For the longest time, all Rainbow could do was stare at the door before her. She knew full well why she was here and what was expected of her, but even so, it brought her no comfort to think on it. Moment after moment passed, and her breathing remained about as calm and steady as was humanly possible under the circumstances. But, after a good long while, the athlete took in a deep breath, looked at the door in a determined way, then balled her hand into a fist and knocked three times upon it. At first, there was no response, but after a while, the girl could hear footsteps on the other side. Eventually, the door creaked open, and on the other side was the confused face of Flash Sentry.
"Rainbow?"
His half-sister forced a smile.
"Hey, Flash. How...how's it going?"
The boy blinked briefly, but his expression soon softened to a genuinely pleased one.
"It's great that you're here, but...I wasn't really expecting you."
Rainbow let out a genuinely nervous chuckle at that.
"Yeah...well...I was kinda in the neighbourhood, so...I figured, why not visit my brother?"
Flash nodded, stepping aside in the doorway.
"Well, come on in then."
Rainbow nodded back, and passed him by to enter his home. Flash himself soon closed the door behind her, and after a few short moments, Rainbow turned to face him again, her expression one of barely-restrained worry.
"So...are your Mom and Scootaloo here?"
Flash, not noticing her mood, shook his head.
"Nope. It's Scoots' turn to help her with the shopping this week. So it's just me here right now."
Rainbow took that in, turning her face away from him and, while out of his gaze, let out a sigh of relief over that knowledge. But, when she looked to him again, she gave yet another forced smile.
"So, how's it going?"
Flash smiled, walking past her and further down the hallway, with her following him as he answered.
"It's going pretty good. I've mostly been cleaning out the garage. You wouldn't believe some of the old stuff we found in there."
Rainbow tried to look interested, but her expression made it clear that there was something on her mind. Soon though, both she and her brother found themselves in the living room, and it was here that the boy turned to face her yet again.
"I was just about to make some tea. Would you like a cup?"
Rainbow considered that for a moment, then looked to him with a small smile.
"Sure. That sounds good."
Flash seemed satisfied at that, and so headed off towards the door that Rainbow knew from experience led to the kitchen. She watched her brother go, seeing him close the door behind her, leaving her alone in this room. With nobody to watch her, she started to look increasingly hesitant, and so moved to a nearby sofa and sat down. For a time, she twiddled her thumbs, with her eyes occasionally glancing down to her shoes. A few times, she would look over to the kitchen door, only to find it still closed. After almost two minutes of this, she sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly. Reaching down, she started to untie her shoelaces, before reluctantly pulling off her shoes, revealing the dark-blue socks underneath. But, as she set those shoes to one side, she was somewhat startled when a voice spoke up to her.
"If you need to put your shoes somewhere, there's a spot out in the hallway."
Rainbow's head snapped towards the door, wherein she found Flash there, holding a tray with a pair of tea-cups upon it. She offered an awkward smile, nodding to him as he entered the room in earnest. There was silence between the youths for a time, and Rainbow watched him set the tray down on the table in-between the sofas, and shortly afterwards, Flash took a seat on the one opposite her. Reaching ahead, he took hold of his own cup, raising it to her with a smile. Rainbow smiled back, taking a cup for herself and raising it in a similar way before, finally, the two took a sip of the stuff.
"How is it?" he asked.
Hearing that, Rainbow let out a laugh.
"It's good."
Flash seemed to appreciate that, and took yet another sip of his drink. But, as he concentrated on that, Rainbow appeared to be thinking hard on something, as if getting her words in order before doing whatever it was she needed to be doing.
"Say...Flash?"
The boy had just brought his lips to the edge of his cup when Rainbow had spoken, prompting him to stop.
"Yes?"
She hesitated for a moment, looking down at her reflection in her cup of tea, before looking right back to him.
"We're...we're friends, right?"
Naturally, Flash raised an eyebrow to this.
"Er...sure. Of course we're friends."
Rainbow nodded.
"And if a friend were in...well...a bit if a bind...you'd help them...right?"
Again, Flash seemed uncertain.
"I would, yes."
As before, Rainbow nodded, then, to Flash's surprise, got up from her sofa. The boy watched as she made her way around the table before sitting down next to him. She took another gulp of her tea, all while her brother watched, and then set it down on the table, turning to him with another of her forced smiles.
"So...Flash. Flashy! My bro! My man! My main man!"
Here, Flash sighed, setting his own cup down, before then raising one hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes tight.
"Rainbow...what did you do?"
The girl scratched the back of her head, averting her eyes from him as she responded.
"I didn't really do anything, but...well...I kinda made a certain...arrangement."
Opening his eyes again, Flash's expression was one of complete exasperation.
"Let me guess...the kind of arrangement I'm not going to like?"
Slowly, and after thinking hard on the question, Rainbow slowly nodded.
"Yeah...kinda."
Sighing again, Flash reached over for his cup, taking a few sips of it, no doubt to clam himself, before looking to his sister again.
"Okay...what happened?"
Realising that she was being given the opportunity to just explain everything, Rainbow wasted no time, and cleared her throat before doing just that.
"Well, the girls and me were all over at Pinkie's the other day, and we decided to have a game of Truth or Dare. It was pretty standard stuff, but one of the things I was dared to do was come to you and ask you to give me....give me..."
Here, she hesitated, and Flash, now bearing an inquisitive look, spoke up slowly.
"Give you...what?"
Rainbow took on a look of pure embarrassment.
"A...foot rub?"
Silence passed between the youths, as Flash stared at his sister for a very long time. Rainbow, for her part, did her best to try and avoid looking him in the eye, and after a full minute of nobody saying anything to one another, it fell to the boy himself to break that silence.
"...I feel compelled to ask why."
Slapping her head with frustration, Rainbow turned to look at him in earnest as she finally continued her explanation.
"Look...it's just...I maybe kinda let it slip that people touching my feet makes me feel...good. As in...really good."
Here, understanding dawned for Flash, and he turned away from her. For the next few moments, he sat in quiet thoughtfulness, eventually speaking in a low tone.
"Well...that would explain why you didn't want me touching you there back during that spa session."
Eventually, he looked back to her.
"So let me get this straight. You're doing all of this...for a dare?"
Rainbow frowned somewhat.
"Look, I don't want to be asking you to do this, Flash! But I'm the one who started that whole game! I can't be the one to lose!"
Flash frowned right back.
"No offense, Rainbow, but helping out your pride isn't really sounding like a good enough reason for me to get involved in this."
Rainbow let out a grunt of irritation.
"You think it's weird for you?! How about me?! If you do this, then I'm the one who's gonna...gonna..."
She shivered at the prospect of what might happen to her if she went along with this, which cased Flash to let out yet another sigh.
"Look, Rainbow...I'm not normally one for lying, but if you have to appear as some kind of winner in this, can't you just say that you got me to do it? Heck, I'll even play along with it myself."
But Rainbow shook her head, looking her brother in the eye and bearing as very serious expression.
"No can do, bro. This was a Pinkie promise! Trust me, Pinkie's gonna know if I'm lying or not. In fact..."
She turned, looking out of the nearby window.
"...I wouldn't be surprised if she was out there right now, spying on me to make sure I was doing it!"
Flash rolled his eyes.
"Okay, I appreciate that you feel like this is a lose-lose situation, but whatever penalty the other girls will have you go through can't possibly..."
Then, he stopped, looking as if an idea had just popped into his head.
"Wait...what did Sunset say about this?"
Looking away from the window, Rainbow looked to him again before speaking.
"Well, she said...um..."
Then, she gained a look very similar to Flash's.
"Actually...I don't think she did say anything about it."
Flash turned to her with incredulity.
"Seriously?! You and Pinkie go on about me giving you a foot rub, right in front of her face...and she said nothing?!"
Rainbow nodded.
"Yeah...that is kinda weird, now that I think about it."
Hearing that, Flash, after looking more than a little confused for a time, simply rubbed his temples.
"Well...I guess I should just take that as meaning she'd be fine with it. Or, at the very least, that it's something she doesn't feel is worth complaining about."
He leaned back, slumping back into his chair.
"Why does this always happen? Always being in a position that's this weird?!"
Rainbow looked to him and chuckled.
"Well...you know...when you look at it, you could say it's not that bad."
Flash turned to her and raised an eyebrow.
"Rainbow...this kind of thing is something that brothers and sisters should never do with one another."
Briefly, he took on a thoughtful look.
"Well...not outside of fantasy-drama HBO shows anyway."
Rainbow afforded herself a brief chuckle at that, a welcome moment of levity amongst everything that had been discussed so far. But, it was short-lived, and Flash soon turned his gaze to his sister again.
"Rainbow...if I did this..."
Hearing that, the girl's head snapped in his direction, but she stayed silent as he carried on.
"...who, besides you and Pinkie, know about it?"
After pausing briefly, Rainbow answered.
"Well, just the usual. Flutters, Sunset, all our closest friends."
Flash nodded, and as he turned away from her, Rainbow spoke up again, her voice tinted with slight hope.
"So...you'll actually do it?"
The boy shrugged his shoulders.
"Like you said, we're family. It's seems like a pretty silly thing to have gotten stuck in..."
He cast her a glance.
"...even by your standards..."
She frowned to that, but said nothing as he finished.
"...but I wouldn't be much of a big brother if I didn't at least try and get you out of it."
To that, Rainbow gained a smirk.
"You know, you're only, like, a week older than me."
Flash returned the smirk.
"Hey, I'm still an older brother, week or no week."
Taking a deep breath, he sat upright again, staring at the wall on the far side of the room. Rainbow watched him, waiting with baited breath to see what he would do or say next. After many moments of silence between them, he let his shoulders slump, nodding slightly before patting a spot on his lap.
"Alright...let's get this over with."
On the one hand, Rainbow was given a moment to feel at least some measure of relief over the fact that her brother had given her a way to see an end to this matter. But, on the other hand, given what this matter was, it was a short-lived feeling. So, after giving him an appreciative nod, she reached down, slowly peeling back her socks, all while Flash did his best to keep his eyes on his now-unused tea cup in front of him. With her feet now bare, Rainbow set the aforementioned socks to one side, on the arm-rest of the sofa, before starting to re-adjust her sitting position. She turned, leaning back into that same arm-rest, before carefully propping up her ankles onto the spot the boy had pointed to her. At last, Flash looked down to them, before then casting a glance to his sister.
"Rainbow...I'm sorry for this weird and uncomfortable thing I apparently must do to you now."
Laughing nervously, Rainbow nodded.
"Yeah...so am I."
Looking down at her feet, Flash got to work, placing one hand on each of them. However, the instant he did so, he was taken aback by Rainbow, who took in a sharp breath upon his touch. He looked to her, seeing that her cheeks were already blushing, causing him a look of concern.
"Seriously?! Just this is enough for a reaction?!"
Rainbow nodded.
"Yeah...now you know why I don't like people touching them."
Flash looked down to his "work" once more.
"In that case, maybe you should get that looked at. Sounds like some kind of hypersensitivity issue."
Rainbow rolled her eyes as best she could under the circumstances.
"Oh, sure, that's a doctor's appointment I'll look forward to!"
Understanding her tone, Flash sighed, getting back to the business at hand. Very slowly, he pressed both thumbs into their respective soles, and here again, Rainbow reacted. She gripped her side of the sofa, her fingers digging hard into the fabric of it, and she took in yet another sharp breath, with the red in her cheeks growing with every passing moment. Her breathing was heavy, much to Flash's concern, and she even started talking to herself.
"Okay, Rainbow, you can do this. Just...just hold on. Don't lose it."
Flash was, understandably, at a loss on what to say to her at this point, and so simply concentrated on what he'd been doing. Gently, he took those thumbs and started to caress a line up from where they'd started, moving upwards along the sole towards where Rainbow's toes were. And yet again, this caused a reaction, prompting more rapid breathing on his sister's part. Being the big brother in this situation, Flash instinctively tried to think of a way to keep her mind away from her present circumstances, turning to her as he continued to rub her feet, before then speaking the first thing that came to mind.
"So...um...are you sure that spa stuff isn't your thing?"
In spite of her current situation, Rainbow looked to her brother with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, why?"
Flash shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but...these things are a lot softer than I'd have expected from you."
While Rainbow was, at first, looking pretty embarrassed at such a comment, she soon let out a frustrated grunt.
"Ugh! Tell me about it! You'd think with all the sports and stuff I do that they'd toughen up a bit. Maybe make them a bit less...like this. But no!"
Flash chuckled in spite of himself.
"Rarity would probably be pretty jealous. I mean, there she is, always going for treatments and stuff for smooth skin and the like, and here you are, getting it by default."
That, at the very least, gave Rainbow a moment to crack a smile, even if her face was still as red as a tomato right now.
"Well, trust me, she'd like it way less if she got it, as you can probably guess by now."
The two siblings shared a laugh, but it wasn't long before their circumstances reared their ugly head again, as once Flash's hands moved further down one foot in particular, Rainbow leaned further back into her side of the sofa, with her expression one that could only be described as "pleasured". Understandably, Flash did his best to keep his own mind off things, and so looked away as his hands did what they were doing.
"Okay...okay...I wonder..."
Then, he looked as if an idea had just struck him.
"Huh...I wonder if Sunset would like this kind of thing?"
Immediately, he was met with the mild discomfort of having a nearby pillow thrown at the side of his head, prompting him to look at Rainbow once more, who gave him an angry expression.
"Flash, I think this mess is bad enough. I don't need to hear how you're using me as maybe-practise for stuff you might wanna do with your girlfriend!"
Realising that this was indeed what he'd just done, embarrassment was now plastered all over the boy's face, and so he kept his mouth shut, looking back down to what he was doing. For a time, the two said nothing to one another, and Flash simply did as best he could, rubbing Rainbow's feet as gently as possible, perhaps under the impression that she wouldn't be affected too much if he wasn't all that vigorous with it. Unfortunately, even this was not enough, as every single touch and movement he gave her only seemed to deepen her current state. Her breathing continued to be rapid, and as her chest heaved with the feeling of all of this, her words started to become increasingly fragmented.
"Oh...oh...this is weird! This is wrong! This...this...this is-ARGH!"
Flash's head turned to her, and for reasons he didn't quite understand, she had suddenly taken on a brief look of having flinched at something. While he didn't understand why, he did note that this, for a moment anyway, made her look almost back to normal, with no hint of pleasure in her expression.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She looked to him with a degree of annoyance.
"You dug too hard into my foot, that's what!"
For a few moments, Flash pulled the offending hand away from her foot, and saw that he had indeed pressed in too hard on one occasion, with a mild indent of his thumbnail still visible. Immediately, a somewhat guilty look crossed his face.
"Oh! Sorry about that. Must not have been paying attention."
Rainbow reclined back into her side of the sofa, looking pretty exasperated with this entire situation right now. But then, just as quickly, she sat upright, catching Flash's attention. She paused, her eyes darting about, as if thinking hard on something. Then, slowly, a smile crept onto her face, growing wider and wider.
"That...that's it! That's it!"
Her eyes met her brother's.
"Flash! You're a genius!"
The boy raised an eyebrow.
"Really? That's the first I've heard of it."
Rainbow slapped her forehead.
"How could I have been so stupid?! The answer was right there in front of me the whole time!"
Flash frowned.
"Care to fill me in on this plan, Rainbow?"
The girl looked to him with nothing short of glee on her face.
"Flash! There's a way out of this!"
Instantly, he took on a more interested expression.
"What?! How?!"
Rainbow continued to smile as she started to explain.
"My dare was to have you give me a foot rub, right? But..."
Her smile became a more devious one.
"...I was never told it had to be a good one!"
It took a few moments for Flash to realise what the girl was saying to him, but when realisation dawned on him, his eyes widened.
"Wait...you mean...?"
Rainbow nodded.
"Yep. I need you to make this rub the most uncomfortable one in human history! No more soft and gentle, I need rough and painful!"
She snickered a bit as she considered this plan of hers.
"Because I promise you, there's no way I'll get off with that kind of feeling going on!"
But, contrary to what she might have expected, Flash did not seem pleased with this plan.
"Rainbow, I'm willing to do many things, as this little activity has probably proved by now. But deliberately causing pain to a friend?! To my own sister?! No, that's a step too far."
Rainbow frowned to this.
"Flash, it's either causing me a brief bit of pain...or causing me to outright climax."
Flash opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to offer some sort of counter to that statement. But, as Rainbow's words sank in for him, he started to seem deep in thought. He turned away from her, staring at the wall, and silence fell over the both of them. Rainbow watched him, her patience dwindling rapidly.
"Well?"
The boy sighed.
"I honestly have no idea which is the lesser of two evils in this one."
Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him.
"Alright then, let me help you with that. This is way out for us. A way out of a situation that, by your words, no brother and sister should find themselves in. And all it will take from you is a little bit of pain that I am asking you to give me."
Flash fell into silence again, taking in what had been said. Then, after a long wait, Rainbow watched as he let out the longest sigh yet, turning to her with a small nod.
"Alright...I guess, given what was going to happen, I suppose this is the best case scenario for us."
Rainbow nodded in agreement over that, once more reclining into her part of the sofa.
"Flash...I could kiss you right now!"
The boy looked to her with slight annoyance.
"Rainbow, I think one act of near-incest is enough for today, don't you?"
Of course, as soon as her own words had sunken in for her, Rainbow couldn't help but look somewhat embarrassed over that little moment. But, when it was over, she started to bear a satisfied look on her face, and took this moment to briefly wiggle her toes, silently inviting Flash to continue with their little plan.
"In that case, Flash...let's get this over with."
Offering her a dry laugh, her brother placed his hands once more upon her feet, before looking to her with a smirk of his own.
"Alright then, Rainbow...prepare for the worst foot rub you will ever get in your entire life."
Returning the smirk, Rainbow laughed.
"Oh, big brother...you always know exactly what a girl wants to hear."
