Ch 19: Any Minor World
Our Girl Scootaloo
by Cozy Mark IV
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-made work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro. Please support the official release.
Chapter Nineteen: Any minor world…
The meeting turned out to be a bigger success than they had dared to hope. Mr. Malcolm actually had to move the group to a bigger classroom to fit everyone in, and the air of relief from the participants was palpable. Give that this was the first meeting; everyone introduced themselves, approved the club charter, and spent time discussing how to get the word out and build up a support structure.
A few people did come out to the group, though that wasn't the main focus, and most were people they had suspected for a while. They all got a warm welcome, hugs, and some variation on 'well, yes, we kind of suspected, but thanks for telling and we're all so proud of you.' There was even the vaguely hilarious 'coming out' of Demi Findlay, who explained that he had questioned his sexuality as a younger teenager, experimented with pornography featuring both males and females, and had at last come to the conclusion that he was heterosexual with 'some casual interests that fall under the kink heading.' It was eye-gougingly awkward to hear him speak at first on the topic, but then he continued:
"I'm fully aware that as a straight, white male, I'm very lucky in that I'll never be discriminated against –well, except maybe for being a raving geek. But it could so easily have gone the other way. I might have had to hide so much about who I am, to the point where I might never have been able to admit what kind of person I like aloud, let alone find someone who fit the bill. I have a girlfriend now whom I love very much, and our interests are so completely compatible. She's learning D&D for me, and I'm learning to understand post-Keynesian macroeconomic theory for her. Oh, and cheerleading. Lot more hit-points in cheerleading than I thought. We can walk down the street or the halls of this very school hand-in-hand and nobody says anything but 'aww, look how cute they are.' We need never fear teasing or violence because of who we are or whom we've fallen in love with."
There was a strained sound from the direction of the other students, possibly Josie trying not to hork at the ridiculous adorable snugglyness of her big brother and her best friend.
"Well, unless we make out in front of my little sister, that is. And even then, we'll never have to face anything like what the brave gay, lesbian, transgendered or questioning people may have to go through."
Melissa reached over and took his hand, and Demi gave the gathered students a broad, geeky grin that showed his braces and made his glasses seem to shine in the light. "I want what Melissa and I have for everyone, partly because dude, it is so freakin' sweet, and partly because it's only fair to have love and tolerance for everyone. Your raiding party isn't as strong if you keep clever rogues, strong fighters, brave paladins and wise clerics out just for something as completely dice-roll random as their sexual orientation, and I want to live in a world where orcs and elves, dwarves and humans, even wacky halfling-rogue little sisters can love and be loved in peace and harmony. Just because a person is gay doesn't mean I shouldn't be damned proud to walk down the street with them and to have them as my friends."
It was like he ran out of ideas at that point, and for a moment there was a long, awkward pause. "So…that's why I'm here tonight. I'm Demi Findlay, and I'm coming out as a…what are we called?" Melissa whispered in his ear. "Oh, yeah. A straight ally. One of those."
That seemed to give a thin boy with a half-healed black eye from the A/V group the courage he needed to come out as gay, and Demi thumped him on the back and welcomed him down from the podium as 'best cleric ever!' there were quotations of what sounded like mucus and support in Klingon from the various A/V kids and a couple of cheerleaders' boyfriends who had come to the meeting on pain of nookie loss patted him in a brotherly got-your-back kind of way.
And then someone unexpected spoke up.
"My name is Christina Harcourt and… I think I'm a bisexual." She finished, blushing fiercely as her friends stared, open mouthed. Then, before she could start to feel worried, there was a surge of scraping chairs as the entire squad jumped to their feet and hugged her, and for a moment Scootaloo was afraid they were actually going to break into song. That derailed the meeting for almost five minutes as they all congratulated her on coming out, and did she need any help, and how had she kept the secret so long?
When the meeting finally ended an hour and a half later, all traces of the pizza were long gone, and people just stood in groups chatting and catching with friends who had been in hiding, many of them for years. Scootaloo found a chair in the back of the room and just sighed contentedly as she looked out over the happy groups. Conner was talking animatedly with one of her skater friends and several cheerleaders, and it warmed her heart to see him up and active again after such a deep depression.
Christina, still blushing a little, walked over and took the seat next to her. "Hey, Scoot."
"Hey, Christina. Congratulations again, I have to say I had no idea," she replied, offering a fist bump. "I know it took a lot of courage to stand up tonight and I'm proud of you."
This only made her blush redder, but she took the offered hand…and didn't let go.
"Scootaloo? There's something I need to ask you…"
Scootaloo sat up and turned to face her friend. "Of course, what is it?"
"Um… This is really hard but…" She paused for a moment, then blurted it all out in a hurry. "But I've had a crush on you for a long time and really really want to ask you out!"
If Scootaloo had been surprised before, it was nothing compared to this. Memories of all the time they had spent together flashed though her mind; tutoring her in math, Christina volunteering to stay late and help her with squad drills after school, the camping trip with the Scouts…
Her first thought of 'How could I not have seen this?!' quickly became tinged with shame for putting her friend though this by sheer obliviousness. It was quickly followed by; 'A date leads to… Oh crap… How do I feel about having sex with one of my best friends? She's like my sister!'
Outwardly she smiled and squeezed her hand as turmoil raged inside. 'Could I be attracted to another woman? I never really thought about it before… And I really feel awful about this… She must have been crushing on me for months… Maybe even a year! But if I've never really had much interest in girls before it would be even crueler to lead her into a relationship that couldn't work…
And then she remembered her doctor Mary's revelation about having dated her Papa when they were young. If a gay teenage boy and a young lesbian could just 'make it work' to suit social pressures, wouldn't…what was the phrase the sex-ed columnist had used? Rounding up? If she 'rounded up' her so-far-straight orientation just to support and date a good friend with a crush, wasn't that the same sort of bad decision based on social pressure just in the other direction? If a decision could be wrong for bad reasons, surely making a bad decision for good reasons wasn't a good idea, either.
But how to say it in such a way that still spared Christina's feelings?
"I'm so very flattered you feel that way, Chris, but…I don't think I should really start a relationship with anyone at this point. Conner's turning out to like guys was really hard for me, and I'm honestly not sure if I prefer guys absolutely a hundred percent, but if it turned out I did, I already know how it feels to love someone, to be…close with them and then to find out it can never work."
"Most women aren't 100% completely heterosexual," Christina replied, a little hopefully. They had been reading the same columns together and sharing them with other girls during the sex-ed blackout of the school.
"I know, but…I've never even once had a fantasy about another woman. It's always been guys so far. I'm not sure if that's going to change or if that means anything specific yet, but if I were to date you, knowing that there were fairly good odds it would always be one-sided from a physical standpoint, that just wouldn't be fair to you. I love you as my friend, Christina, I always have. You're the sister I never had, and I'll always, always care about you."
"Just…not that way, probably," Christina finished, nodding sadly.
"Not that way…for now. I've been told that sometimes our sexuality can surprise us, and given that I'm, y'know, a whole 'nother species, heaven only knows what might change in college or at some point in the future. We aren't even sure of my specific chronological age yet, let alone when the processes of growing up are complete for me. I might be completely fifty-fifty bisexual, I might be ninety-nine percent hetero, I might turn out to like girls or I might discover a wild, polyamorous S&M shoe fetish. You never know!
"Thing is, I already care about you a lot, and I wouldn't want to chance what we have as friends on a relationship at a time in life when neither of us could promise each other anything. High-school sweethearts almost never wind up together forever, and to take a chance on an awful breakup, losing each other as friends…might it not be better to just stay friends, see if your feelings or mine change as we get older, and just agree not to risk it for now?" Scootaloo saw Christina's expression and sighed. "It's the same thing I'd say to a guy friend of mine who felt the same way. If you were Curt, for example, and Curt had a crush on me, I wouldn't go out with him except as a friend."
"So it's not because I'm a girl, but because we're friends?"
"Ehhh...it's also an issue of physical attraction, which has a hell of a lot more to do with me than with you. You're very pretty for a human female, just like I've been told Curt is a very attractive male as far as humans go, and both of you are smart and kind and really fun to spend time with. Problem is, whatever wiring's between my ears to say 'this or that person is one that you should feel an urge to mate with,' it doesn't seem to switch on when I look at either one of you. I think of you both the way people think of their good friends and siblings, not as a subject of lust or even of interest in that way.
"It's not anything you've done wrong or that could be changed or fixed, it's just that the cartoon pony sex drive doesn't recognize you as a target…at least, not at this point. And bear in mind, I just had what pretty much amounts to a hard breakup where my boyfriend turned into my emergency-custody foster brother, so it could legitimately just be that I'm not in a place to be attracted to anyone right now. Doctor Whooves, Princess Luna and Shining Armor from the cartoon show could walk in here now with an army of human strippers and I might be like 'meh, ponies n' naked folks' to all of them because I'm still kinda getting over Conner right now.
"That, and we're juniors in freakin' high school. We have a hell of a lot more to worry about right now than who we're going to kiss on prom night. The protest changed a lot, but it didn't change everything, and we've got a lot to do, both to fix this school so it's safe for everyone else and so we have a future beyond this place. I wouldn't say we don't need love right now, but sexuality and romance…they really can't be at the top of our priorities, and if I were ever to get involved with someone I care about as much as you, I'd want it to be at a time when you could be my biggest priority."
"That…may be the best 'it's not you, it's me' speech I've ever heard," Christina sighed with a rueful smile.
"Well…it's true. If I didn't think it'd be a really, really horribly bad idea to take the chance of breaking your heart and losing you as a friend, I'd have just made an appointment for coffee and tried my best."
"But it wouldn't have worked…would it?"
"I don't know, Chris." Scootaloo raised a hoof and patted Christina's hand. "For now at least, can friendship just be enough?"
"Sure thing, Scoot."
Scootaloo hugged her friend, feeling like twenty pounds of heel in a ten-pound bag. Then Josie appeared, looking indignant as usual.
"Christina, did you want to ride home with me? My stupid brother and Princess Frisky Makeouts over there need to stop by the grocery store, so Demi gave me the keys to his Subaru."
"Oh! Papa texted me to get…some darn thing," Scootaloo checked her phone. "Ricotta cheese? What the hell…oh! He must be making lasagna for Friday night. I should see if Mel and Demi have room for me."
"If you've got a strong stomach, go right ahead. Melissa's Civic seats five people and still has room for enough horrible sex toys to make Pastor Gray weep in his prison cell," Josie growled. "Those trunks were designed for dead hookers, not live dominatrices' toolboxes!"
"You do know they only make such a big deal of it all just to mess with you."
"Oh, of course! And it's actually pretty freakin' sweet to have a friend for a sorta-kinda sister-in-law person. She gets along with my mom crazy well and we'll have a sixth person for the family reunion at the roller-coaster park this summer." Scootaloo and Christina stared. Josie's being squicked-out by Mel and Demi had been a running joke for days. "Demi and I just haven't been able to have this much fun with one another since Dad told us we weren't allowed to hide snails in each other's rooms anymore."
"…Snails?"
"Oh, right. You two don't have brothers. Suffice it to say there is a kind of constant, Shakespearean merry war of gross-each-other-out brinksmanship. Demi hides a snail in my bed. I put a garter snake in his jockstrap drawer. Laurie tweaks the plumbing to dye me blue. Demi puts freaky Scandinavian porn onto Laurie's computer, the kind with goats. Laurie edits a really filthy bit of gangsta rap about penises into the middle of a dance remix I'd been working on for the cheerleading squad. I hack Laurie's ringtone not only to go off in the middle of his very portly female community-college professor's class, but to blare a line from 'Fat Bottomed Girls' by Queen with such epic timing that only my emailing said demagogue a personal explanation and apology (as well as the fact that she has six brothers herself and understood immediately once she realized Laurie had a sister,) kept him from being expelled with fire…such is our life."
Christina and Scootaloo continued to stare. "Seriously. This is normal for us. I left some goat porn in Melissa's backpack because she is part of the family now."
"That is at once the cutest and most awful thing I have ever heard."
"What? It was grown-up goats. None of that freaky pedophile baby-goat nastiness. And no humans in it either, just straight-up goats mating, vanilla as it could be. She is new to the family and must be slowly assimilated into the Borg-like entity that comprises House Findlay."
"I don't know if that is more or less like horrible 'Game of Thrones' fanfiction come to life."
"Prob'ly less. No way Mr. Mittens the tabbycat is a lion of Lannister."
"On that profoundly upsetting insightful note, I'd better go see about a ride," Scootaloo waved goodbye and headed off to see Melissa and Demi about a lift to the grocery store, after which, she knew, she would be flying home with the ricotta cheese and leaving them to whatever couple-tastic depredations or goat-related discoveries awaited them.
That left Christina and Josie to drive home in Demi's shabby old Subaru.
They talked for a while about desultory topics, the difficulty of finding really shocking goat porn anymore now that it was all hanging out for anyone to see on the National Geographic Channel, what was the media coming to, wasn't the meeting fun, the pizza was better than what the cheerleaders ordered last time, Scootaloo had really outdone herself… and that was what did it. Just the mention of their friend's name was enough to break Christina's resolve not to let the news affect her.
"Christina, why are you crying?" Josie asked.
"I'm fine."
"So, I take it you told Scoot that you have a crush on her, then?"
"…I do-"
"Oh, don't try to deny it, it's obvious. Who fixes computers here, anyway?" Josie sighed. "Sounds like it didn't go how you thought it would."
"She…she cares about me, but she doesn't…she doesn't…"
"Well, yeah. Scootaloo is straight. I could've told you that, if you'd bothered to, y'know, tell me." Christina looked at her dark-haired friend in surprise. Josie, who was driving, managed to give her a sidelong smile at a short red light. "Not everyone picked up on it, but I knew. Why did you think I've been acting like Pinkie Pie on methamphetamines every time you start to sigh over her? Melissa wouldn't have cared and I'm pretty sure she knew I was being a distraction, 'cause before we had the Alliance, there were some bitchy girls on the squad who would've torn you apart for crushing on another girl. And I won't have them picking on you."
"I'm sorry, Josie."
"Sorry? What the fuck do you have to be sorry about? You like girls. You like guys. That's okay. You shouldn't have to hide who you are from other people any more than Conner should've gone out with Scootaloo to try and hide who he is. There's nothing wrong at all with liking people of either gender, or both, or even some new ones we haven't discovered yet, though if it's that last one I hope you can draw, 'cause extraterrestrial porn has some serious Uncanny Valley shit."
"You don't suppose she's avoiding a relationship just because of the Conner thing?"
"With you? That's a very tactful pony-girl using a very real excuse to cover the fact that, unless I am very wrong with the most precisely-tuned gaydar this side of NORAD, she prefers something with the Y-chromosome factory-installed." Josie sighed. "That, and even if you discovered a magic Belt of Gender Reassignment and came to school tomorrow as a buff, tough dude named Chris, you probably still wouldn't be someone Scootaloo finds attractive."
"Why not? Conner and I don't look that different."
"I don't mean that as having anything so much to do with looks, as with brain chemistry. When we spend time with people a lot as young children, our brains tend to write them into the code as 'siblings' or 'sibling-equivalents,' just highlighting them as 'do not mate with this one.' It's one of the neurotypical impulses that have to be broken or situationally left out for something really counterproductive to evolution, like incest, to work at all. Unless I'm wrong, you've had a bit of a crush on Scoot since the spelling-bee in third grade, haven't you?"
"…You're right."
"First she just seemed so freakin' cool, and then as time wore on, you realized what the feelings meant?"
"Pretty much. How do you know all this?"
"Because that's how I felt about my one, tragic hopeless crush. Everyone seems to have at least one of them, yours just happened to hurt a lot more. While you were nursing that years-long crush on her, Scoot was thinking of you as 'friend' and 'fellow prepubescent tribe member' and 'sibling.' Her brain put you into something a bit more hard-coded than the friend-zone…you literally appear to her mind as a sister, and if she even tries to imagine you in a sexual or relationship context other than friend, it sets off the same squicky incest-prevention feelings we all evolved to prevent offspring being born with third eyes and flipper-hands and other such freaky shit."
"What was it you said in your presentation for Bio class the other day?"
"'Evolution makes a bitch of us all'?"
"That was it."
"Pretty much. You've evolved to share relationships and sex with both genders, like a super-enlightened post-Protestant bonobo-person. You could, theoretically, raise much healthier offspring with access to many more resources because your ability to mate with males and females lets you raise your offspring in a cooperative family group with multiple adults…assuming you're not completely monogamous. Some people are and some aren't. And even monogamy allows you to select from the biggest possible pool of mates, which means a larger statistical likelihood of having the strongest, most intelligent co-parent, even if you do just adopt 'em from foster care. Bisexuality isn't a problem, Christina, it's a superpower." Josie cracked a can of Diet Coke and offered it to her friend without taking her eyes off the road. "It's just rotten fucking luck that the same evolution that gave you the ability to fall for a childhood friend also coded said friend's brain to genetically lock you into the sibling-zone."
"You really do think that's it?"
"I've known you both for how long? And I may be fairly frivolous as a rule, but I'm not stupid. Scootaloo, being both tact personified and one of the few genuinely kind people in the world, would say or do anything just to spare your feelings. I, not being burdened with anything like tact, can say quite bluntly that 'yeah, Chris, it's a hopeless crush.' And I am. But I have also been there myself, and I can tell you, it does get better."
"Who was your hopeless crush?"
Josie pulled into a deserted lot and parked the car.
"You'll be shocked and appalled," she warned.
"I just admitted to a crush on my best friend, who is also a cartoon pony."
"Yeah, true." Josie took a sip of the Diet Coke. "Still not as bad as a thirty-five-year old gay pastor."
"You…what?"
"Pastor Josh, from my church. I'd loved him for years. Finally got the nerve to tell him…okay, maybe tell is being generous. I kinda-sorta cornered him after catechism, declared my undying love and snogged him."
"Josie!"
"I was fifteen, I'd realized that trying to just date boys who looked like Pastor Josh wasn't working out…there were hormones involved…and evolution makes a bitch of us all."
"What happened?"
"He was shockingly decent about the whole thing. Let me down as gently as he could, pointing out first that pastors do not get involved with their flock, then that he was more than twice my age, and finally he informed me that he is also gay. So I was three for three on the Impossible Crush Obstacle Scale. There was rather a lot of crying and cussing and it could've really done a hard number on my faith and trust in adults if he hadn't been just so damnably nice about it. He explained so calmly why it could never work, gave me a big hug and just kind of snuggled me until I felt better enough to go home."
Josie cleaned her glasses and sighed at the memory. "I haven't really tried to love anyone in that way since, not because I think it'll happen again, but because, well…knowing that Pastor Josh was never going to love me the way I wanted, but that he still loved me…that's been kind of enough, really, for now at least. I know that I'm capable of profound, perception-of-reality-warping love, and that's not something everyone can do. The fact that I happened to fall for a person who can only ever love me as a little sister and a good friend, well…that's hard luck, but after the first sharp cut of pain and disappointment and feeling so damn embarrassed for even saying anything about it at all…it does start to feel better. Really."
"How long did it take for you?"
"Well…I haven't dated anyone since, nor have I really wanted to, and it's been about eighteen months. So as for whether it's done a number on my love life or whether I've just used 'healing up from a tragic grand passion' as an excuse to pull down better grades than expected and save money on dates, it's really hard to say. As for being able to think of my pastor without crying, that took about an hour and a half. Being able to see him without feeling awkward, that takes a week or so. And being able to feel like I'm lucky for having a person who couldn't fulfill a crush, but could love me as a friend? That took about a month, maybe forty days. Your mileage may vary."
"An hour and a half?"
"To be fair, I did get some high-quality platonic snuggling, which does help solve most problems." Josie pulled off her raggedy old denim jacket and put it around her friend, then hugged her. "Do you think some of that might help?"
"…Yeah."
"Good." Christina slid down the bench seat to lean on Josie's shoulder.
"I just can't imagine what it's going to be like, seeing her every day and knowing she knows how I feel about her."
"Is that really embarrassing anymore, or just sad? Because it shouldn't be embarrassing at all. If I know Scoot, she probably feels just as silly for not noticing the crush as you do for having it. And you can't both of you be embarrassed for just some genetic hard luck."
"It was embarrassing, but now it's just starting to feel like sad."
"And it is. You're going to have to bury a dead fantasy. It's like when anything else you've had for a while dies. At first you feel like you can hardly go on, but in time, you're able just to miss how it was, and in time, maybe you might find it in your heart to consider a new one. Like…pets or something."
"Josie…are you straight?"
"Yes. Not that I'd say 'don't get any ideas' or anything, but I do have a strong fondness for Y-chromosome-equipped models."
"I was actually about to say 'if you're trying to steal me from Scootaloo, you are so not the same type at all.'"
"This does have an uncomfortably date-feeling feel to it, doesn't it?"
"Kinda, yeah."
"We should do something super-platonic after this. Like get those sticky nose strips and peel them off. It's probably impossible to do that with anyone to whom one is attracted."
"Oooh, and facials! And I know where we can watch this really bad Lifetime movie about Women Overcoming Adversity. We can take shots of root beer every time there's a predictable plot setback!"
"Christina! That was a perfect completely-bloody-frivolous conversation segue!" Josie beamed.
"I'm taking your advice on my love life, I might as well try Better Living Through ADD while I'm at it, eh?" Christina grinned despite red-rimmed eyes. "And I can kinda-sorta see how it's going to get better now."
"'Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again,'" Josie quoted.
"What's that one from?"
"I have it on my mp3 player, here."
And despite the uncomfortably date-feeling feel of Demi's shabby Subaru, Christina and Josie listened to the song 'Any Major Dude Will Tell You' by Steely Dan as the rain came down on the car. By the time the cheerful, up-tempo song about telling cult members to fuck right off and the 'fucked-up' one about a junkie overdosing that Josie had used for their fifth-grade D.A.R.E. graduation had played, Christina had fallen asleep on her friend's shoulder. High-quality platonic snuggling had once again saved the day.
So Josie drove her friend home, made up a shockingly credible lie about a more than usually exhausting combination of math tests and cheerleading practice to conceal Christina's having been to a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting to her less-than-gay-friendly parents, and generally had her friend's back. Again.
Because that is what friends do. Even fucked-up ADD ones with a weird taste in music and a fondness for awful pranks.
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2800415 I got hate on doing the right thing. Logic of theirs is not sound. I stand by on what I said.
By the way. Nice chapter!
Ff... I knew it!
I haven't read the story yet, I'm just wondering why every single comment except the two newest ones all have 1-4 downvotes.
Why all the down votes?
The story was picked up by a group of... trolls, for lack of a better word. I'm an average author, and there are plenty of errors to complain about, but the down votes are mainly political.
As an example, when Scoot makes it to her teenage years, her parents give her access to basic sex ed information to help her stay safe. Some people who subscribe to 'abstinence only' have a real problem with that.
The reality is that I live in a county which uses 'abstinence only' sex ed, and our teen pregnancy rate is > 50%.
3092822
WHAT!? SPOILERS WHERE!? I must have them!
Well this story was obviously troll voted. Imma give it a chance just because of that. Unless is trick... but trick that is shown to be trick, is it still trick? Or is trick trick in first place? Imma stop this now and download the story.
3072598 Well, I'm almost done getting up-to-date on this story. Starts off a bit wobbly, but it picks up speed and improves a lot.
Yep. Definitely troll voted. Scootaloo's personality has evolved, but your writing "voice" is easy on the eyes, and fun to read.
Assholes, the lot of them.
i.imgur.com/SGCNVQX.gif