I stepped through the door and closed it behind me. Despite being rather late, the townsfolk still partook in gambling and drinking while at the same time buying ‘Service’ mares for the night.

I let out a deep sigh of relief as the noise was somewhat blocked out by the hotel room’s walls. It was quieter than earlier today but would still be a little hard to get to sleep. My relaxation hadn’t even begun when suddenly a scream scarred the living hay outta me.

“OH MY GODDESS! JOHN ARE YOU ALRIGHT!” The voice literally made me cringe from the excessive loudness. I held a hoof up to my ear to try and save my eardrums. Daring came up and grabbed my shirt, quickly trying to pull it off.

“Hey, what in the hay do yah think yer doin?” I asked with confusion in my voice. Then I saw the worry on her face and noticed that I did look rather bloody. “Oh… right… yeah it’s not my blood. I went out and helped out Sheriff… Marshal Ray take out some cattle rustlers and one of them got blood on me.”

She let out a near crying sigh of relief. “John… I was so worried. I thought that you had been hurt really badly.” She told me with a slight touch of worry in her voice. I raised an eyebrow.

“Since when do you care so much about me?” I asked with sarcastic curiosity in my voice. She blushed a little then gave me a light punch to the shoulder.

“John, I know we’ve only known each other for a few days at most but… you’re a really good friend and I wouldn’t like to see you get hurt.” She told me as she gave me a hug then groaned in disgust. “Ech… great see what you did? Now we’ll both have to have a bath… again.” She told me with friendly irritation in her voice.

I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Oh please no… not another bath.” I groped. She rolled her eyes then dragged me towards the bathroom but I let her pull me along somewhat.

Daring Do, hours later:

Black Mane laughed hysterically as he cocked back the hammer on his Model 10 revolver. I gulped. ‘How the hell did I end up here again?’ I wondered to myself.

Suddenly out of nowhere, John lept through the air and bucked Black Mane’s revolver out of his magical aura. Black Mane turned to John just as he delivered another two hoofed buck to Mane’s jaw.

The black unicorn was tossed through the air from the force of John’s kick. The other stallion’s in Mane’s gang went for their guns. In a flash of motion, John simply snapped up his revolver out from its holster then hosed down the group with his Colt single action army.

My heart was racing as John blew out the smoke from the gun’s barrel then spun the revolver and holstered it. He looked over to me and slowly trotted over. “John… you saved me… again.” I stammered, my heart racing from the near death experience.

He suddenly stood to his hindlegs and grabbed me by the shoulders before pulling me up to my hindlegs as well. I blinked erratically, not really knowing how to take the situation.

“I love you Daring.” He whispered softly. I cocked my head to one side. I had been in love before… well sort of. The last stallion had only wanted me because he thought I was rich due to all my adventures.

“I… uhm…” I trailed off in confusion. This couldn’t be happening. We had only known each other for what? Two days? How could he just decide that he loves me in that short of time?

He leaned forwards as he began to shut his eyes and for some reason my body simply leaned towards him as well, almost as if it was automatic, not needing my permission. This couldn’t be happening. I let my eyes gently close shut but just as I was about to feel his lips against mine I heard a terrible noise that sounded like… like snoring.

I got up with a gasp. I was breathing heavily as sweat rolled down my face and body. I quickly scanned my dark surroundings as my eyes adjusted. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I found that I was in our hotel room, on the bed to be exact.

I slowly slowed my breathing through heavy breaths then wiped the sweat from my head. I had perspired profusely and the bed was rather wet and cold. I tried to move around to find a dry spot but couldn’t.

This hadn’t been the first time I had sweat while I slept. Usually after an adventure I’ll have a few nightmares about dying and wake up just before I die in my dreams. And they always have to feel so real. But never in my life had I really had a romantic dream.

As my ears slowly adapted I heard an irritating sound. It was snoring. I looked around and eventually found myself looking to the grandfather clock. It was two in the morning. I groaned as I looked over to John who was snoozing away but worst of all he was snoring, and loudly.

I groaned as I slowly and tiredly got out of my wet bed then trotted over to John’s sleeping body. His left hindleg was dangling off the couch’s side. His left foreleg was drooped over the side as well but rested on the ground. His right hindleg rested off the end of the couch, due to it being smaller than his body length.

His right foreleg rested on his inflating and deflating chest as he snored away. Every so often he’d snort and stir in his sleep a little. I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep with him snoring like this.

I gave him a nudge. “John.” I whispered. The downstairs was deathly silent so I was guessing that every-pony had gone home or was sleeping silently. “John.” I whispered again, albeit louder. Still he wouldn’t wake.

I began to shake him rather erratically but he was in deep sleep. “Goddess dammit John! Wake up!” I hissed silently. Still he wouldn’t wake. I continued to try and wake him for the better part of what felt like an hour.

My mind became rather fazed as tiredness and exhaustion began to take its toll. I let out a prolonged yawn. I set my head down on John’s chest in defeat as he continued to sleep peacefully. “Dammit John… why do you have to be so… so impossible.” I scowled to myself.

He didn’t answer of course but his constant and slow breathing felt nice as it gave my head a bit of waving motion. I felt my body start to shut down and it cried out for sleep. As my body began to turn itself off I felt the texture of the couch. It was rather comfortable, smooth and a nice cool temperature. Maybe that was just the exhaustion saying that to me.

In a subconscious motion I pushed John over and crawled onto the couch. I shuffled around a bit to get comfortable. In a subtle and tired thought I reached around behind me for a blanket, thinking in my subconscious mind that I was still in my bed.

I found something that felt soft, fluffy and warm then pulled it over my shoulders and pressed my body up against its warm mass.

John’s perspective:

My mind started to come around and I let out a yawn then it felt like something was off. I went to rub the sleep out of my eyes when I noticed that something was holding my right arm… and that same thing was lying on my left arm which was completely numb now due to the lack of blood circulation. I blinked several times until my vision came into focus and I noticed a mass of golden yellow fur snuggled up to my body.

I quickly glanced to the grandfather clock to see that it was only 5:30am. It was too early to get up. Maybe if we knew where Black Mane was we’d be on the road by now but due to the late night and the fact that I still needed to talk to Sheriff err Marshal Ray, we’d probably be leaving later in the day.

As gently as I could, I shuffled myself out from between Daring and the back rest of the couch. I went to hop onto the floor but my left leg was still inoperative so I nearly crashed but managed to recover quickly before doing so.

My left foreleg tingled from just above the elbow all the way down to the tip of my hoof as blood finally started to circulate again. I looked back to Daring who was sleeping peacefully and scratched my bare chest. Didn’t she have any courtesy whatsoever?

We were both indecently dressed yet at some point during the night she decided to come sleep with me? I scratched my head in curiosity then looked to her bed. She had called the bed and made one hay of an argument as to why I shouldn’t just go buy another room and simply sleep on the couch.

I tried telling her that it would make more logistical sense for me to simply rent another room for myself but apparently five bits for a bed for me to sleep on was a waste of money when I could simply sleep on the couch.

I went over to the bed, wondering why exactly she’d put up an argument about this whole bed sleeping thing just to end up crawling up in the couch with me in the middle of the night, or whenever she did it.

Nothing seemed to be necessarily wrong with the bed. It was a little messy but other than that it looked rather comfortable.

I went to set a hoof on the bed to see if perhaps it was too hard of a mattress when a rather foul odour reached my nostrils. It was that of heavy sweat. I knew it from my own experiences after a long battle or dangerous bounty. Sometimes, a few days after, I’ll wake up after a terrible dream just absolutely soaked in sweat and in the morning my mattress will stink worse than… well it’ll stink pretty bad.

I yawned again and found that I was still rather sleepy and needed some rest. The couch was nice but I had a feeling that this bed would put it to shame.

I hopped on the bed and the springs creaked from the weight of my body. I found that the sheets were still rather wet but quickly found comfort in the fine bedding. Just before I began to doze off I heard Daring talking in her sleep.

“Really?… Mmm yes… I do…” she murmured. I raised an eyebrow and eavesdropped on her sleep talk. I know that I really shouldn’t but it sounded rather interesting. After a few minutes I realized that it wasn’t interesting and was quite boring. Mostly stuff about her adventuring together with some-pony but she’d never say who, only saying ‘Us’ or ‘We’.

I yawned then quickly found comfort in the mattress and passed out peacefully. Hopefully this time I wouldn’t wake up with Daring sprawled out on top of my arm.

Author's Notes:

Badum tssh, and the romance starts to formulate... I think... never been very good with romance