was eighteen. Then he could tell everybody whenever he wanted and they couldn’t separate him and Sage via foster care. Tell every dirty secret his mother did to him.

“Will you… g-go?” Caramel asked.

Lance was quiet for a bit. Caramel had expected him not to move, or talk more, or something. But instead he just nodded his head, stood up, and said goodbye. Caramel couldn’t even manage a goodbye back. He just sat there still hugging his book as he watched the pegasus walk away. Something in his chest felt funny. Like he had been hit but on the inside. He still didn’t know why Lance was being nice to him. Why he wanted to hang out at all.

“I’m sorry,” Caramel mumbled under his breath once Lance was out of eyesight. “I’d love to hang out. But I’m sorry.”

------------------

“Caramel?”

Caramel glanced up at Sage. He stared back at him, and already his mind was going to how in every way the two of them were so very, very different. Sage’s glasses sat at the end of his muzzle and his ears stuck up instead of slumped down in embarrassment like Caramel’s own tended to do. He wore a poker face while Caramel frowned. He was good at hiding his emotions while Caramel was not. He was also good at reading emotions; which was exactly why he had stopped walking.

“Yeah?” Caramel asked.

“What did I just ask you?”

“Um…” Caramel trailed off. He realized he was standing on a cobblestone bridge but had no memory of when he had walked the distance from the school to here. Home was just a few more minutes away, but here both him and his brother stopped. “I… I don’t know, sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

“How’s your bruise?” Sage asked. He approached slowly and without hesitation gently caressed his hoof against it. Caramel tensed despite feeling no pain. “We should ice it again when we get home…”

“It’s fine,” Caramel said as he took a step away from Sage. “I only notice it if I walk funny.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

Caramel paused when that question was asked. He knew already from many, many experiences just like this one that Sage wasn’t willing to take ‘nothing’ for a suitable answer. Even when Caramel glanced to the ground and kicked up a bit of loose pebbles with his hoof he was only delaying the inevitable.

“Some stallion talked to me,” Caramel said. “While I was waiting for you. He kept asking all these weird things.”

“He wasn’t picking on you, was he?” Sage asked.

Caramel bit his cheek. Sage had that same worried expression he always had on his face. There he was again playing the big brother role. Despite the fact that they were twins and Caramel was technically several minutes earlier never once in his life did he feel like he and Sage stood on equal footing in terms of how they took care of one another.

“No,” Caramel said with a shake of his head. “He just… asked if I wanted to hang out in town.”

Caramel kicked at the ground again.

“And you said?” Sage pressed.

“No…” Caramel mumbled.

Sage let out a sigh.

“Cara, it’d really do you good to hang out with ponies who aren’t me every once in awhile,” Sage said. He was scolding Caramel, but he had also heard this enough to know it came from a place of caring. Sage’s hoof touched Caramel’s shoulder. “Stallions or mare’s. You don’t want to be alone forever, right? What about a girlfriend one of these days?”

Caramel bit the inside of his cheek again at the mention of ‘girlfriend’. It made his insides feel funny to even shrug his shoulders as though doing so was trying to lift up a heavy weight. The way Lance had spoke to him earlier and made him feel was so… different. He kept thinking of it again and again. What he meant by hang out. Why he approached him so randomly.

He let himself think for half a second the thought he never allowed to cross his mind. Something that made him even more different and even more of an outcast than he already was. A thought that even putting into words made him feel disgusting and as though he were… broken on the inside. He pushed out the thought and sucked in air. He told himself it wasn’t true, as he had a hundred times before.

“I’ll find one one day,” Caramel said quietly. “Just… once we’re out of Mom’s house.”

Sage gave a bit of a shrug.

“You’ll think more about wanting a girlfriend one day,” Sage said.

A single thought crossed Caramel’s head.

“Doubt it.”

----------------------------------------------------

Caramel rolled over in bed and realized Big Macintosh was gone. He had been drifting in and out of sleep for quite some time now, as he tended to do the night before something big, and had been desiring to find some sort of comfort snuggling close to his lover. Instead, when he turned his body fell into the indent and ruffled blankets where Big Macintosh should have been. Caramel opened his eyes slowly. The room was dark, and no light was peeking out from under the door to signify the hall light was one.

“Mac?” Caramel asked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He could see stars outside, and shadows of objects around the room. No Mac, though.

Just as Caramel was trying to decide if it was worth it to drag himself out of bed and search for his missing lover or simply lay back down and try to find sleep he heard a creak. It made him tense at first because the room up until this point had been dead quiet. The sound was followed by another and another until it mixed with hoofsteps and approached the bedroom door. Big Macintosh walked in slowly, but then glanced up and saw Caramel sitting up in bed.

“Sugar?” He asked in a hushed tone. “What are you doin’ up?”

“I was gonna ask you that,” Caramel replied.

Big Macintosh walked in and closed the door behind him. In the dark Caramel could only make out his shadow, but as he grew closer and slunk onto the bed he could see the dark red of his fur as it came into contact with his muzzle. Big Macintosh wrapped his forelegs around Caramel and squeezed him down to a lying position as he settled back into bed.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Mac asked.

“No,” Caramel said as he placed a hoof on Big Macintosh’s chest. “This is the third night, though.”

“Hmm?” Big Macintosh asked.

“That you… sneak out while I’m asleep.”

Big Macintosh didn’t answer that. Caramel didn’t expect him too, really. He just pressed his lips lightly to Big Macintosh’s cheek and then settled his muzzle into the crook of his neck. He smelled like home, in a way. Caramel’s home. As a hoof traveled up and down his back in soothing motions Caramel hugged tighter.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” Caramel asked.

“Nope,” Big Macintosh answered.

“You can tell me,” Caramel said. “If you’re nervous about the reunion or anything. I know it’s tomorrow and I’m nervous too, but…”

“That ain’t it, Sugar,” Big Macintosh said. He pulled back a few inches so he could touch his hoof to Caramel’s cheek. He let out a chuckle and his warm breath ran against Caramel’s forehead and dislodged a few of his hairs. “You worry too much. I’m just workin’ on something.”

“Working on something?” Caramel asked.

Big Macintosh chuckled again.

“You’ve been acting weird,” Caramel said.

“Bad weird?”

“No,” Caramel said and shook his head slowly. “Just… weird weird. Ever since… I dunno, I guess when you woke up really early from a dream a few nights ago. It’s not bad. You’re just way more cuddly and mushy and sneaking off at night.”

“You want me to ease up on the mushiness?” Big Macintosh asked as he ran a hoof down Caramel’s mane.

“N-No,” Caramel said quickly. He was glad it was dark otherwise Mac might have seen him blush. “I like it. It’s just… different.”

“I guess I just realized how happy I am to have you, Sugarcube.”

“I-I bet you say that to all the stallions,” Caramel mumbled. Now he was really starting to feel embarrassed.

“Only the cute ones,” Big Macintosh said as he kissed Caramel’s nose.

“Ugh,” Caramel whined. “Are you even gonna tell me what you’ve been working on? Why are you doing it so late at night?”

“Cause it’s a secret,” Big Macintosh said. He kissed Caramel’s nose again and let out a giggle like a child who was so filled with energy he couldn’t control himself. He was squirming like Braeburn tended to do now, and the springs in the bed were whining under his weight. “You’ll see soon, I promise.”

“You really are being weird lately, Mac,” Caramel said. His voice was growing quieter now. He closed his eyes. “I’m happy too, though.”

“Hmm?” Big Mac asked. “About what?”

“To have you,” Caramel said. He buried his face into Mac’s chest.

He thought about how years ago that thought would have made his skin crawl and shame wash over him. To feel love for a stallion and be glad to embrace him as he was now. It filled him with warmth now to know another loved him just as much as he loved them back. A thought he once feared he now relished in, and never wanted to let go.

As he fell asleep he felt Big Macintosh’s lips press to his head.

Comments

[TheVClaw]

Ooh, boy... I have a feeling I know what Big Macintosh's secret is going to include.

It's just like Beyonce said... If you like it, then you should've put a ring on it~

I'm really happy to see this story get an update after so long, but I'm also dreading what might happen if a certain Mother shows up to spoil the fun. Hopefully Caramel (or someone in the Apple Family) will be able to stand up to her, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[dojooreo123]

I second thevclaw. So happy to an update. So excited to see this story go forward.

[Peachy Keen]

I was so happy to see this pop up with a new chapter! I wonder whatever became of Lance, and I wonder what Big Mac's surprise project is.

You have such an awesome grasp on dialogue and mood, the dialogue always feel so natural to the scene! Excellent chapter as always!

[Zh3sh1re]

[Rakkit_Brony]

I cant wait till the next chapter i hope it comes out soon.

[HeatherBlossom]

aw man i love it give me MORE

[MorningRose]

awesome story looking forward to more

[CrackedInkWell]

You know, I don't like doing this. At all. I absolutely hate to do this to a story that has caught not just my interest but my attention as well. Especially towards an author with such talent. However, I do have my rules to follow, and I'm left with no choice.

By the power invested in me, myself and I, (since this story hasn't updated in over six months) I hereby declare this story to be dead.

May it rest in peace.

P.S. Welcome to the Graveyard.

[Ice Star]

Well.

I'll be waiting for more, whenever it may come.

[rodolfo]

aww man :( I was really invested in this story. If you ever return and continue to update, ill sire be here!

[Catdad]

Great story. I really enjoyed it. I miss an endning.