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Rainbow Dash kicks her legs up on the truck’s dashboard as the awful, musty smell assaults Applejack’s nose. Applejack has half a mind to cover her nose in front of Rainbow Dash and get laughed at and called a pussy for it. She doesn’t do it, though, and instead has to deal with the fact that her truck will be smelling like weed covered up by Febreze for… well, a while.
They’re supposed to be in their 4th period pre-calculus class listening to Mr. Cranky ramble on about his life story and how much he misses his ex-wife, but they both decided they really needed to “de-stress” and take some time off from school to roll the joint Rainbow Dash had picked up from the ground a few days ago at the gas station they frequent after school. In Applejack’s defense, she isn’t a smoker. Not at all. She prefers her family’s apple cider if she’s being honest. That’s not to say she hasn’t tried it a few times with Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t just pass up the opportunity to hang out with RD, though, just them two, one on one. In her truck. By themselves. Not that she was particularly excited about that.
The random country song playing through the dusty and beat up speakers of her old truck weaves its way all throughout the car. It’s quiet, mostly so as to not alert any possible teachers nearby searching for students skipping in their cars but also Applejack just likes it better that way. It’s nostalgic and calming all at once. Luckily, the smell hasn’t gotten overwhelming just yet which means Applejack doesn’t have to roll her tinted windows down. Rainbow Dash finally lets out a puff after a long inhale from the rolled up joint. It still surprises Applejack how fast Rainbow Dash can roll a joint and light it up and how high of a tolerance she has for it. It also surprises Applejack when she speaks,
“Thanks, AJ. I really needed this.” Rainbow Dash draws out “really” when she says it. Applejack snorts in response. It’s a way of saying, “Why’re you thanking me? You know I’d do this for you no matter what.” And yeah, she would. She has.
It goes back to being quiet for a moment, other than a Tim McGraw song playing in the background, while Rainbow Dash takes another, shorter hit. It’ll probably hit soon and Applejack couldn’t be more ready to babysit a high-off-her-ass Rainbow Dash. Not the first time.
“You wanna hit?” Rainbow Dash coughs out, with a crackly and rough voice. She must’ve choked while Applejack didn’t notice. Her shoes are still resting on the dashboard. She’s holding her hand out, the joint between her finger and thumb with the butt of the joint facing Applejack. Applejack waves away the smoke, covering her nose as if that could save her from the stench.
“Ya know I don’t smoke.” Applejack squints her eyes at Rainbow Dash while turning on the A/C and turning the fans up higher. Rainbow Dash giggles and at this point her eyes are turning red. She rubs her eyes a bit before taking her legs off the dashboard and sitting normally then slumping against the seat. For as long as Applejack has known her, she’s never seen Rainbow sit normally.
“I know, but it’s like…” Rainbow Dash gestures towards… something, “I feel bad not sharin’. I mean, it’s good ass weed, AJ, I’m telling you.” She points at Applejack accusingly with wide, red eyes. “Damn, I feel lucky for finding it. Sorry to the random dude who dropped it, I guess.” She didn’t sound apologetic at all as she twiddled the joint between her fingers as her right leg went right back to the dashboard. She was slurring her words a bit and was starting to make 0 sense, but Applejack knew her well enough to decipher her words and gestures.
Applejack took her question into consideration, though. If she smoked it, she would definitely not be able to go back to class. After all, what’s the point in going if you can’t process any of the information said to you. She still didn’t get how Rainbow could go back to class and handle it without getting extremely overwhelmed. She always blamed her red eyes on not being able to sleep due to her ADHD and insomnia or some other excuse having to do with one of her sports clubs. And, well, it’s mostly believable. So, no one ever pushed for more information.
Applejack wouldn’t even mind if she stayed in this truck, alone with Rainbow Dash, high as fuck and not being able to think straight at all. Besides, with all the stresses of farm work plus studying for end of year school exams, she does need a bit of that weight taken off her shoulders.
Finally, she relents. Rainbow dash perks up at the sigh Applejack lets out and holds out the joint again. Applejack gently plucks the joint from Rainbow Dash’s roughed up fingers, ignoring the way her heart flutters when their fingers brush against each other, and puts the blunt between her finger, middle finger, and thumb. She holds it up to her mouth and places her lips around it, ignoring the quick glances from Rainbow Dash. She takes a slow inhale, trying to limit the amount she takes into her lungs, but ends up taking a bit more than she meant to, anyway. She pulls the joint away quickly, coughing into her arm while Rainbow cackles in the background.
“Oh, geez. I forgot you haven’t smoked a blunt in, like,” She pretends to count on her fingers, skipping a few, “what, 10,000 years?” Rainbow Dash is still laughing while saying this. Applejack rolls her eyes but a smile is playing on her lips.
“Like I said before, I don’t smoke. Ya know that. Last time I smoked was prolly at one of Pinkie’s parties.” Applejack says once she’s done coughing it up. Honestly, she doesn’t even remember Pinkie’s last party. She remembers being invited and going there, though.
“Right. Forgot you’re an alcoholic.”
Applejack raises a brow. “You seriously wanna talk about who has what addiction right now?” Applejack can feel the high kicking in. The slowing of everything in time and the brain fog clouding her brain.
“Hey! You can’t get addicted to weed.” Rainbow Dash laughs out, punching Applejack’s arm. Her lack of control over her strength means that she punches a bit too hard.
“Gosh sarn it. You can really punch a gal, huh?” Applejack hisses in slight pain, letting out a weak laugh. It doesn’t hurt that much, but all her senses feel much heightened when she’s high. The joint even almost gets knocked out of her grasp.
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, AJ. Fuck, I gotta be more careful.” Her voice hitches, and, oh yeah, Applejack almost forgot; Rainbow gets 10x more emotional when she’s zooted. She’s staring at her fist in shock right as Applejack remembers.
Maybe I should’ve stayed sober after all, are one of Applejack’s only conscious thoughts at the moment. She tries her best to smile reassuringly to Rainbow Dash but she’s pretty sure she’s failing due to not being fully conscious of what she’s even doing. Her eyelids are so close to closing and that’s when she remembers another thing; she gets real tired when she’s high.
“Listen sugarcube, I only felt it ‘cause I’m higher than a kite right ‘bout now.” She rests her eyes a bit. She’s so worn out. “Please dun’ cry right now, dunno if I can comfort you…” Applejack trails off, being brutally honest without even realizing. She brings a leg up under her chin and rests her head on her knee while her eyes slowly shut close. She doesn’t even notice Rainbow Dash starting to sniffle a bit and her glancing back and forth between Applejack and her lap.
“Want it?” Applejack rasps out after a while of silence. Her throat was becoming dry and hoarse at this point, definitely because of the smoke she had just inhaled. She’s holding the blunt out in Rainbow Dash’s direction but very weakly. Like she could barely grip it properly. It was barely even tilted towards Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash doesn’t respond.
“… Rainbow?” Applejack is barely conscious enough to be fully worried now. She stops herself from waving a hand in front of Rainbow Dash’s face.
All she gets in response are quiet sniffles and suddenly she sees tears falling onto Rainbow Dash’s lap.
“RD…?”
“Fuck… sorry.” Rainbow Dash is rubbing furiously at her face, trying to stop the tears.
Applejack lets out a deep breath. If she was a bit more sober, maybe she’d think before she did anything to try and comfort Rainbow Dash. But unfortunately, she’s not, thanks to the girl that occupies her mind more than she wants to admit. So, because of that, she immediately grabs the back of Rainbow Dash’s head, pulls her entire head face down to her shoulder, and starts gently patting her multicolored and faded hair. Naturally she does this to comfort Rainbow Dash. Naturally.
Rainbow Dash stops crying for a moment and Applejack is too high to realize it’s out of shock. They stay like that for a moment before Rainbow Dash lets out a barely audible,
“What… is this?”
“I’m tryna comfort you. Or sumthin’.”
“You’re slurring on your words so bad right now.”
Applejack glares down at Rainbow Dash’s head, even if she can’t see her face. “Y’know what, if you can still kid around with me maybe ya don’t need this. Plus, yer actin’ like yer so much better.”
“Oh, haha.” Applejack could feel Rainbow Dash’s smile against her shoulder, and so what if that made her heart skip a beat? Goddess, she sounds so touch-starved right now. “But, um… seriously. Thanks. For this. You always make time for me, even when I have the craziest, most bat-shit ideas. I don’t even know what I’m saying right now.” Now Rainbow Dash is laughing against her shoulder, with her own shoulders going up and down as she giggles. Applejack feels like she’s going to throw up.
Applejack gulps and she can only hope that Rainbow Dash didn’t hear it, with her being so close to her and all. “You know I’d do anythin’ for ya, darlin’. ‘S why I’m always skippin’ with ya.” Applejack has her eyes shut and starts unconsciously playing with strands of Rainbow Dash’s hair. The only thing she feels is Rainbow Dash going stiff against her shoulder.
“Darling…?”
Applejack freezes. She calls each and every one of her friends pet names, sure, but she’s never really used darling on any of them. Especially not Rainbow Dash. It just slipped out.
“Oh. Sorry,” she lets out a nervous chuckle, “should I not have called you that?”
“No, no! Kinda liked it.” Rainbow Dash whispers the last part, and, honestly, if Applejack wasn’t this close to her, she didn’t think she’d hear it. Unfortunately, now she feels like she’s going to pass out because she heard it. She half wishes she didn’t.
By this point, the joint had burned out. The high was still there, of course, it would be staying there for a while, but she wishes they could stay like this for a while as well. The only reason they’re in this position is because of the weed, if she’s being honest. The two of them have so much pent up feelings and other shit, they definitely wouldn’t have done this sober.
She knows for sure that they’ll have so much to talk about once they’re sober, but for now, she’s fine living in this serene moment; high as fuck but so at ease.