//------------------------------//
// Don't Say A Word 
// Story: Larger Than Life 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"What are you doing here?"
"Rainbow asked me to meet her here," Trixie explained. "We're supposed to hang out at her place this afternoon."
"Why?" Scootaloo looked at Trixie with a quizzical expression. "Are you helping her study or something?"
"Actually we're girlfriends," Trixie said. "I think."
Scootaloo looked at Trixie without a reaction, as if the statement was too absurd to register with her. "Cool."
Trixie stood there in awkward silence, looking around the skatepark with her guitar strapped to her back. "Do you know where she might be?" she asked after what felt like a minute, and was probably less.
Scootaloo shrugged. "No idea." With that she headed away.
Trixie remained there, looking around. And then Rainbow was at her side. Trixie jumped in surprise, only properly realising she'd seen the multicoloured blur approaching her after she'd already registered the girl's arrival.
Rainbow looked at Trixie's startled expression with momentary worry. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." Trixie dusted herself off, though there was no dust to dust from her dusty blue clothes. "You should just work on making your entrance less sudden. And you're late."
"Sorry." Rainbow did that thing with her hand on her neck that consistently made Trixie's petty anger melt and she hoped Rainbow never realised that. "I was busy with a thing. Free now though, got here as soon as I managed to."
"I noticed." Trixie could not stop the smile crawling onto her lips. "Am I meeting your parents today then?"
"Actually, they're away today," Rainbow said. "We've got the house all for ourselves."
Trixie was surprised. "Lead the way then."
Rainbow burst off in a blur. Then she came back, sheepishly smiling, and began to walk normally. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget to turn it off."
Trixie rolled her eyes as she took on to walking behind her, but it was mostly for show. She couldn't stay mad at that smile. Probably.
The walk to Rainbow's house was uneventful, and uncharacteristically quiet for both of them. Without each to shoot down the other's self aggrandizement there was little left for conversation in that direction, and other topics either had already been discussed, or were niche enough neither had thought of them yet. Neither were empty compliments a worthwhile use of conversation. Trixie knew she could have had Rainbow agreeing she was the greatest and most powerfulest just as much as Rainbow knew she could have Trixie tell her she was awesome, but in a state of supposed relationship both wished for something more than echoed requests, and preferred freely given compliments to remain pleasant surprises rather than formalities.
Neither of the two actually knew that in those terms, but they understood it regardless to some degree, and may have worded it similarly if given time and reason to mull over their condition and a copy of the above paragraph from which to copy its description with slight alterations. It was after all a fact that Rainbow's grades were as great as Trixie's were awesome, that was to say both girls were barely passing some of their classes. But at least cuddles made for a more morally palatable excuse for procrastination, if not one the teachers would give much weight to.
Trixie stood in front of Rainbow's front door, the other intent on admiring her pet tortoise as he munched on dandelion leaves with all the incomparable happiness and beaming unfiltered delight of a tortoise munching on dandelion leaves. It was admittedly a very nice sight, but Trixie would have rather had her eyes filled by the rainbow curtain of Dash's hair while hugging the girl. Not her mouth though. That part was an unfortunate consequence of long hair they had soon discovered, and one that had pushed both of them to carry along hairbands for emergency ponytail making in case of cuddling. Trixie thought she looked awful with a ponytail, but it was a sacrifice worth making to avoid feeding her girlfriend her luscious mane.
There was a joke somewhere in there about her putting some part of her body into Rainbow's mouth. Trixie didn't want to think about that just yet. Aside from her lips and maybe tongue at least. Then again, Rainbow was a terrible kisser.
Luckily for Trixie, so was she, and likewise Rainbow planned to take it slow with regards to tonguing each other's teeth and the like for the time being. Instead she just opened the door, allowing Trixie inside. "Here we are. Make yourself at home."
Trixie did not make herself at home, and treated the place with far more respect and care than she usually did her home, mostly out of not knowing the exact limit to which she may push things without actually leaving lasting damage, unlike her home. This was not weird or unintentional, and instead exactly the expected behaviour when asked to make one's self at home someplace, the implication being to treat the place as well as one's home as much as to act as one would in one's home, something regardless innately nearly impossible and in truth not recommendable and really wrongfully invoked by a purely formalised expression of courtesy.
Rainbow did make herself at home, it actually being her home and stuff. "Want something to drink?" she asked, heading for the fridge.
"Nah." Trixie was busy having a look around. "Maybe later." There were some trophies up on shelves in the living room. Rainbow's it looked like, and looking closer she could see they spanner most of her life. Most of them were on the whole unimportant, little more than decorative prizes for nearly insignificant events held for children still too young to properly display a disposition to sports truly worth pursuing, but it was regardless impressive how consistently well Rainbow had preformed in all of them. Then again, it was expected, Rainbow being Rainbow. Trixie wondered if the trophy for the Battle of the Bands was there somewhere. She didn't actually remember if there had been one. And if there was it would have made more sense for Sunset to have it anyway. "Did you get a trophy for the Battle of the Bands?"
Rainbow came back holding a bottle of lemonade. "Yeah. Sunset has it."
Figures. Trixie set her guitar down and headed for the sofa, more because she wanted to sit down than because of Rainbow doing the same. The weather was warming up and standing around got tiring, and she wanted a drink, actually. Not lemonade. Not that brand of lemonade Rainbow had, she didn't like that. Too fizzy, it burnt in the back of her nose when she tried it and it wasn't even that good in taste.
Rainbow plopped down on the sofa not like she owned it, but like she had a grudge against its owner, and Trixie wasn't sure if the fact that it didn't creak as she fell on it was to be attributed to its sturdy high quality structure or the girl's light weight. "Wanna watch a movie? I've got some of my favourites here."
Trixie wasn't sure she wanted to see the kind of movie Rainbow would consider her favourite, but then she thought about it and came to the easy conclusion that she was actually sure she didn't. Unless it was that one she'd had a part in, maybe. Trixie didn't know the details on that one. But it was probably too recent to be on DVD already. "Sure." What was she supposed to do, be honest? She'd made deception into an unsuccessful career masquerading as a somewhat successful hobby. "Pick whatever you want." Maybe it was because she would hate them all indifferently. Maybe she wanted Rainbow to be happy. Maybe the second thing was due to the first.
Rainbow went to the TV to set up the movie. Trixie had a look around. She'd been doing that for a while, but it took a while to do it all properly, the house was pretty big and so was that specific room. The TV was pretty big too, which meant the couch was somewhat far from it to allow those sitting there to properly see it all, which meant Rainbow took some time to get to and from between the two, especially since she chose to just walk. A matter of seconds, but still a notable amount of time given it was her.
There were pictures of Rainbow's parents on top of the cupboards in the room. A lifetime spent together, from the moment they'd met to sometime before the present. Trixie had taken distant note of them before, and her eyes drifted again to them as Rainbow crashlanded on the couch besides her and the main menu for her chosen movie appeared. They looked young in some of them, less young in others, and finally there were some where they were accompanied by a really young Rainbow. Together through years, through different places, growing older. Always together.
Pieces of something she'd been distantly aware of started falling into place in her head. Something that had been there for a while, like a messy desk staring as she put off sorting its contents for another day. She tried to ignore it. The screen went dark as the opening credits began to roll. She wished to just pretend it wasn't there, and be happy, but it wouldn't let her.
Out of social obligation, Trixie looked towards the TV. Out of genuine want, she let her hand move to her side over the seat until her fingers intertwined with Rainbow's. Out of surprise she spotted the bowl of popcorn in front of them Rainbow had put there while she was distracted, and began to eat from it. But it was still there, nagging at the back of her mind. Caramel popcorn. She'd never had it before but she had heard it was a thing. It was nice, and so was being with Rainbow.
The movie wasn't. Not even with Rainbow's exaggerated reactions to some of its scenes, especially not with her rattling off spoilers ahead of time when given characters showed up. Yet all that was far from the issue. Trixie smiled. Rainbow's voice was nice to listen to even when her words weren't. Trixie thought she needed her head checked for getting enjoyment out of Rainbow's insufferable scratchy croaks.
The movie was over. Some cheesy ending about the hero sacrificing himself to blow up the aliens or whatever. Trixie hadn't paid attention, more focused on staring at Rainbow from the corner of her eye than on looking at the movie, and even more focused on the thought slowly festering in her mind. Now the movie was over, Rainbow was talking, and Trixie was supposed to be paying attention. And she couldn't. The thought kept her, its grip dreadfully cold on her mind. She shook her head. "Can you say that again?"
Rainbow blinked. "I was saying, wanna go out for a walk while it's still bright outside?" She was starting to frown. Trixie had never imagined how much the sight could hurt. "Are you alright?" She looked at least a little worried. That made sense. Rainbow cared for her.
Trixie was not alright. It had taken a while to accept it, but she couldn't deny what was wrong. "Yeah." She cared for Rainbow. She still failed to sound convinced. She kept her eyes drifting around the room. Thinking about it, lying wasn't good there. "No." The truth wasn't good either. It would hurt Rainbow more. And yet she knew it was the least painful alternative, in the long run.
Rainbow kept looking at her, her patience cracking but mostly just confused. "What is it? Was it the popcorn? Are you sick?"
Trixie looked back to the pictures on the cupboards. Then back to Rainbow. "I..." Then down at herself. "I think I need to go."
That afternoon, Scootaloo wondered why she saw Trixie running on her lonesome. The day after, she wondered why she never saw Rainbow outside.