Drowsiness and Vehicles Don’t Mix
Author's Note
I got into an accident about a week ago, and this story kinda just popped into my mind. I just felt like I needed to get this story out there, so a few hours or writing later, here it is.
Please be careful out there, everypony. If you’re doing any driving, regardless of how long it is, always get enough sleep beforehand. You’ll be doing both yourself and others on the road a favor.
Drowsiness and Vehicles Don’t Mix
Hi there. My name is Scott, but you can call me Red.
I’m a transfer student to Canterlot High from California, and I’ve been living here in Canterlot City for about two years now. When I first moved here alone, I thought it would take me a couple of years to find friends, but it seems fate had other ideas.
On the first day of school, I was given a guide named Sunset Shimmer, and she helped me settle into the place. We hit off pretty well in the first few hours, and lo and behold, I had my first friend! She offered me to join her and her friends for lunch, and I happily agreed. A few hours later, I would meet my soon-to-be best friends, the Main Seven.
Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, her talking dog, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and the one I’ve grown closest to, Rainbow Dash. I’ll tell you more about why later.
These girls are like your everyday group of high school girls, despite some significant differences. For one, they have literal magical powers. Apparently, our world is a parallel universe to a world known as Equestria, where magic is abundant and everyone is ponies. It was a shock to me when I found out that Sunset was from that world, a unicorn, and she had come to ours when she abandoned her teacher/princess, who is essentially a literal god who can move the damn sun, and her sister can move the moon. Yeah, Equestria is built differently.
The girls also mentioned another world combined with Equestria, but they didn’t say much about it. They said something along the lines of ‘I wasn’t ready to know,’ or ‘You’d just freak out.’ Yeah, I want to know why they won’t tell me, but I haven’t pushed the topic any further. They’ll eventually tell me.
I hope.
Anyway, enough about the multiversal theory. Back to my best friends. They have these magic geodes that allow them to use Equestrian magic, and their powers differ from one to the other. I won’t go into detail, but here’s a quick rundown. Twilight has magic hands, Sunset can read minds and control fire, Pinkie can turn candid and confetti into explosives, Rarity can erect diamond shields, Applejack has super strength, Fluttershy can talk to animals, and Rainbow Dash has super speed. They got the geodes during a school camp trip to the Everfree defeating a magically corrupted camp leader, and it’s been a wild ride since then, especially recently.
Everyone lost their memories of Sunset except me (for no particular reason) due to a disgruntled student with a memory-wiping stone, and I later found out that Sunset had been hurting herself due to that and the events of something called ‘Anon-a-Miss’. She was lucky I came over to her place to check up on her when I did, and it took me and Twilight comforting her to bring her back. That and Twilight confessing her feelings to my sister, which was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever witnessed. Oh, did I mention that me and Sunset see each other as brother and sister?
Speaking of relationships, remember when I said I’d talk about why me and Dash are so close? Well, we’ve been dating for a few months! I had feelings for her for a while now, and thanks to Sunset, Rarity, and nearly becoming a bloody paste on the ground, I confessed to her, and we started dating. We have a lot in common: similar tastes in music, a love for martial arts, favorite games, movies, likes and dislikes, and so much more. We have our differences, but we complement each other so well. Where she goes headfirst into things, I’m one to think things through (most of the time). Where I lack confidence, she has an abundance of it.
She is brash sometimes and gets hot-headed about many things. Mainly her height, since she tops out at 5”4’, with me at a whopping 5”9’ (still waiting on that growth spurt), but I love her for that. I think I have a thing for short girls with tempers since the last girl I dated was back in Cali, and she was around Dash’s height and had the dirtiest mind I’ve ever had the unfortunality to be exposed to. We dated for about ten months, but she saw it wasn’t working out. It was a mutual breakup, but we still talk occasionally.
Dash, on the other hand? I love that girl with every fiber of my being, and I would do anything to see her happy. We’ve only dated for about two months, but I don’t think we’re breaking up anytime soon. When we first started, we agreed to be open with each other and always talk things out when a problem arose. It’s helped immensely, and we’ve grown incredibly close. The only fights we ever get into are our sparring matches, and that’s to see who’s the best fighter (spoilers, it’s me). We may have been together for such a short time, but we’ve gotten so close that I’ve moved in with her from my dinky little apartment in the city.
Now, with that little recap out of the way, let’s get to the story behind the title, shall we?
“Brrrr,” I shake my head vigorously, attempting to chase away the sleep in my eyes. I readjust my grip on the steering wheel and quickly eye my speedometer on the dashboard of my 2013 Mini Cooper Paceman.
‘Still 60.’
Looking up tiredly, I see the truck in front of me slow down slightly, so I press the brakes enough to slow down. My eyes droop, closing for a second before I snap awake again. Adrenaline runs through my veins, waking me up, but not for long before the drowsiness returns.
I’m driving to a nearby college for a welding class during my senior year, and I’ve been having some problems with the drive over. Right after I leave work, I take a 45-minute drive to get there, and it’s taken a toll on me. After working all day, I’m incredibly exhausted, and I start to fall asleep at the wheel halfway through the trip, drifting into the opposite lane and barely avoiding hitting other cars. I’ve tried a few remedies to fix it, like keeping my hands busy, eating something, playing my music at full blast, and (attempting) going to sleep earlier.
I knew driving like this would likely result in an accident, and my luck would run out sooner or later, but I felt like I could push through my grogginess and keep myself on the road.
Pro tip: don’t do this. It never works out in the end.
I’m a little under a mile from the college, and I can feel my eyes sagging again. I try to keep them open, but they shut before long. With a jolt of adrenaline, I look back up-
-and see I’m way too close to the truck slowly ing down in front of me.
‘SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!!!’ I slam on the brakes, and I hear the tires screech on the asphalt, but it’s already too late.
*THUD*
My car slams into the back of the truck, and I jerk to a stop. I can only stare at my dented hood in disbelief and the truck that pulls over to the side of the road. Realizing I needed to get off the road, I let off the brake and turned the wheel, hoping to Faust above that my car would move. Much to my relief, it does, but I hear a loud hissing coming from up front. My radiator was definitively busted, and steam rose from the front end.
Pulling up behind the truck I hit, I pull the parking brake on and turn the engine off. I see the truck driver step out, a worried look on his face as I step out as well.
“Hey, are you alright?” He asks, eyeing the damage to my car with a grimace. He looks at the back of his truck, and he’s surprised to see little to no damage to his bumper.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I only stand up enough to get a glimpse of the damage, and as the shock of the accident wears off, it finally hits me.
I just rear-ended someone.
The tears come without restraint, and I fall back into my seat as I bury my face into my hands. I couldn’t believe what just happened, and I wished this was a dream, that I could wake up in my car to find myself stopped on the road.
I stayed like that for about five minutes while my mind reprimanded me for the debacle. I’m unsure how long I sat like that, but I realized I couldn’t just sit there and cry the whole time. I knew I needed to assess the damage and exchange contact info with the driver I hit.
Stepping around my open door, I see the extent of the damage. The front is slightly caved in, the hood buckled back and wedged behind the grill. The holes where the headlights fit in give a good view of the engine, where the frame holding the lights and radiator is shoved back. The grill is bent out of place, and the radiator visible in some areas. The dirt underneath the engine is damp with presumable coolant, and the car hisses as more coolant leaks from an unseen break onto the hot engine.
“I am so sorry for hitting you,” I say, my eyes brimming with more tears as I look at my car. I groan in frustration, my anger directing itself at me. “I knew this was going to happen!”
“Hey, what matters is that none of us got hurt,” says the driver. Let’s call him David. “It’s why we have insurance, right? You do have insurance?”
I only nod in response, and I slowly walk over to the passenger side to retrieve it. When I open the door, I hear a loud *Crunk* as something shifts in the doorframe. More tears threaten to spill, but I push them back as I open the glove compartment. Looking through the papers inside, I can’t find anything that looks like insurance, and I start to panic.
“Do you have someone you can call?” David asks. “Or do you know who you’re insured by?”
I shake my head, but luckily, a quick call to my mom back in Cali solves that problem.
“Calm down, sweetie,” She soothes from the other end. “Deep breaths. I’ll send you the information soon. While I get that, I want you to call the cops and trade information with the other driver. After that, call the cops and get someone to pick you up, alright? It’s going to be okay.”
A few minutes later, I got the insurance info from my mom, and David took pictures and exchanged numbers. I call the cops, and the operator on the other end tells me that they’ll send someone out to help. Now for the last part my mom told me to do.
Looking through my contacts list, I debated on whether I should message Dash and the others, but I decided on just calling her. Hitting the call button, I wait for her to pick up her phone. I knew it took her a while to pick up her phone if she was busy with something, so I was worried she would notice my call. But Dashie must’ve been on her phone when I called because I didn’t have to wait more than a second for her to pick up.
“Hey, babe! What’s going on? Aren’t you at your welding class right now?”
“N-no, I’m not,” I sit in the passenger seat, and I hold my knees with my free arm. “Dash… I-I need you to pick me up. I got into an accident.”
Silence. Then I hear something crash on the other end of the phone, and I wince, slightly pulling my phone away from my ear. I hear muffled talking on the other end, and I worry.
“Dashie?” My nerves are on overdrive, and I’m worried something was wrong. “Rainbow, is everything alright over there?”
“You got into an accident?! Scott, are you okay?! Please tell me you’re okay!”
“I’m fine,” I shakily sigh, both in tiredness and relief. “Just really shaken up.”
“Where are you? I’m running over to you!”
“No, don’t!” I exclaim in a panic, but I quickly bring it back to normal level. “Just…take your car, okay?”
“…fine. Send me your location, and I’ll head over.”
“I will,” I nod to no one in particular. “Thank you, Dashie. I love you.”
“I love you too, Red.”
Hanging up, I quickly sent her the photo I screenshot of my location when I told the police where the accident was. I got a text from her a minute later.
Rainbow Dash
Wed, Sep 6 at 14:45
We’ll be over in 35 minutes
I let a small smile creep onto my face, but it falls back into a frown as I wonder what Dash meant by ‘we’ and realize that I could only wait for help to arrive now. While it wasn’t terribly hot, I was sweating bullets from earlier, so I climbed into the backseat to get out of the sun and pull my phone out to entertain myself.
About ten minutes later, I heard a car pull up behind mine, and I turned around to see a cop truck there, the red and blue light flashing. I get out and meet the officer, as does David. She asks what happened, and David gives a detailed explanation. I say nothing, as I barely remember anything before hitting his truck. Then she asks if we’ve exchanged information and insurance, and we say we have.
She asks for our IDs, and she writes down the numbers displayed on them in a little notepad. She then gave us a card with the incident number, saying our insurance would need that. Once she’s done with them, she tells us to take a picture of each other’s licenses. We do, and after putting them away, she asks if I would want my car towed. Nodding, I give my and Dash’s address, and the officer assures me that my car will be towed there by tomorrow.
David then asks if it was alright if he could leave. He was supposed to pick up his kid from school, as they had gotten out at around 2:30 and were probably wondering where their dad was.
“Yes, you can leave,” She confirms and gestures to me. “I’ll stay with Scott here while he waits to be picked up.”
Nodding, he turns to me and shakes my hand. “It’s going to be alright. See you around.”
Hopping into his truck, he waits for an opening in traffic and pulls away. The officer walks back to her vehicle, and I hop back into my car. I watch a little YouTube while I wait for Dash to arrive, but I stare at the screen, barely reacting to what I was watching. I felt drained, the events of the past 20-30 minutes hitting me harder than any villain me and the girls have ever fought.
Motion in my peripheral vision catches my attention, and when I look up, I do a double take when I see the tour bus me and the girls sometimes use to get to our gigs pull up on the dirt road beside me. I climb out of my car, and I barely get out when Rainbow tackles me in a tight hug. I hug her back, and I feel a warmth run through my tired body as we hold each other. My friends stand back and let us have our moment together, and before long, we separate, and I turn to them.
“Girls?” I ask, intertwining my hand with my girlfriend’s. “Why are you all here?”
“Rainbow Dash told us what happened,” Sunset sighs, folding her arms. “We were practicing when she got the call.”
“Applejack offered that we take the tour bus after that,” Twilight explains. “That way, we could all make sure that you were alright.”
I smile sadly. “Thank you. It means a lot that you came.”
Sunset is the first to move towards us, and she brings me in for a hug. Rainbow hugs me again, and as I embrace my lover and sister, the others join in the group hug. We stay like that for a few minutes, enjoying each other's company before separating. Rainbow gives my hand a quick squeeze, then she and Applejack walk to the front of my car to inspect the damage.
“Looks like the radiator is busted,” Rainbow says, then she grimaces as she looks inside the engine through the gap. “Wow, the frame holding it and the lights are bent. I think they’re just hanging there now.”
“Can’t get a good look either,” Applejack sighs, trying to open the hood. “This hood’s stuck in here tighter than a lid on a pickle jar, and Ah don’t want to damage it anymore than it already is.”
“Urgh,” Rainbow groans, standing up. “This’ll take a bit and a half to fix.”
Hearing that, more tears spring from my eyes, and though I try to hold them back, they still come.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” Dash soothes, resting a comforting hand on my arm. “This can be fixed, alright? We’re not getting rid of it.”
“I-I just…” I stutter, rubbing my forearms. “I just hate seeing it like this. I really love this car.”
“I know you do,” Rainbow whispers, clasping her hand to mine and squeezing it. “But a vehicle can be repaired or replaced. You can’t be.”
I can see tears forming in her eyes, and I wrap my arms around her to comfort her. She reciprocates, and I place a tender kiss on her forehead. She pulls my head down and plants her lips to mine for a passionate one, one that I can feel the love and worry for me pouring from my girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Applejack talks to the officer, asking if it would be fine to leave the vehicle there. The officer nods, and she tells her that a tow truck will come by soon and take my car to the address I provided. Applejack nods and signals us to move. We all pile into the bus, and she pulls us away from the scene and onto the road bound for home.
The ride home is silent but not uncomfortable. I sit between Sunset and Rainbow, with Rainbow tracing circles into the palm of my hand as Sunset runs her fingers across my back. Their comforting helps keep the past hour's events out of my mind, and I silently thank them. Pinkie offers me a chocolate cupcake with a little card with cursive writing sticking out the vanilla frosting.
I'm glad you’re okay, Red! Please don’t be sad!
I readily accept the cupcake with a chuckle, and I’m happy to say that it helped cheer me up, if only for a few minutes. The rest of the ride is a blur, and before long, we arrive at Dash and I’s house. The only pleasantries traded are goodbyes as we grab our stuff and get off the bus. We watch as it pulls away from the driveway, and once it disappears around the corner, we turn around and walk to the front door.
Rainbow pulls out the house key and unlocks the door, holding it open as I trudge through. I nod in appreciation, though the smile on my face is forced. I walk to the living room and slide into the recliner with an explosive sigh. Rainbow stands beside me and sits on the armrest, gazing into my eyes. She likely saw how bloodshot and baggy they were as she popped this question.
“Do you want to just go to bed now?”
I’m silent for a moment, but I sigh and slowly nod. “…yeah. I’m way too drained to do anything else right now.”
She nods and takes my hand, gently pulling me out of the recliner and towards the stairs. I follow her without objection. We walk up them and down the hall before entering our shared room. Rainbow lets go of my hand to strip down, leaving her in her underwear for a moment before she slips into one of my shirts a few sizes too big for her. I do the same, letting my clothes drop to the floor as I grab a pair of silky shorts and pull them on.
Rainbow takes my hand again and guides me to our supersized bed that takes up a large portion of the room. We climb to the center, and I flop down as she pulls the sheets over us. She wraps her arms around my back, pulling me closer as she nestles her head in the crook of my neck. Rainbow’s breath against my bare chest sends shivers down my back, and I practically melt in her hold. I take a deep breath as her scent assaults my nose, and I lay a leg over hers. As we snuggle, what she said earlier rings through my head.
…a vehicle can be repaired or replaced. You can’t be.
‘She’s right,’ I think, looking down at the slowly drifting to sleep girl in my arms. ‘I shouldn’t be worried about my car. I was lucky to come out of that without a scratch. If I had been going any faster…’
I shudder at the thought, and I can feel Rainbow tighten her grip ever-so-slightly and release as if she were telling me everything would be alright. Smiling, I softly press my lips to her head before closing my eyes. As my tired mind slips out of consciousness, one final thought rings through it.
‘I’m not replaceable, huh? Well, neither are you, Dashie.’
