A continuation of Sweetie by Maple. Since Maple said that should the fluffy survive, the requester can essentially adopt them, I’m going to claim Sweetie as mine and will work on her story more. I actually had the idea for the original story in my mind for sometime but honestly had been dealing with stuff,leaving me demotivated, so I wanted to see someone’s take on it. This story is meant to build up a bit more on Stephen’s own backstory and character, some of which, was inspired by myself. Also, it’s a very late story, since I did mean to post it by Christmas but oh well
It was a nice December day, pleasant enough for a walk as it was the early morning so there wouldn’t be a large influx of people rushing to shop for Christmas presents and the cold was more comfortable than unbearable. Since he figured he had been cooped up a bit too long than what was healthy for the average human, Stephen decided that some morning exercise for him and Sweetie would do them both some good.
As he sat up in bed, Sheila shifted beside him, her hand searching for his warmth.
“Mmh, where’re you going?” Sheila sleepily asked, her eyes still closed. Stephen couldn’t blame her for asking that, it wasn’t often that he got out of bed before her.
Between the two of them, he had a less hectic schedule, being self-employed, while Sheila had a job at the ER. So with a small smile, he leaned in and kissed her forehead before saying “Just figured it’s a good day to bring Sweetie out for a walk and since you’ve been doing that for her these past few days, I think it’s my turn to make sure she keeps up her exercise.”
“Okay, just be careful with her, you know how she is…how fluffies are,” she said as she turned to face the other side, no doubt to hug the pillow she placed there to help her go back to sleep. It was quite lucky that she would manage to get personal time off, and Stephen would make sure she got to enjoy a stress-free day as much as she can.
He owed her that much.
Getting out of bed, he opened his closet and hastily put on some of the warmer clothes he had stowed away at the back, a habit of his that he retained from his teen years. Once he was all decked out in adequate protection from the morning cold, he grimaced at the messy state he left his closet in.
“And because you’re a lazy fatass you will organize it…later”
__
Knocking gently on the door, Stephen listened in a bit for the sounds indicating that Sweetie had woken up, patiently waiting for the shuffling of her blankets and her high-pitched yawning. Once he heard those telltale sounds, he entered the saferoom, the door lightly creaking.
Initially, Stephen had thought about getting quieter hinges so that he wouldn’t disturb Sweetie’s sleep, but the more paranoid part of him decided against it.
He had heard one too many horror stories of intruders breaking into homes, stealing or killing pet fluffies with the owners or the fluffies being none the wiser.
As he stepped inside the room, his heart warmed at the sight of his beloved fluffy, as it always did whenever he saw her. Sweetie had just wiggled her way out of the blankets, going over to the nightlight in the corner and pressing its button with her hoof, turning it off. It was a rather impressive feat given the usual level of fluffy intelligence.
“Then again, Sheila did mention that she has an interesting pedigree…maybe one of her parents or grandparents was an alicorn.”
Smiling and kneeling by the baby gate, Stephen said “Good morning Sweetie, did you have good sleepy pictures?” as he watched her make her way towards him. “Yus daddeh, Sweetie am in skettiwand in sweepy pictuwes, eat gud nummies and pway wif su many toysies,” Sweetie said before letting out another adorable yawn.
Slowly, Stephen reached out for her, but paused midway to ask “Is it okay if I pet you right now, Sweetie?” ever so mindful of her boundaries. Sweetie gave him a nod and he gently ran his fingers through her soft white fluff, which always brought him some peace, and he hoped it did the same for her.
Even if it had been three weeks since he had adopted her, Stephen was still careful in doling out physical affection, well aware of Sweetie’s trauma from her first owners. He had learnt about them once he had earned the fluffy’s trust.
“It’s a beautiful day outside, and mommy is tired from work, so how about going for a walk with daddy this time?” he asked her with a gentle smile, giving her loving scritches behind her ear. “Gasp! Daddeh am going wif Sweetie fow walksies!?” Sweetie asked with one of the biggest smiles Stephen had ever seen on her face. It had taken him every ounce of willpower to not just squeeze her in delight from how adorable she was.
“Yup, sweet girl. Daddy needs to go on a walk anyway, I’m getting a bit fat after all…” Stephen said as he chuckled a little, poking at his belly with one hand, the other opening the baby gate to let Sweetie through.
“Daddeh nu am fat, jus getting weady fow cowd times, wike gwizzly munstahs in teebee,” Sweetie said as she went out from the gated part of her saferoom, going over to place a hoof on the small pudge visible even through her daddy’s jacket. “See, daddeh am weady fow hi-bew-nay-shun” the albino fluffy said as she smiled up at him, oblivious to the surprise on Stephen’s face.
“I’ll be damned, she actually understood that nature documentary…I wonder what else she can understand…”
Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, at least for now, Stephen led Sweetie out of the saferoom and into the main hallway of their home.“Sweetie, I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Daddy just has to put the warm not-fluff on you, to protect you from the cold” he said gently, picking up his fluffy after seeing her nod in acknowledgement.
While the soft fluff could no doubt, offer a bit of warmth, Stephen was well aware that fluffies were rather fragile creatures and wanted to be sure Sweetie was safe and cozy during their walk.
That, and he and Sheila were well aware of how much of a pain it would be to wash their fluffy’s pure white coat whenever it got dirty.
So with gentle hands, he placed her on their coffee table and from its drawers, got out the fluffy-sized boots and beanie along with the leash and harness. With most fluffies, putting them on would definitely be a chore, but Sweetie was always well behaved at this part, even if she did complain about the beanie “covering her hear places.”
“There we go, are you ready now for the walk?” Stephen asked with a smile once Sweetie had everything on, to which she replied “Yus daddeh! Am weady fow nice walksies!”
—
The snow crunched underneath Stephen’s galoshes, leaving large prints. Looking down at Sweetie as she walked around, Stephen smiled as he watched her take in the view, always having that wide-eyed amusement as if it was the first time.
They passed by the houses of Stephen’s neighbors, and he’d occasionally greet and chat with those he had an amicable enough of a relationship with.
Rosie, the middle aged woman who was known for her garden of rosebushes, appropriately enough, smiled and waved at him from her porch’s swing-bench. Claude and Henry, the couple who were always kind to fluffies that would end up on their doorstep (well almost always) greeted him and gave Sweetie some pets, respectively. Molly the fitness nut gave them an enthusiastic good morning while her pet golden retriever affectionately sniffed and licked Sweetie, his wagging tail matching his owner’s energy.
“Wex am nice bawky munstah, nu awways smeww pwetty, but awways nice tu Sweetie and gib Sweetie wicky-cweanies” Sweetie said as they walked out of the cul-de-sac area, eliciting a chuckle from Stephen. “That’s how Rex and other dogs—or barky monsters, as you call them—show they like someone. They have a different way of communicating, just like fluffies do from humans,” Stephen explained as they made their way to a nearby park.
“Daddeh, what am co-moo-knee-cay-ting?” Sweetie asked, looking up at him even as she continued walking.
“It’s another word for talking, also remember what I said about looking where you’re going,” Stephen reminded her gently, which got a gasp and an “Otay! Sowwy daddeh!” from Sweetie.
Soon, they entered the public park and while Stephen was tempted to remove Sweetie’s leash and let her run free, he decided against it. It would be for the best, after all, one can never know what could happen to a fluffy left to their own devices outside. So he kept a tight grip on the leash.
Settling on his usual spot, the bench near the park’s lake, Stephen let out a relaxed and contented sigh.
This early in the park, it was so quiet and so empty, it gave him some peace of mind. And he had found himself lacking in it the past few years.
“Few years? Hah, that’s rich coming from you, Stephen…”
Shaking the self-deprecating thoughts from his head, Stephen simply allowed himself to enjoy the peace. To simply exist.
Though it was briefly interrupted when Sweetie piped up, standing up on her hind legs, and asked “Daddeh, what am doing?”
Pausing, Stephen looked down at his fluffy, his blue eyes staring at her pink ones. Had it not been for the bright red beanie and neon green boots, she could perfectly blend in with the snow. Gently, he brushed his gloved fingers against her fluff.
“Daddy is just thinking and relaxing, do you wanna sit near him?” Stephen asked Sweetie, getting a small nod from the albino. He bent down and picked her up, making sure to support her bottom as he did so before gently placing her beside him on the bench.
He could feel Sweetie curl up beside him, her soft white fluff pressing against him.
“Wha daddeh thinking?” Sweetie asked softly, as Stephen stared at a leaf flying in the air, riding upon the cold wind.
He focused on the leaf, watching it as his mind turned it into a different leaf from a different time. In his mind, it turned into the leaf that landed on his head years ago, when he was twelve years old.
—
He had been walking home from school down a sidewalk, eyes red around the rim from having just dried his tears and a burning pain in his shoulder from how it was nearly displaced from its socket. He had paused to remove the leaf from his head, not far from an alleyway where he heard the tiny high-pitched voice singing…
“Mummah wuv babbehs…babbehs wuv mummah…dwink aww da miwkies tu gwow big and stwong…”
Could it be a fluffy?
Gram-gram talked about those things a lot, having still been a kid herself when they were released to the public. She had even wanted one herself, being a fan of the tv series that gave Hasbio the idea to make them in the first place. He couldn’t remember if she did manage to get one or not, only that she had a great love and empathy for the brightly-colored biotoys, something she had passed down onto him. So when he heard the telltale song, he had slowly walked into the alleyway and that was where he found her.
Sitting up behind a dumpster, busy singing and nursing her babies, was a pegasus fluffy.
She had looked at peace with herself and happy, eyes closed as she sung the “Mummah song” as gram-gram called it.
He remembered how surprised she was when he made his presence known, but she had also been so nice and sweet as she greeted him with “Hewwo wittwe hoomin! Fwuffy am jus hewping babbehs gwow happeh!”
He could still remember how she looked.
She had a lovely orange coat that looked dark at first glance, but that had been from grime and dirt, with a few bright patches of what was probably her actual color. Her mane had been a dark green that reminded him of grass caught in a downpour and combined with her coat color, she reminded him of a carrot. So that was what he had decided to call her.
“Fwuffy wuv nyu namesie! Am su sad dat wittwe daddeh can nu gib Cawwot nyu homsie, but am su happeh dat Cawwot and babbehs hab wittwe daddeh!
That had been the first time she called him little daddy.
Of course, he also still remembered the first time he saw her four adorable little foals.
An orange one that was just like her, but with a horn like her special friend, according to Carrot herself. A blue one, who she said looked like her special friend, that had her wings. A brown earthie that was also a dancy baby. And a white one and only girl and only one with both wings and a horn, who Carrot said looked like her own daddy.
How Carrot loved them all, despite the usual fluffy prejudice.
He had complimented her babies when she introduced them, calling all of them cute, and he meant it. He had held them gently, after asking her if he could do so, taking time to look at and talk to them.
He had lost track of how long he stayed in that alley, talking with them, playing with them, and even helping the fluffies as he tried cleaning them up with water from his jug and what clean tissues remained in his lunchbox.
When he got home that day, it was nearly dinner time. The fluffies weren’t the only thing he vividly remembered from that day. The sting of his father’s words, calling him a useless shit because of how late he was, remained glued to his brain.
But he had spared no second thought to his father. He always just thought of Carrot and her foals. After the time he met them, he would go to that alley again to spend time with them once he was done with school.
There was just something so sweet, so pure in the way they were, looking at the world with so much innocent naivety.
Sure, he had heard lots of stories of them being annoying, ones that got people calling them “shitrats.” But he figured whoever those people were, they probably wouldn’t give the time of day trying to understand them.
Oh how they made him happy, even after the worst school days, when he was bullied to hell and back.
All the cruel words were pushed to the back of his mind whenever Carrot would call him the “bestes wittwe daddeh” or say that she “wub wittwe daddeh su much!” Those bitingremarks about his school performance mattered less when he made a makeshift nest for Carrot and her babies, using his art skills. And he could have cared less about the judgemental stares he had gotten when Carrot looked at him in pure love and adoration.
Oh the way she did so, calling him little daddy and saying he was the best, and giving him huggies whenever he cried in that alley.
Yet every time he would remember Carrot, sweet sweet Carrot, his mind would also flash to the last time she called him little daddy.
The way she struggled and tried to reach for him, her leg bent at an unnatural angle. How broken and hoarse her voice sounded, so different than the other times he heard her speak. The image of her skull cracked open, blood seeping out, had seared itself into his mind. Her one remaining wing, the other having been painfully ripped off, had weakly fluttered as she tried to crawl to him.
It had been his fault. His own damn fault.
He had been getting careless at school, not noticing that he was being noticed by the bigger students who picked on him.
They noticed that he was always packing away a bit of his lunch, never finishing it. They noticed that he was reading on animal care in the school library. They noticed that he was working on things that he wouldn’t need, stitching up brightly colored blankets and pillows. They noticed, so they followed him one day, down to that alley with hammers and matches.
He tried thinking of the time he held the foals.
But even though he remembered holding them, he couldn’t remember how small they were, whether they barely fit on his palm or were the size of it. Even though he remembered having them in his hands, he couldn’t remember how soft their fluff was.
All he could remember was feeling blood and broken bones as he tried cradling their tiny bodies, destroyed from the abuse of Stephen’s bullies. All he could remember was how the bigger kids laughed and mocked him for caring for a bunch of “shitrats.”
When they left, he had taken it upon himself to give them as proper a burial as he could. He had gently laid them in their destroyed box-nest, placing flowers around their mangled bodies, whispering his last words to them.
The worst part was that the albino foal, Carrot’s alicorn baby, was the last to die. She died watching her mother and brothers suffer in pain in their final moments. And he watched her die as he tried comforting her through hers, seated against the brick walls, cradling her and sobbing.
She had just been learning to talk too, he had been teaching her.
And just like her mother, her last words had been-
—
“Daddeh?” Sweetie asked, bringing him out of his reminiscing. She had climbed onto his lap and was standing on her hind legs, gently patting at his face with her hooves.
For a moment, Stephen just stared at her silently, mind briefly flashing to a different albino fluffy. One with wings and a horn.
Closing his eyes, he calmed himself down a bit, before opening them to look at the albino before him. No wings, no horn, no gaping wound on her neck. And still very much alive.
“You’re okay,” was all he could muster out.
“Yus daddeh, am Sweetie n’ am otay,” Sweetie said with a slight frown, concerned over him. She had witnessed some of his episodes, after all.
“That’s right…you’re Sweetie and you’re alive…and you’re…okay” Stephen said as a bittersweet smile formed on his faces, eyes welling up with tears as he shakingly brought up a hand to pet her mane.
Sweetie, having learned what that expression and tone meant, wasted no time giving him huggies. She had yet to fully understand why daddy would get heart hurties, but she knew that huggies usually made him feel better.
Stephen only cried bittersweet tears as he embraced Sweetie, thinking of what felt like long ago and just yesterday all at the same time.
With a quiet sob, he said “You’ll be okay…I’ll be okay…We’ll be okay…”
