The Existential Horror of Realizing You'd Be Happy Dating Applejack
“It’s weird being back at school like this.” Rainbow Dash leaned with both hands against the concrete lip of the building, looking down at the baseball diamond she’d dominated just a few years ago. Actually, more than a few years ago now. “I mean, I know the portal doesn’t move on from here just because we did.”
The other Rainbow Dash, who was currently human but usually a pony, lay back in a beach chair and cracked open her next can of hard cider. The local Twilight and Pinkie had spent most of the weekend smuggling supplies for the meeting up onto the old school roof, including the beach chairs, some coolers full of drinks, and a bar fridge with some snacks in it. Pinkie even managed to find a pizza place that did drone delivery. The rooftop was stacked for the meetup of all the alternate universe selves. The other Dash drank from her cider and squinted.
“You’re what, 25 now?” She asked the younger self. Relative ages were weird between them, the Equestrian versions all came across looking in their mid thirties, now.
“Yeah, why?”
The older Rainbow Dash smiled maliciously. “Graduation was seven years ago. You’ve been out longer than you were even here for.”
The younger Dash made a face like she bit a lemon, and looked a little seasick. “Aw, man, why’d you have to tell me that?” Which just made the other one laugh harder.
The older Applejack, chair pressed right next to Rainbow’s, gave her a side-eye. “C’mon now, don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I like knowing how to push all my own buttons, though!”
They’d kind of formed their own mini-cliques for the reunion. The Twilights were inseparable as usual, this time with the local Pinkie squeezed tight around her Twilight’s arm. The Princess seemed to appreciate the pair together - she seemed a lot wiser and more socially aware than her human self, and this Pinkie helped her Twilight pick up the parts of the conversation she’d have missed. She also helped Twilight pick her jaw off the floor a little, talking to a version of herself that moved the sun and the moon in the sky, leader of all Equestria.
The Princess seemed a bit wistful about it, though. As much as Twilight’s jealousy was normally a one way street, it seemed to be getting to the Princess that she was here with a happy couple version of herself, while her Pinkie Pie had to miss the meetup to stay home and look after her newborn.
The Fluttershys, too, had found a quiet corner of the roof and were talking about their different boyfriends. The other Fluttershy was talking about how her love was the only thing keeping a primordial spirit of chaos going insane and it felt very nice to be so needed, while Human Fluttershy was worrying about Sandalwood coming home, because cleaning all the trash off the peak of Mount Everest was so dangerous.…
Neither seemed jealous of the other, but they definitely seemed mutually appreciative of what the other had.
That left an odd little cluster closest to the drinks cooler, which the visiting Applejack and Rainbow Dash had been quick to claim and colonize for themselves. The Equestrian Applejack and Rainbow had been married for a while, while Rarity had thrown herself into her fashion empire. The Human Applejack and Rarity had been dating for a while, leaving Rainbow Dash to crash and burn through her life as a minor rock star.
Those pieces were orbiting around the drink space awkwardly, feeling like this should be where they find a match, but the cliques weren’t clicking. It was like gearwheels of just not-quite-matching teeth slipping every time it seemed like something had caught.
The older Rarity slipped next to the younger Dash and stood with her, shoulder-to-shoulder, on the roof. She kept her eyes forward, out over the baseball diamond. Her hair was perfect as always, but already a few lines of gray were starting to catch in it, and the blue suit jacket she wore projected so much power that the younger Dash was kind of scared of her, honestly, reminded her of stage managers she was always happier to work with than for. Rarity gave Dash a light bump with her shoulder, inviting Dash to look out at nothing with her. Rarity took a vape pen out of her pocket, which reminded Dash she’d brought own. Rarity watched Dash take hers out with interest.
“You know, in a way it’s worse than cigarettes.” Rarity glanced at Dash’s pen. “They taste so… dirty, I always felt so bad about having one. These, though. Like chewing bubblegum. I can’t help but pick one up when I visit.”
“Just the breathing part’s really nice. Like, taking a deep breath in and holding it? I think that’s the part I actually like, and the vape’s just an excuse to do it,” Dash admitted. “Honestly, I only took it up because the doctor said my heart was going to explode if I kept drinking energy drinks like I was. Why’d you—”
“Shh. Don’t—” Rarity choked on a sickly-sweet cloud and thumped her chest, she’d rushed to shush Dash so fast she’d interrupted her draw halfway down her throat. “Don’t ask. Just listen with me a moment. Now there’s nobody left, they’ll have to talk with each other.”
“Who? The—” Dash stopped as Rarity nodded once, sharply. “Why do you care?”
“Because I don’t understand either of them at all.” Rarity snorted. “Do you?”
“Uh. Not really?” Dash admitted, twisting her head so an ear could better hear what was happening behind her. “Applejack’s kind of… boring. Like the other Rainbow seems way too… old now.” Rainbow stuck her tongue out. “Like I know she’s older than me, I just mean when she’s with Applejack she acts old.”
“She’s so frustrating.” Rarity rolled her eyes. “Old fashioned, conservative. Fantastic to banter with, she gives as good as she gets in a tête-à-tête, but…” Rarity took a frustrated breath in, and a long exhale. “I can’t imagine living with her without us wanting to kill each other in short order. I love her to bits, obviously, she’s one of my dearest friends. But cohabitation?”
“Yeah I guess ours don’t fight like you do?” Dash admitted, quietly. “But they do kind of… have a lot of drama, I guess. One of them’s always moving out and then there’s a big tearful get back together and reconciliation and it seems like they like that?”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“They say it’s just passionate.” Dash rolled her eyes.
Behind them, the gambit worked. The human Applejack and Rarity made an excuse to get fresh wine coolers from the eski that the other Applejack and Rainbow had set up camp next to, and pulled up their own beach chairs next to them.
The older Equestrian Applejack and Dash wore flannel and jeans, though Applejack had hers tightly buttoned up while Dash’s was natty and open over a Wonderbolts t-shirt underneath. There was a cozy energy to them, and while they sat back in their beach chairs like immovable objects, there was also the sense at any moment they were both ready to jump up and help haul a fridge somewhere.
The younger Rarity and Applejack were a bit more fashionable, Applejack in a tight white button up cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her bicep and a gemstone bolo tie, and Rarity in a layered purple dress that suited a cocktail party. The Human Dash thought the pony Applejack looked more like she ran her farm, and hers looked more like she owned it.
The first words said between the couples were the older Applejack wondering; “Still with Rarity, huh?”
“Guess so.” The younger Applejack cracked the tab on her can of wine. “Still married to Dash, huh?”
“Yeah, still can’t figure that one out myself.” The older Applejack grinned as her Dash slugged her in the arm. “Don’t know how she talked me into it, but she did.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m a world champion athlete who can stand to be in the same room as you after you muck out a pig pen?” Dash saluted her Applejack with her cider can. “Not as bad as the Wonderbolts locker rooms, anyway.”
The younger Rarity narrowed her eyes. “I’ll at least join her in the shower. After she’s had a minute or so. That has its merits, surely?” she asked, and her Applejack rolled her eyes and snickered.
The older Applejack asked, “Can’t stand to be in the same room before then, huh?” and the younger Applejack shot her a warning look for it. “Just teasing.”
“I don’t know why you’re all so proud of how much you all stink, as if this is a slight against me,” the younger Rarity replied airily, squinting at her wine. “What’s in this? I thought it was just fizzy wine. Carbonated sangria…?”
“Ain’t half bad, actually.” Her Applejack took another sip. “Not as good as the real stuff, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.”
“Cider’s about the same,” the older Applejack admitted, looking at her can mournfully. “Like, this ain’t bad or nothin’, but the fresh stuff at home is just…”
“This tastes like the sad ghost of the stuff AJ makes,” RD finished for her. “I guess that’s what you get for being able to buy it in cans year-round. Just… what’s the point?”
“Pretty sure we can’t make it like that, this side of the portal,” the younger AJ admitted, knocking her hat back. “Think it needs some of that Equestria magic or something to do it how you do.”
“Maybe I just got the better AJ?” RD suggested and held a fist out, and her AJ bumped it.
The younger AJ rolled her eyes and gave a side-eyed glance at her Rarity. “Y’all got the one without fingers and thumbs most of the time. Maybe once every few years or something you might get some zap apples out of it, but I can open a jar without using my teeth, so who’s really winning out?”
“They’re very nice hands, too.” Her Rarity took one of them and placed it on her lap, massaging the joints between fingers idly. “When she remembers to moisturize them, at least.”
The older Applejack stuck her tongue out at that and the younger AJ snickered, but then she gave a sigh and shook her head. “Nah, she’s right. Skin cracks way less than it used to, and the blisters aren’t what they used to be.” Rarity looked very smug about that. “Yeah, yeah, you were right, I get it.”
“See, this is a thing I don’t got to worry about with Dash.” The older Applejack smirked. “She’s never been right about anything in her life. I don’t have to deal with the I-told-you-so’s.”
“Cracked cartwheel, burned cauliflower roast, Twilight being mad at you when you thought she wasn’t, Apple Bloom wanting to move out, Sugar Belle being pregnant and not just fat—” Rainbow counted off on her fingers and each time the older Applejack winced, then flinched, until she finally cut her off.
“I get it! I get it. Dang, you been practicing that or what?”
“I’ve been saving it for when it was really funny.”
The younger Rarity looked at them curiously. “You really do sound like an old married couple, don’t you?”
They both looked disgusted by that, and looked at each other.
“I mean—”
“—I guess?”
The younger Dash jumped as Rarity nudged her in the side. She’d been concentrating so hard she hadn’t noticed her trying to get her attention. “You feeling jealous yet?” Rarity arched a sarcastic eyebrow as high as it would go.
“Nope.” Dash snorted, and sucked her vape more than breathed from it. “You?”
“Feel like I dodged a proverbial bullet, actually.” Rarity grimaced.
“Ah, come on, AJ’s not that bad.” Rainbow blinked and fought the urge to stare back at her older self. “Is she?”
“Of course she isn’t. That’s rather the problem, isn’t it? I see our doppelgangers being quite happy in their relationship for years to come.” Rarity put her vape back in her pocket for a while. “Years and years of this.”
Rainbow made a quiet ‘oof’, and looked at the Fluttershys. “Happy for the Fluttershys at least. Your Fluttershy’s running that sanctuary with her boyfriend’s help, right? I know Sandalwood has been great at pushing ours through vet school, that’s been hard. You know, when he’s not off saving the planet or whatever.”
“It is curious how I think of the pairs of us as so similar, basically the same, but in so many ways we want completely opposite things. Sandalwood and Discord most obviously, but just look at Princess Twilight over there, how she’s trying to hide how her heart’s breaking. Heavens, she’s yearning, poor thing.” Rarity made sure to only glance out of the corner of her eye to keep from staring, and winced when Rainbow Dash just turned her whole head and watched for a second.
“You think she’s jealous about the Pinkie Pie thing specifically, or just the relationship?”
“Relationship, most certainly.” Rarity flicked a strand of hair out of her face. “I believe she wants our Pinkie as much as you want your Applejack. I mean, I presume you don’t…?”
“Nope.” Rainbow snorted at that. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think our Twilight did, either. Pinkie just had a huge crush on Shining Armor, missed that branch of the family tree and grabbed for the closest one next to it. Maybe stuff like that’s the difference?”
“Still, it’s rather my point. Twilight at least wants what her other self has, but not who she has.” Rarity drummed her fingertips on the concrete barrier she leaned on, turning her face away from a street light coming on at an uncomfortable face-height. “Can we say the same for ourselves?”
“You’re not into dating?” Rainbow asked, surprised.
“I’m not into settling,” Rarity corrected, and Rainbow made a small ‘ah’ of understanding.
Rainbow looked at the relaxed older version of herself, chill, utterly at peace with the world, and shuddered. “Yeah, I can see that.” She looked away again. “Honestly, they’re being way more… boring than I thought they’d be.”
Rarity had an opinion on that, too. She let her fingers rest on Rainbow’s arm affectionately as she said, "The unstoppable force of our competitiveness is running into the immovable object of deflecting things with our wit. They’re cats circling each other nipping their tails forever, when we're here for claws.”
“Huh.” Dash considered that, then turned around. Rarity’s eyes went wide as the young rockstar sidled up to the two couples they were supposed to be eavesdropping on in secret and, as nonchalantly as she could while grabbing a coke from the drinks cooler, she asked, “Hey, you guys ever talk about kids?”
The silence was punctuated by her cracking the pull tab of her can, a soft fizz of the drink, and then she started to wander back to Rarity by the roof’s edge with a wicked grin. Rarity kept her back to her, though, pretending she didn’t see her. Dash stopped.
The older Applejack snickered. “We’ve done our time in the child-mines. We ever think twice about it, we just go look after Little Macintosh for a while and the hankering clears right up.”
The younger Applejack and Rarity looked at each other and frowned. “Maybe when we’re older?” Applejack asked her, and she shrugged. “We’re not really thinking about it, anyway.”
The younger Rainbow Dash settled against the roof a bit further away from her Rarity, and resigned to feel like shit for a while. She’d just wanted to make things more interesting for them, and that obviously didn’t work, so she’d just pissed Rarity off for nothing.
“We’d have to adopt, anyway.” The younger Rarity said. “Do you… I mean I don’t know how rude of a question this is, but in Equestria—”
“Yeah, no, we got magic for that.” Applejack laughed. “Adopting’s probably better for us anyway. I don’t see either of us downing work for a whole season, you know? Two bad options. How’d we pick anyway?”
“Rock paper scissors?” her Dash asked, holding out her hands between them, and Applejack immediately matched her. They did a silent count of three and shot, Dash picking rock and Applejack picking paper. “Aw, come on, really?”
“Who taught you how to play rock, paper scissors?” The younger Applejack stared at their hands, curious.
“What?” The older Applejack furrowed her brow. “Granny, probably? We have that, too.”
Rarity looked incredulous. “You play with hooves?”
“Sure.”
“Then how do you tell…?”
The older Rainbow Dash shrugged. “You just kind of can.”
“Hold on,” the older Rarity sang out, pushing herself off and turning to the group behind her with an apologetic smile. “Forgive me for eavesdropping, I’m just a bit bored by myself over here. I just couldn’t help but wonder why Rainbow and Applejack can’t take a season off work. She’s a Wonderbolt and Applejack owns the farm, surely you could afford it?”
The younger Rainbow Dash jumped in shock. She hadn’t been ready for Rarity to be so loud in her ear, hadn’t seen her move to say it. She stared, trying to work out what the hell she was doing.
“Well, I mean, ain’t about the bits.” The older Applejack rubbed the back of her neck and looked to Rainbow. “I mean, it’s about the farm. Macintosh can’t do it all himself, especially with the rugrat around. Fruit can’t just rot in the orchard.”
“Couldn’t you just hire someone?” the younger Rarity asked. “Just for the season? Surely a Wonderbolts salary could provide.”
Dash looked nervous. “I mean, yeah. Maybe. It’s just—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. Both Applejacks were incensed by the question. Even before the older one could cut Rainbow off, the younger one was already on it. “That’s not how we do things, Rares. Why don’t you just make your dress patterns and hire someone else to make the dresses for you?”
Rarity seemed confused by the question. “Because I tailor for personalized high-value commissions? If my work ever got successful enough, there’d be a point to it. I take pride in my work, of course, but surely you didn’t think that was the only reason?”
The younger Applejack flinched. “Seriously?”
“You sound upset, and I haven’t the faintest idea why.”
“Just… I dunno. Paying someone to do your work for you feels bad to me. Feels like cheating, somehow.”
“That’s how most businesses run, yes.” Rarity stared at her, trying to work out which of them was the stupid one. She looked across and saw Dash looking at her Applejack with similar confusion.
“Naw, it’s different if it’s work you could have done yourself. Then it’s just shirking on top of ripping someone off. Right, other me?”
“Reckon the same thing,” the older Applejack agreed, and her Rainbow balked.
“Wait, hang on. Apple Bloom’s not around anymore, you and Big Mac are getting older, maybe Little Macintosh won’t want to help. You’re never going to sell the farm, so what are you going to do?”
“Won’t have to worry about that for a long time.” Applejack narrowed her eyes. “So don’t.”
The older Rarity slipped back next to the younger Rainbow Dash with a devious smile. “Frankly, I was just annoyed you didn’t workshop your approach with me before you pulled the pin on it. I could have given you some notes.”
“Really thought the kids stuff would have gotten them,” Rainbow murmured. “How’d you know, with the money thing? I’ve never heard ours complain about it.”
“It wasn’t really the money I was asking about. All of us are horrid little overworkers, and realizing that we don’t need the money makes it deliciously hard to justify.” The older Rarity laughed. “I am including ourselves in that, yes.”
“Yeah, but we don't have anyone we need to justify ourselves to.” Dash raked her hair back, an ear twitching from the strain of eavesdropping. “I was kind of hoping they’d fight each other more, not, like, themselves. I don’t want anyone breaking up because of us.”
“Ye of such little faith.” The older Rarity’s eye sparkled and she dared a long look over her shoulder. Now that she had so openly admitted to eavesdropping there was little point hiding such things, and they could be cautiously indulged in. “When anyone feels tension in their relationship, there is uncertainty and doubt. And when we feel uncertainty and doubt, how do we handle it?”
Rainbow’s eyes went wide with sudden realization. She flipped and leaned with her back against the railing and, after a cautious moment, Rarity turned and leaned with her. “We prove we’re still better than everyone else, and kind of take it out on everyone around us?” She bumped her shoulder against Rarity’s, and Rarity lingered against her.
“Precisely,” she agreed, and her smile was that of a cat with a mouse’s tail caught beneath its paw.
The older Dash looked dryly amused when she said, “At least I do help around the farm, sometimes.”
“For given definitions of—” the older Applejack started, caught the younger Rarity out of the corner of her eye, and nodded stoically. “Point taken.”
“Is this all life is to you?” Rarity rolled her eyes. “Work? Honestly. Though I suppose you two seem so devoid of passion, the exchange of chores really might be all there is.”
The older Applejack seemed confused, and then annoyed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m saying you two get along like two best friends who have the passionate spark of a wet gym sock,” Rarity said levelly. “I bet you can’t even remember the last time you were intimate with each other, and if you do, then I bet it was because it was scheduled on a calendar. Or a chore wheel.”
All four turned when they heard the younger Rainbow Dash choke on her cola bad enough the older Rarity had to thump her hard on the back. The older Rarity paused thumping Dash long enough to give her other self a proud look, and the younger one looked vaguely appreciative that at least one of them got to thump Rainbow Dash right now.
The younger Applejack was about to chew her Rarity out, but then she looked across and saw just how thoughtful her older self was at that. Rainbow was red in the face, impossible to tell what the mix of anger or embarrassment was, but Applejack was seriously considering it.
"Y'all are talking about bedroom stuff ain't you?” she asked, just to be clear.
The younger Applejack gave a glance and a grin to her Rarity. "Anywhere but the bedroom with us, really."
"Applejack!” She pretended to gasp as she clutched her chest. “I am pretending to be scandalized!"
"Yeah, that's fine.” The older Applejack clicked her tongue and sipped her cider, nonplussed. “Like this week sometime, I dunno. I think Monday was a pretty good night for us right? You cooked, I remember."
The older Rainbow blinked, and thought about it too. "Monday sounds about right. Don’t know why me cooking is such a big deal, you're way better at it."
"Cause it means I didn't have to.” The older Applejack winked back. “Also, they were some dang fine enchiladas. Dang fine.”
The younger Rarity was incredulous. "You're actually talking about dinner more than the—" She only got that far before her Applejack gave her a warning glance, and a shake of her head.
"Well, yeah." Dash shrugged.
Applejack thought about it. "Honestly the food was better. No offense, just, I’m not kidding about how good those enchiladas were." The older Rainbow Dash snickered at that, neither of them noticing just how horrified the other Dash was about it.
"This is the problem!” Rarity leaned right forward in her beach chair, beyond where her Applejack could reach her. “There's no passion between you!"
The older Applejack and Rainbow Dash, as one, looked to the younger Applejack for her take on this, and the younger one just shrugged. "Hate to say it, but instead of heading over we were just planning on sneaking off and fooling around over by the-”
"Eugh."
"Lame."
The older couple rolled their eyes and sank all the way back in their chairs, as if to put as much space between themselves and the other two as possible.
The younger Applejack leaned forward with her Rarity. “Hold on, you’re older than us, don’t tell me you don’t know how this stuff goes.”
The older couple exchanged a glance, and agreed Applejack should field that one. She looked to her younger self. "I meant doing it so often. I don't even wanna eat apples three days in a row. Doesn't even sound fun, just sounds exhausting."
"You two are exhausting," Dash agreed.
“You two are the last two people in the world I would think to accuse of lacking stamina,” the younger Rarity sniped.
“We just kind of got better stuff to do that we like doing more?” The older Rainbow shrugged. “And I guess you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rarity narrowed her eyes.
“I mean, if you’re doinkin’ you’re not fighting, right?” The older Rainbow looked to her Applejack, who gave a ‘seems right’ shrug, and then back again. “I bet if half your conversations didn’t end in an argument you’d be cool just talking more.”
The younger Applejack went pale at that one, and the younger Rarity nearly stood up out of her chair altogether.
“Easy there, Rares,” the younger Applejack said in a shaky voice. “Don’t be mad because they finished what you started. Leave it be.”
The older Rarity sighed in relief, and leaned to whisper to her Dash beside her. “Well done, well done. Just the right amount of self-aware shame to pull me back. Lay it on any thicker and I might have doubled down…”
“I was starting to get worried we’d need to like… help?” The younger Dash turned away again and leaned back over the concrete ledge, before the couples noticed and remembered they were watched. Rarity joined her, and Dash noted with disappointment their shoulders weren’t pressed together anymore, but she didn’t really want to do anything about it either. “That stopped being fun for a minute there.”
“It did. But they noticed, too,” Rarity agreed. “I did notice you seemed horrified by the opinions of your older self. I suppose I’m not surprised a rock star has more passionate views. Does our star attract many groupies?”
“What?” Rainbow blushed to the tips of her ears. “I mean, I do, but that’s not it. I mean, I don’t go in for that. I almost tried it once, but… It was like, she knew everything about me, and I’d only just met her? Tried to do a dinner thing with her first to like, help with that, but instead I felt like such a slimeball about it I had a panic attack and crawled out the bathroom window.” She noticed Rarity’s dumbfounded expression at that one, and gave a sheepish smile. “Honestly kind of proud I pulled that one off. The window was, like, this big—” she made a gesture with her hands not much wider than her head. Rarity snorted.
“The poor girl. Had you already ordered?” Dash nodded, and Rarity covered her mouth to snicker. “You didn’t just stand her up, you left her with the bill, you daft thing.”
Dash’s eyes widened. “What? No I—oh, shit, I think I did. I totally did.”
“You were so worried about not taking advantage of the poor girl, you got a free meal out of her.” Rarity’s hand fell from her mouth, showing a small, warm smile. “Impressive work.”
Rainbow sighed. “I don’t even remember her name, so I can’t just make it up to her or—that’d be worse, right?” Rarity nodded gravely, and Dash sighed. “Well, dirt.”
“Hold on. I think the others are doing something interesting again,” Rarity whispered. Their ears pricked as behind them, the younger Rarity made a closed fist and stared at it, wibbling her fingers.
The younger Applejack watched her for a bit. “What…?”
The older Applejack shrugged and sipped her cider. “She’s trying to work out how to throw scissors with a hoof.”
“Actually, I’m trying to figure out how to throw paper, thank you.” The younger Rarity stuck her tongue out.
The older Rainbow shook her head. “Nah, definitely scissors. Your fingers were doing the thing.”
Rarity gave up and lay back in her beach chair, taking a morose sip of her fizzy sangria. “It’s bothering me that you’re so confidently right about that.”
“You really couldn’t tell?” The older Applejack asked the younger one incredulously, and the younger one shook her head. “Don’t that beat all. Fingers must really make you lazy or something. Or blind.”
The older Rarity shrugged and nudged her Dash again. “Nevermind. At least things are back to amicable between them, as hoped and expected.”
The younger Dash nodded. She crushed her empty cola can against her forehead, and hucked it as hard as she could. Rarity watched it sail down, down, down to the street and swish into a sidewalk trash can, and gave a genuinely impressed golf clap for it as Rainbow fist pumped. Dash looked at Rarity’s appreciation with surprise. “What, not going to tell me that was uncouth or something?”
“Hmm?” Rarity asked idly. “Art is art.” The younger Dash flushed at that, which the older Rarity noticed with amusement. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? That we seem to have more chemistry between us than either of them do. Do you think…?” She let the question hang, for Dash to figure out.
“That it could have been us, instead of Applejack, somewhere?” Dash asked, and Rarity’s neutral expression gave no tell if that was the question she meant, so Dash just kept going. “I dunno. I think it’s like with Twilight and Pinkie, right? Like…” She paused and thought about it. “I’m actually really bad at being a rock star. Kind of.”
“Really?” Rarity’s eyes twinkled and she shifted on the ledge to face Dash completely, now. “That’s not what I’ve heard. Your music is wonderful, you draw a crowd.” There was a way she said this, like she knew what Dash was about to say and she just didn’t want to lose out on a chance to compliment her.
“Yeah, that stuff’s why I keep doing it. I’m just not getting bigger than this, you know?” Dash didn’t feel brave enough to face Rarity back, could only stomach a nervous glance at her. “Anything more than this, this stops being fun for me. Like, being more popular than this scares the hell out of me. A crowd I can imagine, a crowd I can think about. But like, my last album sold 40,000 copies. That’s basically nothing, but it’s also like, that’s way too many people thinking about me and knowing I exist, you know?”
“You were about to explain the part about how this makes me different to your Rarity.” Rarity suggested, and Rainbow nodded.
“My Rarity could make me good at this. You have this head for like, for the business side of things that I just don’t get, right? And like, she’d make it so I’m selling a million albums, if she wanted to.” She trailed off. She looked a bit seasick about that, actually. “And she’d be great at reassuring me the whole time, and telling me that I was just anxious, but once I knew I could succeed like that I’d be so happy I did…”
“And you don’t think I could?” the older Rarity teased, and the younger Rainbow flushed again, which she hated. She wasn’t trying to flirt right now, and it felt like Rarity wasn’t trying, either.
“You wouldn’t. I think you’d get why this isn’t giving up, or just me being scared of failing or whatever. This is just, knowing when I push myself to make better music, I’m not measuring it by how successful it is.” Hideously embarrassed, Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “I dunno, it just feels like you got better at being you.”
At that, Rarity looked thoughtfully back at the couples, at her Rainbow Dash. “Our Dash has always been very charming, in her way. She needed time to wear off her sharper edges, and we’re all exceptionally proud of the woman she has become. Captain of the Wonderbolts not just because of her flying talent, but because she’s made herself into a mature, talented and very responsible leader. Not because of Applejack, as you might expect, but that change was likely why she grew attracted to her in the first.” She sighed, and gave the younger Dash an appreciative look. “With all that said, she was a lot more fun when she was a bit… sharper.”
Rainbow Dash gulped. She had the terrifying feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was being sized up to be eaten, and that doesn’t stop being scary just because you might like that. “You think we’d make it, like they did?”
The light flickered out of Rarity’s eyes. She turned away again, shoulder to shoulder with Dash. “No, I don’t,” she admitted. “Sometimes what makes the chemistry fun is that it’s a little unstable. When all is said and done, those two—” she pointed to the older Rainbow Dash “—are very stable together.”
“I don’t want that,” the younger one admitted. “Do I? I mean, she looks happy.”
“She is. Quite happy, really,” Rarity agreed in a deeply bored tone. “It’s a little depressing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Dash agreed, it’s not even the Applejack part. Like, the Princess is jealous of being with Pinkie without being jealous of Pinkie, but I don’t even get that.” She gave Rarity a crooked smile, tried to make a joke out of it. “Maybe I just don’t want what’s good for me, right?”
Rarity snorted. “Please, us? We? The only ones here inhaling nicotine, you because you couldn’t stop killing yourself with awful energy drinks otherwise, me because it’s the only thing that keeps me from something filthier.” Rainbow snickered at that, and a little bit of that sharp, inquisitive light came back to Rarity’s eyes. “The fact that wine and chocolate aren’t good for us is a poor argument against them, I find.”
And Dash thought; ‘She’s definitely hitting on me.’ And then Dash thought; ‘Hey! I should be hitting on her, right?’ And then Dash looked at the older Rarity again, who was looking back at her with her patient, curious expression. She was just waiting for Rainbow to catch up to her, and wondering what would happen when she did. And all at once, Dash remembered she didn’t know if she should be hitting on Rarity.
Like, they were flirting by agreeing how much they wanted things they knew would be bad for them? And knowing they meant each other when they said it? Then she looked back at her other self - happy, comfortable. Housebroken. And that scared her, way worse than Rarity did.
“Hey, so I was thinking.” Dash slipped closer to Rarity, much to Rarity’s amusement. She turned to face Rarity for real, leaning on the cement with just an elbow, and Rarity moved to lean back against the wall instead. “What, not going to joke about me thinking?”
“I don’t tease what I hope to encourage,” Rarity said, then twirled a finger in a ‘go on’ gesture.
Oof, Dash got butterflies. Wasn’t she meant to be taking the initiative back? “I was thinking, ‘your place or mine’ is a way more loaded question for us than it’s supposed to be, right? Because…” Dash coughed into a fist, and Rarity doubled over laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“Goodness, gracious, I hadn’t thought that one through.” Rarity managed with an arm folded against her stomach while she composed herself. “I suppose so. Shall I be having you between two or four legs this evening?”
Dash felt herself turn bright red at that. She hadn’t thought that far through, wasn’t ready for Rarity to be that explicit. She caught herself. “Hey, I could pick you up and throw you across the roof, shouldn’t it be you between my legs?”
Again, that gleam in Rarity’s eye like things were suddenly very interesting. “Now, hold on. When did we decide that anyone should be ending up between anyone’s legs tonight, before we begin negotiating whom and how many?”
Dash nodded. There was the finish line, and Rarity standing just behind it, one arm still crossed against her chest from how hard she’d just been laughing. Dash was too nervous to get closer to it, too excited to back away from it. So she did what they’d teased themselves for doing all night, deflected with banter. “Seriously, though, my vote would be for my place. Two heads is better than one, but two legs feels better than four, you know?”
“A pity, I do miss magic on this side,” Rarity muttered. “I suppose it can’t be helped. We don’t keep stables of humans on our side of the portal. No preconceived notions.”
“Also wings are cool, but they’re not like, they’re not fingers, right?” Dash wiggled her hands. “So…”
She jumped as a Fluttershy cleared her throat behind her, and Dash turned and found both of them had snuck up on her. How much had they heard?
“We were just… coming to say goodbye?” the older Fluttershy explained, and the younger Fluttershy gave Dash a look that simply said ‘yes, I heard everything, and you should be very embarrassed right now’, and Dash wished she could sink into the floor never to be seen again. “It’s getting late.”
“Of course. We’ll be staying up a bit later, I’ll see you at home.” Rarity waved at the younger Fluttershy.
The older one looked between Rarity and Dash. “By later, do you mean later tonight, or tomorrow?”
“Yet to be seen.” Rarity flashed an awkward, guilty smile.
“Ah, come on!” the older Applejack called out from the chairs. “You two going to boink or what?”
Rarity flinched, her head sinking lower into her shoulders. “Et tu? Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”
The older Rainbow Dash held out a fist and waited for Applejack to bump it before she called out to her younger self, “It’s like watching a dog actually catch a car and not knowing what to do with it. Just get run over, idiot.”
“Be nice. It’s obvious the poor dear is terrified.” the younger Rarity scolded.
“No kidding. You’re a bit much to handle as it is, can’t imagine how much more potent you get with experience.” Her Applejack snickered. “Poor Dash ain’t got a chance with that one.”
“The candle that burns twice as bright, I suppose,” the younger Rarity agreed. “As much as we do argue, at least we can be amicable about it. Can you imagine,” and here Rarity looked across to her older Rainbow Dash counterpart, “how bad our fights would get?”
“I dunno.” Rainbow glanced at her Applejack. “We don’t really fight, do we? What do you think?”
“That’s because it’s us, sugar. You two together, it’d remind everyone why they name cyclones after people.”
“Huh.” The older Rainbow thought about that, then shrugged and downed the last of her cider. She just put the empty can gently on the floor next to the leg of her chair.
The younger Rainbow and the older Rarity gave each other an awkward but reassuring look, Rarity with a self-conscious smile and Dash with a kind of seasick grimace, a kind of quiet show to each other that they were still in this together, at least. Neither planned to throw the other under the bus to save themselves. Rarity took Rainbow Dash’s hand and squeezed it, and Rainbow nearly jumped out of her skin from the surprise of it. She stared down at her hand as if she’d never seen it before as Rarity’s fingers curled around her own.
“Now, I was perfectly content to let things play out whichever way the dice fell,” Rarity told her, giving a stern glance back to the very, very amused couples watching them. “But now I’m afraid if nothing happens between us tonight, they are all going to think that you are a coward and I am an unconscionable tease. Dare we put up with that?”
“Sure will!” The older Applejack whooped.
“If anything does happen, however, we’ll think different terrible things about you both instead.” The younger Rarity raised an eyebrow at the younger Dash. She was trying desperately hard not to laugh through her warning look.
“This one's probably going to take it as an insult if you don't, though.” Her Applejack snickered, then gave the younger Dash a serious look. “Would it help if I gave you some tips? She really likes it when you squeeze—” Her now-pink Rarity slugged her in the arm, and Applejack’s entire beach chair tipped over. She went down sideways, cackling laughter.
The older Applejack looked fondly at her Dash, then to Rarity. “Mine’s an easy one. She’s more fragile than she looks, be careful with her.” The older Dash made an annoyed clicking noise with her tongue and slumped in her chair, but didn’t argue either.
From the ground, sitting sideways in her chair, the younger Applejack sang out; “If you do anything wrong, play to her ego. Pretty easy, though, most flattery’s just true anyhow so it’s not like you gotta make anything up.”
“Aww.” The younger Rarity swooned beside her, still not helping her Applejack get back up.
Being supportive was the meanest thing they all could have done, which was obviously why they were doing it. Sometimes you have to be kind to be cruel.
“C’mon, Rares, you want to hide out at my place ‘til they figure out how to stop being jerks?” the younger Rainbow asked, squeezing the hand she was holding.
Rarity took one side-eyed look at their audience, and nodded. “Let’s go say our goodbyes to the Twilights and Pinkie first,” she said. “We don’t want to look like we’ve just run off, now.” She put a bit of emphasis on the words ‘look like’.
They pretended to storm off from their bullies, who gave a round of applause for it. The older Rainbow went so far as to give a standing ovation. When the Twilights asked what that was all about, Rainbow just went pink and let Rarity do the talking, a rockstar with a case of stage fright.
By the time Rainbow Dash woke up, Rarity had already made breakfast. Actually, it was the smell of Rarity cooking breakfast that woke her.
She’d been incredible. Like, incredible. At first she’d thought it was the power suit that had made her so intimidating and like, projected energy, but the power was radiating out of Rarity herself and if anything the suit was insulating against it.
She looked up. Her ceiling fan lazily spun with a black lace bra, which meant Rarity had made breakfast without it. She definitely couldn’t have borrowed one, that was for sure. Her blue satin sheets were still on the floor, they’d probably need to be put through the washing machine twice. Dash had slept all night on the bare mattress protector, somehow.
She wished she vacuumed her carpet more. As soft as the fibres were, all that gunk in it had scraped her knees real bad when Rarity had made it clear who was ending up between whose legs, and as she hopped and skipped around the detritus of foot stands and scattered amps and tangled wires around her floor to get to her ensuite, she saw just how dark the bruises around her neck still were. Some teeth marks, sure, but a long purple one from when she’d tried to make that crack about being able to pick Rarity up again, and Rarity had said…
Much better to force you down, I think.
She shivered remembering it. Insanely hot. Incredibly intense in that way that like—like Twilight could be if she built herself up to it, Rarity just could turn it on a dime.
They’d agreed this was just a one time thing. No attachments that could blow up two friend groups in two universes over. But now that Dash had a taste for it, she just… couldn’t imagine not wanting this again. Seconds, thirds even.
Rarity was going to be so pissed off at her if she said that, though, they had a deal.
Dash rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash, then rinsed that out to not fuck up the taste of breakfast. Just enough to make sure she didn’t ruin Rarity’s morning if she kissed her like she wanted to. She tried to work out how much she should be wearing, and settled on throwing on a pair of black boyshorts.
She stumbled out the corridor from her bedroom towards the breakfast smells, half-groggy from sleep, and stopped when she made it to the other side. Rarity was wearing one of the silk kimonos Dash had gotten for a tour in Japan, still embroidered with all six (six!) venues she’d hit up. (She’d barely broken even, didn’t care.) The thing was, it was made in Dash’s size, and the older Rarity was… bigger. Taller, wider, curvier, kind of more everything, really. The kimono didn’t close all the way up and she definitely hadn’t found a bra after all.
Dash almost proposed to her on the spot, it was a genuine problem for her.
Worst of all, she was bending over when Dash came in, leaning down to drop off a plate of French toast. She looked up at Dash, smiled proudly. “I’d say I’m sorry about your neck, darling, but I’d hate to start the morning with a lie.”
“You’re saying you’d do it again?” Dash tried to be smooth, but the knowing expression she caught from Rarity for it was a bit of a cold shower. Disappointed, but not surprised.
“I’m saying I don’t regret anything so far,” Rarity said. “You were as charming and as wonderful as I could have imagined.”
“Your imagination’s better than mine, too.” Dash looked at the table. “Wait, is this for me?”
“It is.”
Dash slipped into the offered chair, and took a bite, and it was perfect. Insanely good. She took another bite, then stopped mid-chew. “Huh. If we call this French toast, what do you call it in Equestria?”
“Gypsy toast, why?”
Rainbow choked. “You call it a slur?” She didn’t know that’s what it used to be called on Earth, too, before the invention of France.
Rarity paused on her way back to the kitchen island adjacent to the living room, where more plates of finished food waited for a trip to the table. “What’s a slur?” she asked, curious.
Dash swallowed the half-chewed mouthful of toast at once. “Yeah, okay, we can do your place next time.” She bit her tongue as soon as she said it.
“You’re getting a little excited, aren’t you?” Rarity brought a plate of yogurt and muesli over for herself. Dash couldn’t see what was on the other plates, but they smelled incredible. Something with a lot of butter on it, anyway.
“Sorry.” Dash grumbled. “Just…”
“It was good.” Rarity finished for her. “And that’s all it has to be.”
“I mean, our universe’s Rarity made it work with Applejack?” Dash tried to sound confident about it, but it sounded whiney even to her own ears. She shook it off, tried again, managed to find her stage voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d broken a string on stage, she dealt with it like that. “I think I can do better than that.”
Rarity took a slow and thoughtful bite of her muesli. “Bluntly, I don’t think those two should be together. I think they’re both simply too good at conflict resolution to break up, and enjoy being good at it more than is healthy. What fun is being good at something if you don’t get to do it?” She shook her head and took another bite, and swallowed it first before saying more. “Would you rather be more like our Rainbow Dash, instead?”
Rainbow thought about it. The others had said if she and Rarity thought it’d be nuclear, but the older Dash was proof she didn’t have to fight about things. It was just, if that’s what a Dash that didn’t fight over things looked like… “Maybe.”
“I suppose we’ve started our mornings.” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “The lying may officially begin.”
“Well, I mean, she’s happy, isn’t she?”
“Quite” Rarity repeated. “That’s not what I asked, though.” Rainbow started to answer, and Rarity held up a hand. “Even if it was, do you think I would make you happy?”
“I dunno, maybe?” Rainbow looked guilty for not committing either way. She looked deep in her own heart and was embarrassed that the answer that came back was… This was just really fun and exciting, and she was scared if this ended here it was because she messed something up.
If she was honest with herself, Dash knew that keeping things going would be a mistake she made just trying to prove she hadn’t made a mistake yet. If she was dishonest with herself, though, she might be able to force herself to feel the things she wanted to feel, to have more nights like the last one.
Feelings were stupid, and when you feel the wrong thing you just change your feelings until they’re the right ones. Easy.
“Look,” Rainbow tried a different tack. “You really don’t want to go another round, before you head out?” That one looked like a direct hit, which Dash took as an absolute win. Damn right she was that good.
“I can resist anything but temptation,” Rarity quipped, finishing her muesli. It must have disappeared in only four spoonfuls, and she replaced her empty bowl with some hash browns. Dash hadn’t had any in the freezer, but she did have potatoes, and was kind of surprised to learn you actually could just… hash them? With the stuff she had in her kitchen. “It feels a bit of a mean thing to do to you, to break a promise. And bad precedent that it might happen again.”
Again, Dash grinned, because that was basically Rarity just admitting she was thinking about it. “Come on, we both had fun, and nothing bad’s happened yet. That’s all it has to be, right?”
Rarity sighed, and took a bitter bite of her toast. She chewed it like the toast had wronged her deeply. “I’m looking for something a bit more serious than that, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, but have you found it yet?” Dash shot back before her brain could tell her it was a bad idea. By the time her brain had told her it was a bad idea, she was already winking. Surprisingly, Rarity didn’t immediately kill her for this - she looked thoughtful, if anything.
“No,” she admitted. “I suppose I haven’t.”
“So why’s it just have to be this?” Dash insisted, feeling like she was about to, about to win at whatever this was. Get the girl. Whatever! “We’re the ones making the rules here, we don’t have to do the ones we don’t want. Don’t you want to break this one, with me?”
Rarity cut a neat square off the next piece of toast, moved as if to raise it, but stopped. She put her knife and fork down on the table instead, which panicked Dash who was scared it meant Rarity was just going to leave without finishing. “Of course I do. That was the point of needing to make it a rule.” She wiped her lips and looked at Dash, tired. “If we decide to keep doing this until it goes badly, then you know this can only end in complete disaster?”
“How about we just do it while we find something more permanent?” Dash suggested. “Unless we really are only good with Applejack, then this could only end in disaster.”
“I don’t want to even entertain the possibility.” Rarity threw her napkin to the table and laughed. “Gracious, a world where we both have the same ideal partner, and the other one took her first. Left with each other, because we’re all that’s left.”
“Hey, I mean, that’s not true, right?” Dash cut across. “There’s plenty of people I could think about, I just, haven’t. Honestly it’s kind of been a while for me, I just… you’re really hot?” She had no idea how to say what she actually meant, which roughly translated to: It’s like staring directly into a sun that wants to make me a better person, and I want that sun to step on me.
“No, you’re right.” Rarity sounded wistful again, and Rainbow’s heart went thud-thud-thud, as she desperately scrambled for something better to say. But before she could Rarity looked at her and said, “It’s been a long time for me too. I hope you don’t think I just go seducing younger women for sport?”
“You seduced me?” Rainbow grinned. “I thought I just kind of fell over for you..”
“I’m not saying you didn’t make it easy for me.” Rarity’s foot brushed up against Dash’s under the table. “I’m just saying, at some point I must have decided I wanted you, Celestia only knows why. It must be that rakish smile, or that way you push me into doing things. You’re not just fast, you’re quick, and that’s devastatingly handsome. Or maybe it’s that je ne sais quoi from how you are, at once, dangerous for me and just a bit terrified of me.” She leaned closer, close enough to bite the tip of Dash’s nose across the table. “Oh, yes, I noticed.”
Dash reached up to tug her collar nervously before realizing she was still only wearing the boyshorts. So obviously she deflected. “Can’t think of a good reason, then?”
“Nobody ever said I needed good reasons.” Rarity smiled with just one side of her mouth.
Dash thought about it. “So, is that a yes to staying hookups?”
Rarity thought about that. Then, at last; “So long as it’s my place next time.”
Dash gulped, and Rarity finished her French toast at a leisurely pace. She was in no rush to leave.
Author's Note
I added an extra bit in the comments, you can click that link or just scroll down for a post-ending scene.
