Heartstrings

by evelili

Rating: everyone
Tags: Romance, Equestria Girls, Flash Sentry, Sunset Shimmer, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Sad
Length: 4768

Flash Sentry knows their relationship was never meant to last.

Flash Sentry knows their relationship was never meant to last. He's a human guy; she's an immortal alicorn princess from Equestria. No matter how hard they try to make things work, he knows that sooner or later life will creep up behind them and something will finally give—be it him, or her, or them both.

So what's the point in trying when they've always been fated to part?

Winner of the EQG Spring Fling Contest. Reviewed by Loganberry. Cover sketch by me!

Published 2023-04-01 03:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-01 03:10:01 UTC

Meaningfully Mundane

The next time she comes through the portal, she’s taller than him.

Or, maybe she always was and Flash just didn’t notice it the first time, or all the times after that. But now her hair’s longer and her eyes are sharper and her smile has a heavy weight to it that it never had before—he hasn’t aged a day since they’ve last seen each other, and yet in the time they’ve been apart she’s somehow grown into the title of princess; wears it better without a crown than she ever has before.

“Hey, you,” she greets him once she catches her balance. It doesn’t take her long to do so anymore. “So, what’s the plan for this week?”

She holds out her hand, and this time Flash notices the portal’s given her gloves. Not winter gloves—it’s still fall, and the weather’s still warm—but the white and fancy kind fairytales often give their prince. Because that’s what she is, he realizes. A magical, fairytale princess girlfriend who’s settled for a normal guy.

He takes her hand. “How’s a movie sound?” he says.

“Depends,” she replies, and steps closer so they can lean shoulder-to-shoulder as they walk. “Are you going to pay for popcorn?”

“I’m not that much of a cheapskate,” he grumbles, and she laughs, and his faux irritation washes away the instant he hears it. He loves her laugh. He loves her—as much as a teenage boy can love a girl, anyway.

Her glove is cold against his palm.

He knows this isn’t going to last.

Sometimes Flash finds himself in the music room after the Rainbooms finish practice. He doesn’t ever listen in while they’re playing—it’s their time, and as a fellow musician he knows how important every minute of practice is—but occasionally after their hour’s up he sticks his head in to see if Sunset’s still around.

(They were dating, and then they weren’t, and then they weren’t friends, and then they were. Perhaps if he were a lesser man he’d have held a grudge against her, or perhaps if he were a better man he’d have been able to shake the nasty feelings that came with your ex-girlfriend somehow turning into your best friend. But he’s not lesser, or better. He’s just Flash, and Sunset is still just Sunset.)

Today she’s stayed behind, sitting on the risers at the side and tuning her guitar. She looks up when he opens the door and smiles. “Hey,” she says, and gives her A string a sharp pluck. It’s perfectly pitched without a tuner—she’s always had better ears for that than him.

“Hey,” he repeats, and shuts the door behind him. His acoustic’s in its case on his back today, instead of his electric. “Got some time?”

“‘Course.” She scoots over and pats beside her.

He sits down.

Her phone buzzes as he gets out his own guitar, and when its screen lights up he catches a glimpse of her lockscreen out of the corner of his eye. It’s a photo of her and a too-familiar girl—but of course she’d be there, he scolds himself. She’s allowed to wallpaper her girlfriend over her phone screen the same way he’s allowed to do the same with his.

It just... hurts a bit.

He swallows a sigh and pulls the strap of his guitar around his neck.

It hurts because Sunset’s girlfriend belongs in this universe, and his doesn’t.

“They’re different people,” Sunset says suddenly, as if reading his thoughts. Subtly, Flash double checks to make sure her hands aren’t close enough to touch him—and they aren’t. And he knows she wouldn’t do that without asking him first regardless.

“I know,” he says, and this time a sigh escapes at the tail end of his words. “Sorry. I just— I’ve just been thinking lately,” he continues. His fingertips idly pluck at open strings. “Mostly about her. She’s... changing, y’know?” One of his strings sounds slightly off, but his ears aren’t warmed up enough to know which one, or which way to tune it. “Last time I saw her, she was taller than me.”

Sunset hums thoughtfully. She leans closer and lightly taps the head of his guitar. “B’s flat,” she says, then adds, “and it’s probably because she’s an alicorn, right?”

Flash frowns. “A what?”

“She didn’t explain this to you?” When he shakes his head, Sunset makes a face, then takes it upon herself to sharpen his B string for him. “Well, I told you I was a unicorn, right? And when we pony up, y’know how some of us get wings, and some don’t?”

“Yeah. Pegasi, right?”

“Yeah.” She lets go of the peg. He strums his strings—perfectly tuned. “Well, your princess is a special case. She’s a probably-immortal ruler with a horn and wings and earth pony strength—one of only four in existence. Or five, if you count Cadenza’s baby.” She rolls her eyes. “Which I don’t.”

“Wait.” One of her words sticks out to him, and not in a nice way. Like a pimple on picture day, or a single flat guitar string. “She’s immortal?”

Sunset shrugs. “Two of the other princesses have been around for thousands of years. Though, I suppose her and Cadenza were normal ponies first, so maybe they won’t be? Hard to say for sure.”

Flash stares at her for a moment. His stomach turns. Huh.

He wasn’t looking for it, but he’s found it anyway—more proof that they won’t last; more proof that they don’t have a happily ever after. At least, not one that she can have with him.

His fingers strum his guitar again out of habit, but the chord sounds hollow. The pads of his fingertips ache with the same awful feeling twisted in his gut. “Thanks for the tune-up,” he manages.

He hates the flicker of worry he sees reflected in Sunset’s eyes.

His parents are away the following weekend, so they hold date night at his place. It’s nothing fancy, or out of the ordinary. But she still seems to enjoy the in-ordinary things they do together—measuring ingredients precisely, rolling out the pizza dough with all her strength, arranging her half of the toppings in an ordered grid, and wiping flour on his sleeve in protest when he scatters his half in clumps.

It’s just so ordinary. Something that Flash has experienced over and over and over. He doesn’t know what she sees in making dinner, or in washing dishes, or in eating on the couch in front of the television, or in him. Because, compared to her, isn’t he more than mundane?

Even their conversations carry a heavy contrast. He tells her about math class; she tells him about her student’s most recent accomplishments. He tells her about band practice, and she tells him about some sort of creatures called changelings, and their terrible queen. He tells her about university applications. She tells him how just two days ago the changelings kidnapped her and everyone she loved, and how her student figured out a way to save them all.

And yet two days after a kidnapping she’s somehow content to sit on a couch and eat slightly-overdone pizza with a normal guy like him.

“I sound pretty boring compared to you,” Flash says eventually, and he tries to keep his emotions from his voice, but he knows he didn’t succeed when her smile slightly droops.

“What do you mean?” she asks slowly.

“I mean”—he gestures around his living room—“all of this. All of me. This is all so normal compared to Equestria. It must be boring, right?” I must be boring you, he wants to say, but doesn’t.

Her smile fades to a full frown, and she puts her plate down on the coffee table. “I don’t think that’s true,” she says carefully, and Flash knows she’s easily read between his lines. “I like spending time with you, no matter what we’re doing.” She tilts her head to the side. “It may seem mundane to you, but to me, it’s the only time in my life I get to ignore the chaos and just feel normal, even if it's only for an evening.” Her lips curve into a smile again. “Which is saying something, if the only chance I have to feel normal is as a pony-turned-human in a parallel dimension.”

He laughs quietly at that, and so does she. Then, she shifts a little closer so their legs are pressed side-by-side.

“Do you think I’m boring?” she asks.

“Of course not,” he replies immediately, and wraps one arm around her shoulders in response. “You’re nothing like any person—pony—I’ve ever met.”

“Well, that’s what you’re like to me,” she says, and leans her head on his shoulder. It’s a bit awkward now that she’s taller, but if Flash straightens up and she slouches a little they can make it work. “Your ‘exciting’ is my ‘boring’, because I get it all the time.”

“Oh.” He’s never thought of it like that before.

“But with you, and in this world, I get the chance to just exist and experience the ordinary parts of life.” She tilts her head to look up at him, and in her smile Flash sees something faint, and soft. “You’re like nopony—nobody—I’ve ever met before either, because you’re the only one who’s ever been able to give me that.”

He knows she means well, and it’s a sentiment nothing short of sweet, but when he picks away at her words all Flash hears is normal and boring and dull. So he just squeezes her shoulder and gives her a quick peck on the forehead, and they spend the rest of the evening in the same sort of mundane way.

He drives her back to the portal before midnight.

He doesn’t yet have the courage to ask her about anything else.

His heart turns to song when it’s heavy, but Flash soon finds that music isn’t nearly good enough for this. And it’s not for a lack of trying—he sits there on his bed for nearly an hour with his guitar on his lap and a notepad at his side. But no matter what chords he tries or what order he arranges them in or what lyrics he pencils down and scratches out, it all sounds dull.

Music has limitless creative potential, and yet everything he comes up with sounds like something that’s already been done.

Perhaps if he were a better man he’d let himself cry out all his frustration, and perhaps if he were a lesser man he’d turn his anger around at her, but he’s still not lesser or better, and still just Flash.

Instead, he takes out his tuner.

(In his bitterness he lashes out and tunes every string on his guitar to the same note in an attempt to make his music sound the way he feels, and when he’s finished and he strums an open chord he hears himself and only feels worse and worse and worse.

Because now even his music is boring.

Just like him.)

Their next date takes them on a walk around the city’s arboretum among all the autumn leaves. The weather’s nice, if a bit cold, and Flash is grateful that the portal’s given her proper gloves this time alongside her coat.

He doesn’t know much about trees or anything plant-related, but he does his best regardless to explain how his world’s seasons work. Here, the leaves turn red and fall on their own, but Equestrian leaves apparently need a bit of help. “The running shakes them down?” he asks, a bit incredulous. The gravel path crunches in a rhythm beneath their shoes. “And if you don’t, they’ll just... stay up?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a chicken or egg scenario,” she says, and giggles at the dumbfounded expression on his face. “Do the leaves fall because we run? Or do we run because the leaves fall?” She kicks a bit of leaves beside the path to emphasize her point with a crunch. “The first leaf to fall on its own starts the race, so I think it’s more that we just help things move along.”

Flash shakes his head to exaggerate his disbelief. “You ponies make things so complicated,” he teases. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you have to clean up winter if you want to see spring.”

She rolls her eyes and pokes him in the side. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you humans pile up all your leaves in autumn to prepare for winter when they’re perfectly fine being left the way they were.”

It’s a cultural exchange, Flash likes to think of it. The little differences between their worlds that seem normal on one side, yet foreign and strange on the other.

Eventually they finish their first lap around, and the conversation turns to what they’ve done that past week. “I’ve sent in my uni applications,” he tells her, and watches her face carefully for any indication of dismay. But her expression only perks up to something curious, her eyes gleaming and her eyebrows raised.

“What for?” she asks.

“Well, business mostly,” he says with a sigh. “My parents won’t let me pursue music without some sort of safety net, which is fair. I’m thinking I’ll do business, and minor in music or something on the side.”

She wrinkles her nose at that and makes a face. “But your special talent’s something to do with music, isn’t it?”

Flash laughs quietly; bitterly. “Humans don’t work like that,” he explains. The autumn wind feels chillier all of a sudden, biting at the neck of his coat. “And I mean, look at the pony version of me. Isn’t he some sort of guard in an empire?” He forces his face into a hollow smirk. “Maybe I’m destined to end up as a security guard or something, just like him.”

She boos him again, but relents, and they walk a little while longer through the leaves. Near the end of their second lap they pass beneath a massive tree that towers over the pathway with its red, red leaves, and in its shadow she holds out her hand to stop.

“I think I’d maybe like to open a school of my own some day,” she says, her neck craned back in an attempt to peer at the top of the tree. Flash mirrors her pose, and sees nothing but a sea of red.

“You’d be a good teacher,” he says absently.

“Well, I don’t know much about schools, or teaching,” she says. She fumbles for his hand without looking, and he lets her take it. “What are the schools you’ve applied to like? Are they located all over the country so that students can choose to attend somewhere close to home? Or are schools mostly in some central place for convenience, like a capital?”

She doesn’t ask him outright, but Flash knows what she’s really after. He laces their fingers together before he answers, the two of them still looking up to the tree-obscured sky. “All over,” he says, and leaves it at that.

Because he knows wherever he ends up going will take him away—away from CHS, away from the portal, and away from her.

This time he tunes his guitar randomly, with no tuner and none of the strings in proper pitch—some sharp, some flat, and none in any sort of harmony at all.

It sounds like garbage, the same as how he feels.

The next time she comes she’s only able to visit for an hour, so Flash abandons his dinner plans and they sit up on top of the portal’s statue together to chat.

She’s tired this evening, both physically and mentally. She describes a fiasco about some book she’s published in a weary, exhausted voice that hardly even sounds like her. She tells him that everything fell apart—is still apart—and that the only reason she’s here is that Spike won’t let her keep trying to fix a situation she can’t do anything about.

(And deep down Flash agrees with the kid, but he definitely can’t say that to her right now.)

He spends most of their hour just listening and being there as best he can. He hasn’t ever gone through anything like this, but compared to some of the magical disasters she’s been through, a social one like this is much closer to his comfort zone. Eventually, when she’s calmed down enough, with her head on his lap and his hands stroking through her hair, he figures it’s alright to attempt a joke.

“At least you didn’t write about me,” he says, and she snorts into his jeans in response.

“Why?” she asks, her voice dry. “Afraid they’d come through the portal to get to you, too?”

“Nah,” he says. He pushes her bangs off her forehead and sticks out his tongue. “It’s more that I doubt ponies would be too happy knowing one of their rulers galivants around with a guy from another dimension.” He lifts his hand, and her bangs fall back down at the same time her tired smile fades.

“I’m not a ruler, though,” she corrects, and her voice seems strained.

“Well, you’re a princess, aren’t you?”

“Of friendship.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s a glorified title. That’s all.”

Flash frowns at that. “Sunset told me something different, though,” he says slowly. “That there’s only four or five of you princesses, or ali-whatevers. That means you’re a pretty big deal, doesn’t it?”

He doesn’t think he’s said anything out of line, but in that moment she doesn’t look just tired, but also sad.

“I don’t really want to talk about this now,” she says quietly, and sits up before he can say anything else. “And... I think it’s nearly time for me to head back.”

She gives him a hug goodbye, and apologizes again for being in a mood. He returns the hug with an apology of his own—for what she’s going through, for bringing up something painful, and for the fact she has to go back to face the disaster on her own.

When they part, he hopes the next time they see each other will make him feel better about what they are, instead of worse.

He’s not thinking when he takes his guitar out in the band room, and it’s only when his fingers accidentally strum its strings that he remembers the terrible state he’s left it in. He freezes at the sound, but by then it’s already too late—Sunset notices, and with just the two of them in the room together there’s nowhere for him to hide.

“That’s the reddest flag I’ve ever seen,” she says, and swats his hands away from the case before he can slam it back shut. She pulls his guitar up and into her lap without asking for permission, and plucks at its terrible, awful strings.

Flash doesn’t protest as she starts to tune.

She thumbs the string that was once a low E, winces at its sound, and then asks, “So what on earth is up with you?”

“Nothing,” he lies, and Sunset immediately strums the sound of garbage to drown him out.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” she says, and his will crumples.

“Fine,” he admits. He crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s... it’s her. Again. You know that.” The low E approaches something close to reasonable, at least to his ears, but to Sunset it’s seemingly still not there. “I keep thinking about what you told me, and what’s going to happen with us, and...” He takes a deep breath, but now his words aren’t there, either.

If he were a lesser man he’d say he likes her too much to lose her, and if he were a better man he’d say he doesn’t want to be the one to hold her back, but he’s never been lesser or better than what he’s always been—just Flash. And even though he knows they’re not meant to be, he hates that he still wishes that they were.

“In the best case, I stay here in the city,” he explains quietly, and Sunset moves on to the A string. “We make time for each other somehow, despite her ridiculously busy life, and I eventually grow old and die seeing the love of my life for just an evening every week.”

His guitar twangs sadly. Sunset stares at him silently, her fingers pausing against its strings, and gives him the space he needs to carry on.

“I’ll never be able to marry her,” he says, defeat between his words, “because in this world she’s not even supposed to exist.”

The tuning starts back up again. Flash stops paying attention to the sound of it and lets the rest of his thoughts spill out: “I can’t move to Equestria. She can’t move here. We both have our own lives independent of each other, and it’s not fair on either of us to make the other give theirs up.” He hates how whiny he sounds; how vulnerable and pathetic he’s being, but even in his bitterness he knows that Sunset doesn’t see him any less because of it. “All the schools I’ve applied to are hours and miles away from here. Even if we did long-distance, I...”

His voice cracks.

He’s so grateful that Sunset doesn’t acknowledge it.

“...I can’t see a future where we both get what we want out of this relationship,” he finishes, in as stable of a voice he can muster. “And, yeah, it’s kind of tearing me up on the inside, I guess.”

Because he knows the obvious advice is to break up with her, but he’s still just Flash and not better than that. He doesn’t want to give up on her; he cares about her so much, more than any other girl he’s ever liked.

(Loved?)

But they’re both putting in all this effort and it makes him want to scream, because why are they bothering when there’s never been a chance of them working out?

“Thanks for trusting me with this,” Sunset says quietly, and plucks a rhythm absently on his guitar. It’s tuned, now. Perfectly, and better without a tuner than Flash has ever been able to do. “I’m assuming you haven’t told her how you’ve been feeling yet?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how,” he says, his voice low to match her careful tone.

“I could ask her for you, if you want?”

“No, I couldn’t let you do that,” he says. “I don’t think it’d be good for either of us if you did that anyways. This... it’s just sort of something we need to work out for ourselves. That I need to do for myself,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

“Hm.” Sunset stops playing, and lifts his guitar’s strap off her neck. “You think she’s feeling the same way as you, then?”

“I mean, I don’t know, but—” He stops himself before he gets too far, and remembers the statue. He remembers the look on her face, and the sadness in her eyes, and the way her smiles so easily faded into frowns. Right.

Sunset passes him back his guitar.

He puts the strap around his neck and plays a chord. It sounds normal—not like the garbage it used to be.

Just... normal.

And so on their next date they go to the diner near his house and squeeze side-by-side in a little booth together and get milkshakes and fries and burgers and talk and eat. It’s nostalgic in a way, even though he’s never taken her before, and the mood is somehow comforting to his tangled nerves.

Once they finish eating, though—him stirring his straw in an empty glass and her picking at the remains of her fries—Flash finally manages to bring it up:

“Are you really immortal?” he asks, and it’s far too blunt but he can’t bring himself to care.

Her hand pauses above her plate. “I might be,” she answers in that same, strained voice from before. “But honestly, I think it’s a bit too early for me to know for sure.” She leans back and stares down at the table. Usually she’s confident; sure of herself and her words, but now it seems she can’t stomach looking him in the eyes. “You’ve been thinking about us too, then?” she asks back, and he swallows hard.

“Yeah,” he says around the lump in his throat. “A lot, actually.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up if I didn’t have to—”

“Me neither.”

“But you did anyways,” she says, and draws a shaky breath. “Why?”

He doesn’t want to tell her why. And a better man wouldn’t have put that burden on her, and a lesser man wouldn’t have been burdened in the first place, but he’s just Flash, and that’s never, ever going to change.

“Because this isn’t ever going to work out, right?” he whispers. He’s afraid if he speaks any louder, his voice will break. “You’re an immortal pony princess from another dimension, and I’m just mortal and... just me.”

“You’re Flash,” she tries, but he shakes his head.

“But you’re you. And I don’t understand why you’re willing to waste your time with me when we both know this is never going to work.”

She’s quiet after that, for a bit.

Then, in the silence she turns to take his hand in hers, and nudges him by the shoulder until they’re sitting face to face.

“We don’t have to work out to get something meaningful from this,” she says, and Flash hears something sure and regal in her voice that wasn’t there before. “Even if our relationship only lasts so long, can’t I still enjoy the time I can spend with you now?” She squeezes his hand. She removed her gloves before they ate, and against his skin her fingers are slightly cold but so, so her. “I care about spending time with you because we’re together right now—not in the past, or in the future, but in this little diner and wherever else it’s only me and you.”

And in the dim lighting he finally sees her eyes shining with bittersweet, unshed tears he feels prickling just the same behind his own. The lump in his throat is still there, so all he can do in response is squeeze her hand and pull her closer and hold her tight and nod his head.

They still have time. Nothing’s ended yet.

He still has time to make their now worth it for them both.

He doesn’t plan or practice what he’ll play for her.

It won’t be anything close to perfect, but he no longer cares.

The next time she comes through the portal he’s waiting for her on top of the statue with his guitar slung around his neck and a smile, and once she rights herself she climbs up to sit beside him wearing a smile of her own.

And that evening he just plays for her as the sun slips to the horizon and paints the sky in red, his fingers cold and clunky against frets and metal strings. He makes mistakes. A lot of them. He stumbles over his lyrics because he’s making them up as he goes along, sometimes just humming a melody and sometimes rambling each thought that pops into his head in a way that makes her giggle and lean closer and tap her hand against his knee. It’s not perfect, but he’s there with her in that moment regardless.

Because they’re still not meant to be—but while they are, all he can do is make the best of the time they have.

Author's Note

i was possessed at 3am to do a flash sentry character study—sometimes u get the first and last lines of a fic blasted directly into ur brain in the middle of the night, and u have no choice but to sit down the next day and let the spirit of writing take over for a few hours until the story's done. im not a huge fan of the ship or of flash, but i have a soft spot for pathetic romantics and flash is just. he's a perfect fit lol. and there's something beautifully tragic in him knowing their relationship is doomed, and yet learning to try for it anyways because at least he has it now.

(and for a bonus, i wonder if you can spot the one thing ive intentionally left out of the entire fic :twilightsmile:)

thanks for reading!