Anything But a Date-Date
By TheBandBrony
——
“So... um.”
Rainbow Dash released a dragging breath, her fingers running curious little circles over her exposed stomach. Her body hung upside down, her lower half resting on the fluffy pink mess of a bed and the rest of her pressed against the hardwood floor beneath it. Her lopsided breathing—quick inhales followed by quiet, drawn out sighs—let her back relax and brush against the cool floor for a wonderful little moment. For the sake of savoring the feeling, she fought through the fringe of dizziness that accompanied her thin breaths.
The shirt she had been wearing only a few minutes ago lay discarded on the floor next to Pinkie Pie’s nightstand, as did most of her clothes. Even then, the remaining undergarments clinging to her skin felt more like wool parkas than a mere bra and panties.
The heat of another fresh summer had already lowered its shoulder and barreled into the unsuspecting town some days ago, though that didn’t make each new day feel like a little bit of Tartarus had been drizzled over their heads. The weather left Dash cursing (and her awesome mane wilting in a definitely un-awesome state) every time she so much as stepped out of her insulated cloud home.
Though, she reflected, it did give her an excuse to wear her signature skimpy sports bra around town and laugh at all the unsuspecting stallions as they gawked themselves into various states of trouble with their own special somebodies.
“‘Um’? Dashie, ‘um’ is not a place. ‘Um’ isn’t even an activity we could do.” A pair of bare legs, shining with a thin sheen of sweat, stepped into her vision. “Are you sure you don’t have heat stroke?”
Dash opened her eyes, peering upwards. Pale thighs drew her eyes up over bare, flared hips, past a rounded naval, lingering on a pair of soft, sloping breasts, and finally up to a set of passionate blue eyes, locked in a quizzical stare.
Oh. Yeah.
Dash smiled, remembering the other reason why she loved the hot weather so much.
“What are you smiling at?” Pinkie cocked her head at an odd angle. “Did I tell a joke and not realize it?”
“No,” Dash chuckled, “it’s just that I get to see you naked whenever it gets this hot out.”
Her eyes exploded with laughter. “Of course, silly! I’m not gonna beat the heat by wearing clothes, after all.” The matter-of-factness with which she stated her stance almost convinced Dash to abandon her perch and strip down in solidarity—though perhaps it was a different kind of heat that compelled her to do such.
Pinkie's face scrunched as she shifted her weight to her heels, a contemplative look overtaking her features. "Though, I'm still pretty hot right now, even when I'm naked."
"Yes you are."
Pinkie either didn't let Dash's off-hand comment bother her or just didn't get it, continuing in her same oblivious tone. "So I thought, why not beat the heat even more and go get some ice cream?"
The prospect of finding relief to the abhorrent heat wave in something sweet—with the queen of sweet at her side, no less—perked Dash's wilting mind. Swinging her legs off the bed, she hopped to her feet and flashed an enthusiastic smile. "That sounds totally awesome. Though, you're probably gonna need to put on clothes if we want to go outside."
Putting on a playful pout, Pinkie squeezed her arms together against her chest and rocked on her heels. "Aw, come on. If you go naked with me it'll seem a lot less weird."
"Yeah, not really. Then we'll both get arrested for public indec—indesen—" Rainbow spat out a sigh, "—nudity. They don't serve ice cream in prison, you know."
The lesson seemed to be enough to sway Pinkie Pie into compliance, if not acceptance. Only after making a show of rolling her eyes did she scamper over to her dresser sitting adjacent to her bed and don a pair of crumpled shorts, accompanied by a simple striped tank top. Perhaps eating ice cream with Rainbow Dash would be a great way to spend an evening, but she still held true the thought that eating ice cream with Rainbow Dash while naked would only enhance the experience.
Her eyes flickered up just in time to see Rainbow tactfully sever a curious stare directed at her.
"What?" She balked. "You know I like to go commando—it lets me feel the breeze." She struck a bold, wide pose, only to crumple a moment later as Rainbow Dash burst into hysterics. The fit caught on Pinkie's hope of an uneventful departure, scratching it like a dull needle on a beat up record.
The confused look on Pinkie’s face intensified. "What now?"
Dash could hardly speak through the fit of laughter, so she merely pointed a shaking finger at Pinkie's chest.
"What—oh."
Staring back at Pinkie was one of her breasts, popping out from the tank top.
She stared at the malleable mound of flesh for a long moment as her mind registered what it saw before stifling a disbelieving chuckle. "Whoopsie daisies," she giggled, "wouldn't want that sticking out when we get outside!"
Her hands, previously idle, moved to yank open the top of her shirt and stow the offending boob back where it belonged. They hesitated, though, as she took note of Dash's liquid form still stretched over the bed in lazy disregard of her insistence.
An evil idea took root in her mind, spreading across her lips in the form of a maddened smile.
"Oh, Dashie?"
Rainbow looked up. "Yeah? What's up—"
Her brain sputtered as her violet eyes locked onto Pinkie Pie's chest. The tank top rested in a crumpled heap atop the baker's breasts, both of which were now fully exposed. Laughing devilishly, Pinkie drew a lazy arch around on of her nipples. In a voice too soft and subdued to match her normal bubbly attitude, she breathed, "Why don't you help me tuck it back in?"
Dash's face all but exploded into a blush. A stammering, "Yes ma'am," was all she was able to get out before she started towards her partner, a glint in her bugging eyes shining of nine parts flabbergasted and one part dazed acceptance. A hand, acting of its own accord, reached up in a zombified pose and gasped at the heavenly orb in front of her.
"Well, too bad." Waiting until Dash was close to activate her trap, Pinkie dropped her sensual facade and grabbed Dash by the hand. Ignoring her partner's shocked outcry, she made for the door, Dash in tow. "I'll let you feel them after we've gotten some ice cream. Celestia forbid it gets any hotter in here, or I just might explode!"
"Wait, Pinkie—" Dash, her brain still stalled from having the glorious prospect of seeing—and maybe even touching!—Pinkie Pie's mounds disappear quite literally in front of her face, fought to regain control of her addled mind. "Wait!"
Without a second thought, Rainbow dug her heels into the floor and braced herself on the doorframe, halting the duo's advances and allowing her to shake her head free of any lingering hormonal cobwebs cluttering it. "This ice cream thing," she finally began, rubbing the sore spot on her arm where Pinkie had grabbed her, "it's like a date, right? A date-date?"
Pinkie groaned. "We've been over this before. What difference does it make?"
"It's like the difference between a boring, planned party and a surprise party." Dash made to take a step back but decided against it, shifting her weight to her opposite leg instead. "And I'm not a fan of boring parties."
Pinkie, for her part, seemed shocked. "Blasphemy, Dashie! There's no such thing as a boring party; only boring people throwing parties."
Dash filtered a growl through her teeth. "Yeah? Then what about the 'you go because your parents invited you to come and you can't leave until everyone's come up to you and talked a hole into your head about something boring like animal dentistry’ type of—you know what, that isn't important!" Refocusing her eyes on Pinkie, she snapped, "So is it a date-date or is it not?"
Deciding to play it safe lest the moment be ruined by Rainbow Dash's reluctance, Pinkie Pie put on a chipper grin and replied, "Nope! It's as impulsive and potentially detrimental to our health as any surprise party!"
Despite all of Pinkie's reassurances, Dash still took pause, this time letting her eyes unfocus in contemplation. "But wait—surprise parties still have to be planned in advance, don't they? It'd be even more work if whoever's planning it wants it to to stay a surpris—woah!"
Pinkie silenced her quarry with another yank on the arm. "Are you going to sit there and contemplate trivialities," she piped, "or are we going to get some super sweet ice cream?"
Dash moved to retort, but in doing so caught sight of Pinkie's face. Her eyes, normally bright, now shot like sharp, angry bristles of blue light. This wasn't the first time she had seen that look. There would be no arguing her demands if Dash didn't want to end up tied to the bed and tickled into submission again until she apologized for hurting her girlfriend's feelings.
Flashing a sheepish smile, she muttered, "Yeah. You win. Ice cream it is."
It wasn't much hotter outside than it was inside. That wasn't saying much, of course, as even the most adventurous of children were driven into the shade of tall trees or under the waters of Ponyville's lake by the skin-melting heat. By the time they trudged into Sugarcube Corner, their feet all but stuck to the ground.
“Geez,” Rainbow Dash muttered, wiping the fresh layer of sweat from the back of her neck, “you’d think a place like this would at least have air conditioning.”
“Nopey dopey!” replied Pinkie Pie, still just as perky as usual. “All the ovens get super hot from baking stuff, so it would be pretty useless to try and cool the place. We’d need, like, a million AC thingies just for the kitchen.”
Pinkie broke off from Rainbow’s side to dart behind the counter and give the Cakes, both of whom were manning the counter, a hello-hug. She held on for an unusually long time, whispering something into their ears and daring a conspiratorial glance over at Dash. The Cakes' eyes went wide as they separated from Pinkie, chuckling deviously to each other as they returned their eyes to their wares.
The possibility of having just missed something was too much to resist. Dash trotted to Pinkie's side, cocking her head at an odd angle. "So, uh, what did you just say to them? It wasn't a joke or anything, was it? Because if it was, I'd totally love to hear it."
"Oh no," Pinkie replied, shaking her head, "I was just telling them our order."
"Our order?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "But I didn't even get to look at the menu."
Pinkie chuckled dryly, flashing Dash a coy, playful smirk. "Menu? Please Dashie, I memorized the menu."
"Alright, alright," Dash chuckled, rocking back on her heels, "I won't question you and your infinite sugar-logic. Just—" Her pent-up inner child escaped in the form of an excited grin, "you chose something awesome, right?"
"Only the awesomest for you, Dash!" Matching the smile creeping onto Dash's face, Pinkie grabbed her girlfriend by the hand and led her towards the nearest table. "Now come on. I don't want to stand in this heat any longer than I have to."
"Sitting down isn't going to make it stop being hot out," Rainbow Dash noted.
"Of course it will!" Pinkie replied in a tone so matter-of-fact Dash had no choice but to listen. "It's basic knowledge that heat rises. When I sit, I bring myself down to a lower elevation than I would be standing. Therefore, when I sit I get cooler than I would be standing!" Nodding to herself, Pinkie resumed tugging Dash over to the table.
"But—that's true, but, it's such a tiny difference—hygrometers don’t even register that small a difference—you'd need a thermometer that measures to the ten-thousandths—" Dash's years in the weather patrol failed her in the most spectacular fashion as she attempted to refute her partner's claims. All the while, she found herself being pressed into a simple wooden chair facing the table Pinkie Pie had chosen a moment earlier.
No sooner did Dash's rear end hit the seat did Pinkie race to the seat opposite and plop down, wilting into into the worn wood. "Aah," she exhaled, leaning back in the chair until only two of its legs touched the ground. "See Dash? Much cooler."
Rainbow balked, throwing her hands up in exasperation. There would be no point in arguing with Pinkie today—she was on a roll.
"Ooh, I can smell our order!" Pinkie squealed. "It won't be long now!"
Disregarding Pinkie's admission that she could smell ice cream, Dash snapped her fingers in realization. "Oh yeah, that reminds me." She leaned forward in her seat, staring across the table and pointing an accusatory finger like a cop about to interrogate a hardened criminal. "What did you order for us, exactly? I didn't see you pay for anything—not that it's not my business to know or anything. But—you know."
It's okay," Pinkie replied, "I'm your girlfriend for Pete's sake. I trust you. I just have the Cakes take whatever I eat out of my paycheck. It saves a lot of time trying to tally everything up at the end of the week."
"Oh, yeah, the paycheck. Right. The paycheck that you pool with mine to pay for everything we do—hey wait a second—"
Dash cut herself off as something warm and soft invaded her personal space and gripped her hand. Eyes narrowing to slits, she looked down to find a hand, accented with distinctive pink nail polish, atop her own. They snaked around her own, and squeezed playfully. Dash’s gaze rose up to meet Pinkie’s, bearing a look of casual disgust. “What are you doing?” she finally growled.
Pinkie, oblivious as ever, chirped, “I’m holding your hand silly!”
“Yeah, you don’t say.” The scowl intensified. “Why are you holding my hand?”
“Beats me. Maybe it’s some weird chemical plot device in my brain that tries to get me closer to you for procreation and all that yummy stuff.” She shrugged. “I just like to hold your hand, is all.”
“Yeah,” Dash replied, “well I don’t.” Twisting her hand at an impossibly sharp angle, she jerked away from Pinkie’s grasp, leaving her with nothing more than a handful of air and a lot of confusion.
“What—but—” Pinkie, in her state, stammered, choking back a sputter. “Why can’t we hold hands?”
“Because I just don’t like holding hands, okay?” Squeezing her wrists protectively, Rainbow Dash added, “I don’t like anyone touching my hands.”
Pinkie leaned back in her seat, rejection mixed with utter confusion gumming up the gears in her head. The two sat in silence for a long moment, staring each other down, weighing down the air between them until it threatened to split the table clean in two.
"Dash?" Pinkie Pie finally burst the bubble separating them.
"Yeah."
"Why don't you like acting as a couple?"
Dash raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you don't want to hold hands, you don't like going out on dates with me—"
"Woah now—those are two totally different things,” Dash cut in. “The whole hand-holding thing is just a personal peeve. But dates,” she growled, “are nothing but a paper-thin excuse to force formality and strictness. Shoot, if someone like Twilight had any say in it we'd be following a list of boring stuff she pre-approved beforehand. We're both spontaneous people. Shouldn't we be a little true to ourselves and live spontaneously?"
Pinkie blanked, coiling her head as if Rainbow Dash’s words had physically pushed her back. “Who else are we trying to be but different sides of ourselves?”
“I...” Dash threw her hands up and let them fall limply against the table. “I don’t know—I just don’t like things that have been planned to death, okay?”
Leaning into the table, Pinkie pressed the conversation onward. "I love a good surprise party Dash, but sometimes a party thoughtfully planned and organized with the party-ee can be just as fun—if not funner!"
"That's ridiculous!" Rainbow retorted.
"Really? I thought the analogy was pretty clever for being a spur of the moment thing—"
"No, I’m talking about the whole notion of a romantic geddup! It's dumb, and pointless, and—”
Rainbow would have continued ranting on her imaginary soapbox, had Pinkie not jammed her hand over her mouth, muffling the rest of her sentence. "Oop! No more talking. The ice cream's here."
The incredulous, wild look of realization on Rainbow Dash's face dulled to one of mere smoldering resentment—a look that promised a long talk about family finances sometime in the future—as Carrot Cake backed his way out of the kitchen, balancing a round tray in his hands. The ever-smiling shopkeeper made a show of sliding the tray onto the table and tossing Pinkie a knowing wink before dashing off back to the kitchen.
Dash jabbed a thumb at the retreating Cake. “What’s with the winky-faces all of a sudden?”
The answer came a moment later when she looked down to see what exactly was on the tray: One tall, flared glass bell of bubblegum-pink ice cream Rainbow Dash vaguely recalled Pinkie Pie dubbing it the, "Criminally Cotton Candy Concoction.”
“Pinkie?”
“Yeah, Dashie?”
“There’s only one glass.”
“Yeah.”
“But there’s two spoons.”
“Yeah.” Pinkie’s tone hopped with excitement.
“So, did you only order for yourself?"
"Nope."
Dash sat back in her seat, clearly confounded at the presence of the second spoon. “I’m... uh. But there are two spoons.”
"Well, duh. It's not that kind of relationship, Dash."
“What?”
Pinkie Pie groaned, resting her head against the cool wood of the table. “We're supposed to share it!" Arching her back, she shot back into an upright position and grabbed up one of the spoons. “I thought you’d get it by now, so I guess I’ll just have to force the meaning down your throat.” She giggled. “Double meaning—what a hoot! Here comes the choo-choo train!”
“Wait, what double m—”
Without so much as a wink of warning, Pinkie Pie scooped up a massive glob of ice cream and shoved it into Rainbow Dash’s mouth.
In the moment before Dash realized her mouth was full of ice cream and tried to shout out in surprise, her eyes took on a unique look of shock and appall. Like heated pinheads, her flaming magenta irises seared into Pinkie’s skull before reeling back, taken by backwards momentum. They crossed, and for a split second Pinkie almost laughed at the utter foolishness of her girlfriend’s new look.
Then Dash recovered. And boy did she bounce back hard.
“Pinkie,” she snarled in between coughs, “what the heck do you think you’re doing?”
“Uh, force-feeding you ice cream in an effort to stay cool and strengthen the emotional bond between the two of us?”
“Yeah, but do you think I wanted to do that?” Dash held up her hand before Pinkie Pie could answer. “The answer is no, Pinkie.”
The pout on Pinkie’s face almost convinced Dash that she was genuinely saddened by the news, instead of just playing her standard ‘pout until Dash isn’t physically able to remain angry at her anymore’ game.
“So,” Pinkie mumbled, “the ice cream wasn’t good?”
“No, it tasted delicious,” Dash said, “and that is entirely beside the point.”
The ice cream utterly forgotten beside them, Dash leaned into the table and firmly planted both her elbows against the varnished wood, anchoring herself for the inevitable storm brewing across the table from her.
It started slow. “So, what is the point?” Pinkie asked.
“There isn’t a point.”
“So, the point is that there is no point? How Ponytagoran of you to think that.”
Dash blinked. “If that made any sense, I’d tell you.”
“So the point is that you don’t like showing affection for me?”
“No. I’d make out with you in public every second if I could. I just said there is no point.”
“No point to what? Going out? I get the feeling we’ve already argued about this.”
“Of course we have, and of course I don’t!” Crumpling under a surge of frustration, Rainbow Dash stuffed her head into her hands and squeezed. Her knuckles, then her temples, turned white. “There isn’t a point to it! It’s just—a, thing. It’s not tangible, it’s not a hurdle you can jump over. It just—is.”
Pinkie’s tone dipped to a level of seriousness completely against her normal character. “Dash, this ‘thing’ is a thing we need to work out if we want to enjoy our ice cream without it turning tart with tension.” Her eyes dulled, a hazy, distorted sky left behind by a round of fireworks. “Use your words.”
“I just—you—” Dash snarled. “I don’t want to flaunt you around like you’re one of Rarity’s new purses!”
Silence, thick like fog, crushed any retort from both the girls’ mouths. Stray customers—really just a stallion picking up a donut and the Cakes—turned their heads towards the source of the commotion just in time to watch Rainbow Dash slam her head down into the table with enough force to send the display cases rattling.
The heat stifled all sound. For a second, everything was silent.
“You’re better than that,” Rainbow finally groaned, raising her head just enough to rub her bruised forehead. Her eyes stuck to the table, weighed down by an equal combination of heat and anxiety. "You're so much better than that. I can't stand seeing couples in here or at the park ogling each other—but not just because I can't stand sappy stuff."
Dash paused, as if imagining the scene she had laid out. "It's that they're doing it in public. It's like they want people to acknowledge their relationship, like they need someone else's validation for it to mean something."
"But—if you don't like dates, why didn't you just tell me so in the first place?"
"No, but that's just it. I don't not-like dates. I just don't not not-like date-dates."
Pinkie's jaw slackened in confusion. Taking this as a cue, Dash again spoke. "You're the most awesomest, radical, super-special person I know, and I want everything we do to be as awesome and radical and super-special as you. And going out to coffee shops and sappy romance movies isn't awesome or radical or super-special enough at all. Our dates deserve to mean something, because they’re celebrating us." The color in Rainbow Dash's eyes swelled at the mention of celebration, spilling over onto her face and staining her cheeks a rosy shade of red.
Pinkie couldn't have been happier to mimic her partner's look. For all of Dash's stumbling over words and forcing out awkward romantic sentiment that would make the sappiest poet cringe, every once in awhile something simple and wonderful would shoot out and grab hold of her heart like a lasso made of lightning.
"Each date is a little party..." Pinkie finally murmured, "and we're both the guests of honor. But we don't need anyone else there to tell us how great it is—"
"Because any party celebrating us is bound to be pretty amazing," Rainbow Dash finished. “So, can we stop celebrating this one and do something that’s—oh, I don’t know—not incredibly cheesy and sappy and stuff? Like, ice cream is great. But, you know—”
Pinkie shushed her. She took in the silence through every pore in her skin, noting its smooth texture. From somewhere beyond her own reality came the slightest hint of a breeze, tickling the palm of her hand. From the back room, an oven timer played a faint ding.
The world came back in a rush. Her hand went to her mouth, as if trying desperately to hold back a torrent of words. “Oohoohooh—I think I know something we can do,” she finally vented. “It’s pretty awesome. I think you’ll like it.” She snickered to herself. “What am I saying? Or course you’ll like it.” Turning her back to the table, she shouted into the back of the store, “It’s been fun, Mr. Cake. We’re gonna head out for a bit.”
“Wait, we’re leaving already? Aren’t we going to eat this?”
Dash didn’t normally see Pinkie’s ‘your logic is far inferior to mine and even I know it’ smile, so she threw her brain into gear as she saw the dreaded look cross her partner’s face. “But you just finished telling me how eating this would be conforming to an unsatisfying vision of lovey-doveyness.”
“Well, yeah,” Rainbow backpedaled, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to just waste all this wonderful food.”
The silence accompanying her girlfriend’s stare was clearer than any shout.
“Okay, yeah,” Dash mumbled, her head falling, “we’ll wait till some other time.”
Blessed noise returned in the sound of Pinkie’s excited giggle. "Tell you what. I'll get us a whole tub of that new Supermare-Swirl ice cream tomorrow night. We'll stuff ourselves and laugh and get a tummy ache together. I have something else we can do until then, though, and it can't wait." Grabbing Dash’s hand, Pinkie led her back out the door and into the world, pausing only for the brick wall of humidity waiting for them just outside to remind them just how hot it was.
“Oh, that’s right.” Dash blinked back the sun’s fierce, angry light. “There was a reason we went out to Sugarcube Corner in the first place.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Pinkie Pie’s hair hadn’t even begun to warp from the heat. “Oh, the heat won’t matter that much. Well, it will. Actually, it’s kind of a double-meaning type situation. It’s kinda hard to explain.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t break her heat-induced haze until the duo were at the door to their house. She pulled her hand away from Pinkie’s guiding grasp, her eyes welling with apprehension. "Now, hang on a second. I don't want any surprises here. This whole day you've been dragging me places and not telling me anything. 'A party thoughtfully planned and organized can be just as fun,' right? What are you planning?"
Pinkie leaned in, the heat of the sun dancing on her skin. "We're going to make love."
"Oh." Dash paused. Her eyes widened, and she nodded as if in a trance. "Okay."
Pinkie noted the air of hesitation in Dash's voice. "Too spontaneous?"
"No,” she shook her head slowly. “I'm just picturing it in my head, is all."
Pinkie rolled her eyes, chuckling with the kind of reserved patience only built through months of situations just like this. "It'll look better in person, trust me. Now come on. We’re going to celebrate us, and you know how much I hate being late to a good party.”
—The End—
Author's Note
My thanks to Acreuball, a wonderful friend and editor.