Felicity

Flash was almost there. He could nearly feel it this time. He was almost floating within the Pink. Like an ocean that he had leapt into from a wayward ship thrown off course. The depths tickled his feet. Like the laced hems of endless petticoats. He considered diving deep. He was about to commit to taking the plunge.

But just as he took his deepest breath yet...

...the bubble burst. The resulting clap came in rhythmic thunder, echoing off the door to his bedroom.

The young man's blue eyes fluttered open. A gray ceiling of a gray room loomed over his gray bedsheets.

The knocking resumed. Accompanied by a voice—a voice he adored and loathed to hear all at once: "Flash? Let's get up, sweetie. I mean it this time."

Flash grumbled as angrily as he could. The breath that came out of him was wispy and soft—which only made him angrier. He grasped his pillow and wrapped it around his fair blue head before turning over and mushing his face into the plain gray mattress.

"I gave you fair warning an hour ago. You'd better be wearing something~"

"Go. Away." Flash grumbled into the bed's dense bed-ness. Once more, he sounded wispy, frail, ineffectual.

"Wrong answer." There was the tell-tale click of the doorknob unlocking from the outside.

Flash clenched his teeth, cursing the fact that there was more than one key to go around.

A door opened, slicing a swath of morning light into Flash's domain. Like a supernova filling up a thimble. A curvaceous sihloutte strolled in. Tall. Womanly. Graceful.

"So this is what a grave looks like." Flash heard her marching across the sparsely-decorated would-be sepulcher. "Doesn't smell too bad, all things considered. You should be proud of that, at least."

"Have you no respect for the dead?" Flash muttered into the pillow cover.

"Nice try, bucko." He could practically feel her wink through all the gray and shadow. "But you're hardly dead. Not on my watch, at least." He heard the ruffle of curtains, and his body flinched, dreading the inevitable. "Now, how about an experiment in photosynthesis, ya stick in the mud."

"Don't—!" He squeaked. Like a desperate kitten.

But it was too late. The blacker-than-black curtains were parted like the Red Sea. The room exploded with sunlight, revealing a tender lump of twenty-two year old boi-flesh curling in a fetal position beneath a flimsy layer of bedcovers. He scuffled in futility away from the bright, burning light—as if it might melt his tender flesh at any moment.

"Well, will you look at that?" The tall buxom roommate turned around. As the burning fog of existence melted to normalcy, the squinting boi in bed could make out Sunset Shimmer standing tall and proud with her hands on her hips. Her smile was almost as bright as the murderous sunrise outside, but it was ever so slightly tempered by an all-permeating smokiness that hung off every sexy square inch of her features. "It's a beautiful day! Or some other U2 song. Whatever. You're getting your butt out of that bed and that's final." She approached the bed. "You've been holed up in here for days... weeks?... I dunno how long. Doesn't matter. It ends today."

"Hissssssssss," Flash Sentry responded.

"Cute." In one swift motion, Sunset Shimmer reached over and—FWOOSH—yanked all of the sheets off the bed within a blink.

Flash's petite body shivered, exposed to the blinding light in all its flimsy glory. Tender toes curled and hairless legs shifted beneath the folds of an enormous t-shirt that dwarfed his figure. He eventually sat up with a disgruntled sigh, glaring blearily across the bedroom. His expression could snipe pigeons from a mile away.

"I know what you're thinking." Sunset Shimmer waved a "naughty" finger, smirking. "But I don't think you can get away with that kind of murder and not get the death penalty."

"I know places where I can bury you," Flash rasped.

"Yeah, well, good luck picking up a shovel, Hercules."

"Meh."

"No more laming the clock." Sunset gestured, marching towards the bedroom entrance. "There's a CHS Soccer Game in about an hour. The girls' sisters are playing, and we're gonna go there and show them some good, friendly support."

"That's it?" Flash rubbed one eye, looking both disgruntled and confused. "A junior high sportsball thingy?"

"Remember—Flash—they're high schoolers now. But I guess I can forgive you for that. Not all of your bed-riddenness has been by choice." Her turquoise eyes narrowed. "But I'll be damned if you drag your ass for another minute."

"Mrmmfff..." Flash remained seated obstinately on the bed. "You can't make me go."

"No. But Applejack can. In a stretcher." Sunset stuck her tongue out and marched out. "Or—I could always mind control you into going."

"You wouldn't dare..."

"How else am I gonna get you to do the dishes these days?" Sunset let out a laugh. "Now go fetch one of your own shirts and get washed up already."

"But I am wearing one of my own shirts," Flash muttered. "From before the blackout, remember?"

He heard her footsteps scuffling to a stop against carpet. "Oh..." Her voice was momentarily bereft of enthusiasm, sprinkled with an ounce of guilt. Also pity. Flash instantly felt bad to have summoned that out of her, but he also knew that Sunset Shimmer was a strong woman. Sure enough, she rocketed back into a fiery tone: "Well, put on some of that crap Rainbow grabbed from the thrift store a month ago and hop to it."

"Won't Rarity have a problem with that?"

"I'm trying to get you out of the house, Flash. We'll discuss torture another time. Now get wet!"

She had left the room, but the sunlight remained. It's as if her orbit was enough to blaze a blinding trail, and Flash could no longer find any shadows to hide in. Which is precisely what she intended.

He sighed.

It took several swinging and shimmying motions, but Flash finally scooted his supple posterior to the side of the bed. Seated there, his feet dangled without touching the floor. He had to give the mattress a light shove—like emerging from a paratrooper's airplane—in order to fully exit.

Thap! His tender feet struck the carpet far later than he desired. Weathering the jolt of the dismount through his system, he padded lightly across the room and into the rest of the apartment beyond. As he moved foggily through the domain—teetering left and right—he became aware of a lavender shape seated in the dining room beside the kitchen. The scent of eggs and coffee tickled his nose, and he saw sunlight glinting off a pair of thick-framed glasses.

"Good morning, Flash~" Twilight Sparkle said. "So nice to see you up and about this early~"

"No it isn't," Flash muttered.

A giggle echoed between them, and his peripheral vision rippled with the college woman's smile. "What have Sunset and I said about having a positive attitude, Flash?"

"You'll have to tell me at the next brainwashing session," the boi muttered, fumbling his way in search of the bathroom door.

"Well, that will have to wait," Twilight said in a coy tone. There was the ruffle of textbook pages, and she scribbled across two separate sheets ambidexterously while levitating her coffee cup closer with the power of her geode. "This morning's timeslot is going to be filled with teenagers kicking a ball across a field. So maybe it's torture for us both for once."

Sunset Shimmer wandered in from the kitchen with a plate of bacon. "You mind repeating that?"

"Pfft." Twilight rolled her four eyes. "Like it'd make a difference, Professor X." She leaned up towards Sunset Shimmer just in time for—

"Mwah!" Sunset pecked her girlfriend on the lips before placing the plate down. "Here. Quick. Before Spike wakes up and eats it."

"Wow! Smells really good!"

"It'd better be." Sunset Shimmer sat next to her at the table. "I just sliced it off my bangs two minutes ago."

"Heeheehee..." Twilight's voice hushed as Flash found his way into the bathroom. The boi left the door cracked ever-so-slightly open, lingering with his ear aimed towards the rest of the apartment. Sure enough, Twilight continued speaking—quietly—as if just to Sunset alone. "You... uh... you sure that this is a good idea? Pushing him like this, I mean...?"

"Twi, it's been months. We can't let him stay holed up in this place forever."

"Considering what he's been through, Sunny, isn't it understandable that he... needs more time?"

"He's already missed so much from the blackout. I can't stand to let him miss anymore."

"Well... I suppose you know him the best."

"Hard not to. For example, I know that he's listening to everything we say right now even though he thinks we can't notice him."

"You hear that, Flash?!" Twilight's voice echoed across the room. "Our resident telepath caught you again!"

Flash sighed. Finally—he closed the door.

"That's much better," a voice chimed delicately in his head. Flash could swear he smelled Sunset's spicy perfume, and the moment he thought that—he could hear his former high school girlfriend chuckling knowingly from halfway across the apartment.

With a defeated breath, Flash flicked on the bathroom light and faced the mirror. A petite specimen of smooth porcelain youth looked right back. Pristine blue eyes blinked under a bleary expression. Shiny azure hair tried its damnedest to look disorderly and cowlicked—but somehow its shine persisted in the morning light that crept in through every pocket of that place.

How might someone label the entity in the mirror? An Adonis? A cherub? A seraphim beauty of nebulous yet provocative androgyny?

One thing was for certain: the reflection was someone Flash no longer recognized. Coming to grips with it was confusing, taxing, and a strain on everything he had grown up to be... or shrunk to be.

With a meager grunt, the boi gripped the edges of his enormous-but-not-enormous shirt. He lifted it front-first—like a woman. He didn't understand why, but the method came naturally.

The sight to follow in the mirror didn't: a smooth and hairless chest. Slightly pronounced nipples, rosy and tender. A narrow waist that subtly accentuated his hips. He wore stupidly juvenile-looking boxers with the Batman logo plastered all over. It was the only thing at the department store that could easily fit him. The man—if anyone could still call Flash such—was barely scaling past five feet in height. This was a literal medical impossibility: in his sophomore year, he was the tallest in his class. But all of that changed.

Right after he woke from the blackout.

When it came time to strip for a shower, Flash looked away from the reflection. Everything about him was smaller, and that was the hardest to come to grips with. Or perhaps softest.

Life—for all of its magical mishaps and carnival chaos—had somehow decided to play the ultimate practical joke on Flash Sentry. His only way of dealing was to drown himself in shadows, but the female friends who had taken him into their apartment weren't set on letting him do that forever.

So—drowning in shower water was the next best thing. Flash knew he couldn't cherish the diversion forever. There was no escaping both a telepath and a telekinetick. The inevitable doom of a high school soccer game was in his future—along with all the haunting faces he knew would accompany it.

"Bring it on, universe," Flash grumbled—his voice as annoyingly soft as his body. He pigeon-stepped into the shower stall and twisted the faucet. "What's the worst you can throw at me at this point?"

"Don't forget to shampoo that beautiful hair of yours," a certain redhead's voice pierced his mind amidst the shower droplets.

Flash gnashed his teeth. Two venomous words rocketed through his brain.

"Whoah there, sailor! A girl can take a clue!" The tickle of mental invasion slowly faded. "But seriously, though. Do a little conditioner as well. You know how much it makes Fluttershy happy to smell the stuff."

"Mrmmffff..." Flash slowly reached for the bottle...