//------------------------------// // ♥ // Story: Cerulean // by Cherax //------------------------------// meet in the night like this is wrong She feels a sudden tug - another hoof wrapping itself around hers and yanking her firmly, though not painfully, through the swing doors and into the kitchen. There's barely even time for her to yelp in surprise. She spins with the sudden movement, the world blurring momentarily before her eyes, until it sharply resolves into the image of a blue mare that she knows all too well, with a vivid rainbow mane and a huge dumb grin on her face. "You know how long I've been trying to catch you alone?" she asks, then darts forward before a response can come, coming at her fast like an uncoiling spring and cutting off any verbalisations with a deep, desperate kiss. The song changes in the next room. Dash breaks away at last, beaming even brighter now. She points a hoof at the double doors just off to their side. "Some party, by the way. I mean, as usual, of course…" The thought trails off. Pinkie's looking down at her hooves absently. She's smiling - but this is far from a Pinkie Pie smile. It's faint and flickering and it doesn't suit her at all. Dash's own dampens. "Pinkie…? Are you alright?" "I'm--" A pause. "I'm not, Dashie." She still won't return Rainbow's gaze, turning instead towards the doorway, and the party concealed behind it. "I'm tired of this." Rainbow freezes, her eyes widening, locking in place. She tries to quell the shot of panic running rampant through her body. "Wh… You mean… of us?" It's Pinkie's turn to look worried, jerking her head around and meeting Rainbow's look with one almost as fearful. "Of course not! Dash, you know I love you - you know that's not gonna change any time soon, right?" She sighs, waves a hoof in a vague gesture. "I'm tired of all the sneaking around, the secrecy. What are we doing here, Dashie? Why the heck are we kissing behind closed doors, or in the alley, or the stairwell, like it's some kind of crime to be seen together?" Rainbow takes a step backwards towards the countertop, her expression easing a little. "I didn't think-- I mean, you didn't seem to mind…" "Well, I do mind! And I've been minding an awful lot lately. I don't know how it is for you, Dashie - I don't know what it's like in your world… But whenever I'm with anypony else, with Twilight or AJ or Spike or Mrs Cake, and somepony says your name and I start thinking about you, and then I think about you and me, and then I can't stop thinking about you and me and I get this goofy smile on my face and it just grows and grows and I start feeling giddy all over and then Twilight or AJ or Spike or Mrs Cake asks me, Pinkie, what are you thinking about? - what am I supposed to say then?" Her eyes sparkle softly, a dagger into Rainbow's heart. "Because I want to tell them the truth…! I want to let them know how happy you make me; happier than anything else in my life. I want them to understand that I am the way I am because of you, Dashie, but-- but you're just making all this hard for me, and I'm--" She cuts herself off with a quiet sniffle, and looks away again, stares intently at a stove on the other side of the room, pausing to breathe in deeply before continuing. "And I know and I'm sorry you're ashamed of me, Dashie, but--" "Pinkie--" she starts, feeling the dagger turn. "No, but that's it, isn't it? That's what you say. 'They won't understand, Pinkie! They'll look at us all different, act different around us! It's better off this way for the both of us!' And I nod my head and say okay and pretend that it is - that I am - if it means we spend another day together. But I know what you really mean. 'They'll look at me all different! Rainbow Dash, in love with that silly baker girl with a bun for a brain - I'll never live it down!' Oh, the awful things they'll say--" Dash surges forward, throwing her hooves around the teary-eyed mare before her, clutching her tightly to herself. It's like the pink mare bursts at the touch, tears streaming forth from her eyes and down Rainbow's neck and shoulder, while the party music swells a world away. "That's not it, Pinkie, that's not it. Never, never ever. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing, you hear me? There isn't a single thing about you…" In a whisper: "I love you too, you know." Pinkie's breaths are shallow and inconsistent, and she trembles in Dash's embrace. "Then-- why? Why are you doing this to me? To us?" Dash exhales deeply, gently letting her marefriend go and taking a small step back, so that they come face to pain-stricken face. She points a hoof at the swing doors once again. "It's not because of them. I need you to know that. I couldn't give two bucks what they think about me - about us. That's their own damn problem, not ours. No, it's…" She brings a hoof up to her face and rubs her eyes. "It's just me. I'm being selfish, I know, but-- well, I-- I just want you to be mine. Only mine." Pinkie's eyes take on a quizzical look, but she holds her tongue, and Dash continues. "When it's like this, I know that whenever we're together, we're alone - we're really alone. I have you all to myself, and… I'm all yours. There's nothing else, nopony else to think about. We're in this, this little bubble, this perfect place with just us in it that no-one can ever get to. And Celestia, it's amazing - or, I thought it was. I was enjoying myself so much, I guess I just assumed you were too. I wasn't really looking at all, was I…" She winces as she says the words, hit by a faint memory - framed against the front door by late night lamplight, a farewell kiss as she departed into the dark, but just a flash of something across that face, something she couldn't place at the time. How many frowns had she not seen? How many had she seen, and had let herself forget? "I should've realised, and I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, and I just don't ever want to see you like this again, and I…" She fumbles for the perfect assembly of words, a sentence commensurate to her emotions, but those damned things never come to her when she needs them most. "Oh, Dashie... Any time you want me, I'm yours, yours alone, but-- oh, but you're just too beautiful to keep all to myself!" She pulls herself into Rainbow's embrace again, sniffing back the last of her tears. Their manes brush softly against each others' necks, lightly tickling. Rainbow ditches the idea of speaking her mind; she gives her marefriend a tentative kiss, an apology in shorthand, and when Pinkie kisses her back, it feels like nothing could ever go wrong again. "So… we tell them?" Pinkie nods resolutely. "We tell them." "And… how exactly do we tell them?" She shoots Pinkie an anxious glance. "Oh, don't worry about that," Twilight's voice answers. The pair spin around in an instant, eyes alighting on the faces of their four best friends peeking over the top of the kitchen doors, each of them grinning ear to ear. "I'm sure we'll figure it out sooner or later."