After Sunset

Like always, I wake up.

That’s the worst part of this habit of mine. I always wake up. My mouth is dry as a desert stone, and my limbs are shaky as I force my eyes open. My left arm and side burn with a pleasant, searing pain as I shift, and I turn to glance down at the mess.

Blood stains the sheets on the side, it’s sticky and almost brown, and there are three sets of new cuts, this time is groups of five the way they should be. The shape of Sunset’s hands on me is the only good thing about waking up right now.

I take a slow, labored breath as I turn as much as I’m able to, and examine the damage.

The cuts are long and thin, but they’ve already scabbed over. They’re already healing. Same with my shoulder.

I used to play Soccer and run Track so I’ve had my share of injuries before now. I’ve never, in my life, seen damage like this heal this fast.

“Son of a bitch,” I mutter as I sit up and look around. The dark room isn’t so dark to me.

The faint filter of light that drifts in from under the door is enough for my eyes. I can’t tell if that’s just because I’ve spent so much of my time in this room, or if it’s something else. My senses are so keyed up all the time that I have no idea what’s normal anymore.

Despite only having lived like this for a little less than six months it feels like my old life was ages ago.

“Guess everyone’s probably started college by now, huh?” I say looking over at the photograph of Sunset and smiling tiredly. “Always… I always figured we’d all go together, y’know? Go to Canterlot U, and tear the place a new one with how awesome we were.” My smile fades. “Never thought it’d end up like this.”

I wince again as I sling my legs over the side of the bed, gingerly cradling my arm and side as I do. I really should have gotten some more bandages yesterday. That was stupid. Why did I decide I should refill my stock of bandages after I did this?

God I’m a dumbass.

I chuckle as I stand up and limp over to the chair before dragging it back over to the cabinet and sit down. While I do that, I scoop up the used bandages I’d taken off last night. These would have to do until I got new ones. It wasn’t exactly sanitary, but neither was falling asleep high with over a dozen open wounds. If I was going to die of sepsis or something, I figure it would’ve happened by now.

I’ve never even gotten an infection.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the one keeping me alive,” I say sullenly to Sunset, who just smiles silently back at me while I carefully shake the bandages out straight before starting wrapping them again. “It’s pretty ‘you’ thing to do.”

As I’m wrapping my chest, I look up at the clock. It’s almost eleven at night. I slept through the day and then some.

I shiver and scratch at my skin as a wave of nausea rolls over me, but it fades quickly enough that my appetite has a chance to make itself known.

“Guess I should probably eat,” I say quietly. Then smile wanly up at the photo again. “That hundred from the delivery last night… whadya say we go out to the diner, huh? That’d be cool, right?”

The idea of a warm meal sounds awesome, actually, so I finish wrapping my arms up, collect a couple of tens from the clip of money, then think again about the bandages I need and grab a couple more tens. I tuck the rest away in the box I had hidden under the cabinet. I have almost three hundred saved up in there now. I can afford a decent meal.

I grab my vest and pull it on carefully over the bandages, trying my best not to jostle the cuts too much. In my experience, those things seal up stupidly fast on me, but I also didn’t want to have to run a load of bloody laundry. The sheets were going to be bad enough.

My jacket goes on a little more easily, but it’s a pain to get my arm through the sleeves. I can’t lift it all the way without definitely tearing a scab.

“Okay, that’s done,” I say as I pull my beanie on and walk over to the cabinet. “Ready?”

There’s no reply, but I pick up the photograph and tuck it into my inside jacket pocket anyway. She’s always quiet after nights when I shoot up. I wonder if it’s because whatever is wrong with me has to take a breather after I really fuck myself up, or if it’s something else.

I zip up the jacket, then listen at the door for a moment before throwing back the deadbolts and opening up the office door. It’s dark out, but not dark enough to bother me, so I step outside and shut the door, locking it behind me.

The sounds of Canterlot at night fill the air as I leave the station and enter the East End. Half the street lights are out, and have been for as long as I’ve been here, but honestly I’m grateful. The lights of the north side where I was running last night were miserably bright, and I hated it.

“Note to self, get sunglasses for if Chase asks me to pull an extra run up there again,” I mumble as I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and start heading up the block to the Salt’N’Pepper.

There’s a funny thing about this diner: as far as I know, it’s a franchise that closed up all its locations something like three or four years ago. This one just… never closed up. I think the employees got together or something and bought the place for basically nothing, and because it’s squatting right in between the Commons and the East End nobody gives a shit that the place isn’t exactly up health code.

Half the tenements and projects out here should probably be condemned, too, but they’re still crammed full of poor people.

It’s just more proof that no one really gives a shit what happens on the East End.

The off-tone bell above the door to Salt’N’Pepper jingles sharply as I step inside. The diner isn’t quite empty, but then it usually isn’t.

“Hey, Millie,” I flag down the waitress.

She’s only a few years older than me, but Vermillion has been the night waitress at Salt’N’Pepper since the franchise closed. Her hair is the dusty red of her namesake, shot through with stripes of purple, and she keeps it short and tucked back into a loose tail. Her green eyes are the kind of dead that you only get after working in the service industry for a long enough stretch, and they settle on me with her usual cold shoulder.

“Dash.” Millie acknowledges me flatly. “You shower recently?”

“I think we both know the answer to that,” I reply.

She wrinkles her nose, then nods towards one of the back tables. I head towards it as she grabs a menu, tucks it under her arm, and follows me.

I slide into the bench seat and flip the upside-down coffee mug over before nodding down silently at it as Millie drops the menu onto the table.

“Try to actually keep it down this time,” Millie says pointedly. “I don’t want to have to unclog the toilet again.”

“No promises,” I grumble as I eyeball the menu.

Last time I came in here I’d eaten too fast and my stomach had let me know in no uncertain terms that it was not used to having real food in it anymore by violently ejecting most of it less than twenty minutes later. Let me tell you, the eggs benedict here is no great shakes to begin with, and it does not improve on the second time around.

Millie narrows her eyes at me for a second, then sighs and shakes her head before turning and retreating back to the counter to get the coffee. At this hour there’s usually a fresher-than-usual pot on the burner since all the night shift workers swing by to fill up their thermoses and to-go cups before heading to their respective jobs. Hopefully that means the brew will be marginally less burnt than usual.

Shivers run up and down my limbs and spine as I look down the menu, trying to decide on what my stomach will be willing to accept. I don’t get the shakes as bad as some people, but the knowledge of just how much I have left in my little bunker is calling its siren song to me even from here.

The best part is, I’m basically free to do whatever I want for a couple of days. Chase won’t ask me to do another run for a while, he’s already thrown plenty of cash my way and he doesn’t like relying on one runner too much.

‘Gives’em a big head,’ he says.

Whatever, he knows I’m the best, and I do too. Besides, the time off combined with my extra-large stash means I can spend a solid day and a half out of my mind, which is precisely where I want to be right now.

I unzip my coat and reach into my inner pocket where the photograph is and pull it out.

For a moment, I just stare down at her. Sunset’s smiling face is almost painful to look at now, but it’s worth it. I run my finger over the glass pane covering the photo, and grimace as I leave behind an ugly smudge.

“Crap,” I mutter.

I grab a handful of napkins and wipe carefully at the glass until it’s clean again before setting it down on the table beside me near the window through which the city lights flicker dimly, and the odd passing car cruises by at a lazy crawl.

“Been a while, huh?” I say with a quiet chuckle to the silent picture frame. “Sorry we haven’t gone out more, it’s… tough.”

A shiver runs through me again as I fold my arms over the table and lay my head down. I’m still tired, and my stomach is doing flips. My arm hurts. My side hurts.

Everything hurts.

“Remember last time we went out, just the two of us?” I ask. “Before the… well, y-y’know… before everything that happened at CHS. We went to the Crystal Emporium and got milkshakes?” I laugh quietly as I turn my head to stare lopsided at the photo. “I still can’t believe you’d never had mint chocolate chip before, but I guess you never had the cash for it before. I get that now.”

I turn my head again and scowl at my empty coffee mug, then look up and around for Millie. My scowl deepens when I spot her leaning on the counter with her cell phone to her ear, and for a moment she pauses, looks over at me with that flat, dead stare, and then shrugs again as I turn back to Sunset.

“Can’t get good help these days, right?” I say with a grim little laugh.

Millie comes over a few minutes later with a pot of coffee and pours out a generous measure into the mug.

“Sorry for the wait,” she says, surprising me with the apology. “Pot was empty, so I had to brew a fresh one.”

“S’cool,” I mutter as I pull the now-full mug towards me and sniff.

It definitely smells like a fresh pot of coffee, and I shiver with delight as I lift the piping hot brew to my nose. It’s been so long since I’ve had a fresh cup, even if it’s not the best coffee. I can’t even remember the last time I had a cup that wasn’t styrofoam and filled with something that tasted like tar.

“Know what you want?” Millie asks.

“The number five, with wheat toast,” I say quietly.

“Eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“Bacon or sausage?”

I grimace. The thought of all that grease is making my stomach twist even without seeing or smelling it.

“Can uhm… can I just have like, some fruit or something?” I ask with a wince. “Or just, like, another egg?”

Millie stares at me flatly for a few seconds before rolling her eyes and muttering under her breath, then scrawling something down on her little notepad and nodding.

“Whatever, sit tight, I’ll see what we’ve got,” Millie says grumpily as she collects my menu and trots off behind the counter.

“That was easier than I expected,” I say weakly to Sunset. “Millie’s usually a lot more of a bitch of substituting stuff.”

I settle back into the bench seat and start sipping quietly at my coffee. I never take my eyes off of the picture of Sunset. When I’m sitting here like this, I can almost pretend we’re hanging out again. I know it’s not real. I know she’s not here. But I can’t think about that every time I do I fall apart again.

This is easier.

“Do you think… ya think you would have forgiven me eventually?” I ask the photo softly as I lower the now half-empty mug. “If you’d gotten out with everyone, I mean. Do you think you might’ve, like… eventually forgiven me?”

She doesn't answer. She never does. So I just stare down at the swirling black coffee and turn it this way and that, watching the brew twist inside the off-white mug. I never used to like black coffee. I hated it actually. I never got the crazy coffee-milkshake hybrids that Pinkie likes to drink, the ones with six shots of espresso and enough sugar to put an elephant into a diabetic coma, but I always got mochas because I like chocolate.

Sunset always got the same thing when we went out: one medium black coffee.

‘It’s bitter, just like me,’ is what she’d said when I’d asked her why, and she’d said it with that smirk of hers that made my heart flip.

I wonder if it’s just because she never had any money, so black coffee was all she could afford and she just learned to like it.

“You never told us how bad things were,” I say without looking up from my coffee. “You never talked to us about, like, where you were living, or how tough things were for you…”

My grip tightens on the mug until my knuckles turn white, and tears burn behind my eyelids as I clench my eyes shut.

“But we never asked, either,” I say after a moment, finally opening my eyes to look at Sunset’s frozen smile. “It’s so stupid… like, where else could you possibly be living? We knew you came over here from Equestria, we knew that shit, and we never even-!”

I swallow hard and bow my head, trying to blink away the tears as I lift my mug and take a long drink from it. It’s still hot, and it scalds my tongue, but it’s good. The bitter liquid is bracing and I can feel myself waking up. My stomach clenches around the coffee, but it settles after a minute.

“I… I know I keep saying it, but I miss you.” I reach out and run my hand over the top of the picture frame.

Not that it matters. By now everything has probably stopped mattering to her. Even if she survived whatever it is the thing in the dark had planned for her as punishment, that probably means she’s just another one of those mindless Killers now. The thought of that makes me want to cry. The thought Sunset Shimmer being twisted into a monster and left endlessly wandering the empty halls of a nightmare version of CHS, waiting for hapless Survivors to be dropped into her domain.

Repeating that endless cycle over and over again until there’s nothing left of the girl that I…

That I…

My arm and side hurt, but now don’t hurt enough.

The atonal bell of the door rings, heralding either another patron or someone leaving to go do whatever it is they’ve got planned for the rest of their night as I continue to nurse my coffee while low chatter drifts towards me from the counter.

I don’t pay it any mind, though. I move the picture of Sunset a little closer so I can stare at it while I finish my coffee. The first of what will probably be several mugs before I go back to the train station and put myself under again.

“-Rainbow Dash?”

I frown at the sound of my name. The voice sounds familiar, and I look up and away from Sunset with a scowl at the interruption.

And my jaw promptly falls open.

Fluttershy is standing less than a foot from my table wearing an expression of pure shock.

She looks me up and down, and works her jaw open and closed like she wants to say something but can’t quite decide on how. She’s wringing her hands which are pale with the cold, and her hair is falling in its usual waterfall of silky pink over her thick yellow parka down to her waist.

I close my jaw with a dull click and fix my surprise into a hard glare.

“Rainbow Dash… you’re… you’re alive.” Fluttershy says it like she’s having to force herself to believe it’s really me. Tears well up in her soft blue eyes a moment later, and she takes one faltering step forward before lunging at me.

“ACK!” I flail as Fluttershy collides me with me and pulls me into a tight hug. I gasp raggedly as at least half of the cuts on my left side open simultaneously, and my vision goes white with agony.

“GET OFF ME!” I snarl, jerking out of her grip and smacking her across the chest hard enough to send her staggering back a few steps.

I do my best to cradle my side and arm without making it obvious how badly that hug had hurt me. I clench my teeth, willing whatever it is that keeps healing me to stitch those cuts up fast while Fluttershy stares at me with a mixture of shock and hurt as she gets up unsteadily from the floor.

“R-Rainbow, you’re-” She looks me up and down, really taking me in this time. “What happened? Where have you been?!”

“None of your business,” I spit, “yours or anyone else’s, okay? Now beat it.”

“No!” Fluttershy’s voice hardens more than I think I’ve ever heard from the soft-spoken girl. “I’m not leaving. I’m… I’m not going anywhere without you.”

She slides into the bench opposite me, brushes back her hair, and juts out her chin belligerently as she crosses her arms over her chest. It would be impressive if her lower lip weren’t shaking the way it does when she’s trying not to cry.

Actually, I take that back. It’s impressive she’s standing up to me at all.

“Number five, no meat,” Millie interrupts flatly as she appears by the table, seemingly unbothered by the minor shouting match as she slides the plate in front of me before turning to Fluttershy.

At first I think she’s about to ask what Fluttershy wants to eat, but she doesn’t. She just gives her a flat stare and holds out her hand expectantly.

Fluttershy plucks a few bills out of her purse and presses them into Millie’s hand.

“You bitch,” I snarl at Millie.

My hands are shaking, and not from the drugs.

“Like I owe you anything, Dash,” Millie says with a roll of her shoulders as she turns back to me and pockets the bills. “Want some more coffee?”

As mad as I am, I can’t blame Millie for being open to a bribe. It’s not like I haven’t done worse. I nudge the empty mug towards her. “Sure, fuck it.”

I turn back to Fluttershy who at least has the good grace to look ashamed. Her cheeks are colored and her eyes are down as she wrings her hands some more before finally looking back up at me.

“I’m not going to apologise, Rainbow Dash,” she says softly.

I shrug as I start picking at the eggs on my plate before shoveling some onto the toast and taking a small bite. I learned the hard way not to just shovel the food into my craw like I used to. My body can’t really take it.

“So ‘ow’d you find me?” I ask around a mouthful of wheat bread and eggs.

“Rarity,” Fluttershy replies as she folds her hands in front of her. “Someone who shops at the Boutique she works at said she saw someone who looked like you come in to a club last night who came from the East End, and that's when I remembered the train station.”

“Was the snitch a goth-punk shorty named Tallymark?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

Fluttershy shakes her head. “I don’t know her name. Rarity just asked all of her regulars to keep an eye out for you, and let her know if they saw you. She offered them a discount on some things if it panned out.”

“Good for her,” I grumble as I eye the pile of grapes that Millie had loaded the plate with in place of bacon or sausage. They’re a little wrinkled, but otherwise look fine.

I pop one into my mouth and bite down, savoring the sweet tang of it.

“Rainbow where-?” Fluttershy chokes on her words as her hands tighten into graceful little fists. “We thought you might be dead!”

“No such luck,” I say bitterly as I take another bite. “So now will you leave me alone?”

“No!” Fluttershy slams her palms down onto the table, rattling it. “I told you I’m not going anywhere without you!”

“Too bad.”

I tuck back into my eggs and toast as Millie comes back with the coffee pot and fills up my mug, then gives Fluttershy a level look. Fluttershy shakes her head, and Millie gives off her patented ‘suit-yourself’ shrug before trotting off back behind the counter to fuck around on her phone.

Fluttershy stares at me for a long moment before turning to look at the photograph sitting across from me. Her face softens immediately as she sees the face smiling back at her from it. Then she sighs, turns, and looks at me.

“Rainbow… she’s-”

“Don’t.” My fork scrapes jarringly against the plate as I hiss the word through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to talk about her after forgetting about her.”

“You-! How dare you!” Fluttershy snarls, startling me, and I look up to see her glaring at me with tears falling freely down her cheeks. “I haven’t forgotten about her! None of us have! Why do you think I’m here!? Because I refuse to lose another friend!”

“You mean ‘kill’!” I snap, pounding my fist on the table and sending the cheap silverware scattering. “We didn’t ‘lose’ her! We-!”

My tongue glues itself to the top of my mouth. I’m shaking so hard I can’t even hold my fork. The warm and sticky wet of my blood is plastering my clothes to my skin under my canvas jacket, and I’m doubly glad I’m wearing layers so Fluttershy can’t see it.

She looks distraught enough as it is.

“We…” Fluttershy starts, then leans back despondently against the bench seat.

“I’m the only one who’s willing to admit what we did,” I say a little more quietly before reaching out, putting a hand on the photograph of all of us, and turning it to Fluttershy. “We killed her because we didn’t know what she was going through, and didn’t fucking ask, and we abandoned her on the flimsiest fucking evidence because we lied to her face about forgiving her.”

“I wanted to forgive her,” Fluttershy says tightly. “We all did.”

“Yeah well, tell that to her gravestone,” I reply as I pick up my fork and go back to poking at my eggs, toast, and grapes.

It’s silent for a long moment, the space filled only with the sound of Fluttershy taking a long, slow breath, before speaking.

“I have.”

I look up at her again, and this time there’s no anger on her face, or fear or really anything at all.

Just a flat expression adjacent to despair.

“I go to her grave every week since you… since you left, to tidy it up and talk to her for a little while,” Fluttershy explains. “I know you used to go talk to her all the time.”

“Every day,” I say softly, turning the picture back to face me. “I still do.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do,” Fluttershy says tightly. “I mean it… I’m not leaving here without you. And I’m not going to lose another friend, no matter what happens.”

Rather than reply, I eat slowly in silence. Fluttershy watches me like she’s afraid I’ll bolt the moment she looks away.

In fairness, if my whole side weren’t in screaming agony at the moment I might give it a go. I know these streets and I know I’m faster than her. I could lose her and double back to the station if I weren’t bleeding all over myself.

“Why did you leave?” Fluttershy asks as I pop the last grape into my mouth and wash it down with a mouthful of coffee.

“Dad didn’t tell you?” I ask with a raised eyebrow, and she shakes her head. “Huh… figures.” I set the coffee mug down and shrug. “Dad was freaking out over all the time I spent with Sunset, and he wanted me to stop visiting her.”

“Well, that’s not that-”

“So he was going to send me to live with my mom in Manehattan.”

Fluttershy blanches, and I feel a small surge of vindication at the look on her face. She’s one of the few who knows what my mom is really like.

“He didn’t,” Fluttershy breathes, and I nod.

She closes her eyes and takes another long, slow breath. Inhale. Exhale.

Seeing Fluttershy mad is a rare thing, but my mom can make anyone mad. She’s just that type of person, and I have no idea what my mom and dad even saw in each other. Dad says she changed as they got older. I don’t know how someone can change that much. I think Dad might’ve just never seen the type of person she really is.

“So I’m not going back,” I continue as I take another sip of coffee. “I’ll live in a cardboard box before I live under the same roof with that fucking garbage bigot, and I can't trust my dad not to try and ship me off again.”

“Okay,” Fluttershy says with a small nod. “Will you at least come with me? I know Applejack will let you stay with her for a while.” I raise an eyebrow at Fluttershy who puts a hand on mine. “I’m moving out soon so I can live closer to the university, maybe we can get a place together!”

“I don’t…” I grimace.

That sounded like a fairy tale. It felt like one too because I knew it wasn’t really possible.

She doesn’t know how badly I’m losing it. She doesn’t know that I see Sunset everywhere I go most days, or about my habits, and how I get through the pain of knowing Sunset will always be gone, whether or not she’s dead. I don’t want to put that on her, that’s not fair.

“No,” I say after a moment, and her hopeful expression drops. “Sorry, Flutters, but no.”

“Why?!”

“I told you,” I say stiffly. “It’s none of your business.”

“B-Bullshit!” Fluttershy snaps.

I’ve never heard her curse before.

“Flutters just… just give it up, okay?” I gesture at her with my fork before going back to my half-eaten meal. “I’m not worth it.”

“You’re worth it to me,” Fluttershy says through tear-choked lips. “I’ll say it however many times I have to: I’m not giving up on you.”

I drop the fork onto my plate with a clatter. Whatever appetite I had is gone. I swipe up the picture of Sunset, slug back the rest of my coffee, and stand up to leave.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy stands with me, reaching for me, but I swat her hand away.

“Don’t!” I snap. “I’m done with this! I said no, and that’s-!”

I lose the words as my vision swims the moment I take a step away from the table and from Fluttershy. The interior of the diner gives a nauseating heave to the left and then the right, as I stumble trying to keep my feet.

I’m freezing, and I swallow thickly as I look down at the bench, then my leg.

There’s blood everywhere, and Fluttershy pales as she stares down at it.

I’m not healing quickly enough. The cuts are bleeding freely and the bandages I’d used had already been on their last legs to begin with. Now they’re soaked through and doing nothing to stop the flow.

“R-Rainbow?” Fluttershy breathes my name in shock as I try to take another step back.

My legs go out from under me instead, and the diner gives one last violent, jerking twirl around me.

The last thing I see after I hit the floor hard enough for a crack to resound through the diner is a pair of familiar black boots wreathed in fog in front of me. The last thing I hear is the sound of fingerblades rasping against one another, and her husky laughter and voice.

‘You’re going to remember me…’