Author's Note
Hey, everyone. So, back when I was writing "What's Past is Past" for the FlashLight Week challenge for August and September, I wanted to add a part where Flash talks about how having a mom who was a twin helped him get over Princess Twilight but decided that the story was better off focusing on Flash resolving his bad dating history. At the same time, I really wanted to write about Flash resolving his feelings about the two Twilights, and this ended up happening. This story takes place between chapters 7 and 8 of Heaven's Not to Far Away.
The Trouble with Doubles
It was Friday evening, and Flash Sentry had just finished his first week back at school after the winter holidays. He had finished the last of his homework and was sitting on his bed, strumming out “Proud of Your Boy” on his guitar.
The guitar he was playing wasn’t the red electric that he was usually seen with. Oh no, unlike his red electric, this guitar was more than just a functional accessory. It didn’t look like much at first glance, just another brown, wooden acoustic, but to Flash, this plain yet well-loved guitar was the equivalent of a million-dollar inheritance. Granted, Flash had received the guitar back when his grandfather was still living, but now that Grandpa had passed, Flash treasured the simple instrument and the memories that it held more than ever.
“Boys!” Flash’s grandmother called up the stairs. “Dinner’s almost ready. Come help set the table.”
Flash got up and called back as he opened the door to his room, “Coming, Grandma!”
He went to the room next to his and knocked on the door.
“Little bro, we gotta move. Grandma’s calling us,” he said.
“I heard her the first time,” a young male voice answered.
Flash walked away from his brother’s room and went down the stairs. He had barely descended halfway when a rich, enticing smell hit his nose. At this point, his younger brother First Base came out of his room and followed Flash down the stairs.
“What is that amazing smell?” Base asked his brother.
“Hopefully, dinner,” Flash answered.
When the two of them reached the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by the sight of Grandma Birdie leaving a stack of plates and a pile of silverware on the dining room table.
“Hey, Grandma, what’s for dinner?” Flash asked as he began to arrange the silverware.
“No idea. Your aunt is cooking tonight,” Grandma replied.
“What?!” both boys cried, their eyes widening as they shared a panicked glance.
“Here comes dinner.” Immediately after, the boys’ aunt Flare Burst came out of the kitchen and set a covered pot in the middle of the table.
“Oh, dear God, have mercy on us,” First Base squeaked out.
Flash shot First Base a look that simultaneously communicated “Don’t be rude” and “Maybe it won’t be as bad as the last few times.”
“Wow, smells great, Aunt Flare,” Flash said to his aunt with a nervous smile. “Way better than the last few times you tried to cook.”
“Well, it probably isn’t anything like what your mom used to make, but hopefully, you’ll be able to get it down this time,” Aunt Flare replied, beaming proudly.
“Oh, I’m sure whatever you made is just fine, hun,” Birdie said to her daughter.
The four of them sat around the table and said grace. Flare was about to lift the lid from the pot when she suddenly got up.
“I forgot the rice. I’ll be right back,” she said as she reentered the kitchen.
The boys glanced from the kitchen door to the pot sitting in the middle of the table. Flash took a deep breath and reached his hand out to lift the lid. Flash lifted the lid, allowing a smoky, meaty aroma to explode out of the pot.
“Well, look at that,” Flash said with a chuckle. “Aunt Flare made chili.”
“Pretty normal-looking chili, too,” Base agreed, inspecting the reddish brown, semi-liquid mixture of meat and beans.
Flash and Base both shared a look, and then took a sample of the chili with their spoons.
“Don’t double dip,” Grandma reminded them.
“We won’t,” said the boys.
Flash counted down from three using his fingers, and both boys inserted their spoons into their mouth. As soon as the chili touched his taste buds, Flash’s entire mouth became overwhelmed by an intense burning like that of hot coals. He clamped both his hands over his mouth, fighting the urge to spit the chili out onto his plate. His eyes began to hurt from holding back the tears that were fighting to spill out.
First Base simply swallowed and said, “Wow.”
Flash managed to force himself to swallow just as Aunt Flare walked back in with the rice.
“So, I see you two decided to give my chili a little taste test,” Flare said to the boys, taking note of the uncovered pot. “What did you guys think?”
“It’s great, Aunt Flare,” said Base with a smile, “but it might be a little spicy.”
“How spicy?”
Suddenly, Flash let out a high pitched “Hic!” before once again clamping his hands over his mouth. He tried in vain to hold them in, even going as far as to hold his breath to do so, but the spice-induced hiccups just kept coming.
Aunt Flare pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing in frustration as she did so. “I made it too spicy for you, didn’t I?”
“It’s not so, hic, bad,” Flash answered. “Hic! I think I can still, hic, get it, hic, down.”
Flare looked at her oldest nephew sternly and said, “Flash, we’ve talked about this.”
“You said that, hic, I didn’t, hic, have to choke down, hic, anything that, hic, wasn’t edible. This is, hic, technically, hic, still edible, hic.”
“Not if it hurts you to eat it,” First Base pointed out, earning him a kick under the table from his older brother.
“I’ll get you some sour cream to cool it down with,” Aunt Flare said as she began getting up. However, before she could enter the kitchen, First Base looked into the bowl of rice and made a face.
“Aunt Flare, why are there little green things in the rice?” he asked.
“Because it’s cilantro lime rice. Why?” she answered, turning around. Noticing the face her youngest nephew was making, she continued, “You don’t have that condition that makes cilantro taste like soap, do you?”
“No, I just don’t like cilantro or lime.”
Flare clenched her teeth, letting a very long, angry-sounding groan. “Fine. I’ll also make you something else to go with the chili.”
With that, she went into the kitchen, slamming the door as she did so. The three people left at the table gave each other worried glances. Then, Flash stared at First Base with a slight frown.
“What?” the younger boy cried out defensively. “I really don’t like cilantro or lime.”
Flash just shook his head as he gave himself a serving of rice and chili before forcing himself to down another mouthful of pain.
Grandma Birdie looked from the boys to the kitchen door. She let out a sigh as she too got up from the dining room table.
“I’m going to check and see if your aunt is okay,” she said before going into the kitchen.
She entered to find her daughter next to the stove staring blankly at a pot of water with one hand on her hip and the other clutching a box of pasta shells.
“Flare, honey, you alright?” Birdie asked.
“Yeah, just great.” Every word that Flare spoke was practically dripping with sarcasm. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Come on, Flare. I know that look. That’s your ‘I want to give up on life’ look.”
“Oh, I passed the ‘I give up on life stage’ five seconds ago. Now, I’m wondering if maybe the wrong twin survived.”
“Flare!” Birdie cried with a mixture of shock and scolding.
“I know. I know,” Flare replied, rubbing her forehead with her hand. “It’s a terrible thing to think, and Lighty wouldn’t want me thinking that way, but I can’t help it. When she died, the boys lost a mom who knew how to take care of them and feed them and nurture them and comfort them. What would they be losing if I had gone instead?”
“An aunt who enjoyed spending time with them and having fun with them and who somehow knew how to make a bad day better.”
Flare sighed as she began to pour the pasta into the boiling water. “I can’t be the cool, fun aunt and the substitute mom at the same time.”
“No one is asking you to be the substitute mom,” Birdie retorted before pausing to think. “Well, I guess you could call yourself a substitute mom now that you’re responsible for bringing them up, but you don’t have to try and replace your sister to do it.”
Birdie took Flare by the shoulders and turned her daughter to face her. “You’ve got what it takes to raise these kids. You’ve just got to find a way that works for both you and the boys. It might not be the way your sister would have done it, but it’ll work out.”
Flare smiled before turning her attention back to the cooking pasta. “Thanks, Mom. I needed that.”
After dinner, the boys helped their aunt and their grandmother clean up before heading back upstairs. First Base entered his room and shut the door. Flash was about to go to his own room, but after what happened at dinner tonight, he decided that he and his brother needed to have a talk.
“Hey, little bro,” he called as he knocked on Base’s door. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” came Base’s answer.
When Flash entered his brother’s room, Base was sitting in bed reading the book he had gotten for Early Christmas. First Base looked up from the book and glared at Flash.
“Don’t you dare tell Twilight that I actually liked her gift,” Base said with his eyes.
Flash snickered a bit before sitting himself next to his brother’s desk.
“So,” Flash began. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Base replied. “Just, well,” he sighed, “missing Mom again.”
“That’s what I thought.”
A long, uncomfortable silence followed before Flash spoke again.
“Look,” he said with a sigh. “I know this isn’t the first time that Aunt Flare has made a mistake in the parenting department, but she’s trying.”
“Ugh!” Base groaned as he flopped back against his pillows and headboard. “It’s not that I don’t like Aunt Flare or that I’m not grateful for her stepping up and TRYING to take care of us. It’s just that it’s so hard not to miss Mom around her. She and Mom both have the same face, and sometimes when I see her, I forget that Mom isn’t around anymore for half a second. Then, she does something so un-Mom-like that I can’t forget no matter how much I want to.”
Flash sighed again. He knew EXACTLY how his younger brother felt. He went through the same problem with a girl that he liked. Granted, his experience was nowhere near as painful as their mother dying.
“It’s not anyone’s fault that the two of them were born that way,” Flash said. “Besides, I think we already both know that nobody would be able to take Mom’s place. Maybe we should stop acting as if we expect Aunt Flare to be able to do it.”
“How are we going to do that?” First Base replied.
“We can start by showing her that we appreciate her just for being around for us.”
“If that’s all we have to do, then you’re already doing a better job than I am,” Base laughed. “You were appreciating her so much tonight that you sounded like one of Banana’s chew toys.”
“Oh, shut up,” Flash snapped in annoyance.
However, his younger brother continued to tease him by making several realistic-sounding fake hiccups between laughs.
“Alright, you asked for it!” Flash yelled as he pounced on the younger boy and began to relentlessly tickle him. The ensuing tickle war continued until the two of them simultaneously rolled out of the bed and hit the floor.
Much later that night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Flash lay awake in bed staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars painted on his ceiling. The earlier conversation with his brother was bringing up a string of memories from last spring.
“Yup, that's me! And you're you. And we don't know each other very well,” he had said.
“Guess I can't get too jealous, right? After all, she isn't my Twilight,” he had also said.
“So you're saying I just need to get over her?”
“She and Mom both have the same face, and sometimes when I see her, I forget that Mom isn’t around anymore for half a second. Then, she does something so un-Mom-like that I can’t forget no matter how much I want to,” his brother’s voice interrupted his memories.
Flash didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but for a time, he had hoped that this world’s Twilight could replace the extradimensional princess that he couldn’t have. He knew that he shouldn’t and that he wasn’t being fair to himself or to Twilight Sparkle, especially Twilight Sparkle, but even he had a selfish side. Just remembering those horribly selfish thoughts from that time filled him with shame. True, he had since learned to find Twilight attractive for who she is rather than who she reminded him of, but the process took time, patience, prayer, and support.
However, a part of him still wonders just how genuine his feelings for her really are. Even if this world’s Twilight didn’t share similarities with the Equestrian princess, she still deserved to have someone who would love and value her for who she is. As much as he wanted to be that someone for her, he couldn’t help but doubt if he was even capable of loving her like that.
Flash groaned as he rolled over to his side and squeezed his eyes shut, trying vainly to force sleep to overtake him. But Flash didn’t want to sleep. What he really wanted to do was get up and ask his grandmother for advice, but his grandmother probably wouldn’t appreciate being woken up at 2 in the morning.
After failing to will himself to sleep, Flash opened his eyes and rolled back onto his back. He reached for his phone charging on his nightstand. He didn’t know why. Everyone else he could have called or texted for advice was probably just as asleep as his Grandma. Nevertheless, he entered his password, and his phone unlocked to a wallpaper of a starry sky. He simply stared at it for a while, remembering how he got that particular wallpaper in the first place. Flash set his phone back on his nightstand and just stared at his hand. He can still remember how she had held his hand as he struggled not to cry.
He had told his brother that the two of them needed to show their aunt that they appreciated her just for being present. Maybe he needed to do the same for Twilight.