Lettuce Lend A Hand (Clop, Romance, ButterscotchxBlitz)

[INCOMPLETE]

You blink a few times and snap out of a daydream you had lost yourself in. You blowing one long pink mane bang from your eye, which glitters blue in the sunlight, and sigh softly. You are Butterscotch- saviour to animals, element of kindness, and one-time male fashion model sensation. And you have a problem.

The problem is that you are, as the Canterlot tabloids sometimes like to phrase it, trapped in the stable. You've known for years now that deep down, you like boys. You're a colt cuddler. A stallion snuggler. Or you would be, if you only had the guts to get out there and meet somepony.
Even when you were only a foal, you were never that interested in fillies (not that anypony noticed, as you were such a quiet and shy pony anyway). But as you started growing up (and yet never growing out of your social anxieties and fear of strangers), you were noticing more and more how... Nice the other colts were. At flight academy, you could hardly keep your eyes on your trajectory when in the air, soaring just a few yards behind the toned flanks of your classmates... Not that flying was ever something you excelled at, anyway. It was probably around that time that a few too many loud but sinister jokes about colts into colts lead you on the path of fear and internalised shame that guides you still.

You hid your secret well... Though with as few friends as you had, that wasn't so hard. Nobody ever noticed that you would always take longer changing just so the showers would be almost empty when you got there and you could avoid any awkward incidents, and on the few occasions where your curiosity and... Urges got the better of you, nobody ever noticed one or two missing sets of underwear.

But flight school was a long time ago. Today you have good friends, a comfortable home and a good reputation as an amateur veterinarian and general animal guru. But old habits die hard, and your secret is still secure, even from your closest friends. Even when... You almost wish it wasn't. But you've never been a brave pony, and you couldn't even imagine what you'd do if your friends started thinking less of you if they... Found out what you are.

You realise, slightly disappointed with your inability to concentrate, that you were daydreaming again. The fact is that these thoughts have been occupying your mind far more often recently- even though normally you would just dutifully ignore them or push them deep, deep down until they stopped bothering you.

But that's been harder in past weeks, and you know exactly why, even if you don't really like to admit it to yourself. You've been seeing much more of Rainbow Blitz since you helped him pick out a pet, as he's been back and forth, every day, asking for tips on feeding it, exercising it, playing with it, racing it, and just about every other topic you could need advice on to do with turtle care. Some of it the stuff he's visited to ask you about has seemed almost completely superfluous, like what colour propellers his turtle's flying apparatus should have, and the precise linguistic origins of the word 'Tank'.

You're used to seeing plenty of Blitz, of course. He's one of your best friends- maybe even your bestest best friend (although of course you wouldn't say anything like that around Dusk, Applejack, Elusive or Berry). You've certainly known him the longest out of all your close friends. You went to flight school together, after all. He was the only friend who really bothered to get to know him, and it's not wrong to say that his friendship always really meant a lot to you... And then some. But it took you quite a while to take the hint from those butterflies in your stomach that would flutter up a storm whenever you saw him fly... Or work out... Or shower.

In fact, it occurs to you with a sudden blaze of rosy redness in your daffodil yellow cheeks, quite a few of those undergarments that you pilfered on occasion from your peers might have belonged to Blitz once upon a time...

But that's enough of that! No more daydreaming! And certainly not about... That sort of thing.

Physically shaking yourself to attention and redoubling the rate of your trotting, you hurry yourself to the spot where you promised you'd be meeting Blitz. Apparently he has some very important questions he needs to ask you about lettuce brands, and while you have doubts to the true urgency of the matter, you're not about to disregard the request of a... Close friend. And, perhaps, you've come to savour these little meetings, just you and Blitz. Just a little. A little-little.

Finally, your back heavy with the carefully labelled and organised lettuce leaves you bought in anticipation of Blitz's questions and stuffed into your saddlebags, you reach the sunlit bench less than a mile from your cottage where you always meet Blitz. Your heart skips a beat when he looks down from intensely staring at the sky, hearing your approach, and meets your own eyes with those huge magenta jewels of his, cracking a smirk as he tosses back his immaculately tended rainbow mane and lazily raises a hoof in greeting. His eyes wonder from you, to your saddlebags, and back again- one pronounced eyebrow rising in what looks like bemusement.

"Hey, Butterscotch, glad you finally turned up. What's in the bags?" You blink a few times and hesitate, a familiar bundle of nerves rising to block off your through and stifle your words.
"Um... It's, uh... L-lettuce."
You notice Blitz's cocky smile waver slightly, and wonder anxiously if you did something wrong, the first embers of panic churning in your stomach.
"... Lettuce?"
"F-for... Tank? You, um, said you... Needed, uh..."
You catch Blitz subtly rolling his eyes as he sits back a little more on the bench.
"Lettuce, right. Yeah."
Silence follows, broken only by the distant chirping of little birds, and each additional second with no words spoken simply compounds the awkward tension you feel filling the air like a thick miasma.

"Y-you look good!"

The words practically spew from your mouth, desperate to end the tension that you suspect was somehow your fault in the first place. But no sooner had the sentence left your lips that you wish you had held your tongue.

"I... What?"

Blitz fixes you with an uncertain stare that stops your heart and makes you feel dizzy with embarrassment. You're not sure if he's just curious or totally weirded out, but you're sure that another bout of silence will only make this worse for you.

"I mean, um, you look like... You've been... Working out? And t-that's... Good..."

Your whole body relaxes and you let out an enormous sigh of relief as Blitz grins to himself, shutting his eyes and laughs.
"Oh, you noticed, huh? Yeah, I've just been trying out a new routine. Been trying to build up muscle strength... Flexibility... That sort of thing."
He stretches back, his wings spreading to full length as he displays the firm tension in his smooth, toned, muscular legs... Shoulders... Chest... Flank....
He adjusts his legs, and you find yourself staring for one or two seconds right at his broad sheath and heavy sack. With a lurching in your chest, you quickly look away, but from the corner of your eye you think you see his eyes narrow slightly, and it takes all your willpower to not start quivering with nervousness.

"You 'mirin?"
"Uh... Huh?"
It takes you a moment to figure out what he's asking, and you try to figure out whether he was talking about you staring at his body, or staring at his... Body.
"Nothing to be ashamed of, I get it all the time. Mares want to be with me... Stallions want to be... Me."
You mumble something indistinct in response, hoping dearly for some distraction to save you from this dizzying and confusing exchange. As if in response, a single raindrop splashes on your nose, and you scrunch your muzzle up reflexively, and Blitz chuckles gently. Then you feel another on your rump. And then another, on the tip of your ear.

Looking up at the previously clear sky, you're stunned to see that in what must have been moments, a roiling maelstrom of grey and black storm clouds has formed. The first big tell-tale drops of a downpour quickly give way to first light, and then heavy rain, even as Blitz bounces to his hooves from his compromising position laid back on the bench.
"Oh, jeeze! That storm was scheduled for today?!" He jerks his head down the path in the direction of your cottage, moistening rainbow mane flicking in the air, and starts off at a trot that you frantically try to keep up with- weighed down as you are by two bags of lettuce.
"B-but... Don't YOU manage weather in the Ponyville region, Blitz...?"
Blitz shoots you a smarmy look and, perhaps noticing your difficulty, slows his pace to something approximating a proud but purposeful strut. "Well, sure. But naturally, it's my day off- how else would I be all the way out here visiting you? Too heavy?"

His choice of language to describe a short meet-up for pet advice doesn't pass you unnoticed, but you're thrown off by his second question. "O-Oh! Only, uh..." You hardly have time to open your mouth, however, before Blitz brushes a wing up your side, eliciting a shiver not entirely due simply to the cool rain, and almost effortlessly swings the saddlebags through the air and over his own back.

You almost think that his wing... Lingers over your midriff for just a moment longer than needed, but pass it off as your own imagination. That... Something that almost looked like a discrete wink, too, was certainly just a trick of the dimming light. That, or Blitz had a raindrop in his eye. Yeah, that seems plausible.

"Your place is this way, right? Do you mind if I crash with you tonight?" The dizzying nervousness is upon you again now, and you hardly trust yourself to open your mouth at this point, but Blitz seemingly takes your silence as hesitance "It's just that, while I totally could fly back home through this kind of wind resistance, I'm pretty sure there was some lightning on the forecast agenda, too. But if it's really inconvenient for you, I guess I could try..."

You almost trip over your own hooves in shock, and blurt out with such urgency that you barely know what you're saying until you're done.
"O-Oh goodness me, no! It's, uh, n-no problem at all Rainbow Blitz! Please, um, stay as long as you need! You can sleep in my bed!"

You pause just long enough to see Rainbow Blitz turn his head to look at you, before you drop your head to stare dutifully at the slick, pebbled path passing by beneath you and clumsily try to clarify "I-I mean, not, like, um, w-with me sleeping in it too or a-a-anything, um..."
"Butterscotch?"
"... 'Cause that would just be, like, weird. Heh."
"Butterscotch."
"I m-mean, I wouldn't mind, if you wanted... Buh-But not like, because... J-just because I know it would be weird for y-you, so..."
"We're here."
"B-but it's not a puh-problem, so I can just sleep on the co-" your pained monologue is cut short as you bump head-first into your own front door "-o-ouch..."

Rainbow Blitz, mane slick with rainwater and matted flat to his head and neck, smiles straight at you with a patient, kind smile warm enough to momentarily banish the cold damp of the evening's storm, and you furiously push back the crimson blaze you feel trying to accumulate in your cheeks. "You okay there, Blunderscotch?"
You giggle nervously when he calls you by your old nickname from flight school, but stop when you realise how... Un-stallionly you sound when you giggle.
"U-Uh, yeah, I'm fine, Blitz. T-thanks."
"... Well, do you think we could go inside? Lovely weather for ducks, but I'm feeling a bit sick of it myself."
You jump to attention, unlatching the door and leading the way inside. "O-Oh! Sorry, of course, I'm... Uh... S-sorry."

You both step inside, and the toasty warmth of the fire you left going while you were out washes over the both of you. Shutting the door, the raging storm outside becomes muffled and distant, just part of the background noise, like the crackling of the fireplace, the relentless pattering of the rain on the windows, and the muted 'plip, plip' of the odd drop of water dripping from your coats onto the green-painted wooden floor.