Like Sisters, Probably

So Sweetie Belle let me stay at my old place, which was now her place, but she stayed with her sister.

It was pretty weird.

It was weird enough staying at my old place again. There was more of Sweetie’s stuff here, but mostly all of my old stuff, still. It really was pretty much the same as it was before. Actually a bit cleaner. A lot cleaner, really. There were no dishes lying around or books or anything. And, like, she’d dusted recently. Maybe it was strange that I noticed that she’d dusted, but I did.

It really threw me off, to be honest, her having just dusted. She didn’t know I’d be coming over, so it wasn’t like she just cleaned up because she was having company. Even the glass top part of my little lamp that I’d left there was like totally spotless. I had left the lamp and everything and it was all tidier and generally better off.

Sweetie could cook now. She was getting all her shit together and I felt like everything was flying off the handle for me. Like, it wasn’t that bad, but, well, sometimes it felt like it was. I was in this total support role for Dash—like I was on permanent reserve for her, on call for her problems. Sometimes—well, more than sometimes lately—I would just be sitting there in her place while she was off being amazing and having it all, and what the hay was I doing when she wasn’t there.

I don’t know. In some ways I felt like I was just kind of existing. Maybe I’m exaggerating, looking back on it all now. I mean, I really feel like—I want to feel like—if it was as bad as how I’m making it seem like now, I would’ve tried to change something. Like talking to Dash about it, or just getting the hay out of there. Then again, maybe not.

Now that I’m past all of it, I can say with a bit of confidence that being in the middle of a spot like that, it somehow feels like the relationship is the most important thing in the whole world, and keeping it going takes priority over everything else ever.

I guess staying at my old place made me get a bit of a clue about that. Until then, I was kind of just going by in a daze—like it started off so good, I felt like if I could just push through how it was just then, then everything would go back to the way it used to be. And it really had been so good that I think if it had, it’d have been worth it all.

I felt better, being in my old place again—or I don’t know if “better” is the right word, exactly. I felt like I had gotten some distance from Dash, though. Even just the smell of the place was pretty much the same, and it really did take me back to that time before. It didn’t smell like anything specific—just like the wood and carpet and stuff made it smell a certain way. I could remember what it felt like to be the me I was when I lived there, and I could compare it a bit to the me I was at that moment.

I’m not sure I knew exactly what that was—I mean I could kind of feel what it was like, but I couldn’t quite put it into thoughts even then, so there’s no way I could put it into words, now. I will say that I wasn’t exactly happy or sad or something simple like that, comparing the two. It just felt like, “Oh. So that’s where I am.”

But I didn’t really feel the way I was just then, because I was feeling the way I used to feel? But I wasn’t sure if I’d remember the way I used to feel once I felt like the way I did feel again. It’s a bit rough, trying to work through that, but it was a really clear and simple type of feeling while I was having it, or whatever.

Anyway, I somehow fell asleep during all that, and the next morning I left right away and felt like the me I was then, again.

* * *

As I flew to Dash’s place where I was living, I realized I hadn't really thought about the fact that me and Sweetie weren’t seeing much of each other. I mean, I knew we weren’t, but I knew that she’d been kind of totally in love with me, so she needed to not see me for a while, right? And apparently, it was exactly what she needed, because she seemed to be doing a lot better and getting everything together in her life.

She was mostly over me by that point, and we could go back to hanging out, probably. I wondered if it’d be different, though. Like, she said she’d been in love with me for about a bazillion years. How much of the way we were back then was because of that? Like, would she still want to hang out with me as much as we used to if she didn’t feel that way towards me anymore? I liked how much we used to hang out back then.

I also wondered if the sort of dynamic between us had come from her being in love with me, and I suddenly felt like maybe the only reason she had put up with so much of my shit was because of that. Maybe I’d just totally piss her off now, if we saw each other as much as we did back then.

I mean, looking back on it, there was definitely a kind of something between us. I want to say something like sexual tension, but it’s not that. Me and Apple Bloom, I’d say, maybe had bit of sexual tension, but never me and Sweetie. I think it was like the opposite of tension, but still with a kind of attraction. Like a comfort, rather than a tension—but it’s not like I can exactly go around calling it “sexual comfort.”

I wanted to ask Dash about it, right at that moment. She and Dust seemed to have something like that between them, and then they dated, broke up, and moved on to whatever they had now. I felt like that was something she could relate to. Comfort. Sorta-romantic comfort. There, that’ll do for now. I though me and Dash probably could’ve had a really good talk about it, and she could’ve helped me out with all this stuff with Sweetie Belle.

But there was no way we’d have that conversation.

If I even just mentioned Dust, Dash would go off about how I was being jealous, and I wouldn’t get a straight answer out of her. And the thing is, I actually would be totally jealous, and wouldn’t even be able to keep talking about it, probably.

And that made me think about how I wasn’t a big part of Dash’s life, just then. I mean, I knew actually I was, but still. It was like, there were so many other parts to Dash’s life, I didn’t know how high on that list I got put.

Sometimes I worried I was just this little secret side bit to her life. And in a way, I guess, that was kind of awesome, but I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was actually a secret or anything. Her Ponyville friends knew about us. They kind of took it... strangely. But they were all accepting of it eventually. Or, at least said they were accepting of it. I didn’t really know for sure because I never really went out with Dash and her friends that much. Because, well, I didn’t really want to, more than anything.

Dash always asked if I wanted to come along but I always said no. Fluttershy didn’t bring Mac hardly ever when they went out all together, so it’d have felt weird for me to come along, I thought. Also hanging out with my best friends’ big sisters would’ve been pretty weird in that kind of situation, so that was that.

What really got to me wasn’t just that, though—it was all the stuff with the Wonderbolts. She would be telling me all these amazing things she was doing and experiencing, that I could never be a part of even if I wanted to. Lighting Dust could, though, of course, and was. It was still always with Lighting Dust that she was doing all these crazy thing with, even though Dust was still part of the reserve fliers, but whatever. They had apparently made up about all the stuff that got between them during the Alpha Squadron trials, and went back to being great friends again.

I didn’t want to talk to Dash about Dust. I couldn’t. We would never have that conversation. Maybe it would’ve been something we could’ve talked about if she really was my sister.

* * *

I got home and Dash was there. She wasn’t happy about something.

“Hey, where were you?” she asked, frowning. “I was hoping to spend the night with you last night, but you weren’t here. I gotta go now.”

Back even a few weeks ago, that would have broke me right up. I waited a moment to see if that awful depressing twinging would go through me that came from missing an awesome opportunity. It didn’t come. I sort of tried to feel it, even, but I still didn’t.

“I was out with Sweetie Belle,” I said.

“All night?”

“Yeah. We hung out like old times, got drunk, so I crashed at her place.”

I didn’t tell her that Sweetie Belle had stayed at her sister’s, leaving me there on my own. It would’ve sounded weird, and kind of pathetic or something. Plus, even if I had slept in the actual same bed with Sweetie, I didn’t feel Dash had a right to complain, with all the time she spent with Dust.

I walked in and tossed myself on the couch. “Problem with that?” I asked.

Dash just looked at me for a minute.

“No. Whatever.” She finished packing a bag with stuff she needed as she prepared to leave for another who-knows-how-long something-or-other with the Wonderbolts. “It’s fine. It’s good you’re hanging out again.”

“That’s all?”

“What?” she stopped and looked up at me, still holding something in the air above the bag. “What do you want me to say? I mean, I’m a little pissed you were with Sweetie Belle last night and not me. That’s fair, right?”

I couldn’t let that go. “Oh, so you’re being totally rational here, but if I say anything about you being around Dust all the friggin time, I’m being stupid and jealous?”

She tossed the thing she was holding down into the bag. “What the hell Scootaloo—you trying to start a fight? I don’t have time for this right now. I’m going to be late.”

“No, that’s fine. Just take off.”

She stopped by the door and threw her hoof up in the air. “What do you want from me here?”

“I want to hear that you’re totally jealous about this so I’m allowed to feel jealous about Dust!”

Dash stood by the door and just sort of rustled her wings.

“My point is,” I said, “it’s that—right there. That’s what I feel when you talk about all the stuff you do with Dust.”

“Well... yeah,” said Dash. “I mean, I know. You’re not the first pony ever to feel jealous. But L.D. knows nothing’s going to happen between her and me again. I thought we’d gone through all that already.” She shifted from one hoof to the other, as if she was impatient to go. “Jezz, stay at Sweetie’s whenever you want. Sorry I said anything.”

I rubbed my face. I had let that go too far. “Gah, alright, sorry. Let’s not do this.”

She stopped shifting and just stood and looked at me for a moment. Her face relaxed a bit. “So... forget about this?”

“Yeah. I mean, Dust knows you’re in a relationship, and besides that, all that kind of stuff already happened in the past. I gotta stop freaking out.”

“Yeah,” said Dash, and looked to the side. She was weird all of a sudden. More than usual, even.

“ ‘Yeah’? Yeah, what?”

She wouldn’t look at me.

“It’s not like it’s a big deal or whatever,” she said, “but, well, I never really did tell Dust we’re, like, technically together.”

I just looked at her.

“What?!” I yelled at her. It was one of those good ones, that come right from the belly.

Dash winced. “It never came up.”

I took another breath, but just let it out. I stood there and fumed for a bit, seeing if I couldn’t bring it down a bit and be even the smallest bit calm about it. I almost did.

“Dash, you need to tell Dust about us,” I said. “Like, first thing.”

“Oh,” said Dash. “Okay.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t... gah!” I was off the couch and walking in circles. I spun and pointed at her. “I’m serious. First thing.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Dash.

I really just was her secret girlfriend. I couldn’t believe it. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I could. That was just really like Dash. I’d only seen Dust and Dash together a few times, but even from that I knew, like ninety-percent of the time, they just talked about how they were going to be totally better than the other one. It probably just honestly hadn’t come up. That didn’t make it any better, though.

Dash left then, and I just stayed right where I was, totally pissed.

I couldn’t help but think that I really wasn’t a part of her life. It’s like it confirmed everything I’d been worrying about, everything that I’d been convincing myself was just me making a big deal about nothing. I really was just this small little tucked-away piece of her life. What the hell was I doing?

After enough time had passed that I could be sure Dash was gone, I went out flying. I started doing some stunts to take my mind off of things, but it didn’t really work.

As I was flying, though, it gave a chance for all the bits to settle themselves in my head, and then all at once something occurred to me. It almost knocked me out of the sky.

This was exactly what I had said I wanted—for nothing to change between us except that one thing. And that’s exactly how it was. I didn’t really know what to do with that realization.

* * *

After a bit, I came back to the house and made myself dinner. I had a feeling Dash wouldn’t be coming back that day even if she had it off.

Then the front door opened.

It was Dash, and she looked like she had flown hard, which was something, considering it was her.

“Hey Scootaloo, sorry, I—”

Another pony pushed in from behind her. A green pegasus with an orange mane. I felt something blaze through my body. But I stayed icy calm on the outside.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said with as even a tone as I could manage with all the rage that was behind every word.

“What the hell are you doing here?” said Dust with a maddening calmness, even while being clearly as pissed as I was.