Two Martyrs Fall for Each Other

Rarity was wearing the navy suit jacket again, this time just with a simple pencil skirt and a tight black shirt. Not quite as powerful or striking as the full suit ensemble she’d visited with last time, but she suspected if she dressed up so much as that it might leave Dash too much of a smoldering ruin for them to hold a conversation.

No, better save that for someone’s birthday.

Of course, of course Dash pulled over to pick her up on a horrible beast of a motorcycle.

“Surely you’re joking.” Rarity stared, and Dash kicked the beast and it guttered out its dreadful noise in response. She swung a leg off the bike and tossed Rarity a heavy leather jacket that weighed as much as a small child, and a white helmet with her cutiemark on it.

“The helmet’s a present from our Rarity. Applejack takes her dirtbiking, she said you’d love this.”

“Collusion was involved, then.” Rarity donned the protective wear despite her complaints. Dash had braved fancy restaraunts for her, turnabout was fair play. “They know we’re still seeing each other, then?”

“Yeah, well, yeah.” Dash shrugged. “I’m doing a lot better when I can talk to people about it.”

Rarity sighed. She felt indescribably uncomfortable about that, which she wished she could just take as wishing to keep this small thing private and between them. Mostly she wanted to minimize the collateral damage in the case of an explosion, when Dash was perfectly within her rights to minimize the chances of the explosion ever happening instead. No, her way was better. “What have you told them?” Dash flinched. “I’m not mad at you, I just want to prepare myself for what jokes they’re capable of making.”

“A lot.” Dash said, and left it at that. “What about the Princess, she knows about us, right?”

“Hardly.” Rarity rolled her eyes as she finally got the helmet on. She had a bigger head than her younger self, that seemed appropriate. “She-” Goodness, this thing muffled the voice, didn’t it? She raised her voice to a shout. “She didn’t recognize you!”

“What, really?” Dash looked over her shoulder and pulled Rarity’s arms around her waist to keep steady as Rarity tried to settle on the bike. Rarity’s grip was gentle at first, but she squeezed Dash like a vice the second the bike moved underneath them. Judging by Dash’s demonic laughter, it was the correct thing to do.

It wasn’t until they were at a stop light that all was quiet enough Dash could finish her thought.

“Dyed mane, I still had the skirt covering the cutie mark. I could see it. So she just, what, thinks you’re a slut for pegasus now that I’ve given you a taste?”

Rarity flushed under her helmet. “Younger pegasus, yes.”

Dash snickered. “Cougars are just big cats. They like to pounce things with wings. Checks out.”

“How dare y-” Rarity started but then the light had turned green and she screamed and hugged Dash even tighter again. It took a while until Dash cruised them to another red light.

“Huh. You really haven’t talked to anyone about me then? Not even like, the older me?” Dash asked with a tone Rarity couldn’t read behind the helmet.

“Well, no. Fluttershy knows, of course. She’s less than pleased about it.”

There was no tell of Dash’s feeling but for the rumble of the huge bike beneath them. “You’re that embarrassed about me?”

Rarity spluttered. “What? No!” Then, quieter. “It’s just, I am looking for something quite serious, and sleeping with someone so much younger has… connotations, that I am simply promiscuous. Someone unserious, having a good time.”

“But-” Dash started.

“Yes.” Rarity finished. “The fact that it is true makes it worse, yes. And I am having a good time, thank you very much.”

“So you’re not embarrassed ‘cause you’re dating me.” Dash said. “You’re embarrassed because you’re not dating me.”

Rarity saw too many traps in the question to know which to avoid, which made it pointless to dodge. “Yes, that’s a good way to put it.”

“Well, that’s great then.” Dash flicked her wrists which made the machine under them growl with excitement, and the vibrations from it shook Rarity from her toes to her teeth. “Not dating me should be embarrassing for you.”

She whooped as she gunned the bike out of the intersection as fast as she could make it go. Rarity knew it was just to make her squeeze Dash as tight as she possibly could, but it was so fun she found it hard to care.

Dash dropped Rarity off at the front stoop of her apartment before heading for the underground garage, taking the borrowed helmet and heavy jacket with her. Rarity missed the jacket the second she took it off, it felt like a wonderfully secure hug.

A minute later Dash came back up spinning her keys. She looked mad.

“Something wrong?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah, no, it’s cool.” Dash spun her keys and headed for the glass doors in, stopped. “Actually, it’s not. I was joking when I said you should be embarrassed about not dating me, but I thought I want to bring my girlfriend up here, not just the girl that wants to fuck me, right?” Dash glared at the keys in her hands, not at Rarity. “I don’t think I’m cool with that anymore.”

“Is the label so important?” Rarity crossed her arms and stood on the sidewalk at the curb. She hadn’t moved since Dash had dropped her off the bike. “You’d be taking me up there with you, either way. Is that not enough?”

“The only people who insist upon not putting labels on relationships are trying to lie to, use or manipulate you.” Rainbow said in a bad but uncomfortably recognizing imitation of Rarity’s own voice.

“I told you that, did I?”

“The other you did, yeah. About you.”

Rarity stood outside the entrance to Rainbow’s apartment building, and got the distinct realization her answer determined if she was allowed up tonight or not. “What do you want me to say, then?”

“I don’t know,” Dash leaned against the black iron row of letterboxes set into the industrial-chic cinderblock wall of the building’s facade. “I was cool just being friends with benefits, and stuff, back when it didn’t feel like shit all the time. But I like you, okay? LIke, a lot. You know how much it makes me feel like shit, that me not being good enough is such a problem for you?”

“You are-”

“So say we’re girlfriends then!” Rainbow didn’t shout it, she barely raised her voice, but the sheer level of heat in her voice made it amount to the same. It felt like being yelled at. Dash said it while slumped with both hands in the pockets of her leather jacket and a pissed off kick at the air in front of her.

Rarity was silent.

Rainbow shook her head and looked at her in disbelief. “That’s all it is, isn’t it. You like me enough to fuck me, but I’m not-”

“Don’t you dare say you’re not good enough.” Rarity cut over her, and her own simmering anger was enough that Dash looked back up from her feet to Rarity’s face in shock. “That is not the problem.”

“You keep saying that, but you never say what yours is.” Dash looked away again. “So I don’t know if you’re lying, or scared, or what. I just know it sucks, and it hurts, and I’m done.”

Rarity curled her fingers into a fist and found that most cathartic. It was a thing she couldn’t do with hooves, but the tightness of balling a fist was… sublime in a situation like this. She let it go just to do it again and dig her nails into her palm. “This, this is why I said one night. Just one night. This is where it has gotten us.”

That hurt Dash, it cut her. She kicked off the wall and squared herself to throw a punch. “You said you wanted more too! Don’t make this my fault! You wanted-!”

“And still want!” Rarity took a step closer, into the range of any strike Dash would throw at her. “If I told you my honest answer, that I would like to think of you as my girlfriend, then that would make us girlfriends. Dating, in a relationship with each other. And all the entitlements and expectations that come with that. Is that what you want?”

“Yes!” Dash threw her arms up, more confused than angry. “Obviously!”

“If we are merely fucking-” Rarity paused as a nervous woman passed between their argument on the narrow strip of sidewalk, giving Rarity an annoyed look as she did. “Excuse me ma’am, this is between me and my girlfriend and you can sod off. If we are merely fucking, then not making time for each other, being too busy, all are merely disappointing. The same things from a partner, though, are grounds for tension, conflict and resentment. Why, why can’t I just have all the good in you, without any of the expectations? Why must you want more from me, when the bottom of the barrel keeps the dregs?”

“You really just told that lady I’m your girlfriend?” Rainbow grabbed Rarity’s arm and pulled her closer to the entrance alcove up to her apartment - at least, off the sidewalk.

“Of course I did. Do you think ‘friends with benefits’ have fights like this? No, one only fights like this in relationships worth the fight. That’s the entire problem.” Rarity sighed. “This is what it means to commit.”

Rainbow tugged Rarity’s arm again. “So you’re cool with telling people we’re girlfriends?”

“I will, apparently, literally yell it in the streets.” Rarity made a face like she’d bit into something sour.

Rainbow nodded and made eyes like an excited puppy. “So, just to be real clear. You’re my girlfriend now?”

“If I’m being honest, it was everything I had in me not to unilaterally declare it when Sapphire Shores insinuated, what was it you said? That she made it seem like it would be more shameful if I were dating you.” Rarity sucked on the inside of her cheek and looked away, even as Dash leaned closer into her personal space. “But I thought that as much as the both of you ought to know that I thought you deserving of it, I still thought you as worth deserving more than the relationship we’re capable of having.”

“Seriously, you’re still hung up on that?” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’ve already bit that bullet, we’re dating now, get over it.”

Rarity blinked. “The problems are still real, Dash. My confession only makes them moreso.”

“This is everything I wanted.” Dash shrugged. “Problems solved to me.”

“Right.” Rarity muttered. “Well. Might you let me upstairs to explain the rest, then? Might be better than the street.”

“Right! Yeah, okay so-” Dash fumbled for the key in her pocket as fast as she could, and Rarity sighed in relief. She looked down at her hands and found them shaking, even, which was most curious. Little shivers ran down her fingertips, she couldn’t hold them steady. She’d have to ask someone - not Dash, not now - what that meant.

She knew what caused it, at least. It was the moment Dash reached for her keys and she knew that it meant she was still being invited up after all, still being let in. She thought about how long the walk home to the portal would have been. She wouldn’t have cried. She would have ripped a trash can from the sidewalk and thrown it into a wall, maybe, or broken a street sign, or screamed from the top of her lungs once she was a block away. And then screamed again.

She would find anything she could break, and she would break it. She would find things to stomp and smash and grind beneath her heel, and safe things to punch and hit and hit. She would have been too angry at herself to do anything else. She would have been too angry at how badly she’d hurt Dash being too scared to hurt her, and how irresponsible she’d been to say yes to her just because of how desperately she wanted her, and how much of a coward she’d been to lose her.

She didn’t know if she’d have cried then, or not. If she was too old, or too tired. If she’d have simply collapsed from self-loathing rage, exhausted and sick. Or if it was that very same self-loathing deluding herself into thinking she couldn’t anymore, wouldn’t over this.

All she knew is that being invited upstairs meant she’d never have to find out.

Because the truth was, in the bottom of her heart, she couldn’t see a future with Dash. For the girl, clearly, she would lead an incredible life more than she already did. But with? That-

“Hey Rares?” Dash asked as she put the keys in the lock. “You know that soulread thing you do, where you know me better than I’m saying?”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, well, I think I know you better enough now to be able to do it back to you, at least a little.” Click, the door opened, and Rarity’s head tilted to confirm that ‘inside’ was still there for her. “So here’s the thing. You know how we’re girlfriends now, right?”

“Yes, my girlfriend Rainbow Dash, who is my girlfriend.” Rarity said flatly, but Rainbow grinned dopily both times she said it.

“Yeah, so. That means you’re not allowed to decide stuff about us in your head anymore, that’s something we talk about together.” She snorted. “Like, I love you- Oh shit I shouldn’t have said that, pretend I didn’t. Uh, I like you, but you do this thing where you kind of act like you’re in a relationship and I’m in it, and not like I’m the other half of it. You know what I mean? Stop thinking stuff if you’re not going to say it.”

The inside of Rarity’s head shut up like it had been slapped as Rainbow took her hand and pulled her to the elevator.

It was funny, Rarity thought, that Dash had money but clearly had no idea what to do with it.

She still lived in the same apartment she’d first moved out to, with Sunset Shimmer, back when they played together. But then Sunset had wanted to go back into college while Dash stayed full time, and just absorbed the space that Sunset had previously taken. So long ago there was no trace anyone else had ever been here, but still all the signs of a still-younger Dash like a nest made from a molted skin.

In the living room was a television that sat upon a cabinet. The cabinet was second-hand, left out on the street for garbage pickup before Sunset and Dash had liberated it from a premature demise. The television that sat upon it cost about $15,000. Inconsistencies like that.

A shelf of albums that Dash had to block, and pull selections from, because she didn’t want to give Rarity a wrong impression from the older stuff she just hadn’t thrown away yet. A bookshelf, which was quite charming. Rarity ran her fingers along the spines and smiled.

“You’ve expanded your tastes a bit.” She said. “It’s not just adventure books anymore. Spy thrillers, noir. I do love a good noir. No fantasy?”

Dash stuck her tongue out. “That feels too kiddy stuff to me, honestly.”

Rarity tastefully decided not to mention that this was a very teenager selection of books regardless. Besides, she didn’t much care for fantasy herself. “No science fiction, either. Not that I expected any, I’m just open to you defying my expectations.”

“They’re all huge bummers.” Dash snorted. “Twilight says they’re social criticism and it’s hard to be critical and have a happy ending, but that’s boring. Seriously, why can’t you do social criticism by making me want something good, show me how you think the world could get better? Give me something to fight for, not just fight against… Also most of the authors write like if you met them they’d be assholes.”

Rarity opened her mouth, closed it again. “I must admit, I did not expect you to have such a robust take on the genre. Just once, when I thought you had met my expectations after all.”

“Just because I’m an idiot doesn’t mean I’m stupid..” Dash said.

“So that means you’ve read enough to have made that opinion on it?” Rarity pressed. “Anything in particular?”

“Ah, hey,” Dash immediately seemed nervous, and Rarity felt the warm and fuzzy feeling of having found a button she could push, “Couch. I made charcutier… charcuttery… Charcuterie?”

“Charcuterie.”

“Knew I’d get it eventually.” Dash disappeared into her kitchen. Brand new microwave, stolen fridge. Literally stolen, it was a long story that Dash was unwilling to tell, and unclear who or where it was stolen from. Twenty year old countertops in hideous 90s style, and an awful oven whose numbers had entirely worn off the knobs. A brand new sink with a filtered tap and a voracious disposal unit. An ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ attitude, but if it was broken it was replaced without any consideration for expense.

Dash had actually wiped her glass-surface coffee table before Rarity visited this time, had clearly made an effort. She lay out a plate covered in small cubes of awkwardly cut cheeses, melon, grapes, strawberries, two kinds of salted cracker, and some… Rarity poked at the last several items on the plate, in various hues of reds and pinks. She peeled some to take an experimental bite, and Dash slapped it out of her hand in panic before she could.

“Shit. Sorry, uh. Fuck, I forgot. That’s meat.”

Rarity felt quite sick, all of a sudden. “This is meat? But it’s so…” She looked at the slice lying on the glass surface of the table. It was so thin as to be translucent. “I didn’t know it could be cut like that.”

“Yeah it’s… Prosciutto.” Dash rubbed the back of her neck, grabbing the piece off the table and popping it in her mouth to get rid of it. Fortunately the table was obviously clean or Rarity would have found it even more revolting than she already did. “Ah, look, I was just trying to make the plate look like it did on the magazine cover I was copying, I wasn’t thinking.”

“May I?” Rarity asked, hesitantly, looking at another slice.

“Ah. Are you sure?” Dash asked.

“I don’t know what a prosciutto is, we don’t have any of those in Equestria.” Rarity picked the meat up again. “It makes it a little easier to stomach, not knowing.”

Before Dash could say what she was thinking, Rarity tried to copy the way she’d watched Dash pop it into her mouth. It made a wonderful little scroll on her tongue, and was very pleasantly salty and fatty. It was lighter than cheese, milder than olives, but actually quite nice for it. Just a very simple, mellow note of flavour.

“I can see the appeal.” She admitted, rotating the serving plate so the meat was entirely on Dash’s side. “Not so much as to be worth what it takes to get it, it’s not worth killing for. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand seeing a prosciutto without feeling horribly guilty about it, now.”

Rainbow bit her tongue so hard Rarity watched it happen. “Yeah, it’s… I’m not defending it. It’s just, since everyone grew up with it here, it’s just there. Not eating it isn’t going to bring the prosciutto back.”

“Which is why I’m merely turning the plate towards you.” Rarity took a cube of cheese and a strawberry and ate them together. “I’ve been a cultural attache for Equestria to far stranger cultures. I remember a few years ago, the Princess invited me with her to meet with the Kudukudzu. Large, bipedal feral boars with feathered arms, an island culture. They practiced cannabalism as a funerary right, and I was asked if I was interested in partaking of the prior chieftain.”

Dash took a slice of ham and wrapped a cube of cheese in it, but kept it in her hands. “So, did you?”

“No,” Rarity took a different cheese cube from the plate. “Twilight did though. I always admired her for that. I told them it felt wrong for me to be a part of such an intimate ceremony, but I would be honoured to join them as witness. That was the important thing, that they knew I wasn’t disgusted by the practice, but just that I took the offer so seriously. It was intimate, as well. Profound. The flesh returns to the flesh, the ancestors a part of them always.”

Rainbow put her meat-wrapped cheese back on the plate and held her face in her hands. “Why are you like this.”

“What?” Rarity blinked. “Did I say something wrong?”

“It’s just, I’m like, I’m out here trying to put a spread out, and you take a bite and go yeah this reminds me when I was the national ambassador to a tribe of cannibals, it was a really spiritual experience for me. Now I have to be like, yeah that’s cool, anyway how’s the cheese though?”

She pulled Rainbow over onto her, so that Rainbow’s head was on her lap and she could brush the back of her fingers against Dash’s face. “Does it really upset you so much?”

“Where’s my cool stories!” Dash rolled onto her back, face up at Rarity, and threw her arms as wide as she could in exasperation. The couch mostly got in the way of the right one. “How do I compete with that?” The truth was Dash had very interesting stories, she just needed to stumble into remembering them. Rarity didn’t say that, though.

“You don’t.” She took Rainbow’s meat-cheese piece she’d put down and fed it to her, enjoying the feeling of Rainbow’s lips brush her fingertips as she pulled her hand away again. “Now you get to say, to other people, ‘So this reminds me of a story my girlfriend told me’, and now my experiences are yours. Such is the miracle of dating.”

That cheered her up immeasurably. “I’m going to be so annoying about this.” Yes, she would be an indescribable menace, now.

“Well, now that I’ve sold you on the appeal.” Rarity tapped Dash’s shoulder where it lay against her lap. “The conversation.”

“Ah, really? Fine. Where do you want to start with the heavy stuff?”

“Would you like to get married some day?” Rarity asked. “Not to me, specifically but-”

“Sure.” Dash shrugged. “I’d marry you.”

A moment of silence.

Rarity coughed into a fist. “That almost sounded like a proposal.”

“Fuck it, why not. You wanna get married, sometime?”

Impossibly, hideously, Rarity found herself blushing. Dash was not meant to ask that, because it forced her into a position where she had to consider yes. She wasn’t going to, stars above, but she had to know that she could. Who’d wear the dress? Actually. “That rather brings me to my next point. Say that I said yes-”

Dash sat bolt upright from Rarity’s lap. “Woah, hold on, what?” Rarity grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back down again.

“Would we hold the wedding on your side of the portal, or mine?”

Dash thought about it. “Both.”

“And the honeymoon?” Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Also both, but mostly mine.” Dash decided immediately. “The sex is better, here.”

“No it isn’t.” Rarity bit her lip. “But… Yes, fine. I could see that working. Living together then? I’m unwilling to budge on Equestria for this.”

“Whyyyyy.” Dash whined. “Then I’d have to be a pony all the time.”

"Because my universe has a perfect immortal princess I personally know who governs justly and brings me pizza if I ask her nicely. As for yours, I have watched the news. I’m rather uncomfortable living in a place that invented slurs, let alone one that uses them"

Dash flipped onto her side, facing Rarity’s stomach, and pouted. “Fine, I can do Equestria then. Just as long as I get to keep my place here, I still need to do tours and stuff, and I still want to hang out with the girls as much as I can. I don’t think you’d want more of me anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Dash twisted her neck to look up at Rarity in disbelief. “What? Seriously?”

“What?”

Dash pressed her face into Rarity’s stomach, grabbing the black shirt for a handle grip to pull herself closer. “You’re the one talking about wanting something serious, but you don’t. I actually want this, this is what wanting stuff looks like.” She flipped Rarity’s shirt up, untucking it from her pants, to kiss her bare stomach for emphasis.

“No, I…” Rarity hesitated. “Well, yes, you have made it very clear how much you want this.”

“Awesome, I wasn’t sure how I could make it more obvious. I thought literally proposing might be hard to top.”

“You are anything but hard to top.” Rarity countered, flicking Rainbow’s ear. Rainbow blew a raspberry into her stomach for revenge.

“Seriously though. You like what we have right now, right”

“Of course I do, that’s why I wanted to keep it so badly.”

“Yeah, and,” Rainbow twisted to look up again, “Would you be happier if I asked you to spend more time off work, do less of the other stuff you're doing, give you less free space, wake up together every morning-"

“No.” Rarity said before realizing how deeply she’d started digging her fingernails into her knees.

“But the problem isn’t me? Like, it’s not because it’d be me you’d be doing that with?”

“Never,” Rarity’s hands flew back to Rainbow’s hair, her face, stroking tenderly. “Not because of you at all, no.”

"So that means you don’t actually want any of that stuff.” Rainbow snickered. “You say you’re looking for a right person to do that stuff with, but then you never find anyone because it’s the stuff you hate, and nobody’s going to make you hate it less.”

Rarity stared straight forward, unblinking, unseeing.

Dash flipped onto her back again, and reached up to touch Rarity’s face. "You're so fucking stupid about this it's hilarious."

“Physician, heal thyself.” Rarity muttered. “Well then, oh wise old soul, insight beyond her years. What is your proposed solution?”

“You know, I still think I like it better when you just call me your girlfriend.” Dash let her hands drop to her chest, clasped over her heart. “We can be girlfriends without doing any of that stuff, it’s cool.”

“It is starting to sound like calling each other ‘girlfriend’ is literally the only important part to you about this.” Rarity stared, and Dash grinned, and Rarity narrowed her eyes. “You cannot be serious.”

“You’re so my girlfriend, though.” Dash winked. Winked! And then, just in case Rarity didn’t catch the first one, she did it again. “Yeah, that’s the whole enchilada. And if stuff changes we just talk about it while it happens. But you know. I’d pretty much tear down my whole life for you right now if you asked me to, or marry you tomorrow or whatever.”

“That is…” Rarity considered an entire dictionary of potential words and her gut twisted that she had to pick only one. “Terrifying.” She settled on. A part of her wanted to see it as some kind of clinginess or overcommitment that she should scold her for, but no. She was being so damned casual about it. Things that should be heavy decisions were made as if they were weightless.

“Yeah but that’s who you’re stuck with.” Dash shrugged.

Rarity closed her eyes and felt the internal architecture of her brain shift around this information, adjust to it. She could have as much or as little as she wanted, as long as she knew what that was. Her plan for the future was to do whatever she liked. There was no plan, no destination.

“Fuck it.” Rarity threw her head back. “Is this our second date, or our third? Do we count that first night as a real date?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, to accept a marriage proposal on the second date would be insanity. On a third date, merely ridiculous.”

Dash shot up again, and outright stood up and took a step away from the couch in panic. “Wait, I was… I mean I wasn’t joking, but I wasn’t serious. I mean, okay, I was serious, but you weren’t supposed to say yes.”

“What was it your older self said? You caught me, now get run over, idiot.” Rarity ate another cheese cube, casually. Yes, this was much more fun. Simply treat such matters as weightless, and take what you want if you wanted them. This was much more fun, and what else mattered? “So. Yes, I would marry you. Though, perhaps it might be smarter not to start planning the wedding for a while. At least, not until all our friends yell at us for it.”

Dash shook her head. “I mean, yes, obviously. Fuck. Holy shit. Uh. So does that make you my fiance?”

“Congratulations to you, for that one. You really do move fast, don’t you?” Rarity lobbed a cheese cube as high as she could and tried to see if she could catch it. She could! Well done her, she still had it.

“You haven’t even told me if you love me yet, or not.” Dash protested, as if the whole thing hadn’t been her idea.

“I don’t know that I do. I might, though, I believe I could.” Rarity took a strawberry piece and aimed it at Dash’s mouth instead. Dash caught it with her hand, the spoilsport, but dutifully ate it after. “If you asked me if I’d marry you tomorrow for a chance at finding out? I believe I would, yes.”

Dash’s legs gave out. Rarity watched her go down. It wasn’t a fast fall, it was more… squishy and slow motion, more like her bones were turning to jelly than anything else. “Woah.”

“This is the problem.” Rarity watched her the whole way down. “You keep moving so fast that you never think someone might keep up with you.”

“This is such a bad idea.” Dash sat on the floor, looking drunk and giddy and scared and happy and Rarity took an olive from the plate. “This is such a bad idea.”

“I have kept talking us both out of things for sensible reasons, and being sensible that has been killing the both of us. So let’s just follow your heart and see where it takes us both. We don’t have to do it until we want to. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do, apparently.” Rarity barked a laugh. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Wait, is this how your brain works all the time?” Dash fell the rest of her way onto her butt, and then onto her back, and then she stared at the ceiling until she covered her hands with her eyes. “Saying stuff makes it this real?”

“Yes, this is what it is like.” It wasn’t that Rarity wondered if she’d gone too far, she knew she had, it’s just that she didn’t know what to do about it now. It wasn’t exactly like she could take it back. “We have imposed no deadlines upon ourselves. We can enjoy being girlfriends for a while, and decide later if we change our minds on it. We don’t need to do anything about it until we want to.”

“RIght, but…” Dash rubbed her face with her hands before covering her eyes again. She must be grateful she’d mopped since the last time Rarity had seen the laminated-wooden floor she was sprawled on. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Cool.”

“You started this.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Rainbow sat back up, and then fell back a little because sitting up made her dizzy. “What if this is a mistake? What if we’re not ready for something like that? What am I going to do when you divorce me? Shit, would we even get divorced, do we have to do it on both sides of the portal or what? Wait, does that mean we’d only be legally married in one place. Oh shit, marriage licenses are a thing, shit, I don’t…” Dash fell back to the floor with her hands tight to her face again. “Fuck!”

Rarity considered this, and loaded three different nibbles onto a salted cracker to eat in one bite. It gave her something to chew on and keep her mouth shut with while Dash… learned, she supposed. How much of her weightless decisionmaking was just being unable to grasp the consequences of things before they happened, she wondered. “I don’t plan on getting divorced, do you?”

Dash cracked her fingers to look back at Rarity with an eye poking between the gap in them. “No?”

“Well, then.” Rarity stood up and walked over to Dash on the floor to offer her a hand up. Dash went pale.

“You’re not wearing any underwear with that skirt.” Dash gulped.

“I haven’t had a good chance to mention that, but no, I am not.” Rarity kept her hand offered to Dash, though she did take a bit to adjust how she was standing to give Dash a better view, and the poor girl crossed her legs over when she did.

“I’m going to have to wipe down the bike seat huh.” Dash thought. She reached out for Rarity’s hand, and Rarity pulled her back up.

And there was a moment where they sized each other up again, just took a moment to appreciate what they’d gotten into as they stood in front of each other without the next beat of the conversation to distract them. The reality of being, as ridiculous as it was, fiances now was hitting them both. Time to assess the damage.

The poor girl was terrified. She was shorter than Rarity, yes, and though it was all tight and lean muscle that difference in mass just made her seem frail to her. Almost entirely flat-chested, it made her seem so much more boyish right now - not just masculine, but boyish. It was strange how those traits that came from her strength and fitness just emphasized her immaturity right now, a mix of androgyny that seemed to lack the secondary characteristics of either extreme in the blend.

The same things made her attractive in the extreme, at once beautiful and handsome. Her femininity was all the more beautiful when it was emphasized by the contrast, and her muscularity was endlessly appealing. She’d spent long minutes their last night in these bodies just running her fingers along Dash’s stomach trying not to wake her, fascinated by the tight knotted abdominals like billiard balls just beneath the skin. No, that wasn’t it at all.

She knew Dash wasn’t a child, didn’t believe that about her. What she wasn’t sure about was her own self-delusions. How many things was she okay with only because she wanted them to be okay? Because Dash was insisting they could be, and she didn’t want to refuse her? More than nothing, certainly.

Then Dash took a deep breath with her eyes closed, raising and lifting her hands with the rise and fall of her chest, and she was solid again. The fear was gone. It was her stage fright ritual, the last moment before going out with the guitar to face the crowd.

And then she locked eyes with Rarity, and Rarity froze instead.

That face.

Rarity reached out, and stopped with her hand halfway to Rainbow’s face, and Rainbow lightly took it by the wrist to pull it the rest of the way. “Do you mind if…?”

“Sure.” Dash whispered, not sure what Rarity was doing.

She took a step closer to better see, thumbs trailing near-invisible scars. There were so many stories here. Her thumb pulled at the bags under Dash’s eyes, at the deeper bruises it revealed beneath them - still healing. Not just from a lack of sleep, of staying up long hours practicing and writing, more than that. Her thumb trailed to the skin around her eyes and pulled them tight, and she marvelled at the wrong colours she found hidden there, misty yellows and pinks.

It gave her a suspicion. She reached for the tip of Dash’s knows and wiggled it - too loose for her age by far. Her eyes went wide and she gave a naughty smile. “You’ve worn your septum out.”

“It wasn’t- that wasn’t a problem for me.” Dash stammered, flinching back and getting her nose tweaked for it. “Just, a few times I went a bit too hard.”

“The life of a rock star?” Rarity asked.

“More like trying to fight a monster the night after a gig or something. I burn myself out so much I have trouble staying awake sometimes, when I need to.” Dash admitted.

Rarity nodded and pulled Dash back closer to her with a hand around the back of her neck instead. “So that’s where the energy drinks came into things. So many your heart almost exploded, I believe you said.”

Dash nodded, pushing Rarity’s fingers up into the short shaved hair at the back of her head, which felt lovely. “You keep talking about how you have no stories of your own. Then something like this.”

“Well, it’s just, with anyone else, yeah. But you’ve done all the same stuff but more.”

This close, and looking for it, she finally found what she had hoped she’d find. She plucked a gray hair from Dash’s head - just one of them, hard to find in all the color. But there. “Well now you’ve put it on me to find all the experience you’ve been keeping to yourself. I might have been starting to think you hadn’t done anything with your life yet.”

And there it was. Oh, that was a mean little trick, but it would do her good to be tricked by it. Dash’s eyes flashed with hurt for a moment, but after that they were fire. Burning, passionate, almost vibrating from the speed they were taking in every tiny feature of Rarity’s expression to judge her by.

In time, she knew, that fire would mellow and soften into something warm and wonderful and lovely. She’d seen it happen before. It might even be what she wanted, later, but this is what Rarity craved now.

Dash ducked suddenly and her elbow came into Rarity’s stomach lifting her. Rarity let out her breath in a whoop from the hit as Dash carried her to the couch and dropped her down on it, Rarity’s fall cushioned in a puff of air leaking from the seams of the leather.

“My word.” Rarity giggled, but Dash wasn’t done yet. She slipped her arms underneath her shirt and flung it off, throwing herself on top of Rarity, face to face with those burning eyes, two incredible muscular forearms holding Rainbow’s weight and locking Rarity’s head in place. With each hand just behind her ear she couldn’t turn her head to look away.

“I’m a fucking monster fighting, world saving, magic slinging rockstar.” Dash said from over her. “Fastest girl alive, no convictions despite doing way too much shit to deserve one because they can’t fucking catch me. I’ve broken a guy’s nose only half-conscious after he spiked my drink, I’ve broken my collarbone crowdsurfing an audience of a thousand people, and I am definitely the best sex you ever had.”

“Are you now?” Rarity prodded.

Rainbow hesitated a second, but she skipped it like a stone skipping the surface of water. “I am.”

She wasn’t, though Rarity would sooner cut her own tongue out than let it betray her in this moment. It was more important that she had the potential to be. The fact that she wasn’t yet just made it all the more exciting that one day, one day she would be. Rarity shook herself, that thought had made her blush. “You could be even better, too.”

Dash bit her neck at that, hard enough to leave the shape of her teeth in the bruises, right where her neck joined her shoulder. Rarity kicked her legs out in the shock of it, hands reached out to grab the back of Dash’s hair and knot her fingers in it. This was a thing she was supposed to do to her, not the other way around.

Dash came back up for breath. “See, I’m learning.”

Rarity’s breath couldn’t come back down from ragged panting, her cheeks were far hotter than she was willing to admit to herself. That… that one had got her. “You brute.”

“C’mon, you always seemed jealous when you did it to me, I’d knew that one would get you.” There was a knock at the door, and Dash looked as disappointed as Rarity felt. “Shh. Maybe they’ll go away.”

“I thought they had to be let in, from downstairs?”

“I gave a few keys out.” Dash whispered. “Pretend we’re not here.”

The hammering at the door got louder and more urgent. Dash sighed, rolled eyes and got up, but couldn’t find where she’d thrown her shirt.

“It went behind the TV.” Rarity offered.

“Fuck it.” Dash went straight for the door in just her jeans. “Whatever.”

Rarity heard, but did not see around the entranceway corner, a Twilight Sparkle. “I- uh. You’re not wearing a shirt.”

“Nope.”

Twilight sighed, and popped her head around the corner to wave at Rarity. “The Princess says hi!” She paused and, very nervously, her eyes went from Rarity’s face to her skirt and back again. Then back down to her skirt. “You’re not wearing any underwear.”

Rarity crossed a leg over her knee and raised an eyebrow. “Which makes you the odd one out.”

The Twilight cleared her throat. “Right. The Princess was really insistent I come in at this exact moment to, uh, give you this.” She flicked a square of cardboard at Rarity from across the room, just to stay as close to the exit as possible as Dash stood close behind. “And uh. I’m supposed to do this.” She jumped across the room like a startled deer, just out of Ranbow’s reach, and opened a white cabinet in the dining room that Rarity had assumed would have dishes in them.

It did not. It had little model spaceships instead.

“Uh. Bye.” The Twilight waved, hissing “Sorry,” under her breath as she passed Dash on the way out.

The door clicked softly shut behind her.

Rarity held up the little square of cardboard she’d been flicked, a photograph. “This must be Twilight’s idea of revenge after last time.” She murmured, looking up at the cabinet. “But for the life of me, I can’t imagine how this- Dash?”

“I am,” Dash was very pale. “So sorry.”

“I wonder what gave away it was you, in the end. Probably coming back through the portal.” Rarity held up the cardboard square. “Who’s Patrick Stewart?”

“I don’t- Nope.” Dash shook her head angrily. “We’re making out, I’m not getting into this.”

“I want to see the cabinet though.” Rarity pushed herself off the couch, past Dash stomping up to her, and knelt beside it. “Did you make these.”

“Ha, I wish.” Dash got out before clapping her hands to her mouth. “I am going to murder them. They can’t do this to me.”

“Do what?” Rarity blinked, reaching for the cabinet - pausing. “Do you mind?”

“Yes.” Dash said.

“Ah.” Rarity settled for reading the base instead. “I wouldn’t want to break your Klingon Bird of Prey, seeing how it’s an original show model.”

Dash cringed just behind her shoulder. “Okay you can pick it up from the bottom, just, don’t touch any of the details.”

Rarity did, and inspected the model from all sides. “I thought you said you didn’t like science fiction.”

“I don’t.” Dash just stood behind Rarity having no idea what to do, so she shoved her hands in her pockets. “I just, it’s just this one show. Called Star Trek.”

“Right.”

“And it’s just about how people in the future solve problems with each other, and it feels like how fixing problems with the girls used to feel like, but it’s not a kid’s show. It’s, it’s just about everyone being cool, and being good at what they do, and really liking and respecting each other, and it’s - there’s nothing else like it. So I like this one.”

“I see,” Rarity said slowly. “No conflict? Sounds boring.”

“No! Like, no way, that’s the thing,” Dash reached past the ships and behind them in the cabinet to the only DVDs she owned, and pulled out a Next Generation box set. “I mean, I like Voyager more, but everyone agrees Next Generation is good at least. So there’s this one episode right where… okay so they have universal translators, to understand aliens with. Except there’s this one alien race that speaks in story references, so the translator translates them literally but nobody understands them anyway. And Picard - ah, Captain Picard he’s like, the leader guy = Picard has to try to learn the language while stranded on an alien planet with this alien, and he does. And it’s-” Dash played back the last few seconds in her head and lowered the box set in front of her. “That sounds boring doesn’t it.”

“A little.” Rarity admitted, taking the box set out of Rainbow’s hands in exchange for the Bird of Prey. “This is Picard? He looks just like… Ah, played by Patrick Stewart. So that explains that.”

“Yeah, he’s cool.” Dash brushed off.

“Dash, sweetheart, I have given you have orgasms that made you less excited than you were in that picture.” She considered that, and shrugged a shoulder. “Admittedly, those were not my best work.”

“Can we go back to making out, now?” Dash pleased, putting the Bird of Prey away. Rarity used her height advantage to keep the box easily out of her reach.

“I don’t know, can we?” She raised an eyebrow, and Dash made a spectacular jump to snatch the box. Rarity could have lifted it higher but honestly, Dash had earned that one. “Are you sure you don’t want to explain what a Klingon is, first.”

“No, see, that’s the problem.” Dash groaned, putting the boxset deep in the back of the cabinet and closing it. “I really want to, I mean, I really want to. The only person I’ve got to talk about this with is Twilight, and she actually likes the science stuff. I think this is the Princess’s way of using me to kill the mood.”

“I saw all those spy thrillers on your shelf, so I know what you’ll mean when I say… they have triggered your command phrase, then, to turn you against me?”

“Turn you off, maybe.” Dash snickered, but the laugh died in her throat. “Ah, shit. Kind of.”

Rarity curled a finger around one of Dash’s belt loops, and pulled her all the way back to the couch, pushing her onto it. Dash plopped back, and this time it was Rarity’s turn to loom over her and give her a kiss on the lips. “It really makes you that excited?”

It was a question that Dash would not answer under threat of torture, which made the ‘yes’ all the more obvious. Rarity smiled.

“Well. Does Captain Picard know any Klingons? That Bird of Prey looked very menacing.”

Dash bit her lip hard, practically vibrating from the effort. Her hands gripped the sofa cushions white-knuckled. “Yes.” She forced out. “His head of security is a Klingon named Worf. Well kind of, it’s-” She shut up. “Just, Worf.”

“Strange. You were about to correct yourself there.” Rarity slipped off her jacket and tossed it into the dining room. “Was he kind of the head of security, or kind of a Klingon?”

“He’s half-Klingon half-human, it’s complicated. I mean it’s not that complicated. Please stop asking.” Dash’s nails dug gouges into the couche’s leather facade. Rarity thought how nice they might feel across her back, later.

“So there’s interbreeding with the alien races? Why, the chance at cross-species understanding that comes form that, like the arranged marriages of old…” Rarity unhooked her bra from under her tight black shirt, held it up to Dash for inspection, then tossed it after her jacket. “Were there any other half-human members with stories like that?”

“Wow, you don’t even know about Spock do you. Like, the most famous character in all of science fiction almost he’s like, well he’s half Vulcan, they’re this scientific race that’s kind of emotionless but not really? They’re more emotional than they pretend to be. It’s like, it’s like someone made a really bad joke about a race of Twilight Sparkles before she had any friends really and-” Dash slapped herself, hard. “Stop! I want to make out!”

“We can make out all you want, I’m right here.” Rarity unbuttoned her skirt and unzipped it, let the front hang loose and emphasize she wasn’t wearing underwear beneath it, but no more than that. “All you have to do is stop telling me about Star Trek.”

“I am trying!” Dash pulled her knees up to her chest on the couch and bit down on one of them to stop herself. “This is what being married to you is going to be like, isn’t it?!”

It caught Rarity so off-guard she didn’t even have a chance to figure out how to look sexy while she doubled over gasping from it. “Perhaps.” She admitted.

“Well, I want a divorce.”

Rarity stepped over to the couch, pushed Dash back, tilted her head and gave her a deep kiss that pushed her down, lowered her carefully, onto her back. Her eyes were fogged over and hazy when Rarity pulled back again. “I’m taking half your Star Trek figurines in the settlement.”

“What!” Dash pushed Rarity back off her, eyes suddenly clear again, and kicked her away from the couch. “No way! You don’t even know what any of them are!”

“Well, if you keep telling me about them, then I’ll know how to appreciate them after you divorce me.” Rarity batted her eyelashes. “You wouldn’t want them to go unappreciated, would you? I heard they’re show originals.”

“Why are you being like this!” Rainbow reached behind the couch to find one of the throw pillows she’d lost back there just so she had something to throw at Rarity’s head. “This is so boring to you.”

“You’ve been such a horrid little succubus to me since that night on the roof, talking me into all sorts of things I should have known better than.” Rarity reached under her top and tossed it, too. “I’m enjoying watching you be the one to fail resisting temptation, for once.”

Well, that and passion was the trait that Rarity found most attractive in someone, and watching Dash literally be so consumed by her passion she could not help herself, to the point where not even sex was enough to pry her away from it - well. That, yes. That really did it for her, actually. Quite a bit.

It’d kill her fun to tell Rainbow that, though. She might stop trying to hold herself back, and there had to be tension for there to be struggle… She bit her lip.

“Wait.” Rainbow stared at her. “This isn’t just you teasing me. This is actually turning you on, huh?”

Rarity tried to smile innocently, but forgot to stop biting her lip. Dash breathed in relief.

“One sec, I just got to text the girls something.” Dash wriggled up off the couch and grabbed her phone from her jeans pocket in the process of kicking it off. Cute pink underwear with a little bow on it, Rarity couldn’t wait to pull them off her teeth. “One sec.” The next minute was a flurry of thumb presses and Dash huddling over the screen to prevent Rarity from seeing. Then…

She tossed the phone to Rarity, and Rarity began to read.

Rainbow: its not like id be moving to france or anything its just thru the portal
Fluttershy: But you’d be living as a pegasus? Full time?
Rainbow: only as much as i feel like it besides where else can i go commando in a skirt and nobody complains about it
Applejack: You already do that all the time. Here.
Rainbow: yeah and you complain about it
Rarity: We did not need to know the carpet matches the drapes
Pinkie: THEY DO???
Rarity: Yes. They do.
Rainbow: ha ha yeah

Rarity bumped the screen with a finger and it made a letter. She startled at it, then realized. “Hold on, this is right now?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, I mean… You’re okay with that, right?”

Rarity tapped a message and sent it.

Rainbow: She shaves it into a little lightning bolt.
Applejack: Woah was that her? Hiya, other Rares
Rarity: I saw capital letters, it must be
Pinkie: THERE SHE IS! THE DASH STEALER! GET HER BACK GIRLS!!!
Applejack: Nah
Rarity: She is literally me, but stronger.
Applejack: Don’t want her that bad anyway
Fluttershy: You’re really sure about this?

Rarity looked up at Dash. “You told them, right now, you’re moving to Equestria to be with me.”

“Yeah, wanted to get it out of the way.” Dash looked at the screen. “I didn’t mention we proposed, though, since I think we both want to pretend that’s a joke.”

What an interesting way to put it. Certainly, if the pony Fluttershy found out about it, Rarity would have her head chewed off for it, in Fluttershy’s own quiet way of doing it.

Rainbow: Absolutely not.
Fluttershy: Oh. Good.
Applejack: See that Rares? Still got some of your marbles ten years from now.
Rarity: It’s a good sign I’ve clearly still lost some of them, it’ll make it easier to still be with you after all that time.
Applejack: That is the meanest romantic thing you’ve said. Well done.
Twilight: I didn’t mess anything up?

Rainbow yoinked the phone from Rarity’s hands for that one.

Rainbow: nah you did great helped a lot
Twilight: I’m glad I didn’t interrupt too much
Rainbow: you did it just kind of worked out
Twlight: oh
Pinkie: YOU DID WHAT?!
Twilight: I’ll explain when I get home
Applejack: I’m just gunna ask, is it really a little lightning bolt?
Twilight: I didn’t see that
Twilight: Rarity waxes though
Rarity: What no I don’t
Rarity: Wait
Rarity: Good lord.
Applejack: Yours is fine how it is don’t worry about it.
Pinkie: Twilight how’d you know Rainbow’s not getting any hair in her teeth
Twilight: I am! Five minutes away!

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you didn’t need a reason to leave this entire plane of reality, here it is for you.”

Rainbow stared at Twilight’s messages on her phone. “Why did she have to say that?”

“I think she’s asking herself the same thing, for what it’s worth.”

Rainbow poked her shoulder, and Rarity looked up from the phone screen. “Hey, why is it waxed? Like, it’s not like you have a chance to do it before passing through, and I mean… pony body doesn’t… you know?”

Rarity shrugged. “I suppose the same way it knows what outfit I’d like to be wearing, even if I step through bereft. I will admit, I probably just like it this way because I don’t have to do anything for it. If I had to feel it stepping through, it would be a very different story.”

Dash mimed a walk with her fingers, made a ripping sound and giggled. She took her phone, powered it off, and put it on the glass table by the couch.

“So.” Rarity said.

“So.” Rainbow agreed.

The mood was gone, or too different to be recognized. Though Rainbow was down to just her pink underwear, Rarity down to a pencil skirt which they both knew had nothing underneath it, but still they were just sitting on the couch together not knowing what to say.

They both felt like nervous teenagers.

“Things just got really real now, huh?” Rainbow sat straight backed, eyes forward, hands on her knees. Braced for impact.

“They did.” Rarity agreed, pulling Dash back into her side and hugging her with one arm, worrying at the tight knot of muscles between her shoulderblades with a thumb. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“What?” Dash blinked. “At first I was just saying whatever it took to keep being with you, now that I got it I’m like, shit. I dunno. I just know I want you, I guess, I don’t know what getting it means.”

Rarity thought about that. “Well. Let’s talk about it again, then.” Rainbow groaned, and Rarity squeezed her tighter. “Not the problems. This time just talk about what you want. What’s the perfect idea of being with me like, in your head”

Dash thought about it. “I want a practice room at yours, so I can just work through the day and let you do your thing. Maybe share lunch or just bother each other when work gets slow and we get bored. Some nights I spend in Equestria, others back seeing the girls. Just, if I’m not touring, I always want to sleep in the same bed with you. I sleep way better when I’m cuddling.”

“That’s it?” Rarity tried to push Dash on for more details, but Dash just smiled.

“Yeah, that’s really it.” She said. “I can’t think of anything else, can you?”

Well, there’d have to be… No, Rarity couldn’t. She thought about it, but the more she thought about it the more she thought. “Company for breakfast would be nice. Not even eating together, but starting the day alone has always… It would make it easier to get out of bed, I think, even though you’d be there to draw me back to it.”

“That’s all you’d add?” Dash asked.

“All I can think of.” Rarity said. “Just that would be nice, though.” Something else tugged at her memory, something unresolved. “Why did me liking you talk about the Star Trek thing have that much of an effect on you?” Rarity asked. “Out of everything, why was that what decided it?”

“From the start you keep talking about how you’re looking for something more than you can get with me.” Dash said. “But then I act like the me I have to hide from everyone else, and you want that too. And I thought I’m not just a spot filler for you, I’m everything you didn’t know you wanted. And maybe you still don’t know it, but it’s enough for me.”

Dash pushed Rarity down onto her back on the couch, lay on top of her and kissed her, long and sweetly. A gentle kiss in no rush, taking its time. Rarity stretched an arm up to get more comfortable and Rainbow reached out to grab her hand, holding it tight and locking their fingers together. “Liking you has always been the problem.” Rarity tilted her head down to break the kiss to say it. “You bring out the reckless and impulsive in me, and you shouldn’t like it.”

“Yeah, but I do.” Dash pushed herself up again so she could see all of Rarity’s face from over her. “I love you.”

“I-” Rarity couldn’t say it back because she didn’t know if she did. She did like that Dash loved her, though, and she thought everything she’d said sounded like heaven to her. All there was for it was to kiss her hard, instead. She gripped the back of Dash’s head and pulled her down so hard Dash yelped.

And when Dash kissed her back, she had to kiss her back even more.

They both decided, silently, things were better with the skirt on.