Laid Bare

by Zwooteh

Chapter 2

“Grassmane, Can I speak with you for a second?”
You turned to face the source of the voice and came face-to-face with a mare with a deep red mane and a pristine pearly white coat. Your voice caught in your throat as you tried to answer the newcomer. Nodding silently you turn to trot with her. Cantering just behind her you almost collide with her flank as she stops sharply. Not that it particularly bothered you that is. Looking back around at you, you try to gauge her intentions, not gaining much you decide to wait awkwardly for her to continue. She seems to steel herself before talking again.
“I’ve... I... I can’t help but notice that you’ve been... Looking at me a lot lately” The pearly mare said without the slightest trace of embarrassment, her tone wasn’t accusatory but it had a certain underlying harsh tone to it. Subtlety was never Pearl Jam’s strongpoint.
Blushing and trying to look away from her you wait for her to press on, with any luck she would make it quick and painless.
“Are you interested in me?” She asked pointlessly.
You decided to give her the straight answer and get it over with,
“Y-yes” You reply, looking abashed.
You look up at her to see if she had shrank back or advanced forward, she had done neither. Several tense seconds passed before she finally acted. She simply smiled at you...
***

You ran as fast as your legs could carry you, hardly daring to look back lest the sight of Fluttershy in tears forces you to return and comfort her, you couldn’t face her, be it now or next week, you just felt that facing her would cause more pain than you have already done unto her. Forcing yourself to exhaustion and beyond you continue to carry yourself down the dirt path that leads back to the main part of Ponyville. Kicking dirt up behind you, you almost stumble several times, you didn’t let that break your gait. Several images flashed through your mind.

“But I tho-“

“NO GRASSMANE, Whatever you thought was wrong so you can just forget about it”

You struggle to push these memories from your already beleaguered head, the more you fought to purge these thoughts, the more they came back to you.

“Please I lo-“

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

Tears now forming in your own eyes you run harder as if trying to outrun the past and the pain that you had suffered.
Finally, you begin to slow down, at first into a trot then walking, your legs threatening to give out seeing as you had just galloped half way through Ponyville. Taking the screams of protest that seemed to be emanating in your legs into account you search around for a bench to sit on, failing that, a soft patch of grass... or ground. You throw yourself down onto the grass ignoring the pain that lanced through your side as you did so. The sorrow was now fading and being replaced by anger directed at no pony in particular, you began to silently rage, rage at the ones who had hurt you in the past, those who had wronged you and those that had made you hurt. Not wanting to make a spectacle of yourself in the middle of a park you just resign to just laying there and grinding your hooves into the dirt.

Several minutes pass with little happening, save for your constant grumbling, you continue to lay in the soft grass as the warm afternoon sun beats down upon you whilst a gentle breeze caresses your coat and prevents the day from being too overwhelmingly warm, you think you fell asleep, too overwhelmed with the raw emotion of the past hour to maintain consciousness, or you were at least drifting off to sleep when your name gets called by a fairly familiar voice to your right.

“Grassmane, is that you sugarcube?”

You are immediately forced back to focus by the intrusion and turn your attention at whoever was approaching. Fighting to see through the sun rays assaulting your eyes you raise your hoof to cover your eyes, allowing respite from the suns blinding light. It was Applejack coming your way, dragging a cart behind her as she went; you guessed she was off to (or coming back from) the market as was the way on a midweek afternoon.

“Hey Applejack.” you called back, your voice hoarse from the tears. You hope she doesn’t notice you had been crying.

“How’s business?”

Applejack came up to you with a worried expression etched on her face.

“Ah wouldn’ know, Ah ain’t been yet.” She reply, studying your face. “Yah ok?” she went on in a gentler voice. She’d obviously seen the tear tracts on your face.

“Yeah, I’m fine thanks.” you lied. Trying to quickly shift the focus of the topic on to her you asked “How are you?”

“Ahm fine thanks, but ah can tell yah ain’t.” she said in that soft, almost motherly voice.

You wondered just how much you could afford to tell the country mare, you hadn’t really had much interaction with her since you had been in Ponyville, just enough to be on first name terms with her and her family. You could lie to her, but given the fact that she was the element of honesty you thought that this wouldn’t exactly be a wise thing to do. You equally feared that if you told her what you had just done you Fluttershy and the state that you had left her in she’d buck you into next week. Tense seconds passed her emerald eyes seemed to bore into your stormy grey ones. You finally reply to her question.
“It’s nothing really, nothing that won’t go away on its own” you lied. You prayed to Celestia that she would accept your story and think nothing more and move along. She stared at you again before smiling.

“Well, if you’re sure sugarcube, if ya need anythin’ jus’ lemme ok?” she said.

Breathing an inward sight of relief you force a smile onto you muzzle.

“Will do Applejack, thanks anyway.”

Applejack began to walk away from you, cart and all. You considered just going home and locking your house down until this had all blown over, you knew that was a foalish thing to wish for but it was really all you were capable of planning right now.
Just before you were clear of Applejack, a moment of madness (or desperation for help) gripped you and you shouted after her.

“I HURT FLUTTERSHY!” you yelled.

She stopped stone dead, so fast in fact that the doors on the cart flew open and scattered apples on the ground. She turned to face you, her face as unreadable as her body language.

‘Oh Celestia no’ You thought in fear.

The orange coated mare walked back up to you at a steady pace, this just worried you even more, believing she was just saving her energy to knock you over the horizon.

“Ya did what?” She asked slowly and carefully.

“Not physically I swear!” you sputtered before she could act. “I messed up with her and now she’s crying and it’s my fault!”

Applejack regarded you for a moment, possibly considering which body part would cause more pain if she bucked it.

‘Don’t think about it!’ You thought desperately.

“What happened?” She said slowly and evenly, perhaps she had decided to hear your story then hurt you?

You rushed to get the words out of your mouth.

“IwasatFluttershy’scottagedoinghergardenthenIcameinsidethenIwasshewasbeautifulandthenwekissedthenIranandit’sallmyfault” you rambled.

“Whoa, slow down will ya?” Applejack scolded. “Start from the beginning and I want the whole story!”

You took a deep breath and started from the beginning, choosing to leave out the flashbacks you had on your way down here. When you’d finished your story there was just silence, from both you and her.

At last Applejack decided to respond.

“Well damn, I’d better go and see if the poor little filly is alright after what sate you had left her in”
She shot you a nasty look as she said the last part.

“I’ll just get Big Macintosh to go to the market in my stead” she went on. “Big Machintosh!” she hollered.
You turned to face where she was looking at, from just beyond the hill of the dirt path the orange farm pony had travelled down Big Macintosh seem to materialize out of nowhere.

“Whoa” you muttered to yourself “Where the hay did he just come from”

Trembling slightly at the idea that Big Mac had been taking lessons in breaking physics from Pinkie Pie you turned back to AJ you was still glaring daggers at you.

“Me and you are going to be having a serious talk later on” she snapped.

You gulped, shuddering at when this ‘serious talk’ could involve, and wondering if she would use her hooves as punctuation.
“Ya’d better come by Sweet Apple later on so we can try and get this worked out” she said in a calmer tone. Her anger seemed to be abating by this point much to your relief.

You only stayed you watch AJ and her brother trade places in the harness of the wagon before making your way back to your house, very much hoping that you would not run into any more of Fluttershys’ friends.

***
Returning back to your home you lazily open the door and flop down on the sofa, unwilling to face the day ahead, it was already 3 o’clock but you could tell that the worst was yet to come. Applejack didn't give you a specific time to return to her but you’d decided to give her at least 3 hours, to both give her time to talk to Fluttershy and allow her to calm down a little more.
You heart almost wrenched in two every time you remembered the look you left on the beautiful mares face as you turned to run. You hope that Applejack would at least smooth this over a little, but you knew deep down that only you could return yours and Fluttershys relationship back to normalcy. It was something that you dreaded but welcomed at the same time, as odd as it sounded you wanted to explain what happened back there, but doing so would mean you had to acknowledge your past and re open old wounds again, but, for Fluttershys’ sake you were prepared to do so.

Kind of...

A/N: Well well well! It’s been a good few months hasn't it dear readers? I apologise prefusley for not submitting in a while but a lot has been going on lately for me, I won’t bore you with the details but it involved work, family and college.
I know AJ was a little OOC in this chapter but I’d always imagined Applejack to be like a big sister to Flutters therefore protective of her. But I guess that’s just a little bit of fanon I posses. Until next time folks, Bye bye! (Next time doesn’t mean another 4 months, it means sooner!)

Comments

[Biker]

I don't know if she's OOC or not. She does give a protective sister/friend type of vibe, and I'd imagine she would get upset if someone hurt one of her siblings or friends.

[monster cai]

ITS ALIVE!!!!! Now to read

EDIT: well, that was good, i hope its not going to take that long for the next chapter

[fgfgonzalez343]

Thank you for this story. Realy thank you, because I secretlly have had this crush on flutter...
Nevermind. Either way thank you, keep up the good work.

[The Dimension Lord]

Applejack should become a psychologist at this point.
I mean, in almost all fanfiction she's the person who helps fix problems the most.

[Skizzer64555]

It's almost like i can't wait for the sequel

[Dandereshy]

Are you going to finish this???

[UniqueSKD]

Oh, what is this? A romance story that isn't a cheap perverted clopfic? A story that is written decently and actually convinces me there is any semblance of actual romance involved rather than the human just wanting to stick his shaft inside a pony?

I am shocked, and also very relived. THIS is how a romance story is written. Or at the very least it's a good example how one is anyway.

This gets a like and a watch. Because I'm sick of seeing clopfics all over the damn place and this story comes as a breath of fresh air to me.

[TheStoryMaker]

I am now saddened to know that this story will never be completed.