The Fan She Never Knew

Even the Luna-damned bathroom was covered in it, though the decor there consisted of more resilient things, like framed photos, and less newspaper clippings that would be ruined by the moisture.

Rainbow stood under the shower, almost surprised that it wasn’t somehow rigged up so the spigot was a bust of herself causing a storm cloud to rain bathwater.

… Or worse.

She shuddered at the thought, hoping Bay’s mother didn’t just have some weird kink or unrequited crush.

… Or both.

She shook her head, lathering up her mane with Prism Bolt’s End of the Rainbow Shampoo and Conditioner, a specialty product for ponies with multicolored manes. She had been momentarily surprised at the rather rare product, but even a cursory thought about the resident who lived here made it obvious why it was there.

The water rinsed away the lather, suds washing off the back wall with the bizarre, larger-than-life-sized mural of herself. It dwarfed her small frame, and even with her admittedly massive ego, she felt incredibly narcissistic just being in this shower. Bay had tried to warn her about it, but reality was so much worse than she’d imagined.

Rainbow scrubbed her nether bits with a washcloth instead, distracting herself with idle wonderment of why scrubbing it with a cloth felt so… clinical and unpleasant, compared to the incredible high she’d experienced just a few minutes prior.

When she was satisfied that she was sufficiently cleaned up after her impromptu Adventure in Groinland, she turned off the faucet and pushed aside the Rainbow Dash-themed shower curtain and pulled a towel off the towel rack. Mercifully, it was only rainbow-patterned, and not actually a Rainbow Dash commemorative towel. That one, Bay had explained, was not for drying off with.

Now dried off, she stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway. A newspaper article right at eye level announced “NEW WONDERBOLT RESERVES SELECTED”. Dash quickly turned to ignore it.

The house had been fascinating to Rainbow at first, but the more she was in it, the more she realized that Bay Singer’s mother was, in fact, some sort of crazy mare who desperately had needed therapy. It was no longer amusing or thrilling or flattering. It was just… depressing.

Bay was standing in the room at the end of the hall, watching her. She trotted toward him, forcing a smile.

“Y’know, you look even hotter when you’re fresh out of the shower,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah…” Dash said morosely, peering past him.

The room beyond Bay was a small bedroom. Apart from the bed in the center of the room, a small brown dresser in the corner, and a tiny blue end table with a red knob, it was devoid of anything except the routine decorations all over the walls of the house.

“Yeah...” Bay said slowly. “This was her room.”

Rainbow Dash looked around the room, unable to formulate any words of encouragement.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” he continued. “I might just leave it like this.”

“Wait, you’re going to stay here?”

“Ha, I wish,” Bay Singer shrugged. “Once everything goes through probate, I won’t even own the place.”

Rainbow glared at him. “You aren’t bucking serious?” she yelled, angrily.

“Completely serious. She left everything to you.”

She shook her head incredulously. This was insane.

“But, y’know, I wasn’t planning on keeping it either way. Wonderbolt money is good money, and living closer to Canterlot saves a lot of time and effort, even if it’s a bit more expensive.”

The quality of life Rainbow had gained when she finally left Ponyville was staggering. “Yeah, that’s true.” She nodded her agreement.

“And it’s not like I have anypony I have to take care of. Living alone in a studio apartment won’t cost too much.”

Rainbow nodded again. “Yeah…” Unless… “Uhh… why not move in at my place?” The words slipped out before she’d stopped to consider them.

“Live with you?”

“I mean, y’know… until you can save up a bit and find a better place than a simple studio apartment.”

Bay Singer nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll take it into consideration.”

There was a lot here that Bay still needed to deal with, though. “What are you going to do with all this stuff when you leave?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Rainbow had to admit, the building was practically falling apart. She didn’t really even want it, and it might be hard for her to find a buyer with how creepy the place was. But maybe she was being too hard on it.

“We could take everything down and box it up,” she suggested. “Then figure out if it’s worth remodelling.”

“And where would the boxes be put?”

Visions of her parents’ Museum of Dash came to mind. “Oh, I know a place.”

It felt a little strange to be walking around town with Rainbow Dash at his side. Ponyville was a small town, and the rumors would certainly start flying quickly.

Their destination was Davenport’s Quills and Sofas, a place Dash assured him had no shortage of spare boxes, but it seemed they were getting distracted at every turn by ponies who knew Rainbow Dash. Comparatively few ponies had stopped to chat with Bay Singer himself. And he was the one who lived here, not her.

Sometimes a pony would approach Rainbow, seemingly ignoring him. Every time it happened, a tiny bit of the old bitterness would come up, only to be quickly quashed every time Rainbow gleefully introduced him as her coltfriend.

Oh, how his opinion toward her had turned in just the span of the last 36 hours! Thinking about it too hard just made him feel shame for the way he’d treated her at first, but he tried not to dwell on it.

A pink and silver blur shot passed him and tackled Rainbow Dash to the ground in a ball of hyperactivity.

“Oh my gosh, Dashie, you didn’t tell me you had a coltfriend,” the mare shrieked. “How did you meet him? TELL ME EVERYTHING!”

“Hey, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow said, a slight rosy blush on her cheeks. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you for long.” She gestured toward him. “This is Bay Singer.”

Bay raised his hoof and Pinkie Pie seized it, shaking wildly and nearly ripping his leg out of its socket. “Dashie, I already know his name. I know everypony in Ponyville. Congratulations, Bay, oh, sorry about your mom, but don’t you dare hurt my Dashie!”

When she finally stopped shouting and released his hoof, he rolled his shoulder a few times to make sure he hadn’t been injured. She continued speaking in a rapidfire manner with Rainbow before disappearing again in a cloud of confetti into the direction she’d come.

“And that’s why rumors move so fast around here,” Rainbow said with a sigh. “You okay?”

Bay grimaced, nursing his shoulder. “Just peachy.”

Rainbow pointed up at the sign they were just passing. Bay looked up. The Original Carousel Boutique. He had never been inside, but he knew it was something of a big brand.

“Another friend owns it,” Rainbow said.

“Rarity, right?” Bay asked. “From your Element of Harmony days.”

“Oh, right…” Rainbow trailed off. “Yeah, I guess your mom would know all about my friends, too. Please, don’t hate them.”

“I promise I won’t.” His ire had never been directed at them, anyway.

“Awesome.” She nodded and continued down Sugar Cube Lane.

Taking everything in Bay Singer’s house down and putting them into boxes was, to say the least, a strange experience for Rainbow. Every little newspaper clipping was like a tiny window into her own past. Many of them were from things she couldn’t even remember.

“Wow,” Rainbow said, poring over a page she’d taken off the wall. It was from a griffon’s school yearbook. The top half of the page showed a handful of griffons she’d never met, but the lower half featured a photo of herself and Gilda, back when they still were friends. The extremes that poor mare must have gone through to get her hooves on a griffon yearbook...

“Best Young Fliers, right?” Bay said over her shoulder. Rainbow jumped at the unexpected approach, her wings shooting outward and slapping her left wing against the wall. Ouch. Now both of her wings hurt.

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied, trying to ignore the stinging in her wings. “How did your mom even get some of this stuff?”

“She, uh… bought most of it.”

“Even the hard-to-find stuff?”

Bay shrugged. “If she had any other methods, I don’t know about them. As it was, we basically lived on welfare, so I don’t even understand how she got the little money we had.”

“Welfare?” Rainbow asked, confused. “I admit, I’m not surprised she couldn’t hold down a job with her… weird… problems… but no child support?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea who my dad was. If mom ever knew, she wouldn’t talk about him.”

Rainbow nodded slowly. “She wasn’t, like, a prostitute, was she?”

“Nah, she just… had… issues...” Tears were welling up in his eyes again.

“You loved her anyway, didn’t you?”

Bay’s lower lip stuck out and his face twisted up in a clear effort to not cry. Rainbow felt her heart breaking for him all over again as he fought with his tears. She stood up and pulled him against her, hugging his neck with her hooves.

Bay leaned into her, sitting down as he cried into the fur on her chest. Soon, heavy sobs that shook her entire self in a physical sense were cutting just as deeply into her emotionally. This stallion had been hurt. This stallion had been so desperate for love, from the one pony that should have loved him more than any other. And he had never known a love like that.

Rainbow was determined to show him. Everypony deserved to be loved - that was the fundamental part of herself - of loyalty itself. She would love him until he was so overwhelmed with love that he couldn’t contain any more of it.

But, for now, she would love him quietly, holding him close like a mother would. And she let him cry.

It was getting late. Without Twilight’s sunlight pouring through the windows, the crappy lamps scattered throughout Bay Singer’s home were no longer sufficient to make out the news articles without bringing them to your face and squinting closely at them.

He couldn’t help but feel that in some ways, that was a blessing. Rainbow had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to read about herself in random clippings, but now her tired old eyes just wanted to rest so she was simply putting things away.

It was making the work go significantly faster. They had originally started with the bedroom, filling up an entire box and a half before just a few minutes ago declaring it finished. Rainbow had started on all the articles hanging in the hallway.

“Rainbow?” She perked up, looking over her shoulder at him. It was pretty cute. “Don’t you think you should get home? We can finish in the mo-” Damnit, there was practice in the morning. “Tomorrow evening. Come by for dinner?”

“No, thanks.” Rainbow said, waving her wing in a universal pegasus body language that meant ’I’m going to do what I want’. “I don’t want to come back tomorrow.”

“What?” Bay exclaimed, taken aback by her sudden dismissive attitude. It was so incredibly different from her attitude leading up to this moment. “Why not?”

Rainbow stood up and carefully stepped over the box that blocked the hallway between the two of them. “Because I can’t.”

“Why not?” Fear began gripping his heart.

“There’s a certain prerequisite that needs to be met before I can come back.”

“Um…”

“You see, Bay, coming back would require that I leave.”

“Uh…”

Wait. She wanted to stay the night? Where would she sleep? Share the couch…? The still… very… very soaked couch?

“We can’t.”

Dash stopped mid-stride, tilting her head inquisitively. “Why not?”

“There’s nowhere to sleep.”

Dash pointed at the bed. “Why not there?”

“That’s my mom’s bed. Too weird.”

She scowled. “What about y--” Dash trailed off. “Wait, where’s your room?”

Here it comes. The judgement. “I never had one.” He hung his head in shame. “I slept on the couch.”

Rainbow planted her butt on the floor. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Bay nodded.

“Your entire life?”

“As long as I can remember.”

Dash went silent. Bay didn’t know what else to say, so the silence dragged on for quite a while.

“I’m gonna blow it up,” she suddenly blurted.

“You’re what?”

“The whole place. As soon as I own it,” she clarified.

“What do you mean, ‘blow it up’?”

“Low-altitude Rainboom. I used to help the Apple family knock down old farm buildings with it. This place likely isn’t any more sturdy than they were.”

“And where will I live?”

“My place,” she said matter-of-factly. “You don’t have any attachment to this place, right? I’m going to own it after you lose it anyway, right?”

Bay looked around him. The thought of losing it all was… strangely relieving. The whole place was just a shrine to his own anxieties, and getting rid of it would be... perfect? Except...

“I only want to keep one thing,” Bay replied.

Rainbow tilted her head. “What’s that?”

It was dark and pouring down rain by the time Rainbow and Bay Singer reached her old cloudhouse on the other side of Ponyville. Despite the short distance, it had been one of the most grueling flights of Rainbow’s life and her wings were screaming in pain as they forced their way into the mercifully dry abode.

The barren room made of clouds lacked any decorations whatsoever - just a square, light-grey featureless cube of fog. “Are you sure this is cloudsafe?” Rainbow barely managed to say.

“It is,” Bay Singer confirmed.

I hope you’re right. Rainbow dropped her end of the couch unceremoniously, desperately gasping for air in a decidedly un-awesome way. Bay seemed none the worse for wear, a clear testament to his strength and endurance.

“Why…” Rainbow huffed, throwing her hooves up in the air and glaring at the sofa. “In Tartarus… did you want… to keep this?”

“I don’t sleep well on beds,” Bay replied, seemingly unfazed by her agitation. That… that made sense, to be fair. Rainbow didn’t like it, but it made sense. “And also because I never want to forget when I lost my virginity on it.”

That wasn’t sex! Rainbow spun on him, her soaking wet tail slapping against her cutie mark. “I sucked your dick. You ate me out. That’s not sex, alright?” Her continued panting was certainly not helping her death stare with its intended effect, as he seemed utterly unfazed by it.

“It’s oral sex,” he replied defensively. “It counts.”

“Oh goddess, you and Twilight both…” Rainbow grumbled, trying not to remember the argument when she and Applejack had been experimenting and Twilight walked in on them. She threw her hooves up in the air. “Look, I don’t even care.”

Truthfully, she cared a lot. She had wanted to give him her virginity - that something special just for him. And she’d decided he would be the first to have a chance to seed her womb. But here he was with his stupid ‘technicalities’, trying to minimize that gift.

“Still a virgin where it counts, okay?” she blurted.

Bay tilted his head. “Are… we still talking about me?”

Rainbow kicked the couch with her hoof. It rebounded effortlessly by not moving at all, and it only hurt her hoof. “Dumb furniture anyway.”

She glared at the couch again, and then turned away. “I need to dry off.” She stormed off to the bathroom where the sunwell could dry off her coat, only to remember that it was night time and no sunlight could reach her. She silently cursed Twilight for her punctuality and turned to leave, only to be blocked in the doorway by Bay Singer.

Rainbow stopped and inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly.

“Are you okay now?” Bay asked her.

“I’m fine,” Rainbow replied, completely not fine.

“Your wings are super-stiff,” he replied, reaching for one of her wings with a hoof and pressing against her sore wing muscles. “You carried the couch the whole way here like this?”

Rainbow tensed as he touched her sore wing, but melted almost immediately. “Yeah.” His massaging of her wing felt heavenly. “Yeah, I did.” She leaned into the massage, her stance growing increasingly unstable, before she finally had to step forward to catch herself from falling.

The tension in her wings was increasing, but now for totally different reasons. She nudged him out of the doorway with her head. “Come on, if you’re going to give me a massage, let me get comfortable first.”

Rainbow led him down the hall and into her old bedroom, where her old cloud bed was just as she’d left it years before. That was the nice thing about cloudhouses: they didn’t gather dust. It all just fell through.

She jumped up on the bed and splayed herself out like a six-pointed starfish-pony and just sighed. Cloud beds were something heavenly.

Bay climbed up right behind her, nudging her toward the head of the bed. She begrudgingly shuffled higher up on the bed and then felt a slight tickle on her thigh as he knelt behind her. After a moment, his hooves came down right at the base of her wings, gently kneading and massaging her sore flight muscles.

“Mmm…” Rainbow groaned. In this position, he could really put some weight behind it. She hadn’t had a wing massage like this in ages. His hooves simply pressed the stress and pain away. She slowly drew her forelegs in and laid her cheek down where they crossed, basking in the moment.

“You good?” Bay asked her, not letting up with his massage. “Do you need me to do anything different?”

“Nope,” Rainbow replied. “You just keep right on doing what you’re doing.”