Just Gawking in the Band Room
"Thought that I was going crazyyyyy...."
She sings, only she doesn't, and yet she does.
"Just having one of those daaaaaays, yeah!"
A pirouette, a black microphone cable twirling like a lasso, and the lithe body scuffles to a stop. Within the next microsecond, the carefree dancer is shimmying left and right, bobbing with the Glam Pop beat.
"Didn't know what to doooo..."
Crystal blue eyes peek through bedroom eyes, fluttering hungrily towards the camera. A hand slowly travels up a scrap of blue denim booty shorts, up an exposed golden midriff, then past a blood-tight white scrap of cotton-white absurdity scarcely covering a flat-flat chest. At the end of its alluring trip, the hand cups a pert chin that briefly pouts before—
"Then there was youuuuuu~~~..."
Flash Sentry blows a kiss.
Flash Sentry's cheeks flush.
Flash Sentry is wearing less than two square feet of fabric over his whole nimble sweaty figure.
And this in no way stops him from swaying and twerking—with dramatic motions of his short-short-short-shorts-wrapped butt with each beat of the music as he chirps gleefully along with the catchy number crackling over unseen speakers.
"And everythiiiiing went from wrong to riiiiight"
He spins again, this time thrusting that denim'd ass towards the viewer, making sure to look over his shoulder and smolder devilishly the entire time.
"And the staaaaaaaars caaaaaaame out and filled—"
Plink!
A feminine figure tapped the middle of the tablet, pausing the video in mid Flash Crack.
Sunset Shimmer leaned back from the table in the middle of the band room after school—the same band room depicted in the scantily-clad dance number. She took a long deep breath, then released.
All was silent, save for the casual hum of the school's humming a/c unit above.
Sunset chewed on her bottom lip. She looked like she was going to say something... but then she didn't. And then she looked over her shoulder.
Six girl-heads leaned in tight like pastel-haired coconuts, crouching behind the stool where Sunset was sitting. Each had their eyes widely-locked on the frozen image of their frozen, sashaying acquaintance.
Sunset blinked at them. Calmly, she turned back to the tablet in front of all of them that—unfortunately—captured her ex-boyfriend in mid butt-thrust. With a solemn sigh, she raised her finger again... lingered... and finally tapped the screen again.
Plink!
"—up the skyyyyy!""
Flash Sentry spins again, backstepping towards the piano situated behind him towards the back of the room. He shimmies his hips and shoulder with each heel-slide, rubbing a naughty hand sensually across the impression his nipples make through his genocidally-tight "t-shirt."
"The music you were playing really blewwwwww my mind!"
The boi then props himself up atop the piano casing. He reclines, lazily slinking every "curve" of his body sideways, propping his chest forward as he dangles an exposed leg off the side, running a hand lustily up the knee and thigh while making love to the camera.
"It was love—oh-ohhhh!—at first sight, cuz—"
He hops off and lands on the floor, legs branched apart as he runs a free hand through a nonexistent head of hair, all the while practically fellating the mic.
"'BABY when I heard you for the first time I KNEW—"
Plink!
Silence and air conditioning again.
"So." Sunset leaned back in her stool, arms crossed as she stared at tablet—and the proverbial stripper with a midriff for weeks. "Girls." She cleared her throat. "Which of you forgot to tell Flash that the Rainbooms' Google Drive is accessible to everyone of us?"
"You're askin' us?" Applejack scratched her head, eyes still locked on Flash and his beautifully shaved armpits. "Yer the one who gave him password to our account."
"So he could share guitar tabs and song lyrics that he's been working on to help the band out," Sunset Shimmer said with a nod. "But where did he get the idea that he could use it for..." Her lips pursed and unpursed. "...personal files?"
"Who cares?" Rainbow Dash leaned in, reaching her finger for the tablet. "This is wicked awesome!"
"Bkkt—!" Sunset spat, lashing a hand and grabbing Rainbow's wrist. "You actually want to watch more of this?!"
"Of course I friggin' do!" Rainbow's eyes flared at her. "I wanna see if he dances through the whole dayum thing!"
"It's..." Twilight Sparkle coughed, her cheeks beet red. "...quite the workout."
"You went out with him once upon a time, darling," Rarity said, resting a dainty hand on Sunset's shoulder. The fashionista bore a growing smile that threatened to shatter her delicate features from the inside out. "Surely you've seen him at... his most embarrassing before."
"No. I really haven't."
"Too busy bullyin' him?" Applejack stated, eyebrow arched.
"... ... ..." Sunset wasted space with no response.
Licking her lips, Rainbow Dash slowly reached all the way forward and touched the screen again.
Sunset Shimmer breathlessly sunk her head into double palms.
Plink!
"Weeeeeeee were meant...
By now, Flash is crawled out onto the floor, pressing his chest to the tile and sticking his rear end up at an obscene forty-five degrees towards the ceiling... or perhaps a fantastic forty-five degrees. Depends on what side of the fence one is mowing.
"—tooooo be as onnnnnnnnne~~!!!"
He then twirls over and clutches the mic in two hands, eyes clenched shut as he bicycle-pedals both legs straight up into the air of the band room.
"MEANT TO BE AS ONNNNNNNEE!!!"
Aaaaaand Rainbow tapped the "-" volume button half-a-dozen times until the caterwauling lessened.
"Heh..." Rainbow smirked, leaning back. "Bruno Mars, he is not."
"Sounds to me he's fixin' to be more like a Brunhilda Venus,"
"It's Kylie Minogue," Rarity said.
Half of the girls looked at her. "Kylie who?"
"Kylie Minogue," Rarity repeated, lazily examining her nails. "From the album 'Fever'. Quite a peppy bit of work—proved that Kylie still had it."
"What year did that come out?" Twilight asked.
"2001."
"Land's sakes!" Applejack tilted her hat back. "That music's almost older than most of us!"
"Well..." Twilight's lips curled into a soft smile. "At least Flash is classy!"
Rarity's eyes followed his girlish, pelvic thrusts. "If you say so."
The group continued watching the technopop bacchanalia unfolding onscreen—all save for Sunset, that is... who continued breathing into her double-palms.
"He's good," Fluttershy finally said.
The other girls flashed her a blinking glance.
She looked back at them, features bright. "Well, he is!"
Rarity fanned herself. "She is not wrong."
Applejack squinted at the seamstress. "Uhhh—"
Rarity frowned back. "It's only that looking at her is wearing me out! That looks awfully sweaty!"
"Wait..." Rainbow squinted at Rarity. "What did you say?"
"I said that looking at Flash is wearing me—"
"No, that's not what you said."
"What..." Rarity's eyes fluttered as a redness spread through her upper body. "Er... what I mean was... I-I meant..." She gulped, fanning herself again before pointing at the tablet. "Can you quite blame me, darlings? Just feast your eyes!" her voice chirped.
"Okay..." Sunset mumbled into her hands. "...we don't need to do this."
"Just because he's being all slutty doesn't mean that it's 'girlish!'" Rainbow's voice cracked. "Get on board the twentieth-century train, Rarity!"
"Twenty-first," Twilight corrected.
"That too!" Rainbow pointed at the ipad. "So what if he... looks... sounds... and dr-dresses hotter than any chick I've seen on MTV..." Suddenly, she was fanning herself. "Daring Do on a bike, did he actually shave his bikini area???"
"I just found out today that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't a new type of piano synthesizer!" Pinkie Pie smiled to the walls..
"But of course that—" Rarity grimaced at her. "For the love of lace, Pinkie?! What are you even doing here?!?"
"So... uhhhh..." Applejack scratched the back of his neck. "...do we tell him that we found this here vidya, or—?"
"Heck yeah!" Rainbow Dash grinned. "And we mail this tape along with his groovy ass straight to Logo TV!"
"You're a few years late on that one, darling," Rarity said.
"What?" Rainbow blinked. "Did they finally merge with BBC America?"
"We're not telling him a single thing," Sunset grunted through her digits.
"Awwwwwww!" Fluttershy pouted. "Why not? It may look strange on the surface, but he's obviously pouring his heart and soul into something expressive. And having pure, pure fun in the process! Shouldn't we support that?"
"What's to support?" Rainbow smirked. "Just look at his top! That dude's a size negative A." She raised a hand. "Can a girl relate? Huh? Huh?" Nobody high-fived her, and she hugged her slender chest with a winded smile. "Yeah... totally..."
Sunset finally lowered her hands and gazed tiredly across the band room. "I once over two years in the past ruining Flash's life." She shook her head. "I'm not about to risk ruining his reputation."
"Ain't you stretchin' it just a tad?" Applejack declared. "Like—who gives a flyin' hoot about reputation here at Canterlot High?" An errant moth zipped overhead. Startled, she ducked low before swatting wildly at it with her hat. "You just... give the world what you lurve and you enjoy yerself doin' it! Confound it! C'mere, you!"
"That might work for us, the magical mary sues of not-quite-but-almost-sparkly-unicorn-land... but this is Flash we're talking about!" Sunset flailed a wrist at the tablet. "I know him!"
"You sure, darling?" Rarity hummed.
The other girls laughed.
"Yes!" Sunset frowned. "I do! He's quiet! He's melancholic! He's sensitive!"
"He's circumcised," Twilight said, pointing at a particular shimmy on screen.
Sunset batted her hand away. "Point being!" She huffed, blushing profusely for a brief moment. "...it isn't very friendly to spring upon him the news that he's just been... exposed in his most private and carefree moments of... of..." She fondled the air in search of: "Liberal happiness!"
"There's another name for that, y'know," Rainbow said.
More giggles.
"Girls, please." Sunset sighed, turning to look sincerely at them. "We might all know a deeply-hidden and very expressive side of Flash Sentry now... but it still doesn't change the fact that he did not consent to our discovering it."
The girls exchanged glances, ultimately nodded.
"I do believe you have made a good point there, darling," Rarity said.
"I still think his life would be all the better if he just... opened up and expressed more," Fluttershy said.
Rainbow leaned in. "You just want to see him dance to ballet music."
"Mmmm..." Fluttershy cupped a rosy cheek, smiling. "You're not wrong."
"In a soft pink tutu too."
"Heeeeeeee..."
"If that's to be Flash's decision, let's let that be his decision to make... on his own time," Sunset insisted. "Trust me... Flash doesn't deal with soul-crushingly embarrassing revelations that well. Rational or not, it would destroy his feelings... and I-I don't want to cross that line ever again."
"Fair enough, sugarcube," Applejack said with a nod. "Reckon you knew him the best."
"Until today she did," Rainbow belched out the side of her mouth.
"Rainbow!" Fuming, Sunset spun on the stool to face her, then the group at large. "Girls. I need you all to promise me... that this video never leaves this room! Okay?" She held a hand up. "Pinkie Pie swear-it!"
"Duaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—" Pinkie Pie was Pac-Manning her mouth beneath the shadow of the flittering moth. She suddenly snapped out of it. "Oh yeah! That's me!" She raised her hand. "Cross my heart, hope to fly—"
"—stick a cupcake in my eye!" the rest of the girls chanted in unison, their hands held out high like an alt-right rally in drag.
"Good..." Sunset Shimmer lowered her hand, breathing easier. "Now..." She smiled sweetly at her friends. "Let's delete this video from the Drive account and pretend that it never happened. Got it?"
"Got it!"
"Got it!"
"Got it!"
Just Gawking on Christmas
"And at long last..."
Flash Sentry stood beside the crackling fireplace. He smiled warmly, wearing an ugly red-and-green sweater while cradling a mug of nutmeg in his handsome grasp.
"...I just want to say how truly happy I am to have my whole family here." He grinned, his eyes reflecting the snow drifting past the windows beyond. "And I do mean my whole entire family."
"D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Over four dozen members of the Sentry Clan—mothers, fathers, teenagers, children, and geriatrics—clapped and smiled and snuggled each other from where they formed an audience across the festively decorated room. Christmas lights from the tree christened the moment with spectral cheer as they waited for the young man to deliver the rest of his speech.
"We have all gathered for this wonderful, wholesome occasion," Flash said. He smiled across the room, gesturing. "Uncle Lester... so glad you could make it..."
A hunched-over man with a thick gray beard smiled. He raised his one hand while the opposite sleeve of his military jacket dangled empty, patched over with the "P.O.W." logo.
"Grandpa Frances and Great Aunt Mable..." Flash nodded to the other part of the room. "...it's an honor to be in your presence once again."
Two flesh-wrinkled centenarians nodded clumsily from where they huddled next to a mess of dialysis machine wires.
"Cousin Lehi...!" Flash waved in another direction, smiling bright. "Back from his two year mission in Paraguay!" He gave a thumb's up while the whole room clapped. "Doing God's work there, bud!"
A buzzed-blonde twenty-one-year-old in a buttoned-up shirt and tie nodded, smiling gratefully.
"And..." Flash placed his nutmet onto the mantlepiece. "...most wonderful of all..." He clasped his hands together as his eyes turned round and moist. "...the greatest blessing this season could ever possibly give us..." Sniffling, he nodded at the center of the room. "A true Christmas miracle... the first in years..." He pointed. "...my own lil' brother, First Base. Let's give him a hand, will ya?"
The room filled with claps and cheer.
Flash Sentry's parents knelt by a tiny, frail thing seated in a wheelchair, covered in a thick blanket. A green elf hat covered his balding head, and the tiny pre-adolescent wheezed into an oxygen mask. Nevertheless, First Base found the strength to sit up straight and give his older brother a thumb's up.
Flash fought tears, smiling warmly from ear to ear. "I love you bro," he barely whispered, then held a hand over his heart. "So glad you could make it here with us this year." He swallowed a lump down his throat, then broke back into a boisterous, enthusiastic tone. "Who else knows that Santa's gonna bring in better bone marrow transparents this coming spring?!?"
The room filled with thunderous, ecstatic applause.
"Firsty..." Flash walked over to the wheelchair'd sibling. "My man..." He knelt alongside his parents, leaning in to smirk at the child's narrow face. "...I know it's been tough not being able to attend school with your buddies these past... s-several months." He swung a hand towards the far end of the room. "But your big bro's got that all patched up! Let's hear it for the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" He led the next wave of clapping. "And—boy howdy—do they have an amazing Christmas gift for you!"
Three little house guests skipped up to the front of the room, dressed in home-made elf costumes. They all stood squarely beneath a giant widescreen television.
"Heya, Firsty!" Sweetie Belle was the first to speak out.
"We sure plum missed ya!" Apple Bloom continued.
"And to help you catch up with the gang who all miss you as well..." Scootaloo pumped a fist, winking devilishly. "...we put together this little video showcasing all the stuff we did this year!"
"We made sure everyone took the time to say 'hello' to you as well!" Sweetie Belle said.
"Cuz yer the light of our life and we're all burstin' at the seams to see ya get better!" Apple Bloom said.
"And you can thank my older sister Rarity for providing us with her own USB Stick so we can bring the video here to you and your gracious family!" Sweetie Belle meowed, clutching her little hands together. "It was a huuuuuuuge file! And she's just so generous—"
"Pssst! Sweetie Belle!" Scootaloo frowned. "It was my turn to speak!"
"But I want them to know how much Rarity worked to help us wish Firsty a happy new year's—"
"Will y'all quit fussin'?" Apple Bloom squeaked. "We're ruinin' the Sentry Family hospitality!" She cleared her throat and faced the gathered crowd. "Uhh... so—without further skedaddle—here're yer friends at a year's glance, First Base!"
"Merry Christmas!" Sweetie Belle sang. "Hit the button, Scoots."
"But is it set to the right video?"
"What are you talking about? It's Rarity's USB stick! There should only be one video!"
"But—"
"Just click it already! Firsty's waiting!"
"Well alright..." Scootaloo pointed the remote up at the t.v. "Here we go—"
Shivering, struggling to stay upright, First Base leaned forward in his seat-cushion...
Plink!
"WE WERE MEANNNNT TO BEEEE AS ONNNNNNEEE!!!"
A nearly-naked eight-teen year old thrust his denim'd derrierre at the camera, his girlishly smooth thighs slick with sweat and goosebumps.
"CUZZZ—"
He bird-stepped towards the camera, swinging a limp wrist out one second and subtly stroking a shirt-covered nipple the next.
"BABYYYYY WHENNNNN I HEARRRRDDDD YOUUUU—"
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle instantly went pale.
The smiles of countless adults faded.
Grandparents coughed and hacked, nearly falling out of their La-Z-Boys.
A veteran grasped his heart, wheezing.
Lehi fainted.
"FORRRRR THE FIRRRRRST TIIIIME I KNEWWWWWW..."
Flash's pupils shrank... as did his whole body.
His jaw slumped lower and lower to the floor, drooling in utter horror.
He flew a petrified look over his shoulder.
A mother and father glared with murder in their faces.
Other relatives covered their children's eyes, slack-jawed.
Apple Bloom slowly... quietly inched her way towards the front door, wincing the entire time.
And First Base...
First Base squinted, his breath mask fogging and re-fogging as he watched...
"WE..."
Pelvic thrust.
"...WERE..."
Pelvic thrust.
"...MEANT..."
Gyration.
"...TO BEEEEE—"
Piroutte into an ass-slap and twirk.
"—AS ONNNNNNNNE!"
First Base's voice caught in the back of his invalid throat.
At last, he wheezed aloud: "Holy shit..."
His breath mask fell free, revealing a warm and healthy smile as the boy's sea blue eyes lit up for the first time since arriving there.
"...this is fucking awesome!"
Author's Note
