Chapter Text
Rainbow’s in no state for visitors. She’s been leaving her apartment in the same drawstring hoodie for the past week, pulling the hood up over her head and so low on her face that she ends up operating on halved vision.
When she doesn’t leave her apartment— and this is becoming the more likely scenario as of late— she relies on Skip to deliver her dinner. Dash only experiences the light of day for the five seconds it takes to open the door, pick up the greasy takeout bag, and slither back inside.
She watches the messages stack up on her phone screen. From her parents, from Fluttershy, from that app that tracks her workouts…from Applejack. And, realistically, she can assuage everyone’s worries with a quick copy-paste text. She can play the whole unwashed hoodie she’s been wearing for a week thing off as a bout of laziness. Give everyone the opportunity to shake their head in fond exasperation. Oh Dash, you never change, they’ll say, and Dash will laugh along and no one needs to think or worry or wonder about anything.
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and Rainbow’s just shambling out of bed. Her bedsheets and pillow cases lie in a crumpled heap atop a pre-existing pile-up of dirty laundry in the corner of her room. The air is stale, and her mattress is lumpy, and fuck, Rainbow’s in no state for visitors.
Does that stop Applejack from making use of the key Rainbow gave her? Obviously not.
“Dash?” Her voice rings out from the living room. Rainbow’s sleep bleary brain kicks into overdrive immediately.
Since when was she coming over?! A frenzied check of her phone answers that question. 1 hour ago from Applesauce : Thats it I’m coming over. I swear to god if your dead in there im killing you.
Because being a smartass is Rainbow’s full-time job, her first thought is that AJ used the wrong you’re. Her second thought is that she’s got all of 10 seconds before her girlfriend comes barging into her room and sees her in this state. NOT HAPPENING.
Making a mad dash(low-hanging fruit, I know) around her trashfire of a room, Dash shimmies out of her ratty pyjama pants and drawstring hoodie. Her clothing selection is in shambles(refer to the laundry pile in paragraph 4) so she settles for the t-shirt she got from volunteering at Flutters’ animal shelter and some mesh shorts.
She pulls up her phone’s selfie cam, and, upon seeing her hair, immediately gives up.
It’s a mess. Pure, unadulterated mess. Colours outgrown with muddied brown, falling around her face like a splotchy Party City wig. Ranging from dried out to greasy from strand to strand.
How did she let it get to this?
The door flies open. “For goodness sake, girl, didn’t y’all hear me callin’ you?!”
Rainbow’s shoulders jump. She whips around on instinct and regrets it the moment Applejack’s zero in on her face. The anger dies just like that. Her eyebrows hike up, jaw slackening.
They both stare for longer than polite. Some stupid part of Dash is expecting AJ to break up with her right then and there.
And that anticipation spurs Rainbow on. “Go on, get it out your system,” she crosses her arms across her chest, averting her eyes, forcing those walls up brick by brick.
“Dash…” Applejack presses her lips together. Dash can see her cycling through dialogue options like a video game character. “Why didn’t ya call, sugar?”
“I just…didn’t.” That’s weak sauce, Rainbow, and you know it.
Applejack knows it too, if her answering frown is anything to go by. But she doesn’t press her on it. Instead, she breaches the doorway and walks all the way into Dash’s room, taking stock of the damage like natural disaster relief specialist.
Rainbow watches her. “It’s not— I was gonna get started on washing today,” she shifts her weight from foot to foot. “You just came at a crap time,”
Her girlfriend eyes the radioactive mound of what was once clothes. Then, she turns a very long look on Rainbow. “S’at a fact,” she deadpans so hard that it’s not even a question. Dash starts doing mental math on how much of her pride she can salvage.
She sets her jaw. “I can deal with my own stuff, Applejack,”
“This is you dealin’, Dash?” Applejack gestures to, well, everywhere. “Tell me ya don’t really think that’ll fly with me,”
“That’s not the point, alright? I know it’s not— it’s not great, ok, I get it! I don’t need you coming in here and telling me how fucked everything is, AJ, I know!” Rainbow feels her voice climbing in volume, feels her grip slipping on the reins.
Her face is hot with shame and frustration and whatever other sticky uncomfortable feeling you can think of. How much worse can it get, really? She lost control the moment Applejack saw her like this.
Something in Applejack’s expression softens. “Hey now, slow down, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ like that—”
“You think I look like total shit, right? Don’t try and be nice about it!” Anger’s easier than the squishier, stickier feelings, so Dash clings to it like a life line.
Applejack draws closer. “Quit tryin’ to pick a fight with me, Dash.”
Well, what else am I supposed to do! Dash turns her head aside so she doesn’t have to look her girlfriend face-to-face. “You should’ve…you should’ve called, or something. So I could’ve…” put on a hat? Fled the country? Been a half decent girlfriend? “…gotten ready,”
AJ reaches out to hold her face. Her palm cusps against Rainbow’s cheekbone, thumb brushing her lower eyelid. Even a year into them dating, touches as tender as this one are a rarity. Rainbow leans into it before she can stop herself.
“I didn’t come to watch you pretend to be okay, Rainbow.”
Her tone’s more than familiar. Exasperation tempered by a fondness that runs too deep. And Rainbow smiles, because she can’t be all that big of a fuck-up if she’s managed to get a girl like Applejack to love her anyway. “Alright. Alright. I know.”
Maybe her hair isn’t the most pressing issue compared to the complete trainwreck that is the rest of her apartment(Goddess knows those Gatorade bottles beneath her desk are releasing spores) but touching up her roots is what Rainbow decides to tackle first.
Applejack’s gentle when she wants to be. She combs out the knots, working through Dash's hair like a seasoned professional. All the while, Dash wills herself to keep still.
She bats away the thoughts that pop up like whackamoles in her brain— the ones that remind her that she’s the one who let it get this bad, the one who let herself rot in air-conditioned hell for half a month— and redirects her focus to AJ’s humming.
It’s a song she only halfway recognizes. The kind that’s perfect for road-trips across the country when the radio plays shit that’s amazing in the moment and absolutely nowhere else. Hearing Applejack hum gets Rainbow thinking of her guitar, packed away in the linen closet. It’s been untouched for weeks, now.
The humming stops. Applejack runs a hand through Rainbow’s hair to undo any stragglers. “Do ya have it here?”
Rainbow startles back to life. “Wha?”
“The hair dye, sugar. D’ya have it here?”
“Uh…probably?” Rainbow turns back to face her girlfriend, brows drawn together. “You wanna dye it?” Her incredulity comes through clear as day in her voice.
Applejack shrugs, smiling. ”Can’t be all that hard,” she sounds so smug when she says it. Rainbow realizes with muted horror that her overconfidence is contagious.
And, this is a bad idea on paper. Letting her girlfriend’s who’s decidedly inexperienced with chemicals get all up in her very lengthy and confusing hair dye process is just asking for trouble. But Rainbow’s not stupid, and she knows why AJ’s offering.
“Fine, whatever, it’s probably in the bathroom.” Rainbow says. She crosses her arms, defensive and embarrassed and a little smitten all over again.
The chair’s set directly in front of the bathroom mirror. A plastic mixing bowl(courtesy of the Dollar Store down the block) is filled with goop, and a gloppy brush is primed and ready to go.
Rainbow’s stomach is more fluttery now than it was when she got her back tattoo.
Applejack stands behind her like some kind of very hot, very unqualified hairdresser. She tugs on the pair of plastic gloves they found beneath the sink, jaw set and eyes narrowed in determination.
She dips the brush into the bowl. Swirls it around to make sure the dye covers all the bristles. Rainbow watches her through the mirror’s reflection. She’s all-too-aware of her own breathing. “Last chance to back out, Apples,”
“No chance in hell, doll,” Applejack combs her fingers through Rainbow’s hair, sectioning it apart with one hand. Every brush of her glove against Dash’s neck is electric, and she feels a little pathetic because how the crap is rubber turning her on? “We startin’ with the back bits, alright?”
Heat rises to Rainbow’s face as though someone’s cranking up the burner on her metaphorical stove. She recognizes the fluttering in her stomach for what it is; excitement. A laugh escapes her, sudden and bright and how long has it been since she felt this warm?
“Yeah, okay,” she’s smiling so big that it hurts. “Lay it on me.”