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Pony has always been told he dwells on the past too much.
He's heard it from his own father, on the nights he spent sobbing into his pillow even years after his mother passed.
He's heard it from his old “mates”, when he'd show them old pictures of him and Zizzy together as children. When he'd tell them countless stories the two had made together over the years.
“Pony, we get it. You're a hopeless romantic who is still in love with his girl best friend after all these years.” Filip would say in irritation after hearing another story about the zebra, carrying their dirty dishes to the kitchen.
“I think it's sweet.” Katie responded with a soft smile, sitting across from Pony
“I'm not in love with her, for the last time!” Pony would respond with a groan, ignoring the fact that they are right.
Pony heard it from Zizzy the night they reunited, after he finally had enough of Willow's shit and ran away from The Silver Paw for good.
“Pony, everyone's had to make sacrifices to survive.” Zizzy would tell him in a soft, yet firm tone, their knees touching as they sat closely together on her bed.
“It wasn't your fault. You were forced too.”
“I still feel like shit about it.” Pony responded to her quietly, looking down at his hands on his lap, avoiding her gaze.
“I should've done more, I should've fought back.” Pony added
“She had a gun Pony! There was nothing you could've done.” Zizzy would say, trying to convince him he wasn't a murderer like he was convinced he was
Pony rubbed his eyes once more, before reaching over and putting his glasses back on, a grim expression written all over his face
“Stop it. It was Willow's doing, not yours.” She would tell him, gently tilting his jaw so he would look at her, their faces just inches apart.
“You need to stop thinking of them. You're in a better place now, with people who actually care about you.” Zizzy says, her voice almost above a whisper
Pony's eyes drift down to her lips, then back up again at her violet eyes
“I know.” He says softly, before he gently pressed his lips against hers. Her eyes fluttering shut as she kisses him back.
Pony pulled away after a couple seconds. “And I'm grateful.”
They were right, he did think of the past way more often than a regular person would, but who can blame him?
In his late teens after Zizzy got sent to boarding school, he started hanging out with a different group of friends.
It was him, Willow, Billy, and Rash.
They would skip classes together and sit outside the school, smoking weed and cigarette butts they found discarded on the street.
Pony had to come to terms with his lifetime crush Zizzy being gone for pretty much forever, and his dads new debt.
Now he was broke and heartbroken, great.
Him and Willow were the new duo, stealing useless shit, getting high all day and all night, and sneaking into clubs downtown.
It was never the same as it was with Zizzy, no matter how hard he tried to push down that feeling of longing.
The day Willow's brother left home is the day everything changed. Willow went completely off the rails, started obsessively posting missing posters all over the city, walking the streets and silently counting every kid she saw run around.
Rash and Billy had thought she'd officially gone mad, making jokes that Willow's officially became the “wretched wolf”.
“Can you guys just fuck off? She's not “mad”, she's going through shit you guys would never understand!” Pony would defend her, beginning to storm away
“Pony! C'mon mate! We're only joking!” Billy yelled back at him, still laughing with Rash as Pony continued to walk down the alley, trying to find Willow.
He eventually found Willow sitting alone behind her adoptive mothers now abandoned TV store, lighting a cigarette, her knees pressed to her chest.
Pony sat beside her silently. “You alright?” He asked eventually
“Do I look alright?” She responds sarcastically.
She really doesn't, she probably hasn't washed in a few days, based on the state of her messy hair, and the scents of musk and cigarettes sticking to her clothes.
“C'mon, let me take you home atleast.” Pony says, standing up and offering her his hand.
Willow takes his hand and lifts herself up, holding onto his arm as they walk together slowly.
“You don't have to do this.” Willow tells him, blowing smoke out of her mouth as they walk, staring down at her feet
“Do what?” Pony asks, looking ahead, past the struggling shops, the busted windows, the graffitied walls.
“Pretending to be nice to me.” She responds, putting the cigarette past her lips as they eventually make their way to her alley.
Pony stops to look at her, the both of them standing together in the middle of the empty street as rain starts to come down on them.
“I'm not pretending, Will. I love you.” Pony tells her softly, looking directly into her dark eyes.
Willow turns her head to roll her eyes and scoff, trying to hide the fact that eye contact makes her feel extremely uncomfortable.
“Even if you think it's corny.” He adds with a soft smile, Willow turning back to face him, tossing the cigarette out on the street.
“Go home, it's late Pony.” She tells him while stomping on the cigarette.
“Same time tomorrow?” He asks while beginning to walk the opposite direction, turning back to face her one last time.
“Yeah, see you.” She responds, watching him walk away, still standing in the same spot.
Her eyes follow him as he puts his hands in his pockets, walking with his head down as the rain begins to pour down harder.
Willow doesn't know what it is about him, it can't be the glasses, or that stupid nerdy look he always has on his face that makes her want to punch him.
Maybe it's his gentle touch, or the way he always carries a lighter for her when she needs one.
Or maybe it's his deep voice rooted in accent that sounds way sexier to her than it should.
The thought of having a crush on anyone makes her sick, let alone a crush on Pony out of all people.
Willow is snapped out of her thoughts when police sirens are heard from a distance. In this neighborhood police get called on the daily, but Willow cannot risk being spotted.
She immediately goes inside her alley, triple locking up everything behind her, letting out a heavy sigh when she enters the dimly lit, empty “bedroom”.
—-------------------
T.S.P, 9 years later
It's been 3 weeks since the infection started. Willow was quick to break out of her jail cell and recruit a group of strong allys.
She called us “The Silver Paw”.
Pony found it all ridiculous. Uniforms, daily tasks, taking over areas, forming settlements.
He needed a place to stay so he didn't say shit. He just sat back and watched Willow, the once guarded, yet welcoming wolf he once knew, turn into a whole other animal.
She's always been quiet and intimidating, but this was something way different. This was years of abandonment and having parents too coked up to get jobs or properly care for their kids.
Pony waits til everyone's asleep before sneaking out of the bedrooms, walking quietly down the hallways to Willow's office.
He needed to talk to her.
Pony eventually approaches the door to her office, he really hopes she's not asleep already, though he seriously doubts it, thinking of how late she stayed out at night, every night, doing God knows what.
He lightly knocks on the hard wood a couple times, nervously taking a step back as he awaits for her to open the door.
After a moment, the door creaks open, Willow standing there, her face shifting to irritation when she sees him standing there
“What do you need, Pony?” Willow asks with a huff, letting him in.
Pony walks in, looking around the bland office as Willow shuts the door behind her.
“I wanted to talk to you, we haven't had a conversation in years.”
“I was just about to go to sleep.” She says with another irritated sigh, sitting down in her chair, watching him look around the room, keeping her head up with her hand.
“..What was jail like?” Pony asks after a beat of silence, eyeing the revolver that sits on her desk, a gun that she's had since forever.
“..Cold, and claustrophobic.” Willow responds quietly, almost in an unsure tone
“Huh.” Pony huffs, trying to avoid her cold stare as he looks more around the room
“Why are you here, Pony?” Willow finally asks, her eyes half lidded as she gives him a tired look.
“I just wanted to say hi, you know.” Pony lies, trying to avoid the fact he's now sweating, now leaning against a wall in front of her.
“I'm not a fucking idiot Pony, you want something.” She replies with irritation, sitting up.
Pony sighs, sitting down in the seat in front of her desk.
“I wanted to know why you're acting like this, acting like we're strangers and you're a bloody cult leader.” Pony presses
“This is what you came in here for? To ask why I'm not “besties” with you anymore?” Willow asks sarcastically, sitting back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Grow up Pony, it's been years. People change.”
“This is what I mean!” Pony shoots back, getting defensive
“I want to know why you're acting like this, and treating these people like they're your slaves, I want to know without you just insulting me and telling me off.” Pony says, his hands balling into fists in his lap
“Please just fucking talk to me like a normal person.”
Willow debates on telling him off again, but she knows he will not leave until she speaks.
“You've always been so damn stubborn.” She mumbles, rubbing her tired eye
She looks at his face before speaking again.
“Without me, you would still be alone, moping like the sad loser you are over your little girlfriend who you can't seem to get over.” Willow tells him off, leaning closer to the desk.
“Without me, everyone in this damned facility would be dead, from either being too stupid to function, or from starvation.” She adds harshly
“So don't talk to me like that. Ever.” Willow sternly says to him
“If you want to leave, be my guest, no one's stopping you Pony, maybe we'll help you leave, just like how we did with Foxy.” Willow tells him, standing up.
Pony winces at the thought of Foxy. They lured him in the cage at the carnival after he fucked up one supply run. After that they left him in there with that scary ass infected clown.
Willow opens the door to her office, standing back and holding it open, looking over at him.
“So you can either shut your big mouth and walk out of this door, or continue talking back to me, and we'll wake the team up and make them vote on what your punishment will be.” Willow tells him, now completely glaring at him.
Pony doesn't respond, he just stands up and reaches into his pocket, taking out a folded piece of paper.
Pony unfolds it and slaps it on her desk.
“Read it.” He tells her.
Willow looks at him in pure confusion, shutting the door and walking over, picking up the piece of paper and reading the words written on it.
Her heart nearly drops to her ass as she does.
God, I hate Pony. Everything he does makes me want him more and more. It's disgusting as I promised myself I would never get into a relationship or fall for any man but this one's different. He's kind and makes me laugh and he actually cares. not any of them do. I don't know what I am gonna do after this. Writing this is making me sick as I might actually throw up later. Someone shoot me
willow
“..Where did you find this?” Willow finally speaks up, looking up at him
“Well, after you got arrested I went back to your old alley.” Pony says, leaning against the edge of the desk.
“And you snooped through all my shit?” Willow asks with a scoff, folding the note up.
“I wanted to find something of yours that I could keep! So I could always think of you, y'know.” Pony says, his brows furrowing as she stuffs the note in her pocket
“That was the only thing I could find that I could take with me.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, gesturing to the note she just stuffed in hers.
“I hope you know that I wrote that ages ago.” Willow says defensively, crossing her arms over her chest
“And I didn't mean it, I was probably too fucked up on molly to even think straight.”
Pony looks at her with an unconvinced stare.
Willow stares back. “Stop looking at me like that.” She says with a head shake.
“You're full of shit.” Pony says. “You still like me, that's why you can't talk to me.”
Willow looks at him like he just shot her. “That's not true at all.” She lies.
“Yes it is! Just admit it Willow, and I'll leave.” He sits back down in the chair, looking up at her with a smirk.
Willow groans and rubs her eyes, leaning against the wall “This is horrible..” She mumbles before speaking to him again.
“Fuck, fine, so what if it's true? Now that you know I'm just gonna avoid you more.” Willow tells him in even more irritation, and slight embarrassment.
Pony thinks back on how horrible she's been in the past week, how one small mistake from someone would make her lash out.
He was never scared of her and she knew it. Maybe it's because he'd seen her in her most vulnerable state, and he knows that she's a better person inside.
The guys in the group make fun of her when she's gone, they call her ‘crackwhore’.
Pony never found it funny, neither did Tigry, but he's never spoken a word really anyway.
Pony thinks about how defensive he gets about her, and all the times she's walked by him and he had to hide his blush.
“What if I told you that I feel the same way?” Pony mumbles to her, just loud enough for her to hear.
Willow looks at him in confusion “What?”
“You can be a huge bitch most of the time, and you scare everyone away, but past that, I know you're a good person Willow.” Pony tells her
“I know that, because I know you.”
Pony stands up “I know you way better than anyone here.”
“They don't know that your favorite color is dark purple, they don't know that your favorite food is pancakes, and your favorite dessert is cherry pie.”
Willow's heart genuinely skips a few beats as he says this. Pancakes have always been special to her because before the homeless shelter kicked them out, she helped her mother make pancakes every morning. She hasn't had a pancake in years.
“They don't know that your favorite channel to watch was Nickelodeon, or that your favorite ice cream is vanilla.” Pony tells her, stepping closer.
Willow finally has enough and pulls him in, wrapping her skinny arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.
Pony immediately kisses her back, holding her waist, before she pulls back and looks at him.
“Go back to bed, Pony.” She says quietly, looking up from his lips to his eyes, a small smile on his face.
As the infection goes on, so does their “situationship” or whatever you'd call it.
It's definitely not dating, Willow hates that. It's just sex, and giving each other looks, and occasionally teasing her under the table during group meetings.
On the nights he's in her office (which is pretty much every night) , door locked, blinds shut, Willow laying flat on her desk, legs wrapped around his waist, Pony using his hand to cover her mouth while the desk shakes back and forth, he can only think of one thing.
His mind keeps taking him back to Zizzy. It's ridiculous he knows, he needs to let her go, but it's impossible.
As kids they both made a promise that if neither of them are married by 40, they will marry each other.
He keeps his one and only photo of her with him at all times, the photo of them as kids.
Pony tries to keep his mind off her, spending more and more time attempting to fuck his feelings away with Willow. It never works.
Every time he kissed Willow, every time he looked her in the eyes, whispering bittersweet words into her ear, he thought of Zizzy more.
He can't help but feel disgusted with himself, he's had years to confess to Zizzy and he was too much of a coward to do so.
Some nights don't go as well, Willow being Willow, she starts arguments. Arguments escalate, and she ends up shoving him harder than she intended.
Willow watches Pony storm out of her office in exhaustion, immediately regretting letting her anger get the best of her, again.
She watches Pony exit her office, a small folded piece of paper falling out of his pocket as he slams the door shut behind him.
Willow walks over and silently picks up the paper, unfolding it to see the baby photo of him and Zizzy together.
Willow scoffs as she looks at the picture. ‘pathetic’ is all she can think as she slams the picture on her desk.
The next week with Willow was hell. Pony stopped going into her room, he knew she had seen the picture, she knew he still had feelings for Zizzy.
Willow was in a way worse mood, no one could figure out why. Pony just nervously shook his head when someone asked him if he had a theory on why boss was acting insane.
Pony was helping Kitty wash dishes when Willow came in and said it.
“Pony, come with me on a walk tonight.” She said suddenly, catching him off guard
Pony agreed hesitantly, knowing he didn't have a choice.
As night time came, Pony and Willow began walking. She had a stone cold expression on her face, as she lead him further away from their base and into the forest.
Pony couldn't help being extremely nervous. Willow hadn't said a word, and it looked like she was leading them into a campsite?
Willow stopped and turned to him, before taking out her gun and pressing it deep into his back.
She reached into her bag and took out the glass with green liquid in it, pushing it into his hands.
Pony seriously starts to sweat when she walks behind him, pushing him deeper into the woods with the gun, until they approached two sleeping figures.
As they got closer, Pony got a better look at them.
One was a dog, the other was a human, oddly enough.
“Pour it in their mouths.” Willow tells him sternly.
“Isn't this the shit that infects people? Willow are you insane?” Pony whispers back at her.
“Fucking do it.” She says again, pressing the gun harder into his back.
—--------------
After they returned from the campsite, Pony immediately went to the bedrooms. Silently, and shakily packing everything he had in a duffle bag.
He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and snuck out of there.
He was done. Done with Willow, done with everything.
He knew he had to get out there fast, Willow would call other people from other settlements to search for him.
As he runs through the tall grass and bushes he can only think of one person. He knew he had to search for her. After everything he's been through, he still has a small string of hope to hang on too.
He's going to search for Zizzy even if it's the last thing he does.