Late-Night Phone Call

Sunset didn't really remember the day she'd had. After she'd shuffled into the house and slammed the door closed behind her, events of the day had left her short term memory by the time she'd finished stepping out of her shoes. By the time she made it to her bedroom, it left her long term memory as well.

All in all, probably for the best. She felt as though a lot of the time it was better that she not be able to go back and re-think through some of the things that had gone through her head throughout the day. It didn't really matter anyway; the day was done, the night was here, and she made it about as far as she usually managed to get: face-first onto her bed, which she laid across horizontally for an indeterminate amount of time, allowing the only thing to go through her head to be whatever dust had worked its way into the maroon fabric and was now graciously being filtered into her blood stream...or something.

Thinking was kind of hard. Her eyes had burned a little for most of the day, and concentration had not been her strong suit for most of it as a result. At some point her phone ended up in her hand, and the next thing she knew, she was listening to a dialing out noise ringing through the speaker at her ear.

It didn't take much thought to work out who she'd called. There could only really be one person she'd reach out at so mindlessly, and she didn't take long to answer.

“Miss Shimmer.”

Sunset smiled widely into the bedsheet, pushing herself up just a bit so she could speak without doing so into the comforter itself. “Well, well, well, look what we have here. A Rarity, minding her own business…”

“Guilty as charged, your honor…” The latter half of ‘honor’ came out distorted as Rarity broke into a yawn, not helped by the slightly more echo-y room that she sounded as though she was in. “Gracious me.”

A note of concern found Sunset’s tone as she asked, “I didn’t just like, wake you up or something, did I?”

“You may have…not to worry, though.” The faint sound of water reached the speaker, though Sunset wasn’t certain that’s what it was. “I wasn’t supposed to sleep here anyway.”

“Are you in the bath?”

Another splash, this one far clearer as what it was. “Mayhap.”

Sunset pushed herself up a bit more onto her stomach, smirking slightly as she did. “Well that’s new. Usually I’m the one who can’t wait to get out of my clothes when you’re on the line.”

Rarity guffawed in a most unladylike manner, making a small splash as she did. “Oh indeed, I simply could not contain my excitement, knowing you were going to call me at…” She muttered to herself, sounding slightly more distant as Sunset heard her turn her head this way and that while asking, “What time is it..?”

Sunset pulled her phone from her ear briefly to refer to the top of the screen, then brought it back to report, “9:42.” It was news to her as well.

”Okay good,” Rarity breathed, more than slightly relieved-sounding. “I have not been soaking for hours, then.”

“I hope not. If I’d known you were naked and waiting for me, I would have been here way sooner. Can’t keep a lady in need waiting like that.”

There was a breathy little chuckle from Rarity’s end along with the faint sound of water. ”Such a gentleman.”

“It’s what I do.” Sunset had been smiling to herself this whole time and felt the grin widening as her chin found her palm. “Gotta earn my keep somehow, y’know?”

“Only sensible…though I will confess, watching someone bathe is a curious way to earn one’s keep, darling. Are you certain that’s how we do it?”

“Could be.” Sunset’s legs idly kicked as she lay there on her belly, finger reaching for a cord her cellphone didn’t have to twirl it around her finger. “Depends.”

“On?”

“If you’d let me see you naked, firstly. Which-” Sunset raised a finger, “-for the record: would not be opposed.”

A single minxish chuckle came from Rarity’s end, though the acoustics of the bathroom made it difficult to identify that at first. “You would like that, mm?”

“Uh, yes? One of the prettiest girls in the school in the tub? We take those every time.”

“Fascinating.” Sunset could clearly envision Rarity’s face through her tone: eyes half-lidded, a coy smile on her face, head leaned back as she spoke into the phone. “Well, you’ve gotten me to half consider it, so I suppose you’ve got that going for you.”

Sunset chuckled once- not quite nervously, but something vaguely akin to it. “Well, uh…I mean yeah, I’ll take that and run with it, but I w- I didn’t exactly, uh, plan on, uh…it wasn’t on the docket tonight, let’s say.”

“Truly?” came the whimsical response. “Curious…it seems Sunset Shimmer may not know her own strength.”

“Apparently,” Sunset now properly laughed, though the slight elevation of her heartbeat didn’t ebb just yet. “Here I am accidentally almost scoring.”

Another faint sound of water. “So I take it you did not intend to seduce me tonight?”

“Didn’t make it to the first draft. Mainly just like…” Sunset paused a moment as she considered: why did she call, anyway? She didn’t think when she grabbed her phone a lot of the time, and this was no exception. “I dunno, I just wanted to hear from you.” She didn’t mean to say it, though the words happened all the same: “I like your voice.”

There was a beat of pause, and Sunset heard the smile on Rarity’s face as she replied, voice softer: “I like your voice, too. It’s always nice to hear it.”

Sunset found her legs kicking a little again as a smile found her own lips and tone to match. “I like talking to you.”

“Me too.”

Neither responded to the other for a little while after that. A familiar rosiness found the silence and filled it, sounding to Sunset’s ears how a hug felt. Her eyes closed at some point, listening to the barely audible feedback from the phone in her ear as she imagined Rarity in the same position on her end, taking in the moment like she was.

It’s not clear how much time passed. Sunset let it pass all the same, thoughts trickling in less and less as her breathing slowed.

After an indeterminate period of time, Rarity eventually spoke, though it was quiet when she did: “Pulling the plug here, darling. I’m not sure how loud it’ll be.”

Sunset nodded, like Rarity could see. After identifying the flaw with this, she responded simply with, “Ok.”

Presumably Rarity then did so. Sunset couldn’t tell - noise canceling either did its job or the tub draining was far more quiet than the warning necessitated.

The trance had been broken somewhat by this. Sunset idly considered what to say while she had Rarity on the line, though as was so often the case with Rarity in particular, she wasn’t exactly in a hurry to fill the silence.

It was interesting to her. She wasn’t exactly a stranger to lulls in conversation, but she couldn’t recall a time where lapses in dialogue felt like a feature rather than the lull it was. It was kind of nice, though conceptually she found that odd. Maybe it was a presence thing. Rarity did have a nice energy to her, and as a practitioner of magic, Sunset of all people knew the measurable importance of the energy of one’s presence.

“Protection.”

There wasn’t a response immediately, though Rarity did speak after a moment. “Pardon?”

“Protection,” Sunset repeated, confirming to herself as well as Rarity. “You feel like a protection main.” Sensing the owlish stare in the silence that followed, she clarified: “The tradition. Uh…magic. Sorry. Uh…you just- your vibes, I was just thinking about how you uh, how you felt.”

“How I felt,” Rarity repeated, audibly struggling to follow. “Right…”

“Sorry.” Sunset chuckled sheepishly, scratching at the back of her neck beneath the curtain of red and yellow hair. “Unicorn thing, I guess. Sometimes you can just sorta like- just sort of feel it on someone, you know? The uh, the magic they do. Or like, would gel with.”

“…and I feel like I’d cast protective magic?”

Sunset bit her tongue to not ‘um ackchually’ her on protection, not protective. Similar words, very different meanings in this context. “Yes. I think so, anyway.”

“I see.” A bit of the confusion drained from Rarity’s tone, though the uncertainty remained. “And you can just tell that?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Sunset shifted where she was laying, using this as an excuse to roll off her front onto her back, giving the ache forming in her spine near the base of her ribs less excuse to bother her. “Like I said, it’s just a vibe thing. I could also kinda see like…” Sunset paused, momentarily considering how Rarity felt and how that translated vibes-wise, and then continued with, “Maybe water.”

A single small note of intrigue preceded verbal response. “Water, you say?”

"Yeah. Ice, I think, specifically. Or like, earth. Both can go crystalline, and that seems like your thing." Sunset's eyes found the ceiling above her as she traced out a random design in the shadowy outline of a piece of timber sticking out from the hole that had been forming in the opposite corner of the room. "If I had to guess, I’d say you were a...Protection-Water, maybe like a tertiary Earth caster on top of that, with a crystal or crystalline aesthetic.” A moment more of consideration was given, and slightly less confidently she said, ”Mostly utility, I want to say? I could see a smattering of healing. Nothing major. Maybe like, a healing spell, you know?”

Rarity emitted a single note of idle intrigue as she considered this. “I suppose I do enjoy a supportive role…it's what I enjoy in games, at least, when I have the privilege of time to play them.”

Sunset went to speak, though she stopped herself. There was a lot she could say on this topic, and felt inclined to, now that she’d begun down it, but the knowledge that Rarity would have no idea what she’s talking about every step of the way was keenly on Sunset’s mind as she debated what she should and shouldn’t say. Much as she could ramble on the topic of magic for hours, Rarity already couldn’t keep up.

It was like Rarity could read her thoughts, with the way she apologetically filled the silence with, “I’m afraid this isn’t something I’m terribly knowledgeable on, myself. I’m not what one would call a practitioner.”

“And that’s fine,” Sunset all but blurted. A hand found her face and rubbed it as the self-consciousness hit. “Yeah, no, that’s fine, its- sorry, I shouldn’t uh-“

“Nonono,” Rarity cut in, “don’t apologize, darling, I’m- this is me apologizing for not being able to contribute to something you’re clearly interested in. I’d love to engage in this with you."

Sunset helplessly shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know how you would. They don’t exactly teach arcanology in this world. I’ve checked.”

“You have, have you?” She didn’t sound even remotely surprised - a very rhetorical question.

Sunset didn’t catch that part, due to leaping on the opportunity to start talking about magic some more. “Of course! It was one of the first things I did when I came to this world and realized I’d dropped into the courtyard of a school. First thing that crossed my mind: ‘I wonder what kind of magic humans have?’”

“That must have been dreadfully disappointing,” Rarity knowingly chuckled.

Sunset couldn’t repress the despondent sigh at the memory of her findings…or rather, the lack thereof. That wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as what she did find, once she was feeling confident enough to start expanding her search outside of her immediate surroundings. “I’m pretty sure you guys have psychics and divinists, but it’s not something that gets taken very seriously. At all. And like, with how little feedback or visual aspects those traditions have anyway, never mind how repressed everything would be in this world? Ugh...” Sunset dragged a hand down her face, thinking back on all the time she wasted chasing connections with people she could not rightfully believe had any kind of arcane talent, but who would happily tell everyone they did. “Zero regulation, zero accountability. Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.”

Rarity chuckled sympathetically. “I confess that I wasn’t much of a believer in the mystical myself, prior to…you know, the whole ‘shooting rainbows’ thing. I still find it hard to believe, at times.”

It took every ounce of willpower Sunset had not to segue off of this topic and explain the (MASSIVE) difference between mysticism and arcanology to someone who didn’t know better. She managed, but it was painful. “It’s a lot. I grew up with it and like, went to school on it and stuff, but…”

“That there are classes on it speaks volumes as to the breadth of the topic.”

Sunset nodded emphatically at this, like Rarity could see. Again. “People have spent their entire lives studying and practicing magic back home.”

There was a faint thump of a bathtub being bumped on Rarity’s end. “Yourself included, evidently.”

Sunset smiled. “Guilty as charged. Been at this since I was six, loved every second of it.”

“Gracious.” Rarity sounded as though she was moving away, though the bathroom acoustics had not changed. The phone picked up some bumping and crackled slightly as the phone was moved. “Well, if we ever find a need for some magical expertise, we certainly know who to look to for aid, now don’t we?”

Sunset shrugged as she inspected the ceiling overhead. “There’s worse places to look, I guess.” There was a brief silence following this as Sunset listened and heard no other noise from Rarity’s side for a time. “Are you still in the tub?”

“Not anymore, no.” Rarity sounded like she was across the room from the phone now. “I’m currently attending to my hair.”

“Still naked, though, right?”

The phone barely picked up a snort. Rarity sounded significantly closer as she dryly informed, ”Yes, Sunset Shimmer, I am still naked. Does this please you?”

In a completely even tone, Sunset replied, “Viscerally and emphatically.”

“Splendid.” There was a scrape of something plastic on a countertop, and Rarity sounded distant again, though no less wry. “Wouldn’t want you to be understimulated, now would we?”

Sunset pulled in her arm not currently occupied with the phone at her ear, smirking at the ceiling as she put her hand behind her head. “As a reminder: you are the one who brought up me seducing you.”

“And yet, here I am, most pointedly unseduced in spite of a very compromised position. Who have we to blame for that?”

Sunset shrugged her shoulders with a coy smile she wished Rarity could see. “I think we can agree to share the fault here.”

“Can we now.” It was stated, though phrased as a question. “A curious take. We’ve established I’m no magician, so understand that I can’t precisely seduce myself here. I dare say I’ve done my due diligence on the matter.”

“You say that, but I still haven’t seen you naked. Can’t exactly take pictures with your phone for you.”

“I mean,” Rarity said, entirely too innocently, “I wouldn’t say that…”

“Not from here I can’t.”

“Not from there, no.” A second-long beat. “It would be very doable in person, though.”

“It would be doable in person,” Sunset agreed. “Of course, I also wouldn’t need to take pictures, in that case. I could just use my eyes.”

“And hands.”

“And hands,” Sunset nodded as she agreed. “I mean, I was gonna just use my eyes, but if the offer’s there…”

“Oh, perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s not.” Sunset could clearly visualize Rarity turning her head from one side to another as she said this. “Who’s to say? Many things are possible in this world.”

“Like me getting lucky, apparently.”

“Potentially. That’s entirely contingent on how you play your cards, hm?”

Sunset hesitated for a moment, though it wasn’t enough to stop her fully. “Are you sure it’s a luck thing? Because to me it sounds kinda like you want it.”

A single note was heard from Rarity - hard to tell if it was a hum or a low chuckle. “I'm a lady of many wants, and they change all the time. Who’s to say, truly?”

“Truly.” Sunset swallowed, making note in the silence of how her pulse had elevated once again. There had been many, many occasions where a lot could get read into what she and Rarity joked about, but it had always been clear in her mind that they were simply having fun. Right now, Sunset didn’t know whether it still counted as play.

She’d be lying if she hadn’t thought about Rarity like that at least once - a lot of topics passed between them over the last month or two, several slightly less G-rated than others, and...well, it's not like she was lying about Rarity being quite attractive. There is a distinct difference, however, between idle passing thoughts and properly considering whether or not she wanted to pursue what, at least on the surface, appeared to be an opportunity being left deliberately open for her to follow up on, should she so choose. Was she reading too much into one of their usual silly games? Did Rarity not realize the signals she was putting out when she just meant to flirt like usual? Was any of this intentional? Was it real? Did she want it to be real?

More than anything, it was that last point that was giving Sunset pause. Did she want it to be real?

There was a lot to unpack here. Boy was she not prepared for it.

“Still there, Sunset?”

Sunset had a brief moment of panic, but she managed to get out an even-sounding, “Yes.”

“Good! Very good.” Rarity sounded closer to the speaker again and stayed that way. “I thought your phone had died again. It’s chosen some most inopportune moments to do so before.”

“Nope, still here…” Sunset removed the phone from her ear briefly, checking the charge in the top right corner. “Forty percent. Still good.”

Rarity emitted a pleased note at this. “Perhaps I’ll have you all to myself after all, then.”

Sunset went to speak - she wasn’t precisely sure what on, maybe just making a crack that would otherwise come naturally to her in this situation, but the context of her previous thoughts made her rethink what would otherwise seem like not that big of a deal.

Another silence came. For the first time in quite some time, it felt awkward to Sunset. Worse yet, she wasn’t sure what was better: trying to fill it, or just letting it ride out.

Mercifully, Rarity made the decision for her. “That will do,” she said, more to herself than Sunset as a drawer was heard closing. ”Fabulous as ever.”

“Oh yeah?” It felt like a mistake, but Sunset completed the thought regardless: “Can I see?”

“Certainly, darling.”

The nonchalant way Rarity responded was something of a comfort in this situation, though the genie of anxiety was already out of its bottle and in no hurry to return. That much was made fairly clear as Sunset sat there in a tense silence, unsure what she should be hoping for or if she should have even asked, gears in her head continuing to spin off their tracks while she waited.

After what felt like entirely too long a wait, Sunset felt her phone vibrate against her ear. Glancing at it, sure enough: text from Rarity. 1 attachment. Preview didn’t reveal anything but a default symbol indicating a picture was present. She tapped it immediately, saying more to herself than at Rarity, “Moment of truth.”

Sure enough, the picture was of Rarity, looking down at her phone when the photo was taken, lips slightly puckered at the viewer in a kissy face. Her hair was, indeed, well brushed and put up, though it was notably not as fabulous or intricate as Sunset had ever seen it - sensible, given it wasn’t for a formal event or party, taken from her bathroom at 10-plus PM.

Ever-so-slightly more eye-catching, however, was the angle the picture was taken from. Rarity was visible from the lower chest up, the phone low and very clearly bringing Rarity’s breasts into the center of the picture. Her arm was pressed over them, and they were visibly squished up just a bit against her chest as she posed. Nothing expressly explicit was on display, per se, but it would be a massive stretch to say that this picture was of Rarity’s hair.

Sunset took a breath, and sighed it quietly to herself as her heart hammered in her chest at the sight of a lot more skin than she’d seen on Rarity…ever.

Ok. So this was happening.

Fortunately, it was now palpably, measurably real, so she could now be a wise-ass about it. Which meant she could roll with it.

“You have very attractive…” A deliberately excessively long pause was inserted, followed by a purposefully forced-sounding, “hair.”

A small chuckle came from Rarity as she responded, “I’m glad you like them.” An equally long pause, and then the correction: “It.”

Sunset’s lips split into a wide grin. She almost laughed. “Lovely, yes. Very nice…hair.”

“Of course. I’m glad you enjoyed it. The hair.”

“Definitely, definitely. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before. With the hair, that is.”

“Indeed…” A nervous chuckle came from Rarity. “I’ve um…never…done this before. So um…”

Sunset opened her mouth to continue the bit, then swerved at the last moment. “Hey Rarity?”

“Mm..?”

Putting as much sincerity as she could into her voice, Sunset told her: “You’re really hot.”

A laugh burst out of Rarity's throat in response, followed by chuckling, her voice continuing to shrink at a steady pace all the way along. By the time she replied verbally, she was uncharacteristically small and vulnerable-sounding when she said, “Thank you.” The twirling of her hair was all but audible - Sunset could clearly envision Rarity wrapping a lock of curling purple hair continually around her finger as she swayed in place. “I hope it’s not strange.”

Sunset instinctively went to assure Rarity in what was clearly a self-conscious moment, though she felt that this was worthy enough of transparency to pause and think before giving it a knee-jerk response. “I was surprised,” she admitted, carefully, “but…uh…actually kinda…kinda hoping for it, to be honest. You’re um…” Sunset’s eyes had been on Rarity’s selfie this whole time, and her eyes had not been on her hair for most of it. Or her face. “You’re making me feel some things.”

“Like..?”

Sunset didn’t respond immediately, mulling over her word choice. She rubbed her thighs together without thinking about it. “Like I wish I was there in person.”

“Mm.” That noise was the only response, for a while. After several very long seconds passed, she followed up with, “I think that would be okay.”

Sunset nodded. She was so transfixed on the sight of Rarity's selfie that she left it at that for a fair while until realizing belatedly that she’d once again given a visual cue for an audio-only conversation. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head of all but their own accord. “Maybe I really should be there. I keep nodding like you’re gonna see it.”

Rarity emitted a chime of a giggle - one of those musical little sounds that she so seldom made that always sounded so pure and joyful to Sunset. After a few moments, however, it was replaced with a despondent sigh. “I’d more seriously invite you tonight, but I can already foresee Sweetie Belle being more than a slight issue...”

…yeah, having a Crusader in the building where things of this nature were unfolding…didn’t take much imagination to see how that would go. Least of all when it’s Rarity’s sister. “It’s kinda late anyway, isn’t it? It’s like…” A brief glance at the clock represented the first time Sunset had pulled her eyes from Rarity’s selfie since she received it. “It’s going on like 11.”

“Yes.” Sunset could hear more hair-twirling in Rarity’s pause. “I don’t mind. Do you?”

Sunset gave an airy chuckle, smiling to herself as she looked at the selfie she’d been sent again. There was a lot going on here, and not a lot of time to process it. “We really doing this?”

Rarity didn’t respond immediately. After several long seconds, she admitted in a slightly smaller voice, “I’m not entirely certain what I’m doing, darling.”

Sunset’s smile faded. She sighed near-silently through her nose, then pried her eyes from the photo she'd been sent and put the phone back up against her ear as she cleared the screen with her thumb. “Maybe we should figure that out. Cuz, y’know...” She gesticulated vaguely with one hand, making abstract signs that probably would have made about as much sense to Rarity as it did now, while she couldn’t see it happening. “I can like, roll here, but…I gotta like- I gotta know what we’re going for. You know?”

“Yeah.” In spite of the agreement, Rarity did not sound certain at all.

And that, more or less, was the sole reason that Sunset was hesitating right now. She didn't know what to think, just how she felt, and nothing about what she felt gave her any strong incentive to take her foot off the pedal...that is, except for that vulnerable quality in Rarity's voice. She didn't like that. She didn’t like a scared Rarity. “All I need to know is if…you know, whatever is happening right now is what you want. I’m just along for the ride here. What about you?”

Rarity did not respond for a while. For the better part of half a minute, the only thing in Sunset’s ear was the barely audible pseudo-silence of her phone’s speaker. There weren’t any sounds from the other side indicating movement. Sunset tried to focus on it, as opposed to the heartbeat in her ribs that she could feel very clearly, like every beat was about five times as hard as it needed to be.

She said she was just along for the ride, but she was already second-guessing that. The experience that this was leaning towards had…appeal. Perhaps more than a little of it.

When Rarity spoke up, it was in a meek voice. “I’m just…doing, I think. It’s just…”

Sunset gave her a few moments, then offered, “Experimenting?”

The nod was audible in the brief pause. “Yes.”

Sunset nodded back. “Okay. And…how is it?” She gave it another few moments in case Rarity had an immediate response, and when she didn’t, Sunset followed with, “Is it fun?”

“It’s a little fun.” A pause. “It’s, um…causing a lot of mixed feelings, now that I’m…”

“Now that you’re thinking about it.”

“Yeah. I’m,” Her voice sounded ever so slightly muffled now, “kind of really embarrassed, actually.”

“It’s alright,” Sunset said, doing her best to sound as comforting and supportive as possible. The smile wouldn’t be seen, but she smiled anyway. “It’s just me, y’know?”

“I know.” Rarity was now most definitely speaking through her hands, and groaned to herself, sounding slightly further away from the phone as the noises of dread grew steadily. “Oh my god I really did that.”

“It’s alright,” Sunset repeated.

The horror in Rarity’s voice continued building in spite of the assurance. “Oh my god I sent a friend a nude over the phone. In conversation.”

“It’s alright,” Sunset repeated again, chuckling despite her best efforts not to. “I get it, Rarity, honest. It’s cool.”

Rarity was barely comprehensible behind her hands as she croaked, “Are you positively sure of that, Sunset Shimmer?”

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Sunset’s voice was firm at this, then softened as she went on. “I’m honored, actually. You said you’d never done anything like this before?”

The mostly-garbled sound Rarity made sounded in the negative.

“Then yeah. I’m honored you’d…you know. I’m-” She fumbled with the words briefly. “I’m honored you’d think to do that with me, of all people, when you never had before. That’s high praise, to me.”

It was hard to make out her words with how her croaking was mixing with her hands, but Sunset could just barely make out, “I think I’m going to die.”

“Hey," Sunset threw out, "if it helps at all: not human. Remember? This doesn’t- you know. It doesn’t hit like it would someone else.”

That was a lie. That was an immense lie, in fact. This was not so far removed from what Sunset was accustomed to for her to not know how to navigate it. Even if it was, she could tell something sexual when she saw it, orthodox or not, and while this body was not her native one, it was rigged to react to these things just fine. She hadn’t uncrossed her legs for a reason.

Rarity, however, did not seem to know just how brazenly she had been lied to, and muttered past her hands on the other end of the line, “I suppose that’s a silver lining here, yes…”

“Yeah! See? There’s perks to befriending an alien invader from planet Pony.” She smiled to the ceiling, like she was trying to sell this whole thing to it, too. “It means you can try out some stuff and have it not be weird.”

The speaker crackled loudly in Sunset’s ear as Rarity exhaled into it. “Yeah.”

“Yeah! So…you know.” The chipperness bled out of Sunset’s voice as she willed herself to relax, and take a breath herself. Her heart was still beating hard, despite the effort. “Insert wise-sounding follow-up here.”

Rarity gave a derisive snort, though it was apparently enough to coax her out from behind her hands. “Profound as ever, miss Shimmer.”

Sunset flashed a grin, her other arm going behind her head as she repositioned herself on her bed slightly. “I’m a natural, what can I say?”

“Indeed.” Rarity’s tone couldn’t be drier if her mouth was full of sand. “You’d never know the clown nose wasn’t taped on.”

Sunset took in a very brief inhale, then exhaled and inhaled just as quickly, making her very best impression of a clown horn honking. Whether it was a particularly good impression or not didn’t matter, because Rarity recognized it enough to sputter, and then start to laugh.

Rarity had a nice laugh. Sunset always liked to hear her voice, but she especially liked to hear her laugh.

She had a nice body, too. A really nice body.

“So,” Sunset started, half-chuckling along with the sound of Rarity’s ebbing laughter, “so let’s just put a pin in this whole thing right now, alright?”

“Indeed, indeed…” Rarity sighed off the tail-end of her laughter. “What time is it?” Rarity must have beat Sunset to the punch on checking the time, as the response was almost immediate. “Christ.”

Sunset pulled her phone back from her ear for a peek herself. She winced slightly. “Mm.”

“We should both get to bed, darling.”

“Yeah.”

“Not entirely sure how I’m meant to sleep after this…”

“Yeah.” Sunset allowed herself to laugh, if somewhat ruefully. “Yeah…”

There was a several second pause. After this, Rarity sighed, and almost resignedly asked, “Darling, do y- if I take my phone to bed with me, do you want to keep on the line? It’s already far too late, but…”

Sunset parsed this for a second. She glanced at her phone screen again, eying the battery life - it had gone down about ten percent throughout the course of this call that had been going on a bit over an hour, going on two now. “I’m not sure how long my phone will last. Did you wanna like…what’s the- just like, talk in bed?”

“More or less, yes. Or…I don’t know.” A drawer sounded like it closed on the other end of the line. “I just really like the thought of you being there.”

“Kinda like a sleepover?”

“Kind of, yes.” Another closed drawer, and Rarity sounded much closer to the phone as she said in a hushed whisper, “Creeping through the hall, give me one minute, darling.”

Sunset nodded, like Rarity would see. She rolled her eyes at herself for it, and began the process of working her way out of her day clothes as Rarity was on her way to bed herself. This sounded like a terrible idea for the purposes of getting enough sleep to go to school tomorrow, but this also felt like one of those times where it was a price worth paying.

She still barely understood what was happening tonight, only that it had thus far been very sexually charged. She also knew it felt special, somehow, and that it demanded her full attention as a result, even if that meant going to school feeling like a zombie.

This miserly little shack of a house didn’t have heat, so as Sunset stripped down for sleep that may or may not be coming, she was quick to deposit herself beneath the worn maroon covers of her bed to avoid the late autumn night air freely filling every room while she waited for Rarity.

She didn’t know what she was waiting for, yet she waited all the same. As she did, Sunset found fatigue that had been hanging just out of sight becoming increasingly cloying outside of the edges of her senses, further muddying everything that hadn’t been particularly clear to start with today. Her eyes stung. Even when she closed them, the faint glow of her phone on the far right side of her vision felt like too much.

“Sunset?”

Sunset jumped slightly in spite of the softness of Rarity’s voice. “Yeah?”

“Can we do video?”

Sunset processed this for a brief time. She removed the phone from her head, verifying the time, and confirmed that it was even closer to midnight now than it had been a few minutes ago. “Uh…why?”

With an earnesty that all but glowed against the smallness of her hushed tone, Rarity replied, “I wanted to see you.”

There were several reasons for Sunset to say ‘no’ here. Her eyes hurt, she was tired, they both had to be up for school tomorrow, she was trying to distance herself from those particular feelings from earlier and the way they had weighed on her judgment (and continued to)…but that would also require saying ‘no,’ and that was something proving very hard to do when asked like that by this girl in particular.

The conflict was made even worse by the additional, just as soft, just as earnest, “Please?”

Sunset breathed in through her nose, then let the breath leave the same way, resignation rushing in where the air left space for it. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

Sunset couldn’t help but smile a groggy smile. A second or so later, she glanced down at herself, suddenly conscious of her undress beneath the covers, and verified that she wasn’t about to one-up the selfie she’d received earlier the moment the feed started. A few seconds later, her phone vibrated in her hand, prompting for a video call with Rarity. Sunset looked at it for a moment, sighed silently again, and thumbed the ‘receive’ button.

The screen got brighter as the video began, though not by much. Just the slight increase in luminosity was enough to make Sunset’s face scrunch up like she’d been sprayed with water.

The sight of Rarity was there to compensate her for the discomfort, when Sunset could see her. Rarity was in bed as well, currently swaddled snugly up in her silken sheets and peering at Sunset from over the top of a plush purple pillow that she was hugging as she laid on it. It took some time, but when Sunset could more clearly see enough to make sense of it, she was rewarded by the sight of Rarity’s lips pulling upward, and with a voice dense with rosy vibes she’d come to savor, Rarity said simply, “Hey.”

Sunset’s smile was involuntary. The discomfort was already worth it. “Hey.”

What came next was something of a haze. They didn’t speak much from that point onward, but that was hardly a bad thing. What little they did say was lost to the fuzz of the sleep-starved fog Sunset would be in for the next hour or so, but what Sunset did remember doing for most of that time was exchanging long, wordless gazes with Rarity, doing nothing more than taking in the sight of her affection-filled blue eyes as a warm silence lay over both of them like a blanket.

It’s unclear what went out first: Sunset’s consciousness, or her phone. Whichever was true, the video call ended an hour and twenty eight minutes after it began, when the phone’s battery died.