“Jeez, you too?”
“I’m sorry, Sunset! Shining Armor’s plane schedule got messed up and then it messed up my schedule and he’s going to be here in like...30 minutes! IGOTTADRIVETOTHEAIRPORTBYESUNSETIHOPEYOUSTILLHAVEFUN!”
Beep.
And there goes Twilight. I can’t help but look glumly at my cell phone.
Fluttershy’s bunny comes down with a nasty cold.
Rarity gets a sudden, “Once in a lifetime” high profile commission.
Pinkie’s taking care of the twins for the Cakes, as they set up their shop for a local Hearth’s Warming television ad.
And Rainbow Dash is doing some stylish tricks at a snowboarding competition we’re watching on my TV through my laptop.
I plop down next to the only girl that wears a cowgirl hat almost every day.
“Now how’d you reckon Dash spins that much and not get sick?”
A blur of rainbow hair twists and flips down a large snow covered halfpipe for the second time. She ramps up the sides doing tricks neither Applejack nor I knew the names of, but impresses us, the crowd and the commentators.
“Adrenaline?”
“Heh, she’s sure got a lot of that.”
She bites a large chunk of her apple that she brought from home, because of course she did. But then almost spits it out, when she sees Rainbow over turn and nearly splat on the white dust below her for her final run. She corrects herself and manages to land on her board and not her face, but then over corrects and loses her balance. Our eyes go wide as it’s sure that she’s going to tip over at the last second right before the halfpipe’s end, but Dash crouches down and swings her arms forward to fix her balance. Dash smoothly glides down the rest of the way to the applause of the crowd and us, even if she can’t exactly hear it. The commentators say it was a good set of runs overall, but the last slip up will probably cost her in the execution department.
Then we get a message in our group chat.
“Holy crap, I was awesome!” Dash writes.
“Darn tootin!” Applejack responds.
“You were incredible Dash!” I add.
“Thanks girls!
I knew you were cheering me on
I screwed up a little at the end
But 4th is pretty good for a rookie’s first
Right?”
“Lol yeah”
“Gonna hang out with hot snowboard girls for drinks
Ttyl
Love ya!”
“Be careful and dont go too crazy ok?”
“Yea yea momplejack” Dash responds.
Applejack frowns and rolls her eyes. I can’t help but giggle and Applejack frowns at me. I frown back and we both laugh. But hearing the slight echo of laughter dampens the mood for me.
I look back at the TV and see her announced as fourth place and realize that we must be lagging pretty far behind. I skim through the stream and see they even interviewed her. Guess we’ll have to watch this when she gets back.
I turn off the TV and look around my apartment. An empty pizza box that used to hold a pineapple and apple slice pizza sits on my new coffee table. Only a bag of chips accompanies it, no soda or other snacks as I was relying on the other girls for them. The board games lay under the coffee table, but they all either require four or more players or heavily advise doing so. My instruments are behind the couch and a mini-jam session with Applejack sounds pretty good, but it’s about to be late and the neighbors will probably complain...again.
Eh, screw it.
“Hey Applejack, you wanna jam a little?”
“Well that sounds mighty fine, Sunset,” she responds as she hops over the couch. She picks one of my spare basses from the wall and hands me my electric guitar. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a jam session with you.” She plugs us both into my mini amps and then tunes her bass. She pauses a moment and asks, “Uh, yer downstairs neighbors won’t get mad will they?”
“It’s not that late,” I say with a grin. “Besides, we’re professionals. It’s like a free show.”
“That sounds like somethin’ Rainbow would say.”
“A broken clock can be right twice a day?”
“I’m not a genius, but even I know that ain’t how that sayin’s used.”
“Aw c’mon, Applejack. When are we gonna have the chance to play without Rainbow trying to doing 3 minute solos?”
Applejack sighs, “When yer right, yer right!” She strums her bass and we play through our small tour set, but with Applejack and I filling in a lot of empty spots with cool fills. Well, it was mostly Applejack. I’ve grown a lot since Flash Sentry taught me guitar. I like to think I’m a competent guitarist overall but Applejack. She tells me she prefers guitar and is way better on guitar, but damn she’s blowing my mind on bass.
Applejack fully closed her eyes as she jammed to the tunes that we played, barely opening them to look over her fretboard and then returning to that same passionate smile as she slapped and plucked.
I never really thought of it until now, but how much have we been holding Applejack back?
I misplay a chord and stick to focusing on playing as hard as Applejack. I might be a mid-tier rhythm player, but that doesn’t mean Applejack can’t enjoy playing with me. My extremely talented friend, Applejack, who has very, very dexterous fingers.
Is it hot in here?
She looks back to me with a smile, nods and mouths three.
Two.
Oh that’s the signal.
One.
And we end in sync. Pretty much perfectly.
“Hoo-wee! Got a little carried away there.” She wipes her brow, but there’s no sweat.
I wipe mine and there definitely is.
“Y-yeah you did! Wow, you’re really good. Kinda wish we had more bass stuff in our songs.”
“Haha! Naw, it’d sound really weird in the stuff we do. The fact that Dash manages to sneak anything crazy into our stuff is because the song is just about her.”
“Heh, maybe we should start up our own band then?”
“I reckon I’d like that.” She smiles again and places her bass back, and I place my guitar back as well.
I don’t hear any angry knocking or loud complaining, so I guess my neighbors didn’t care which is another plus. But I do feel my stomach complaining.
“Hey, you wanna go out to eat?”
“Hmm,” Applejack murmurs and reaches for her backpocket, but I interrupt her.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. You’re my guest after all.”
“Well, long as we don’t get nothin’ expensive.”
“Relax, we’re just going to this burger joint next to the college.” I grab my helmet and my spare helmet. “Twilight and I go there for lunch between classes.”
“Ain’t you a vegetarian?”
“It also has the best veggie burger in town on top of being the cheapest veggie burger.” I explain as I hand Applejack my spare.
“Uuuh, we could drive my truck.” Her face looks distraught.
“That’s a big waste of gas for just the two of us.” I open the back door that leads into the alley where my motorcycle sits. I hop on and crank the ignition. The engine growls and purrs as I lightly twist the throttle, gliding around to the back exit where Applejack stands.
Applejack gulps as she stiffly makes her way to my side.
Okay, something is up. “Hey Applejack, are you afraid of Motorcycles?”
“N-no!”
That was not very convincing.
“Let’s jes get goin’!” She hops on to the backside of my bike and slams her helmet on over her head.
I shrug my shoulders and put my helmet on. Slow and steady will probably be the best way to go with the way Applejack is acting, so I let the engine and gravity glide us out of the alleyway. I try to keep the ride as smooth as possible; slowing long before lights, taking turns with minimal lean, not even bothering with switching lanes or passing slower drivers. Not that there were many drivers on the road in the first place.
Except for one jerk that speeds by with their horn blaring. Now for me, that’s nothing to really be concerned with. I’m seasoned in dealing with people either wanting me dead or bad drivers, both convening on the diagram of dead Sunset. Applejack, on the other hoof-er-hand, is not.
A pair of brick walls crush my ribcage and completely wind me. I barely keep my balance as Applejack hears my loud pained grunt and eases off. I barely hear a soft apology over the engine, but I’m not mad at her. Her arms feel nice when they’re not squeezing me in a deathgrip. It’s funny thinking about how these arms tossed huge boulders like they were pebbles and now they’re holding on to me to feel safe. Sweet Celestia, my ribs hurt though.
Aside from some embarrassment and possible bruises, we reach the burger place with no other incidents.
“Huh, Big Hoola Burger?”
“Yeah, they’re a weird Hoofwaii themed burger restaurant,” I say as I ride up to the drive thru. With no one in sight, I stop near the menu so Applejack can see what they have to offer. “They’re still really good though. Just not some weird food on offering.”
“They really push the pineapple thing, huh.”
Personally, I like the O’s in the name are two pineapple slices.
“Yeah, I like the Big Hoola Burger,” I follow up. “It’s a triple stacker of three grilled pineapple slices with sweet bread between each of them and then loaded with some herbs that I don’t know what they are, but they taste really good.”
“I think I’ll just get a regular ol’ burger. Oh are those apple slices?”
“Kids menu apple slices are probably not super great.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Ain’t the worse slice I’ve ever eaten…” Applejack’s face contorts into all the shapes that clearly indicate not having a great mouth experience. “It’d be nice if people knew that Red Delicious apples are just big and not really that good tastin’.” She spits a seed into her hand. “And it’d be nice if they knew how to core an apple.” She places it into a napkin on the table and grabs her burger.
“I told you,” I gloated between large bites of pineapple and sweet bread.
“Hush you, burger’s tasty though.” She finishes the rest in a big bite, swallow and satisfied sigh. “But now I got apples on the mind.”
“Wow, surprising,” I laughed and took another bite. Wait is that ketchup and mayo? How does this burger work? Why is it so good?! I must be insane.
“You ever baked an apple pie ‘fore?”
“No, not really. I have a microwave, induction cooker and a toaster oven. Nothing that’ll really let me bake an apple pie.”
“Not with that thinkin’ you won’t! Let’s head over to the closest grocery store and grab some essentials and we’re gonna bake some tiny pies!”
“When did Pinkie Pie get here? Also it’s like, 11 pm. All the grocery stores around here close at 11.”
“‘Cordin’ to my phone it says it’s 10:48, so we got plenty a time.” She hops on to my bike and pats the front of the seat as she types a search for the closest food mart around us. “Lookie there, just a couple blocks down and we’ll be so quick, they won’t even mind.” She holds up her phone to me and I have a minor panic attack.
“We can’t go to that one.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m on the banned list.”
“How’d you git yerself on the banned list?”
“Remember how I was kind of a crappy person?”
“Well, that was in the past.”
“Yeah, but stealing about $200 worth of groceries is a pretty big deal.”
“How in tarnation did you run off with $200 worth of groceries?!”
“Remember that time Big Mac tried to drive both of you back home after school and couldn’t leave the high school parking lot because you didn’t have any gas?”
“YOU DID THAT!?”
“Hey! I’m sorry! I was a crappy person then, but I’m apologizing for it now...because I mostly forgot I even did it until now.”
“Golly Sunset, the closest pump was ‘bout 4 miles away.”
“I’m really, really sorry about that.”
“I’m surprised there weren’t no police reports or nothin’ at least fer the truck. Ain’t a lot of old clunkers like mi- Wait, we’re wastin’ time. I’ll just go in and get the stuff and you kin just hide back.”
“Okay, if you’re really adamant about making this apple pie, let’s go then.”
She hops on the back and I crank the ignition again.
“I’m only doin’ this ‘cause you’re hot,” I joke.
“Uhhh-”
I laugh and twist the throttle to get to the food mart before it closes. Maybe it was a bit too quick of a start because the deathgrip came back and reminded me of my bruised ribs. Ow.
“Sorry!”
She gets the groceries and we make it back to my place with no problem. Applejack places two bags with the goods on
“Okay, so first thing’s first. We gotta find where Pinkie Pie stashed her emergency cupcake pan.”
“Wouldn’t that be over at Pinkie Pie’s place?”
“You know how Pinkie works. Now where do you keep yer cookin’ stuff.”
“In the drawer next to the fridge and microwave.”
Applejack reached underneath the drawer and pulled out a small cupcake pan. She looked back to Sunset and asked, “So where’s yer toaster oven?”
“Oh, I don’t use it very often,” I respond while walking over to my closet. “I buried it in here somewhere.” I dig to the bottom of my stored away junk and pull it out. I check it over to make sure nothing stupid has happened and it seems fine. I hand it to Applejack and she puts it on top of my microwave.
“Okie doke, let’s get this cupcake pan and our hands washed up.”
It feels intrinsically wrong to wash dishing in a bathroom sink. It’s visceral. My mind is just screaming, ‘Applejack, what are you doing?!’ But my pragmatic side is saying, it’s the only option we have. This is a weird fight to have in my head, but absolutely useless to say out loud.
“Yeah, yeah, it looks funny. I know what yer thinkin’.”
I’m not wearing any kind of pokerface tonight, huh?
“Okay, now we need to get started on preppin’ the ingredients...” She took a clean towel and dried the pan and her hands off and tossed me the towel. She looked around for options and finally said it.
“How in tarnation do you live without a kitchen?”
“Microwave veggie dinosaur nuggets and fast food.” I shrugged.
“That just ain’t livin’!”
She slides my monitor setup down to the right corner and unfolds a cooking mat. She places the ingredients on the mat and looks everything over to make sure she has everything ready.
Meanwhile, I’m slowly becoming more and more uncomfortable with the idea of cooking going on right next to my very expensive video editing and streaming computer.
“Now don’t you worry none, Sunset. I’m a mighty careful cook...but you still might wanna disconnect the power to yer equipment.”
I quickly do so and then move the computer over under the staircase as the best option.
“Okay, now take these granny smiths and slice’m down to 16ths and then in half. We want’m small to fit in the cupcake pan.” She hands me a couple apples, a knife and a peeler in a bowl. “Careful with the knife, it’s sharp.”
“Thanks Momplejack. I’ll be sure not to run with scissors while I’m at it.”
“Yer welcome, oh wait. Are you okay with eggs?”
“Oh, eh, yeah. As long as they’re organic and cage free.”
“Okay, good.”
I skin and then slice the apples and Applejack prepares the crust. I somehow manage to nick myself and do my best to not let Applejack notice. It’s a small cut, not even bleeding, but I’m not about to let Applejack ‘I told you so’ me tonigh-“CELESTIA’S HORN!”
I cut myself.
Applejack jumps and looks back to see me shamefully walking back to my bathroom. I crouch down and pull out my first aid kit. I choose the bandages with the cute pink bunnies on it that are for babies, because I am a big stupid baby. That’s what I feel like right now. I’m screaming on the inside.
Applejack peers in the bathroom and asks softly, “You okay, sugarcube?”
It’s filled with warmth and genuine concern that lights up my heart.
It’s very nice.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just cut myself a little.”
“Told ya so.” She finishes with a light chuckle.
“You sure did,” I sigh.
“Now let’s get back to that pie!”
“Yeehaw.” I say with a small smile.
“That’s the spirit! Yeehaw!”
The rest of the pie goes without a hitch. Applejack even lets me cut the crust for the bottoms and tops of the pies. These little guys are going to be so cute and a little funky. The cupcake pan is fortunately pretty shallow, so there isn’t going to be a couple inches of filling without crust. After a couple minutes in the toaster oven, the delicious smells of baked apples and carbs permeates my apartment. Thank goodness these things won’t take long to finish cooking...except even 35 minutes is just too long to be drowning in that smell of homemade sweetness.
It’s only been five minutes. Switch into sleepwear? Too fast. It’s only been 8 minutes. Augh. Oh, duh!
“Hey Applejack, you wanna play a game while we’re waiting?” I pull up a pair of controllers.
“Oh sure,” She clicks some things on her phone and I notice it’s a timer.
“Anything you feel like playing?”
“Eh, I’m not real up to date on video games.”
“That’s cool, do you wanna play something competitive or cooperative?”
“Co-op would be nice, don’t really feel like dukin’ it out after all this. Maybe somethin’ relaxin’?”
“A relaxing co-op game, huh? I was hopin’ to make some more progress on the new Tirek game, but only because you’re so cute,” I head over to my laptop and start scrolling through my library of games as Applejack tries to hide behind her hat.
I find a nice puzzle game that I’ve never played before. Must have gotten it to do a co-op stream with Twilight, but she’s always so busy. She’d probably solve all the puzzles before I got a chance to do anything anyway.
It launches up to a colorful screen and we get to make our own characters. Applejack recreates herself pretty faithfully. Maybe a slimmer waist and less muscular frame, but I’m probably looking into this too hard. Applejack looks really good.
I hit the random button a couple times...and then a couple more times.
“Dear goodness, Sunset. That is an abomination.”
“Hahaha, I know right? It’s great!”
Eyes too close together, the worst kind of mullet, a nose turned up to the point of inversion and some very juicy unkissable lips combined with a color palette that could make Pinkie Pie puke.
“I’m calling her, Trixie.”
“Now that’s just cruel.”
“It’s an’ ode to her still owing me $20.”
Applejack laughs hard at my stupid joke and, wow, that feels so good.
“Okay, let’s get this trainwreck a-rollin’!” I say and press the button to begin our adventure.
Apparently this game wasn’t really a puzzle game so much as an adventure game with very puzzling logic. Filled with moustaches from cats even though the identification card didn’t even have a mustache to begin with, reassembling a blank white mugs like a bad 3D jigsaw puzzle and defeating poisonous snakes by throwing bridles on them to turn them into unicorns. All of this, but with the joy of a second player being just as confused as I was.
Applejack’s timer went off and for a second I thought our time with this game was over, but Applejack needed to let the pie sit for a little bit. “Can’t really enjoy a good pie if yer tastebuds get burnt off. It’ll just be ‘bout 10 minutes. Now...what we were tryin’ to do here again?”
“I honestly have no idea. I think we’re just ‘pixel hunting’ around this environment to find a key or clue or something, anything?” I would normally be mad at this point, but I’m too mentally broken to even comprehend what’s really going on. Is this real life?
We figure out that we needed to wash a black puzzle panel clean with a bucket of water, even though it looked perfectly fine and had no indication that the black was soot or whatever.
Beep beep!
“Finally!” we say together.
Applejack hands me a plate with two little cupcake shaped pies on them and my heart explodes a little. They’re even cuter than I thought they’d be.
We dig in and it was worth the wait. The soft, flaky, buttery crust with the sweet and tart apple filling were perfect.
“Oh wow, Applejack these are so good.”
“Well, thank ye kindly, you did a good job too.”
“Heh, guess I did.” I looked at my silly bunny bandage. “Thanks for convincing me to do this.”
“Anything to convince more people of the power of apples.”
We both laugh.
I head back over to the couch with my plate of remaining apple pie and turn off the very stupid game. Applejack follows behind with hers and sits beside me. We enjoy a blissful silence of simple enjoyment of good pie and better friends. She subconsciously leans into me and I more consciously lean into her. She’s so warm and her muscles feel so firm, but not hard.
I must have been holding on to an empty plate for 30 minutes.
“H-hey Sunset?”
“Yeah?”
“This is gonna sound weird an’ you don’t gotta answer this at all...but were you close to yer parents?”
Oh.
“I’m sorry, i-it was a stupid question,” she stammers out while trying to stand from the couch, but I stop her. I tug on her to come back down. Don’t leave please.
“No.”
“Golly I’m sorry for even askin’, I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’re a family girl. Everyone has a family. Why doesn’t Sunset have one. That’s the logic chain, right?”
“You don’t gotta talk about it if you don’t wanna.”
“They cared about me so much, and I just threw that love away. I was a brat. They worked their asses off to send me to Celestia’s School for Gifted and Talented Unicorns and watched me become one of Celestia’s personal pupils. And I didn’t even care about them. All I saw was the power...and then you girls put me into the dirt...where I belonged.”
“Hey now.”
“I’m a monster by default, Applejack. I don’t have a shitty childhood. I don’t have a hard upbringing. I didn’t get turned crazy by some magic spell. I’m a monster because it felt good and I liked doing it.”
She wraps me in her arms and I just let it out.
“Yer not a monster anymore and you know it.”
I grab back onto her, and even without my geode I feel all the memories of us flooding into my mind.
All the times I’ve saved people, helped people, inspired people, given people hope, and made her feel special. I don’t know why this stupid part of my brain keeps haunting me. Oh right, it’s depression. But there’s a warmth washing over all of it. It’s still there. It still hurts, but it’s not as bad here.
In Applejack’s arms.
“I love you so much, Sunset. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s okay, I’m an idiot and tried to get myself off my antidepressants on top of ignoring my therapist because I hate when they’re right.”
“Ain’t that why yer payin’ them?”
“Yeah, but it’s a stupid pride thing.” I wipe the tears from my eyes the best I can. “So this is going to be kinda gross but-” I lean up and kiss her. It’s not long, it’s not short, it’s enough to say, “-I love you too.”
I lean against her and rest my head on her shoulder as she wraps her hand around my waist to hold me closer. We hold each other through the night. We don’t dare upset the moment to realize this was some messed up dream, or the director would say cut and ask us for another take. Fortunately, we fall asleep together. No nightmares, no it was all a dream, just closed eyelids to the sun shining through my window.
I run my hand over my face, and it’s a little crusty with tears. I hear Applejack’s deep breathing and feel the rising and falling of her chest against me. I give her a kiss on the cheek and she wakes up.
“Hey.”
“Well that’s a mighty fine way to wake up a gal.”
“Yeah, your prince charming is here to cry another river on your shoulder.”
She smiles and hugs me again, “My shoulder ’s always free for you.”
“Damn it AJ, I’m trying to self depreciate here.”
“Nuh uh. I love you too much. Yer not allowed to hurt yerself anymore”
I sigh. This is bliss. “Okay, only because you’re so pretty.” I can feel her smiling.
We break the hug, even though it feels ice cold without each other there and get ready for the day. Showers, brushing, change of clothes, little instant coffee and clean up.
I walk Applejack to her truck. She still has some morning chores to do, even on a pretty Sunday like this. What a tragedy.
“Thinkin’ ‘bout last night, does that count as a date?”
“Huh, guess it kinda does. It was really nice...except for having a breakdown at the end.”
“Well on the bright side, it got us together.”
I didn’t even realize we were holding hands. It’s just so natural.
She leans over and kisses my lips and we embrace one more time before she leaves.
I feel a little empty, but also full. She’s not here with me, but I know the shape of that love that fills me. It’s a cute little cupcake apple pie.
Author's Note
And now for the obvious joke of Granny Smith getting mad at Sunset for sleeping with Applejack on the first date. Hilarity!
