Author's Notes:

There are naughty things all up in here, and likely leading right on into the next chapter. Beware them! Also beware typos, but that should go without saying.

It had been a long day, but a productive one. She'd gotten her interview about the house down. She had a new tenant! Sure, that new tenant was super gay, but she had manners and lived most of her life being not-gay.

Lucky Tabitha, she got to be in the inner circle.

With a soft sigh, she settled into her bed and clicked off the light. Sleep seemed like a good idea. They'd be by the next day to install the air conditioner into her office and keep the place nice and aired out.

In the darkness, she heard the door slide open from her balcony. Somehow, it seemed familiar, as were the soft clops of hooves. She knew that intruder. "Razz? Why are you in my room?"

"I... need to talk... Can we?"

Tabitha peeked out from under her covers at the darkened form of the pegasus. "Razz? Really?"

"R-really..." He sounded like he could break into tears. "I'll go if you want."

Tabitha sat up and spun around, coming to face Razz with concern. Her anger faded at those miserable tones. "What happened?" She held out a hand and there was a soft thump as he hopped right up onto the bed and buried his face right into that offered hand.

For a moment there was nothing but sniffling.

He drew back. "I... I don't feel right."

"Are you sick?" She wasn't sure how much she looked forward to hauling her friend to the hos... did ponies have those? She hoped they did. "What's wrong?"

"N-no..." He sat down on her bed. "I... I love Bubbles. I love her so much, but... it's like a sister. I want to be her stallion. I... I'm trying, honest! I mean... We did things... She... She likes it... But..." He licked over his lips. "I don't. I just don't." He thumped a hoof into the bedding. "I don't!"

"Easy there." She stroked down his spine, easing some of that tension away. "I'm not here to judge." She was judging. She was judging and she was confused. "You don't like being a guy?" Oh god, was he gay too?

"N-no. I mean... I like that part." He smiled in the dark. "I mean... I don't know what's wrong with me. Bubbles is great. I love her, really... I do, but I don't love her that way? I think about living with her forever. I think about f-foals. She gives me t-that look... I'm miserable!" He grabbed for her, burying his face against her robes.

The picture of what was wrong was becoming more clear. "And you don't want to lose her, as a friend."

"Exactly!" He sat up, nodding fiercely. "I want her, as a sister. I want us to stay together forever, as friends. I just... I don't want to be her stallion. I mean... I..."

Tabitha raised a brow. "Are you sure you like mares at all, that way?"

"I like you that way!" He went red as soon as the words had escaped his snout and he shrank, fidgeting. "It's true... Even before you were... what you are. When you were a normal pegasus, when you were human, and when you were both. Tabitha..." He sat up tall. "Tabitha, I love you. I think about us growing old together, and that... makes me smile."

A chill ran down Tabitha's spine even as other parts of her warmed at the gushed out confession. "Calm down, Razz." She put her hands on his shoulders but he squirmed past them and began to nuzzle her sensitive belly, making her giggle despite the severity of the situation. "No, seriously. Are we going to talk about this like adults?"

That stopped him. He sat back and wiped a fetlock over his face. "Whether or not we... do anything, I can't be with her, not like this. I want to break up, as marefriend and coltfriend, but I don't want to shatter her. She's a friend, and I want to be a good one, a friend that is. What do I do?"

"Is that what you really think?" Bubbles had quietly entered through the still-open door.

Razz went wide-eyed and quaked in terror.

Tabitha wasn't as easily shaken. "Bubbles, can you join us?"

"Why?" It was an acidic tone. "You won."

"This isn't about winning or losing." Tabitha patted the bed gently. "It's about being reasonable adults."

"I don't wanna be reasonable none!" She took a step away, looking ready to flee. How had the unicorn gotten onto her balcony?

"Wait!" Razz turned to her. "Please..."

She gritted her teeth a moment. Her horn glowed as the door slid shut and locked. "Fine. For you." She hopped up and sat down. "So, you still want her?" She hiked a hoof at Tabitha.

Razz flashed a faint echo of a smile. "Y-yeah... It's not you, oh Celestia, please... it's not you." He sank towards the bed. "You're a..."

"Loser?"

"No!" He sat up and approached her. "You're great! I love being with you. I love being your friend. I love that we're improving, growing. I love that we get to hang out whenever we want. I love talking with you."

Bubbles glanced to the rival female and back at Razz. "But you don't love me."

"No..." He hung his head. "I don't want to be your stallion. I do want to be your friend. I do want to be with you... just not... that way."

She laughed, a cold and hurt sound. "That's the kind of line a mare's supposed to throw in a shocked stallion's face. And here we are..." She dug out something from a pocket with her magic and drew out four tiny socks. "Here."

His eyes widened. "Are you?"

"Nah." She tossed them off the bed. "Whattaya think this is, some kind of soap? Pfft. Nah. I just thought... we could, you know... think about it..."

Tabitha reached for the obviously hurt mare and wasn't stopped from resting a hand on that head, of stroking those soft ears. "You do know he's crying for you, right?"

Bubbles cringed even as she laughed. "Am I that pathetic?"

Razz snorted loudly. "You're not pathetic at all! Bubbles, you're my strength." He thumped his own chest. "You remind me to be a s-stallion. Whenever I feel... down, I just ask myself, What would Bubbles do? Then I say the things that need saying." He put a hoof at his chest. "Like right now."

"Like right now," she echoed, her snout twisting into a bit of a smirk. "Dummy." She advanced despite the word and suddenly kissed the shocked stallion. As he melted back and sank, she pulled away. "Dummy." She suddenly turned on Tabitha. "You!"

"Me?" She raised a brow at the agitated mare. "I'll remind you I was ju--"

"You'd better treat him properly." Her tail lashed angrily. "He's my friend, and I won't stand for him having a mare that doesn't treat him like the awesome pony he happens to be."

Tabitha stared at her a moment. That was a quick change of mind, but... when were they a thing? She had a marefriend! "I plan to be a good landlady. By the way, speaking of that..."

Razz laughed nervously, a hoof behind his head. "Speaking of that, we sh--"

"Razz!" She scowled at him, red in the face. "In front of two mares, really?"

She was glancing at his stiff flat-headed member as if both appalled and attracted. "I thought you didn't even like me that way anyway."

Seeing that, Tabitha realized that she was keyed up all the same. She was tense and throbbing despite the awkwardness of it all. The only reason she hadn't been spotted was because she was laying on her pony belly. With a start, she realized she wasn't wearing her scent blocker and two emotionally vulnerable ponies were present. "You two should go, now."

Bubbles approached Razz, her tail hiking upwards slowly, pulsing upwards as if by the same unseen beat that made the two stallions twitch. "Or were you mistaken, Razzy? Are you looking for a mare after all?"

Tabitha could see where things were headed, and she didn't like it. But she didn't like it for reasons she didn't expect. She wanted it. She wanted that big pony cock. She wanted that twitching pony vulva. She wanted them both and her constantly denied body marshaled its limited will to demand it be made so.

She rose to her hooves and her stiff member dropped into view.

Bubbles turned, something acidic surely on her tongue, but she saw that member and the words faded away as her tail dropped into the way, only to raise back up as she shivered. "Damn..."

Razz took a deep breath of air, and mare and stallion scents. "Tabby."

"Yes?" She stepped forward. She felt stiff everywhere. She knew what she wanted.

"May I--"

"Yes." She wanted that, to start. "Go ahead." With that handled, she put a hoof on Bubble's stunned shoulder and drew the mare back into herself. "I'm going to fuck you."

That woke Bubbles up. She squirmed, her delicate parts grinding against those firm parts, making both pant with increasing pleasure. "D-damn half-stallion! You... I..." Her tail hiked all the higher before she suddenly vanished in a bright shower of sparks.

She appeared a few feet away, smoldering and panting as if she'd just run a few miles. "No! No no no no! You t-take him and... do..."

Her words were almost lost as Razz clambered up onto the pony half of Tabitha and pushed the flat end of his member to her own winking lips. He sank into that deliciously slick tunnel with a powerful thrust of his hips that was met with a crashing slam of her torso back against him. They were bonded and wanted more. With great speed and building fervor, they began to slam against one another.

Bubbles licked her lips. "N-no hard feelings." She smirked as if that had been a joke, then she fled.

She galloped to the door leading to the hallway and threw it open with her magic, allowing light to spill in.

"Hello?"

Coco was standing there, a hoof raised to knock on the door. She watched Bubbles flee with a confused expression.

Some of that confusion was addressed when she entered the apartment and saw Tabitha being drilled feverishly by a stallion.