You’re looking down solemnly into your mug of cider when you’re smacked in the back, jolting you out of your funk. You glance over quickly and smile as you take in the grinning visage of your drinking buddy, Rainbow Dash.

“There you are,” you chuckle, “I was wondering when you’d show up!”

“Looks like you started without me,” she teased, letting out a fake huff from her nostrils. “That’s pretty rude, dude.” Signaling with a hoof, she waved down the bartender. “One Canterlot Wagon Bomb, please!”

“Make that two, on my tab,” you tack on.

Rainbow Dash slugs you in the shoulder. “You bonehead! How am I going to catch up with you if you order a drink every time I do?”

“Easy, you’re a small little mare! You can’t handle as much as I can.”

Rainbow Dash’s glare narrows and she grits her teeth. “Is that a challenge?” she asks, steely frustration coating her voice.

“Ah, crap,” you lament quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re right,” she responds forcefully as the bartender slides your drinks over. Rainbow Dash snatches hers in a practiced motion. “Because I’m going to mop the floor with you!” As if punctuating her declaration, she lifts the mug and begins chugging her beer cocktail down.

“No,” you sigh. “I shouldn’t have said that because now you’re going to drink yourself to death.”

Rainbow Dash slams her mug down and glares at you again, except this time there’s a smile on her face. “What an absolutely awesome way to die! Now shut up and drink, you wuss.”

You roll your eyes and lift your own mug, sucking it about halfway down before lowering it again. “Ahhh.”

Glancing back over at Rainbow Dash, you notice her tail swishing side to side behind her barstool. “Not gonna lie, I’ve been looking forward to drinking with you all week,” she admits with a pleased little smirk.

“Oh? I thought you hated me?” you tease. “Must have been a tough week with your team.”

“Spitfire has been riding our flanks particularly hard for the last month,” Rainbow Dash groaned, collapsing on the bar facedown. “And the wacky weather team schedule at home just made things a million times worse this week.”

Finishing your drink, you raise a hoof in the air to signal your bartender. “Another round, please.”

“On me this time!” Rainbow Dash tacks on, turning her head sideways from her position on the bar to smile at you.

You smile broadly back at her, the familiar warm tingle of alcohol beginning to rise softly in your chest.

The Kicking Chicken was a relatively quiet, dusty, and campy bar on the outskirts of Ponyville, butting up right against the local creek. It wasn’t well advertised from the outside, and the inside wasn’t a showstopper either. A half-functioning dartboard, a pool table with missing balls, stools with torn tops, and a counter with the tendency to stick patrons with splinters were the only real attractions...

Except that the drinks were phenomenal, the service was good, and the price was unmatched. As such, the Kicking Chicken had a dedicated local clientele, and when they began to move in for the night around your and Rainbow Dash’s third round, you two retreated across the dingy room to converse under the low, colored light of a vintage shade.

“And that’s when I pushed the cloud into his fat fayssh!” Rainbow Dash declared, cackling wildly.

You laugh along with her, but she keeps guffawing on long after you’ve recovered your composure. You spy the bright red blush on her cheeks and decide to speak up. “Hey, Dash.”

Her ears perk up and she is able to stop laughing after a few more chuckles. “Wasshup?”

“If I can make a suggestion, how about you stop drinking for the night?”

She gasps incredulously. “Hhhow...how dare you?” she slurs. “You’re shtill drinking that little...little whatever,” she retorts, motioning wildly with a hoof and knocking over your apple brandy.

You shoot her an exasperated look.

“Ooooooh,” she exhales in astonishment. “Your little face is so mad right now!” She gets up and stumbles over to your side of the booth, sliding in to where her cutie mark touches yours. Reaching up, she squeezes your cheeks. “Woah, I can make it even madder!” she exclaims, following up her observation with a set of giggles and a gentle hiccup.

You exhale sharply, letting out a little snort through your muzzle. “You know you get really touchy when you’re drunk, right?”

“Touchy?” she asks, clambering clumsily on top of you and sitting down on your lap. Your legs twitch inadvertently as her tail swishes back and forth between them. “Ya mean like this?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Or like this?” she cackles, wrapping a hoof around your neck and rubbing her face against yours. The smell of alcohol on her breath is unmistakable.

“C-c’mon, Dash,” you say, surreptitiously resting your front leg against her midsection and fluffy wings as you fumble with a hoof to clean up Rainbow Dash’s mess.

“You’re so ridiculous,” she rambles, another hiccup sound following soon after. “You’re, like, the wackiest. C’mon, let’s get another drink and go, like, suuuuuper crazy,” she says, wiggling her body against yours to emphasize your point.

You weren’t going to have another drink. Drunkenness was a vice that you had seen claim some extended family; you were all done for the night. Rainbow Dash was done too, if she wanted to live to see a vomit-free morning.

“No, Dash,” you scold. “No more. You’re done.”

“I’m not done, I want another cider…” she pouts, resting her head on your chest.

Without thinking, you wrap your other foreleg around Rainbow Dash, holding her tightly against you. Her sleek, warm body nestles comfortably against your coat, and your hoof glides effortlessly across her wind-treated, slightly floofy fur. “It’s okay to be done, Dash. You drank a lot- maybe even more than me! I just want to make sure you get home a-”

You stop mid-sentence as a hot, damp sensation overtakes the side of your neck, lasting several seconds before ending just below your muzzle and leaving a ghostly cooling sensation in its wake.

Narrowing your eyes, you look down at Rainbow Dash in disbelief. “Rainbow Dash, did you just...lick me?”

“It was totally weird,” Rainbow Dash mused, appearing to stare through you as her hoof rested against your chest. “You didn’t taste like anything!”

Some snickering echoed across the room from the counter, and Rainbow Dash snapped her neck around to glare at the handful of working-class stallions observing your booth with great interest.

“Hey!” She spat, using one hoof to point accusingly while the other wrapped around your neck to stabilize her, “whosh laughin’ at me!?”

You feel her hoof slip, and before you can reach out to salvage the situation, Rainbow Dash falls backwards out of the booth and smacks her head on the floor.

The stallions at the bar immediately light up in uproarious laughter, and you promptly scurry over to check on her.

“Are you alright?” you ask gently, sitting on your haunches on the sticky floor next to her.

Sitting up slowly, Rainbow Dash rubs her head. “Owww,” she whines, tears beginning to well up in her magenta eyes.

“Come on,” you groan, placing a hoof under her flank and helping her up. “Let’s get you home.”

“Carry meeeee,” she whines, wrapping her forelegs around your neck again.

Rolling your eyes, you lower your body and let Rainbow Dash clamber on, where she promptly cuddles close against you and hums softly.

As you put a hoof on the door to leave, a burly-looking patron sitting close to the exit whistles suggestively at the scenario.

“Oh, blow off,” you spit back with a scowl, feeling a little protective as you walk out into the chilly evening air with Rainbow Dash wrapped around you.

You feel her squeeze your neck tightly in a hug as the door closes behind you. Slowly, you begin making your way back into the center of town.

You still have no idea how Rainbow Dash had talked her way into your home. She claimed she was too drunk to fly, which was probably true, but refused any assistance in reaching her home. Then she claimed she was cold as she passed by yours, and…

...And now apparently the couch wasn’t good enough for her.

“Pleeeease?” Rainbow Dash begged as she continuously knocked on your bedroom door.

Irritated, you throw the pillow you had been holding against your face across the room. “No, Dash, just go to sleep!”

“Come on,” she begs, beginning to sniffle. “I don’t want to be alone!”

You’re about to say some very rude things back, but something tugs at your chest, preventing you from doing so. Sighing, you get up and open the door.

Rainbow Dash is seated outside, and her eyes light up like a little filly on Hearth’s Warming when she sees you. Leaping up, she wraps her hooves around your neck. “D-does this mean I can sleep with you?”

“If it will make you sleep easier,” you relent, wrapping a single hoof under her flanks to help support her as you carry her to your bed. “But absolutely no funny business!”

As soon as you hit the sheets, Rainbow Dash scurries to lie on top of you, resting her muzzle under your own. As if it was a practiced movement, she lets one of her legs nestle in-between your own before reaching out a hoof to run up and down your side, from under your forearm down to your cutie mark.

You had to admit, it was a nice feeling to have Rainbow Dash’s weight resting on top of you and pressing your body into your mattress- and the feeling of her soft, rich coat against your barrel and tummy did not make it any easier to stay awake.

Rainbow Dash hums happily. “You’re a good friend…” she mumbles, before placing a kiss on your neck and closing her eyes.

Despite still worrying about her condition, Rainbow Dash’s words force you to crack a smile. “So are you, Dash.”

The rays of the late-morning sun are not the first things to wake you- instead, a strange groaning noise is.

By the time you’re awake enough to recognize shapes and colors, a flushing sound accompanies the reappearance of a haggard-looking Rainbow Dash into your room. Mane sticking up at a dozen strange angles, she stumbles haphazardly away from the bathroom, collapsing on the bed beside you. “I had to pee,” she apologizes, letting out a painful groan as she shuffles back under the covers to rest against you.

You respond with a yawn and wrap a hoof around her; she follows this by nuzzling and wiggling her way back into the position she used to sleep on you. “Peeing is better than the alternative.”

Rainbow Dash lets out a heavy breath and closes her eyes again.

“You know,” you posit, “we can cuddle whenever you want without alcohol being involved.”

Several seconds of silence follows. “What?” she finally replis.

“It’s just that whenever we go out drinking, you have too much and end up getting really touchy. Not to mention, last night you practically fought your way into my bedroom.”

“Why would I want to cuddle?” she huffs. “Cuddling is lame.”

“You know we’re cuddling now, right?’

Rainbow Dash shifts uncomfortably. Sighing, she wiggles on top of you and raises her head to meet your gaze. “Alright, I...kind of like touching you. It just- it feels nice, okay!?”

“I’m not judging you,” you say.

“I was afraid you would, though,” Rainbow Dash said timidly, resting her head on your barrel again and rubbing her cheek up and down against you with gusto. “Not to mention what anypony who saw would do, so...I just wanted to cover it up.”

“Get drunk and pass it off as the alcohol. Clever...But not very good for your health and general well-being.”

Rainbow Dash burps into you and lets out a series of labored breaths. “I know…”

“Well, why don’t we just cuddle here next week?”

“What if somepony sees me show up, though?”

You exhale in frustration and bite the inside of your mouth. “Okay, then why don’t we go to the bar like usual next week, but you limit yourself to two drinks, pretend to get drunk, and then we come back and snuggle close? Then you can touch me as much as you like.”

Rainbow Dash raises a hoof weakly in a feeble celebration. “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

You bump her hoof, and she lets it fall limply over your shoulder and lie next to your head.

“First, I need to sleep off this hangover,” she whines. “Everything hurts!”

Prodding her gently with a hoof, you roll Rainbow Dash off of you and onto her side. “I know just the thing.” With careful precision, you maneuver your hips to rest against her flanks, letting her tail pass between your legs.

Rainbow Dash’s movements complement your own as you complete the spoon, and soon you’re left holding her toned, soft body against you. Surreptitiously, you steal a sniff of her mane as you wait for the space between you to warm up to a comfortable temperature.

Rainbow Dash moans with pleasure. “Now this I could get used to,” she sighs, pressing herself tightly against you.”

You rub her cutie mark in circles with a hoof as you nuzzle her neck. “And get used to it you will, my little lush.”

Author's Notes:

Round, round with the glass, boys, as fast as you can,
Since he who don't drink cannot be a true man.
For if truth is in wine, then 'tis all but a whim
To think a man's true when the wine's not in him.
Drink, drink, then, and hold it a maxim divine
That there's virtue in truth, and there's truth in good wine!

-Benjamin Cooke, c. 1770s