It was good to relax. It was good to take the night off, get together with friends and have a slumber party. Applejack’s barn was commandeered for this event, and a throne of hay was erected to exalt their host at Pinkie’s insistence. From there, Applejack presided over her court of six. To her left, Rarity came complete with a lacy, see-through nightie that would give Spike a stroke in both of his little hearts. She also brought her fainting couch because of course she did.
Further around the clock, past a sizeable gap around 4:30, Pinkie moved to sit opposite of Applejack in Gummi-themed footie pajamas. Twilight had neither special clothes or seat, feeling slightly underdressed. 10:30, Rainbow lounged on a cloud in her robes and Tank slippers.
“So, Twi’, where’s Starlight?” Rainbow asked.
Twilight tilted her head. “Well, Sunburst came down from the Crystal Empire, so she and Trixie are with him in the castle studying.”
Rainbow mulled that one for all of a split second before leering. “Oh, I bet they’re just studying.”
They were, actually, although Trixie’s thoughts had been along the same lines as Rainbow, she hadn’t counted on being with two big nerds.
Twilight was about to ask what that meant when Pinkie spoke up, “Guys, guys! We still got a few moments before Fluttershy gets back.”
Rarity looked at her, her eyes narrowing. “The outfit I made for her isn’t much more complex than the one I made for you, Pinkie Pie. What could be taking her so long?”
“Oh, she put on the wrong bunny outfit.”
“The wrong bun- oh no.”
“Oh yeah! So I got to see Fluttershy strut around in a bunny suit for a few moments.” Pinkie pulled her hair straight, covering one eye and pitching her voice to a stutter. “Um, are you sure these are the pajamas Rarity made for me? It’s awfully tight-” Pinkieshy turned around and shook her flank. “-especially here in the back.”
Rarity was mortified. Applejack was dumbfounded. Twilight desperately pushed her wings down. Rainbow Dash convulsed. “Ohmygosh ohmygosh aaaaa-” She raised her head up from the laughter, tears in her eyes. “And you got to see all that, Pinkie?”
“Yep! Especially the way it rode right up her behind,” Pinkie said.
“Nnnnnnice.”
“Alrighty, so, before she gets back, let’s have a lewd conversation about Fluttershy! C’mon, conversation prompts!”
Rarity pressed her hooves into her face. “Yes, exactly, this is precisely the conversation we need to have right now.”
“Ah, don’t be a prude, Rarity!” Pinkie chided. “We all wanna talk about Fluttershy’s patootie except we don’t wanna embarrass her, so right now is the perfect time! Rainbow, you in?”
Rainbow took a look at the strong shade of red Applejack was and grinned at Pinkie. “Heck yeah, I am!”
Applejack’s hooves slammed down on her throne’s forerests. Being made of hay, this wasn’t very dramatic. “Nope! I’m callin’ a moratorium on this topic right now!”
“Ah, c’mon, ‘Jack, don’t be a prude!”
Applejack jabbed a hoof her way. “Nope! My barn, my rules! There’s be no ‘patootie’ talk in this here barn. Right, Pinkie?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Yeah alright.”
“Dang it, Pi-” Applejack paused, stared ahead for a moment, closed her eyes for another and then sighed. “Really?”
“Yep! Your barn, your rules!”
Applejack lowered her head. “Oh.”
Pinkie stared with coy, half-lidded eyes. “Did you wanna keep talking about Fluttershy’s heiny?”
“I just thought you’d keep carrying on like nothin’.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged with a grin. “Alright, if we’re feeding Applejack’s secret Flutterlust-”
“Rainbow, I will bury you in the west orchard, with the rest of the bodies.”
“-then lemme talk about my fantasy plan of bringing Fluttershy to a Wonderbolt show and- pause for effect -putting her in a cheerleader outfit.”
“Are we absolutely sure you tellin’ us you only like the colts is to cover up yer secret Flutterlust?”
“There is nothing secret about my Flutterlust, everypony has a Flutterlust. Have you seen Fluttershy? I mean, dang, her and Braeburn are like that, ya know?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t know that about my cousin.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re not supposed to stick your quill in the family ink pot.”
“Oh my gosh what.”
Rarity looked bashfully towards Rainbow Dash. “Champ, that’s not exactly how that phrase works.”
“West orchard, Rainbow Dash, I swear to destiny, I will,” Applejack said with narrowed eyes.
“Whatever.” Rainbow waved them both off. “Okay, so, I get Fluttershy up in the air at halftime and- and give Braeburn some wings, Twilight could do that. And so they’re up there in cheerleader outfits then Spectacle comes on, like the remix, yeah, and then booty shaking.”
Pinkie snorted, looking between Rainbow Dash and Twilight’s blank mortified blushing. Rarity shook her head with bemusement. “Really, it pains me I’m not shocked by this anymore.” And Applejack was shaking and growling, forelegs posed such if she had hands they’d be clawed.
“Booty booty booty.”
“What booty?” Fluttershy asked.
Heads spun around towards the barn door as a pretty pony pegasus in a white bunny onesie stepped on in. All of her friends stared directly at her and she sighed as exasperation and realization struck her. “Girls, are you talking about my butt again?”
“Wha!? Nah, ‘Shy, nah!” “Of course not!” “No, darling, dearest!” “Eeyup.” “Noper- oh, okay, Applejack. Then yep yep yep!”
“Dangit, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash yelped.
“What? She ain’t stupid, Rainbow.”
Pinkie jabbed a hoof to her left. “Twilight did it!” She snorted, covering her mouth as Twilight glared at her. “Sorry, no, yeah, it was me, I started the tushy talk. But what a tushy too.”
Fluttershy took her seat in the empty spot. Sitting that talked about tush on the ground, she kicked her front legs some, resigned in defeat. “It’s okay if you talk about my butt.”
Twilight put her hoof down. “No-”
“If you really want to.”
“No. We can literally talk about anything else.”
Rarity huffed on top her couch, flipping her mane. “If we must talk about something embarrassing, I volunteer myself.” She made a dramatic gesture of it, offering herself as tribute.
Rainbow Dash snorted, giving Rarity a dubious look. “Wha? You just want us to talk about your tush now, huh?” She jabbed her hoof accusingly. “That won’t embarrass you, you’ll love it!”
Rarity harrumphed, a step above mere huffing, turning her nose up at such a base accusation. She most certainly was not fishing for compliments.
“Although, it’s a nice tush.” Pinkie leaned to one side to try to get a better look.
Applejack nodded sagely. “Eeyup.”
Twilight raised a hoof. “Very well maintained.”
“She puts a lot of work into it,” Fluttershy told her.
Rainbow Dash pressed her forehead, closing her eyes. “Ya know what? No. Let’s talk about the weird nicknames you gave us all.”
“I don’t know, champ, it seems everypony but you is interested in my figure.”
Pinkie leered with an exaggerated lecherous grin. “Mostly just that marshmallow tush.”
Rarity seemed to take for the compliment it was, preening and giving her back end a little wiggle. “Indeed.” She deflates a little out of respect. “But, if you’d rather not, champ.” She smacks her lips as if tasting the word. “I don’t think ‘champ’ is quite working for casual use. Pinkie, honeybuns, would you mind if I borrow ‘Dashie’ from you?”
Pinkie curled and giggled into her hooves. “Go for it, marshmallow!” She waved a dismissive hood. “I mean, it’s not really my pet name for her anyway.”
“But I like champ,” Rainbow Dash said, frowning.
“Aw, dat’s adorable!” Applejack gives Rainbow a half-lidded look of mockery.
Rarity smirks at her. “Why, yes it is, sugarcube,” She says, fluttering her eyelashes. In response, the farm pony cringes and blushes. She chuckled and Rarity giggles in satisfaction before turning to Rainbow again. “Then champ it is, Dashie-champ.”
Rainbow Dash snorted at Applejack’s come-uppance before pressing the question. “So, what’s up with the cutesy nicknames anyway?”
Rarity reclines on her back, spread out and drawing a whole lot of red-faced attention from most every other pony down her form. Only Rainbow Dash looked determinedly bored at her face as she waves her hoof. “There’s not much to say. I’m rather fond of you all and invented, as you say, cutesy nicknames for you all. A little bit more than dear or darling. What else is there to say?”
“I dunno. It’s not like the- hold on.” Something actually occurred to Rainbow and she peers across the circle the other way. “Pinkie, what do you mean your pet name for me?”
Everypony else was trying to paint Rarity like a Prench filly with their eyes but Pinkie was quite willing to let whimsy draw her away. She looked to Rainbow and happily explained. “For me, you’re ‘cupcake’.
That sounded extremely wrong, though Dash couldn’t quite put her hoof on- “Why?”
“Well, ever since that Nightmare Night where I nearly got lynched, I just kept calling you cupcake in my head.”
Applejack jerked out strange fantasies involving steam carriages on a boat to actually remember that one and had a chuckle.
“And A.J. is apple pie.”
And then Applejack chokes.
It’s Rainbow Dash’s turn to laugh at Applejack’s expense. “What, like you’re married or something?”
“Like we’re family!” Applejack quickly puts a moratorium on even that sort of pseudo-incest.
“And maybe a little bit married.” Pinkie is quick to raise it back up.
Rarity rolls back onto her stomach, letting Twilight and Fluttershy actually flash back to reality. Rarity gives Pinkie a playful pout. “I take that mine is ‘marshmallow’?”
“Yepyep!”
“I can live with that.”
“And Twilight is twiggle-wiggle.”
“Really?” Twilight grimaced as somepony else just twisted her name so.
As if a reminder, Rarity put it. “Don’t you like it, my adorable twinkle sprinkle?”
“More like ‘adorkable’!” Pinkie said.
“Pinkie, that’s mean!” Rarity covered her hoof as she giggled. “Even if it’s true!”
Pinkie then reminded the last pony she hadn’t forgotten about her. “And Fluttershy is just ‘beautiful’!”
Fluttershy flinched, more like a subdue jump and squeaked.
“And sometimes ‘buttershy’. Or ‘flutterbutt’. Or ‘butterbutt’!”
Fluttershy opened her mouth to scream but had no voice. Applejack took notice and decided a fresh moratorium was needed.
“Pinkie.”
Pinkie was done then, with Fluttershy specifically, but she kept nattering on as she rolled on her back. “So, not all the time though. Only when I, like, like-like you guys.”
That brought a fresh round of contemplating silence until Twilight spoke up, hoof on her chin. “Oh yeah, that’s is a thing, isn’t it?” She said, remembering the bar discussion a time ago.
Applejack tilted her head. “I don’t think I ever hear ya call us that.”
“Well, of course, I have restraint.” Pinkie rolled her eyes, though it looked weird from her upside down position.
Dash scrunched up her nose. “Well, that just sounds wrong.”
Rarity sat up. “That’s right, honeybun, that doesn't sound like you!”
“Though we appreciate the thought, right girls?” Fluttershy smiled, appreciating anything with ‘restraint’ in regard to her.
“That’s sure as the seasons-” Whatever that means. “-but I don’t think any of us would really mind,” Applejack said.
“I agree.” Twilight nodded sagely. “We're all very close already, and I think most of us should be okay with displays of affection. “
Dash grimaced with wide eyes. “I’m not!”
Rarity motioned as if to pat Dash’s shoulder from across the circle. “And that’s quite alright, champ, you don’t have to be.”
Pinkie rolled onto her stomach with eyes twinkling with far more energy than good sense. “You mean I can call you cute pet names whenever I want?”
“Shuck, suga’.” Applejack pumped a hoof. “You can be as open with your crushin’ on me whenever it’s got you.”
“Indeed!” Rarity made an even more dramatic motion, waving a hoof. “Feel free to lavish me with your feelings, honeybun darling!”
Twilight sedately offered her own hoof. “Just as long as you don’t do anything we wouldn’t like of course.”
Applejack nodded. “Yeah, just leave the pegasi alone, I guess.”
“N-no!” Fluttershy shook her head, trying her best to uncurl from herself while tensing all the more. “I want to join in too. Pinkie Pie can show me her affection too!”
“Aww, you guys!” Pinkie Pie put her hooves over her heart. “You’re the best friends a filly could have!”
“Ah, what?” Dash looked at all the lubby-dubby happening around her. “Even Fluttershy? Well, no, I’m still stayin’ out of this mushy stuff.”
Pinkie leaned across Twilight. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, I know you don’t like this kind of stuff. That’s why I never told you I sometimes pretend our prank play dates are just regular dates!”
“Wait, what?”
Pinkie snapped back to her position. “Eeehee! This is going to be so much fun, guys!” She clapped her hooves, eyes alight with ideas.