• Published 15th Mar 2013
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Twisting Between the Sheets - HoofBitingActionOverload



When Rarity’s friends discover that she has been secretly meeting with an escort, they begin investigating, and soon discover a web of lies and unrequited romances none of them ever could have expected.

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Part Two

Rarity smiled and watched Applejack. It was nice to be able to simply sit and watch her without having to pretend to be looking at something else when Applejack noticed. She was beautiful. It wasn’t something Rarity had noticed right away. She was pretty, certainly, in a rustic sort of way. But it had taken Rarity a long time to notice just how effortlessly stunning her friend was. Applejack didn’t have to hide behind makeup or hair products. All she had to do was tie her mane up into a ponytail and smile.

“Whatcha’ thinkin’ about?” Applejack asked, shaking off the cold and hopping onto the sofa with a bounce. Rarity’s many supplies and fabrics had been cleared from the room, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of being lost somewhere barren and unfamiliar.

“Do you know that you’re gorgeous?” Rarity sighed. “I don’t understand how or why, but you are perfect.”

Applejack smiled. “Ah think you’re beautiful too.” She slid off the couch, walked to Rarity, and leaned forward.

Rarity sighed again. Applejack kept leaning forward, her breath shallow. Rarity watched her come, trying to understand how she felt. At the last moment, she turned her head away.

“I made you something,” she said, quickly trotting past and away from Applejack.

Applejack stood still for a brief second before turning around, unfazed. “Awesome!”

Rarity floated the ribbon topped box from its place behind the counter and over to the other mare. “It’s not my best work, but I hope that it will keep you warm, at the very least.”

“Ah’m sure it’ll be great.” Applejack looked queerly down at the box in front of her hooves for a long moment, scratching at something underneath her hat. “Oh, right!” she said, bending down and grabbing the ribbon in her teeth, pulling at it so hard she nearly slung the entire box into the air. She lifted up the lid and gasped with far more theatrics than the gift was due. “It’s perfect!”

Rarity allowed herself a small smile. “I’m glad you like it.” Correction: there was nothing she enjoyed as much as giving a gift to one of her friends. Absolutely nothing.

“I love it so much when you make things for me.” Applejack stopped twisting the scarf around her neck and looked up at Rarity. “I’ve been practicing knitting and sewing, like, a ton. Soon I’ll be able to give you something too.”

Rarity’s smile fell. “But Applejack, you don’t enjoy sewing, remember?”

“Oh… right,” Applejack said, scarf slipping down her neck. Suddenly, she smiled like a cat who’s just spotted a mouse. “But Ah reckon there’s something Ah can give ya’.”

And then Applejack struck, rough lips mashed against Rarity’s own. Rarity almost gave in; she almost wanted to, until she noticed Applejack’s half lidded, sickly, golden yellow eyes. She gagged, choking on her own tongue. It was always the eyes that spoiled it.

“Is something wrong?” Applejack—but only when Rarity closed her eyes—asked, pulling back and frowning worriedly.

Rarity spun her hooves in tight circles round and round each other. “I think I might be a bad pony,” she said, so quietly she doubted Applejack even heard.

“What? No way!” Applejack cried, her eyes swelling with surprise. “Why would you even say that?”

Rarity waved one of her spinning hooves in the air to illustrate the obvious.

Applejack squinted at her. “No way,” she repeated, sounding hurt. “We’re friends, right? How could anypony say you’re bad just for hanging out with your friend? Besides, you’re, like, the nicest pony I’ve ever met. And I really do think you’re beautiful too,” Applejack finished with a glare Rarity could only describe as comical.

Rarity shrugged. Nice. “You shouldn’t say ‘like’ so often, it’s an entirely meaningless and superfluous word.” Twilight had told her that once.

Applejack stayed silent for some time. Rarity didn’t mind. She felt so nice, lying to all of her friends. That was something nice ponies did.

“Why did the skeleton go to the movie theatre alone?”

Rarity looked at her, confused. “What?”

“Why did the skeleton go to the movie theatre alone?” Applejack asked again, rolling her eyes. “Come on, it’s easy!”

Rarity paused. “I… I don’t have any idea.”

Applejack’s face split open in a magnificent smile. “Because he had nobody to go with him!”

At first, Rarity didn’t respond. Then she tried and miserably failed to keep her mouth set in a frown. Small giggles overtook her, and she soon laughed outright. She fell forward, laughing loud and obnoxious in a display any of the Canterlot elite would have labeled crude. Her chest hurt and she probably looked ridiculous, and she didn’t care.

“That was awful,” Rarity finally managed when she could catch a breath.

Applejack wrapped her forelegs around Rarity’s neck in a loose embrace. She smiled, their snouts touching. “You still laughed though.”

For a moment, Rarity saw green instead of yellow. She closed her eyes, resting her forehead on Applejack’s, pleasant and warm.

Knocking at the door broke her attention.

“Rarity!”

She saw yellow. Their heads turned away and to the door in unison. Sounds of a struggle and muffled voices Rarity couldn’t quite place came from beyond the door, then knocking again. This time it was pounding, like the pony on the other side was throwing their full weight against the wood.

“Rarity!” a familiar voice yelled. “Open this door right now.”

Rarity looked to Applejack, terror and confusion swirling together in a horrible soup in her stomach. Rarity pushed her away. “Hide,” she hissed.

Applejack nodded and darted out of the room. Rarity did her best to compose herself and slowly walked into the front room and up to door, thinking, please no, please no.

More pounding. “Rarity, I know you’re in there!”

Rarity slowly cracked the door open just wide enough to see who was on the other side. No, no, no.

Applejack shoved the door open with both of her legs and stomped inside. “What the hay is goin’ on in here?”

“Whatever do you mean?” she heard herself say. Her other friends sat on the ground outside the door, all in varying states of out-of-breath.

“Applejack, stop,” Twilight said. Rarity could only guess at the meaning.

Applejack whirled around to face Rarity, eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t lie to me. Where is she?”

Rarity considered dying right where she stood. “I—I don’t know what—”

“Tell me you didn’t hire some whore to dress up like me,” Applejack snarled, leaning so close Rarity could have kissed her, but that would have been inappropriate. “To make me into your sick little plaything so you could do Tartarus only knows what to me.”

Rarity stared down at the floor. It felt like one part of her was somewhere far away from the rest, somewhere she had more important things to consider than the furious Applejack standing in front of her and the lurking Applejack hiding in the other room. She’d had the same rug laid out on the floor since she moved in. Right then, she decided it was time to buy a new carpet.

Applejack, apparently, interpreted her stare differently. “Disgusting!” she cried, reeling back and then advancing again just as quickly. “Rarity, why? Of all ponies, how could you do something so—so ugly?”

Rarity shrugged. Applejack was right. It really was a very ugly carpet. What had she been thinking?

Applejack paced back and forth in front of her, the very definition of seething. Rarity swore she could hear her growl.

“You’re ugly!” Sugar Sweet yelled, appearing in the backroom doorway, still proudly shining orange. Rarity made up her mind. She would die right there and then on that appalling carpet. “What kind of friend would say something like that? You’re just a jerk.”

Applejack’s legs shook. “You shut up.”

Rarity noticed that her legs were shaking too, so she sat down.

The yellow-eyed Applejack standing in the doorway smirked. “No wonder she likes me more. I wouldn’t wanna be around you either.”

“Who the hay do you think you are?” Applejack asked, twitching her tail up and down. “Don’t ever compare me to you.”

Rarity looked between them. Which one did she want to hide from? She couldn’t remember anymore.

The other-Applejack’s smirk fell. “What makes you so much better than me? What makes ponies like you so different from ponies like me?”

“No,” Applejack said, throwing a leg through the air. “I don’t tear parents apart. I don’t wreck families. I’m not a whore.”

“I am not a whore!” The other-Applejack stamped her hoof on the ground. “I’m an escort.”

Applejack laughed. She actually laughed. Rarity had never heard a more hideous sound. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but tumbled down into fits of laughter instead.

She turned, still laughing, and walked away. Her tail bobbed over Rarity’s head, by the other-Applejack, out the door, swishing past her friends, down the street, and into the dark. Rarity could still hear the laugh long after she could no longer see its source.

Rarity stared at the floor. She had read recently that knotted carpets were currently in style. Some shade of red would complement the walls nicely. Crimson, perhaps.

“Hey, Rarity?” She felt a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “It’s okay, you know. I don’t think you’re disgusting at all.”

Rarity looked up to thank her friend. But when she opened her eyes it wasn’t her friend at all. Her friends were all still sitting in the doorway, staring wide-eyed at her, murmuring among themselves. Rarity didn’t think they’d moved an inch since she’d last seen them. Instead, she saw yellow eyes. Looking at them, Rarity saw everything that had just happened, heard everything that had been said.

“Um, I think, like, this might be my fault. I went and talked to Applejack before—”

“You did what?”

Sugar Sweet dropped her head. “I’m sorry, I just—”

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked, knocking the hoof away and standing up. “You are disgusting. This is your fault. You’ve ruined everything!”

“What?” Sugar Sweet’s face twisted together, her mouth open. “That’s not fair! You called me.”

Rarity smelled the sweet scent of vindication. “Exactly. You’re a pariah spreading your sickness to everypony you touch. You bent my neck around until I couldn’t see straight anymore. You’re just a worm sniveling in the dirt.”

“Oh yeah?” Sugar Sweet took a long, shaky breath, her eyes glistening with falling moisture. “At least I’m not so sad that I have to pay somepony else to like me—”

“Shut up!” Rarity screamed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. I hate you. You’ve destroyed everything I loved, and I hate you. You pathetic and stupid worm. I’ve never seen anything uglier in all my life. A filthy pig has more grace than you.”

Sugar Sweet opened her mouth, her chest heaving. Then her knees buckled and she slumped, crumbling down onto the floor like a small, old roof beneath too much snow. She closed her eyes.

Rarity looked down at her and almost cried. Everything had gone wrong, and suddenly she didn’t have any Applejacks left. She turned to the door, saying, “No, no, no, no, no….” Brusquely, she trotted out the door.

“Where are you going?” Rainbow Dash asked as she passed by, but Rarity’s only answer was to quicken her pace to a gallop.

Rainbow Dash turned to follow her, but Twilight grabbed her tail to hold her back. For a long while Rarity’s three friends stood where they were in the cold air, listening to Sugar Sweet sob on the floor. Finally, Pinkie Pie put on a smile, nodded to Twilight and Rainbow Dash, and walked up to the crying pony.

“Hey,” she said, placing a hoof on Sugar Sweet’s shivering withers. “Berry Punch made a super huge order of donuts today, but Mrs. Cake wrote down the wrong number and made it an even super-er huger-er-er order. So we had a bunch of extra donuts today and Mrs. Cake said I could have them, but I haven’t yet because I wanted to share them with somepony. So,” Pinkie’s smile widened, “wanna go to Sugarcube Corner with me and eat some donuts?”

Sugar Sweet shook her head.

“Aww…” Pinkie scrunched her nose up and then smiled again. “But they’re really tasty, with sprinkles and icing and chocolate filling. And you can have as many as you want, and I bet you’ll love them!”

Sugar Sweet sniffed. “Okay,” she said, quietly standing up.

“Super!” Pinkie bounced in a circle around her and then lead Sugar Sweet out the door, nodding to Twilight and Rainbow Dash again as she went. Sugar Sweet kept her head down.

Twilight watched them go for a moment before closing the door, standing lost on the doorstep. “What do we do now?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Eat some donuts, I guess.”

Twilight shrugged too, walking beside the pegasus, following Pinkie from a safe distance.

Pinkie bounced Sugar Sweet on the flank and giggled, her voice echoing off the quiet walls of dark houses. “Hey, why did the skeleton go to the movie theater alone?”

________________________________________________

Applejack had nothing to do, so she walked to the mantel. The hearth beneath it cast orange, red, and yellow shadows over the ceiling and walls, the only light in the room. She kept walking until the heat singed her legs and chest. She had swept and washed the floors, wiped the counters, reorganized the pantry and cupboards, dusted behind the furniture, washed the window panes, and even cleaned the brim of her hat.

She had nothing left to do, so she turned around and walked back past the sofa, the same sofa that had been sitting in the Apple living room as long as she could remember, since she’d been a filly. Her earliest foalhood memories were of sitting in Granny’s lap on the chair, listening to the then not-quite-as-old mare’s stories. She tried sitting down, but immediately stood back up.

She walked to the shelf on the opposite side. The fire’s light faded to little more than a glow on that side of the room, and she could only just barely feel its heat on the tip of her tail. She could still make out the pictures cluttered on its boards. In one, she, Big Mac, Granny, and Apple Bloom smiling at the beginning of cider season, in another was the last family reunion, another of Granny still barely more than a filly, and finally one of Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy at the Grand Galloping Gala. And Rarity.

She turned and walked past the sofa, back to the warmth of the fire. She needed to do something, so she turned back around and walked past the sofa again to the shelf. And then back to the fire again. She continued, in and out and into the cold, until she spotted her brother watching her through the doorway.

“Is Apple Bloom asleep?” she asked, stopping halfway between the couch and the shelf.

Big Mac nodded. “Eeyup.”

“You know she skipped her chores to go ruin one of Fluttershy’s chicken coops? Fluttershy told me on my way back.”

“Eeyup.”

“Make sure she goes over to apologize first thing in the mornin’.”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack walked the rest of the way to the shelf, and turned to the door. “She’s still out there, isn’t she?”

Big Mac glanced over his shoulder. “Eeyup.”

“Well,” Applejack said, walking past the couch, “let her stay out there.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Big Mac swallowed. “Because…?”

Applejack’s tail flicked at the air. “Exactly.”

Big Mac took a step towards the front door.

Applejack stopped. “Where’re you going?”

Big Mac passed her a calm stare. “What’d she do?”

“I don’t wanna know. She’s been lookin’ at me, and thinkin’—ugh.” Applejack shuddered.

Big Mac took another step towards the door.

“Don’t let her in here!”

Big Mac whirled full around. “I’m not leavin’ some poor filly to cry alone on our doorstep.”

He began walking to the door again, and Applejack groaned. “Fine,” she said, stomping past him and into the narrow hallway. “Just let me take care of it.”

He nodded to her as she pushed the front door open. Rarity sat on her haunches on the ground, whimpering and shivering like a stray dog. Applejack almost grabbed the pathetic looking unicorn and pulled her inside out of the cold on impulse, but quickly bit the instinct back. Rarity looked up.

“Rarity, please go home before you freeze to death.” Applejack closed the door.

When she turned around, Big Mac was waiting for her. He scowled at her, disapproval obvious on his face. Applejack groaned again. “Fine, okay. I’ll take care of it.”

She opened the door again. Rarity still sat in the same spot. “You’re not gonna leave until you’ve said your piece, are you?” Applejack asked.

Rarity shook her head, keeping her bleary, red-rimmed eyes trained on the ground.

Applejack sighed. “Well, come on then.”

Rarity made a squeaking sound and began lifting herself up onto shaking legs. Almost immediately, she fell back down into the dust again. Applejack saw a single tear slip down her cheek.

Applejack wanted to knock her own head into the wall. Whatever else the unicorn was, she was a hurting pony, and she was her friend. And Applejack had ignored her. She grabbed Rarity in her hooves and pulled her up, allowing her to lean, stumbling, against her as they walked into the house. She felt like ice against Applejack’s coat.

“Go get some hot cider,” Applejack told her brother as she walked by him, ignoring his glare. Though Applejack knew she probably deserved it. He nodded and walked the other way.

Applejack slowly lead Rarity into the living room, being careful to make sure she didn’t fall, and rested her in front of the fire. Rarity mumbled a thank you. Applejack took a step back to examine her.

Rarity looked as bad as Applejack had ever seen her. Worse even than when she’d arrived in Ponyville riding on a handcar with Pinkie Pie, half-delirious and covered in sweat and dust. It wasn’t so much her looks this time though. Besides the sniveling and shaking, her mane was still meticulously groomed and her coat still nearly untouched by dirt. It was something else that Applejack couldn’t quite put her hoof on. She looked empty, washed out.

Big Mac arrived in the doorway carrying a blanket and a cup of cider on his back. He helped Applejack wrap the blanket around Rarity and set the cup on the floor in front of her before promptly walking away. Rarity, only her head popping out over the blanket, picked the cup up in her magic and took a dainty sip.

“Feelin’ any better?” Applejack asked, standing away from her.

Rarity nodded, the shaking having desisted, and took another sip of her cider in the warm flush of the fire. Her white coat shined, hoarding its light and leaving the rest of the room in cold darkness.

“Need anything else? Some shampoo or somethin’?”

Rarity shook her head.

“Well, out with it then,” Applejack said, much more harshly than she had intended. “Say what you came here to say.”

Rarity shifted about beneath the blanket. “I’m sorry.” She said it so quietly Applejack probably could have pretended she hadn’t heard.

Applejack paced to the shelf and back. “Do you think sayin’ sorry will fix everything?”

“No.” Rarity sniffed. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

Applejack held in a groan and turned around. “You could start by explainin’ what the hay was goin’ on back there.”

“Alright,” Rarity said with a nod and took a long, slow drink of her cider before setting the empty mug on the floor in front of her, glinting in the firelight. “I really like you, Applejack.” She sighed. “I don’t know when it started. Maybe it was when we put on the Hearth’s Warming Eve play in Canterlot and I realized how beautiful you really are. You let your mane down, just for a moment while changing your costume. You look simply magnificent when you let your mane down. I always knew you were pretty, but you were wearing the silliest outfit.” Rarity chuckled.

“It didn’t matter though,” she continued, looking to Applejack. “You were gorgeous anyway. It doesn’t matter what you wear or where you are, you’re always beautiful. It’s incredible, really. And then as soon as I realized, I simply couldn’t help myself. The more I thought, the more I liked you, and I couldn’t stop thinking. You’re always so nice to me, and so, so kind. Every little favor and smile you gave me seemed special somehow. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.” She passed Applejack a wan smile over the folds of her blanket.

Applejack turned her head away, closely probing the brim of her hat. “And what does any of that have to do with what you were doin’ back there?”

“I’m not stupid.” Applejack didn’t look to see, but she could hear Rarity’s smile fall. “Whatever anypony else says, I’m not. I know you don’t have any feelings for me. How could you? How could you ever love somepony like me? I’m nothing you could want in a mare. Even if you pretend I don't, I know that I annoy you sometimes. A lot of times.”

Applejack chewed the inside of her cheek so hard it hurt.

“And it isn’t fair,” Rarity hissed. “I’m beautiful. I know I am. Ever since I was a filly, I’ve waited to find my special somepony, dreaming about him. But I’ve spent so many nights alone just—just wishing I had somepony, anypony to be with me. Of anypony, I need—I deserve this. You’re so caring, and thoughtful, and strong. You’re everything I ever dreamed a lover could be.”

Rarity sniffled. “But I know I don’t live in a fairy tale. So I thought, maybe just for a little while, it would be okay if I pretended that you liked me too, and we were happy together. I wasn’t hurting anypony.”

Applejack stood with her back turned away, listening to the crackling fire. She turned around, fighting back a scowl. “How long have you been seeing her?”

“…It’s been quite a while now.” Rarity looked at the floor.

“Did you sleep with her?”

Rarity wiggled a little, collapsing the sides of the blanket. “Well, we did have… flourishes, on occasion.”

Applejack groaned and rubbed her sore cheek. She shook her head, as if she could simply refuse and cast off everything she had seen and heard that night. “Rarity,” she finally said, “I don’t know what to say to you. What you’ve done is just gross.” She did her best to soften her features. “But I care about you. You’re a part of my family, and I guess I just thought you were better than this.”

Rarity sniffed again.

“I’m sorry if I led you on somehow,” Applejack continued. “I don’t think about that kind of stuff often, and I’m sure I could have without realizing. That doesn’t give you any right to use me like that though.”

“I know,” Rarity replied, nodding. “I’m sorry.”

Applejack grunted and readjusted her hat. “You don’t have to keep apologizin’, sugarcube. What’s done is done, and there’s nothin’ anypony can do about it now. It’s best that we’ve gotten this out in the open. Nothing good comes from keeping secrets all trapped up and souring in our chests.”

Rarity looked up, her eyes catching orange light from the dying fire. “So, you accept my apology then?”

Applejack sighed. “I… I don’t know. I just need some time to think about all this.”

“Oh, okay. I should go,” Rarity said quickly. She twisted her legs around, untangling herself from the blanket, nearly falling over. She stood up and trotted out of the room.

Applejack followed her, stopping by the front door. “Rarity, one more thing.”

“Yes?” Rarity asked, doing an impressive job of looking like everything was okay.

“Please promise me you won’t go see that mare again, for your own sake.”

Rarity opened the door and paused in the chill. “I promise,” she muttered.

“Good,” Applejack said with a smile. “Just go home and rest, eat some fancy food, wash your hair. This’ll work out. Soon enough, we’ll both be lookin’ back on this and laughing.”

Rarity nodded brusquely and walked out into the empty yard, the only thing that moved on Sweet Apple Acres besides the swaying trees.

“Rarity,” Applejack called out when the unicorn reached the path leading out of the farm.

“What?” Rarity asked, not doing nearly as good a job of looking like everything was okay.

“I do think you’re beautiful.”

In spite of the cold, Rarity smiled.