Friday Night Trouble Bound
A single figure stood in the parking lot as Rainbow Dash pulled in. She barely came to a stop before the girl stomped up to her car and opened the door. Perfume and tears flopped into the passenger seat, and the door slammed shut a second later, rocking the Mustang on its chassis.
Rainbow looked at her passenger in concern, eyes darting up and down the girl with her arms crossed and shoulders hunched. She opened her mouth to say something, but the young woman cut her off.
“Don’t speak. Just… just drive.”
Although she shrugged, Rainbow didn’t press her any further. Instead she just lifted her foot from the brake, set the car rolling for the exit, and peeled out onto the road.
“So… you wanna talk now?”
The two girls found themselves stuck behind the rush hour traffic, waiting for the lights to cycle through again. Rainbow could see some idiot soccer mom up ahead blocking the intersection with her minivan, the aftermath of a failed attempt to sneak across two seconds after the light had already turned red. Now, a cacophony of horns assaulted her as the van blocked traffic, and Rainbow could only shake her head in frustration.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” came the answer from her side.
Rainbow sighed and slouched back in her seat, her left arm dangling out the open window. “That’s a first,” she muttered under her breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, Rares,” Rainbow said, flicking her gaze back to the right. Rarity hadn’t said a word since they’d left the java place fifteen minutes ago, and the uncharacteristic silence from her passenger had been eating away at Rainbow the entire trip. Or maybe it was the spent tears ruining her friend’s makeup. Or maybe it was just Rarity’s constant fidgeting, her left knee bouncing up and down in the corner of Rainbow’s eye.
The van cleared the intersection, and finally traffic began moving again. The engine let out a throaty roar as Rainbow stomped on the gas, slipping into the right lane and sliding down a side street to get away from the main roads. The long way would take just as long as the traffic-clogged main road, but at least she could drive here.
She knew something was really bothering Rarity when her pale friend didn’t cry out in alarm or indignation at her characteristically reckless driving.
“It’s that boy you were seeing, isn’t it?” Rainbow asked as she rolled through a stop sign, gunning down the empty asphalt ahead.
Several moments of quiet slipped on by. “You will not mention that bastard’s name in my presence,” Rarity finally commanded, hunching over even more.
Rainbow looked to her left, eyes lazily wandering over a pair of kids who had stopped on the sidewalk to watch her cool car blow by them. “I don’t even remember it,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
More silence. More purring from the engine. Something bleated in vain to be heard on the radio, but it was turned too low for Rainbow to make it out. The two women just continued on, pausing for only a few seconds at an intersection as an SUV rumbled on by before they turned right.
“Where are we going?” Rarity demanded to know.
“Nowhere,” Rainbow said, the steering wheel shaking in her grasp as she bounced around a few potholes. “You want me to take you home?”
Another ten seconds of silence. “No,” Rarity said, and that was all there was to it.
It wasn’t that hard to leave the town behind. Rainbow knew which roads were barren at this time of day. Too many days of listlessly cruising around after soccer practice had built up a map of all the escape routes when she just needed to get away from it all.
The road they cruised down was practically empty, save for a few cars going in the opposite direction. Green trees swayed in a breeze, though their leaves were already beginning to yellow in the onset of fall. The sun tried its best to dig into her eyes from the left, but Rainbow knocked the sun visor to the side and blocked it out. Shadows flickered across the hood of her car, and the engine had become a faint hum in the background. The radio was a bit clearer now, but it still meant nothing to Rainbow.
They rounded a hill, and a lake broke up the landscape in front of them. The setting sun turned its waters into diamonds and fire, and a few ducks paddled across the surface without a care in the world. The parking lot was empty save for two cars and, stepping on the brakes, Rainbow coasted crookedly into a parking space.
The vibration of her car’s powerful engine fell still with a turn of the key, and soon the two girls sat in silence, facing out at the lake. Rainbow looked at Rarity, expecting to see some kind of response, but the fashionista’s face was empty.
Sighing, Rainbow pulled the key out of the ignition, twirled it about on her finger, and popped open her door. Her sneakers crunched on the gravel and dirt just outside as she stepped out of her car, and she walked around to the front. After a moment to admire the view, she sat down on the hood of her car and kicked her legs out, her fingers momentarily protesting about the heat of the metal hood before she blocked it out. Compared to the constant purring of the engine, the rumbling of tires on asphalt, and the meager notes on the radio, the lake was calm and quiet apart from the wind rustling the reeds and the occasional quack quack quack of the ducks.
The latch on a door popped open, and Rainbow did her best to not react as she heard another set of footsteps crunching through the gravel. Soon she saw Rarity standing next to her out of the corner of her eye, and after a moment’s hesitation, the pale girl sat down on the hood as well, the suspension momentarily swaying under the added weight.
Rainbow decided to open with a joke. “Welcome to the one place in the entire world where I stop to think,” she said, the corners of her lips twitching upwards. “Don’t tell the girls about it; it’s a secret.”
She heard Rarity blow air through her nose—not a laugh or even a chuckle, but close enough. “I’ll try,” she said, eyes remaining glued to the ripples thrown up on the lake’s surface by the wind.
She dabbed at her makeup with a tissue, and Rainbow scooted a little closer. “He was an asshole anyway.”
“Rainbow, you never even met the idiot.”
She was talking now; that was an improvement. Still, Rainbow played it off cool and nonchalantly shrugged. “Don’t need to meet him to know that. If he wasn’t an asshole, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
A pause. “I… well, I suppose you’re right about that,” Rarity admitted. She crumpled the tear-stained tissue between her fingers and squeezed, calmly venting her frustration in an undoubtedly ladylike manner. “It still… still doesn’t make it feel any better.”
Rainbow nodded in agreement, even if she had no real experience to agree with Rarity on. “You two done, then?” she asked, carefully watching for Rarity’s reaction.
After a moment, Rarity gave a curt nod.
Rainbow nodded again, for want of something to do with herself. “His loss,” she said, kicking her toes across the gravel once more and returning her attention to the lake. “Teenagers are stupid.”
“We’re teenagers, Rainbow,” Rarity reminded her.
“Well… some of us are stupider than others,” Rainbow hastily corrected. “I’m certainly not that smart.”
“At least your heart is in the right place,” Rarity said, softly.
A car drove by behind them, its tires adding a soft hiss to the background that almost sounded like a wave breaking on the shore. At least, that’s what Rainbow thought while looking at the lake in front of her. “I’m sorry about whatever it is that happened, you know,” she said. A moment later, however, she lowered her brow. “I just don’t understand…”
“Understand what?” Rarity asked her.
“None of the other girls came for you?”
Rarity blinked in surprise. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean, like…” Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured I’d be the last one of our friends you’d ever call for something like this. What happened, Sunset was busy or something?”
“Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said, and when Rainbow turned to look at her, she was surprised to find her friend no longer staring dead ahead, but looking in her direction. “You were the first person I called. And it turns out I didn’t need to call anybody else.”
The surprise was practically written on Rainbow’s face. “Wait, really?” she asked, somewhat incredulous.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“I mean… I mean, no, but…” Rainbow looked away as the gears churned in her skull. “I just would’ve thought somebody like Sunset or Applejack would be your go-to. I don’t… you know I’m not good with emotional crap, Rares.”
“That’s why I called you, asking for a ride,” Rarity said. “Sunset would’ve tried to commiserate and sympathize—overly so. Applejack would start talking about how she was going to beat his behind. Even the rest of our friends… well, Fluttershy would be much too uncomfortable to say anything, and I really do not need to deal with Pinkie Pie’s antics when I just want to fume.”
“And Twilight?” Rainbow asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Rarity shrugged. “I feel she’d be as interested in trying to understand the day’s events as in making me feel better.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sneakers kicked at the gravel again, and Rainbow winced when she accidentally banged her heel into the pristine bumper of her car. “So what do I have that they don’t?”
“You move, you don’t think.”
“Uhhh… thanks, I guess?”
Rarity giggled—softly, briefly, and half-heartedly, but nevertheless a giggle. “If I wanted somebody to talk of the day’s events with, I’d call our other friends. But I just… I just wanted to get out of there. I don’t want to dwell on it. And if there was ever anybody that would pick me up and bring me somewhere else, no questions asked, who wouldn’t make a fuss about why I’m upset or what happened…”
Rainbow allowed herself a proud little smile. “I guess I’m good at that.”
“As it stands, I’d just like to… not talk about it. Okay?” Rarity looked at her, a little bit of pleading in her eyes. “That’ll make me feel the best.”
“Just tell me what not to do and I won’t do it, don’t worry.”
Rainbow slid further up the hood of her car and leaned back, the windshield supporting her back and shoulders as she put her hands behind her head. The heat clinging to her car sent a comfortable warmth through her skin, even as the early autumn breeze toyed with that fine line between warm and cool. She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling, and when she opened them again, Rarity was hesitantly leaning back next to her.
“Come on, Rares, you know I keep this car clean,” she teased her. “You’re not going to get your designer sweatshirt dirty.”
“I’m fairly certain I can see a film of dirt,” Rarity said, sticking her tongue out. It wasn’t until Rainbow ran a finger down the glass to double check that she realized Rarity was returning the teasing.
“Think it’s warm enough to give it a bikini wash?”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Oh, you wish.” She laid her head back on the top of the windshield, her purple hair spreading out around her white head like one of those golden halos Rainbow used to see in pictures at church as a kid. It fascinated Rainbow for some reason, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Maybe it was just the fact that Rarity looked more relaxed and… peaceful now.
“How often do you come here?” Rarity asked her. She tilted her head in Rainbow’s direction and opened a heavily-lashed eye.
Rainbow shrugged. “At least once or twice a week. At least, when it’s not too cold. I can’t sit outside when it’s too cold.”
“Once or twice a week?” Rarity’s eyebrows momentarily jumped upward as she turned her head back to the sky again. “That’s a lot of thinking.”
“For me, at least.”
“I wasn’t going to say it, but…”
The two girls chuckled, and Rainbow crossed her legs, one foot rocking back and forth in the empty air. Rarity ran her hands down her skirt, brushing imaginary dust and lint off it. A pair of motorcycles screamed by behind them, splitting the peace and calm for a second, but they soon faded behind the curtain of trees lining the road. Rainbow figured they were just trying to get a few last rides in before winter hit, and she realized that soon it’d be too cold to go back to this spot by the lake.
The wind rustled the trees again, and Rainbow closed her eyes and reveled in the sensations around her. Warm sun above, cool breeze on her skin, the clicking of her cooling engine beneath her, and the smell of Rarity’s perfume mixing with the waters of the lake and the metallic mustiness of the asphalt of the road. The car swayed as Rarity shifted positions, and the girl hummed as she got comfortable.
“I have to admit…” Rarity began.
Rainbow cracked an eye open. “Admit what?”
“It’s beautiful out here,” the fashionista said. “You surprise me, Rainbow Dash. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Even I need a place to chill out,” Rainbow said. “How else do you think I keep it awesome, twenty-four seven?”
“Mmmm.” Rarity closed her eyes and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, her slender white fingers fiddling with the gold bracelets around each of her wrists. “I’ll have to keep this spot in mind in the future.”
“Hey, hit me up, and I’ll take you anytime you want,” Rainbow said. “Gotta enjoy it while it’s still warm.”
“I may take you up on that sometime.” Rarity rolled her head from side to side, eliciting a few cracks from her neck. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow smiled into the warmth of the sun. “Don’t worry about it. I’d do the same for all the girls.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
Their words faded away, replaced by the sounds of nature, and Rainbow didn’t mind at all. The quiet calm of the world was just what she needed right now—Rarity too, she supposed. Car doors opened and shut to her left, and the other two cars in the lot pulled away with the pounding of rock blasting on their radios. Soon, it was just herself, her car, and Rarity, sitting in the golden sunlight of an autumn sunset, listening to the wind play with the reeds and the birds singing their evening songs.
All of it just slipping on by the lake shore, taking their troubles far away.
Author's Note
