The Fast and the Funny

The Dating Game

"So... this is really weird, huh?"

Sitting across the table from one another, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie stared down at their empty plates. Gone were the precious mouthfuls of food that had provided them a reason not to speak, leaving only the blatantly obvious to escape the pale blue pegasus pony's mouth.

Pinkie nodded slowly, her normally perky, vibrant pink hair slightly sagging as she entirely failed to even attempt to look up and meet Rainbow's potential gaze.

"Y-yeah."

The earth pony sighed, kicking at the wooden floor with one foreleg.

"Was I being silly? Was it all just... just in our heads? That all the fun we have together, the games, the... the stuff we do when we're alone. Was it all in our imaginations that it... y'know? Meant something more? Was all that lovey dovey talk just our flanks getting ahead of our brains?"

Huffing softly, blowing her fringe out of her eyes with the lingering exhalation of her breath, Rainbow Dash shrugged. She too was far from her usual energetic self.

"I dunno. Maybe. But... but no. No. I don't want to think that. I don't wanna believe that. Pinkie, you're the silliest, weirdest, most awesomely random pony I know. You're never too calm or sensible or sensitive to turn down a chance at adventure or danger. You're so much like me, s-sometimes I feel like I'm not really complete without you close by."

The pegasus pony's cheeks flushed as she realised what a personal, intimate thing she had just confessed to. Hastily, not daring to look and see how Pinkie was reacting, she pressed on with the point she had been attempting to make.

"What I mean is, you're great. You're Pinkie Pie! And I wanna spend more time with you. Not just fooling around or... y'know. Fooling around. Actually getting to know you. Getting to see what Pinkie Pie does when she's not throwing parties and bursting into spontaneous song. I just... this? Dinner. Sitting down like two civilised ponies and being expected to talk and bond and stuff. It's not me. It's not us. A-and, I guess I just don't know how to properly date somepony I really care for... when neither one of us are the kind of pony who cares about dates."

For a few moments, Rainbow Dash sat in silence. Her head remained downcast, her eyes closed but ears perked; listening for any clue to what Pinkie Pie might be thinking. A gasp. A shuddering, emotional intake of breath. Any kind of breathing, for that matter.

"P-Pinkie?"

After almost thirty seconds of silence, Rainbow Dash could bare it no longer. She winced, and slowly, fearfully raised her head; eyes slipping open to nervously glance at where she had last seen her friend.

Rainbow's eyes met with Pinkie's own. They widened, and a lump rose in the pegasus pony's throat.

"Pinkie? I... a-are you, are you okay?"

The bubblegum pink earth pony was sitting up straight, painfully straight, exactly where Rainbow Dash had last seen her. Her location was, however, practically the only similarity between the Pinkie Pie which Rainbow Dash had seen recently, and the Pinkie Pie she found herself gazing upon now.

Pinkie's already bouncy, frizzy hair had practically doubled in size; in apparent correlation with the bulging, quivering ovals of the earth pony's wide eyes. A crazed, wild, toothy grin was spread from ear to ear across the renowned party-pony's muzzle, and she was trembling violently; practically vibrating upon the spot on which she was seated. She looked for all the world like a pony on the edge of madness. A pony who, if a single wrong word was spoken to her, might erupt into a fury of violence and chaos the likes of which even Discord might envy.

"Say something. Pinkie, please... talk to me. You've not been this quiet since... well. Since, uh. You've never been this quiet, okay? You're really starting to freak me out here!"

Just when Rainbow Dash thought Pinkie's eyes couldn't get any wider, they cracked open just the tiniest bit more, and a single tear sprang forth from the base of the earth pony's right eye. At the same instant, a familiar and wonderful sound rang out across the room. A giggle. Pinkie's all too frequent and oh so infectious giggle of glee.

"You... you feel like... you're not really complete, without me?"

Rainbow Dash's own eyes widened.

"Uh. I... um. I..."

Pinkie leapt up onto the table; sending her plate and cup flying to the floor where they shattered with a loud crash that somehow failed to waken Gummy from where he was napping on a pile of cushions close by.

"You feel like you're not really complete without me!"

Pinkie somehow managed to both stride and creep across the length of the table all at once, until she was leaning off the edge; balanced on the tips of her four hooves, with her nose pressed up against Rainbow Dash's own and her eyes staring deep into those of the pegasus before her.

"Rainbow Dash. T-that's... that's the sweetest thing anypony has ever said to me."

The pegasus pony's cheeks flushed pink. As bright a pink as the coat of the wide eyed, beaming mare staring her square in the face with such a dazzling, gloriously happy expression.

"It... it is?"

Pinkie giggled softly.

"Yu-huh."

She moved her head another fraction of an inch forward. Bumping her nose gently against Rainbow Dash's own, before setting the pegasus' heart afire with the softest, most tender peck on the lips. Rainbow Dash tried not to react. Tried not to leap into the air and fly somersaults around the room. At that at least, she succeeded. React though, she did. She quivered, and giggled herself; a bashful, oddly girly giggle for a pony such as her to utter.

"Then... maybe we're not as bad at this dating thing as we thought."

Pinkie nodded, echoing her previous words as she pecked Rainbow Dash on the muzzle once more.

"Yu-huh."

Again, Rainbow sniggered girlishly at the rush that came from that softest of kisses.

"Maybe we're just so awesome at doing it... we've totally reinvented it. No boring dinners with romantic candles and tiny portions. Give me a pony who jumps up on the table. Give me a pony who makes me say things I never thought I'd want to say out loud, never mind things I couldn't stop myself from saying if I'd tried."

Once more Pinkie and Rainbow Dash kissed. A longer kiss. Deeper, but every bit as tender and intimate.

Their lips parted after some endless period of time. Minutes, most likely, but potentially millennia as far as they were concerned. They sighed softly, blushing at how alike their joyous murmurs had sounded, and giggled as their eyes met yet again.

"Pinkie?"

Pinkie Pie tilted her head playfully.

"Yes, Dashie?"

Rainbow Dash sighed, rolling her eyes at the use of that damnably cute nickname that she loved to hate, and hated to love.

"Wanna... um, do you want to... to be..."

The earth pony picked up where Rainbow's voice trailed off into embarrassed, overwhelmed silence.

"...to be more than just friends that play and laugh and care so much for one another that it makes them want to sing and shout and drag the other pony behind every cloud and bush and tree for kisses and..."

Rainbow Dash silenced Pinkie with another kiss; a firmer, more intense smooch as she saw the fire burning in that wonderfully manic pony's eyes, the fires of desire and passion that had been about to let loose in all manner of delightfully over descriptive ways.

"...and be my awesomely silly, special somepony."

The smile vanished from Pinkie Pie's face.

She stared intensely at Rainbow Dash for a moment, and just as the pegasus' own smile was beginning to fade with slight concern, Pinkie nodded.

She nodded, and flung herself forward off the table; tackling Rainbow Dash with a shriek of glee, and shaking with potent joy as she felt Rainbow's forelegs rising to meet her. Embracing her. Catching her. Falling to the ground with her, and staying there. Locked together, limbs, lips, eyes, and most inescapably of all, hearts.

By Jeeves