Rarity stared at the ceiling.
It wasn't a bad thing. She'd run through the mental checklist a few times: Coco was a little younger, certainly, but not much. There was no power imbalance from shared work. Perhaps there were reputational concerns, hitching to another's wagon? But none of those reasons were what kept her up.
She rolled over and stared at the pack of cigarettes in the bedside drawer. Coco didn't smoke. Rarity retrieved it and peered in; two were left, one flipped. A lucky. She shook one out as she walked to the balcony, passing the sheer drapes blowing in the breeze. Mother always said bad things come in threes, and she could use one less surprise. The lighter took a few clicks.
Looking out at the skyline, images flickered in her imagination. Suri passing the new pack to Coco. Her lips wandering over the cigarettes, choosing one, deftly flipping it around and replacing it. Was it a ritual or a mockery of one? Was Coco smiling or sad? Rarity looked at the aquamarine lipstick on the far end of the last cigarette. Floating the pack to the balcony, she upended it and watched the lucky fall and land in a puddle below.
"Love?" Coco's voice drifted from inside. The name was new, but Rarity didn't hate it. She couldn't hate being loved.
"Yes, darling?"
"Will you come back to bed?"
Framed in the moonlight, smoking her cigarettes, did she look like Suri? She turned and walked back in, following her hoofsteps. She slipped under the covers and Coco kissed her. The designer didn't seem to mind the taste of ash on her tongue — she seemed to hunger for it.
Rarity pulled back, trying to recover, but Coco followed, doggedly maintaining the kiss. Both of Rarity's hooves found purchase on the other mare's chest and finally pushed them apart. The mare before her was near-unrecognizable: a messy mane, half-lidded eyes, her mouth still hanging open, barely able to tell that the kiss had stopped.
Gradually, confusion bloomed in those eyes. "Rarity?.." Coco said, and the way her name lingered on that tongue made Rarity wonder if the tone was curiosity or distant recognition. Had Coco only been kissing a ghost of Suri, one that was fleeing her now?
She had to ask. Do you know the taste of the mouth from which all your worst rejections came? The mare that treads heavy in your nightmares, does she haunt only your body of work, or the body beneath, as well? "Coco..." she whispered, like the moonlight laid across the bedsheet was a pane of glass. "Were you and Suri..."
"... What?" Her eyes flicked from sleepy to hunted, her ears folded back. She pressed a hoof against Rarity's chest, suddenly frantic, and the fear animating her frame was all Rarity needed. "You're not— not some kind of rebound, or something! I swear, you're so much better than her, I—"
"Coco, stop..."
"—you're so much better than me, I don't deserve to even know you, let alone—"
"Stop it!" Rarity hissed, and a poisoned satisfaction wrapped around her throat when Coco cut herself off. "Stop it. Stop saying that sort of thing, stop... Stop doing this to yourself."
"... To myself?" Coco echoed, eyes haunted.
"Yes!" Rarity shouted, pushing herself up on her forelegs as Coco shrank back into the sheets. "It's like you can't stand to be on equal hoofing with another pony! You're... You're treating me like I'm her!"
That was the mangled truth growing inside Rarity like a tree, poking at odd angles with root and branch until it was too big to get out without tearing her apart. She saw its fruit in the tears gathering at the corner of Coco's eyes moments before they narrowed in indignation.
"So I did it to myself, then?" Coco asked with a scowl, raising herself up to stand on her little bed that barely fit them. "I'm just some... curse that turns mares into abusers?! You think it's my fault that Suri was how she was?!"
Rarity gaped in horror. "N— No! Of course not. She hurt you, Coco! She... twisted you up into a shape that suited her, and—"
Coco's laugh interrupted her. It sounded like what they'd built: a wreckage of joy whose edges were just dulled enough so they could nestle inside without cutting themselves. "So I'm broken now? Because of what she did to me?"
"No! You're hurt, and you need time to heal... You need to learn that you aren't worthless. You're worth so much, and I want to teach you that, if you'd just let me..." She placed a hoof on Coco's.
"No... You're right, Rarity." She slumped down, back arched and head hung, eyes fixed on the skyline behind Rarity. "You're too kind to actually say it, but you're right. I'm... I miss her." She stomped her hoof on the mattress. "I wish I never met her, but I miss her! She was right, I'm no good without her. She was right. She was right, she was—"
Rarity kissed her. It was desperate, rife with a desire to communicate that which can't be said and erase that which had been. The kiss didn't break, it only fell apart. "She wasn't."
Coco looked down, her bangs falling over her eyes. "Maybe you are like her. Maybe that's what I need. Someone to tell me what's right for me."
Rarity felt like somepony had reached down her throat and turned her stomach inside-out. She had only wanted to help. The hardwood floor was cold under her hooves as she stepped down from the bed, and Coco didn't stir as she walked through the living area to her front door. She pulled it open and stepped out, looking back just once.
Coco stood there, framed by the door jamb. She looked like a foal, even in the gauzy negligee she wore, and her aquamarine mane seemed to glow in the moonlight.
"Please don't leave."
Rarity left.
Author's Note
my feelings for coco: if i had a lame ass girlfriend i would hype her so much i would make her wait out side so i could go in first and be like get ready here comes the most specialest girl ever if you dont cheer and clap for her ill blow this whole building up
my writing for coco: this, for some reason
