Doused Flame

by heartlessons

Rating: teen
Tags: Romance, Drama, Equestria Girls, Profanity, Sex, Flash Sentry, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 9534

No one said your first love had to be your best love.

Sunset Shimmer had good grades, mostly good manners, and, at the risk of Flash tooting his own horn, a pretty good boyfriend.

After all, you wouldn't kiss someone you don't like.

A study of relationship.

Written for the Spring Fling Contest, where it won third place.

Tagged sex for references and implications; nothing explicit occurs onscreen. Content warning for underage drinking.

Review by PaulAsaran.

Published 2023-04-25 18:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-25 18:00:00 UTC

Only Embers

Sunset Shimmer kissed like she didn’t expect someone to kiss her back.

Autumn came early, that year, but the Fall Formal was held on the same Friday as always. Students entered the gymnasium wearing big coats that were ditched the moment the speakers began to blare. Draped over the backs of fold-out chairs, the jackets lived quieter lives until they were remembered again, pulled on over sparkly gowns and rumpled shirt collars, and the faculty overseeing the event began to none-so-gently usher the students back into the brisk night.

Eager to get home, Flash surmised. The same couldn’t be said of his girlfriend—and wasn’t that a thrill, calling Sunset Shimmer his girlfriend? He did it again, if only because he could. It was his girlfriend that he’d danced the evening away with, his girlfriend that won Princess of the Fall Formal, his girlfriend that, upon receiving the crown, had pulled him onstage by the lapels of his tux and smashed her lips against his.

It didn’t feel good, exactly. You wouldn’t think it, but teeth were sharp. Flash took her in his arms all the same. Someone wolf-whistled.

Sunset deserved all of it. He’d heard the upperclassmen talking, and none of them could remember the last time a freshman won the Fall Formal. When the principal set that tiara on her head, Sunset bowed deep, like a real princess. Flash had never seen her act so respectful.

But that was inside, and they were taking their sweet time leaving. First she wanted to dance some more. Then she had to get her picture taken. Twice, because she hadn’t been ready for how bright the camera was. And it was only now that she allowed the two of them to go outside, her feet bare on the concrete and him bringing up the rear.

Heat may rise, but in the night air, Flash’s face was cold. His ankles were the same way, only that was because he had long outgrown these slacks. Even if he didn’t look it, he’d gained at least four inches in height since the seventh grade. Five if you counted the gel in his hair.

Sunset didn’t care. She must have been freezing and while Flash had lent her his jacket—like all good boyfriends did—her dress barely reached above her knees.

“Tonight was perfect,” she was saying, in between stealing peeks of herself in the windows that bracketed the school’s courtyard. “It was everything I could have wanted in a coronation.”

Coronation. She kept calling it that. He wasn’t too sure why—that was the kind of word they got quizzed on in literature class, and if he was being honest, it sounded closer to what an actual princess would’ve called tonight—but if it made her happy, he could go along with it.

Sunset looked prettier, in twilight. Often, the shadows made people seem scary, but she just bathed in them, face aglow. She had skipped all the way to the Wondercolts statue, and appeared to be checking if she could spot herself in there, too.

“Wait for me!” Flash’s voice rang out in the quiet. Everyone else had left. He didn’t have to worry about being loud. “Sunset, wait!”

She turned around, smiling a little. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said tepidly, as he caught up to her. “I don’t need to. Now that I have this.” And she gestured to the crown.

Gently setting her heels on the concrete, he leaned against the smooth base of the statue, the chilled marble a shock on his neck. “I still can’t believe you won,” he murmured. Sunset raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She was definitely using the statue as a mirror. Nobody stood like that if they were just admiring the school mascot. “I mean, a freshman Fall Formal Princess? It’s just so weird. Good-weird, though! Good-weird.”

Scoffing, Sunset tilted her head this way and that. The moon caught her halfway, and cast pale light over her temple. “Well, it can’t have been too surprising.”

“I mean, no, it was pretty surprising,” Flash said. “I mostly just hope nobody’s too upset, you know?”

That tore her attention from the statue. She frowned at him. “Upset?” she said. “Who would be upset that I won?”

Flash shrugged. “Most people gunning for the crown were upperclassmen.”

“I’m a freshman.”

“I know. And you’re amazing. But some kids get, like, upset about that sorta thing? Especially if they’re older.”

“Seems foolish,” Sunset said, though she sounded uncertain.

His head hit the statue with a thunk. “I guess,” he said, glancing at her. “But you know what I’m getting at, right? Some upperclassmen, they work their entire high school career to win that crown. Your crown. Putting up posters, giving out little prizes. Anything to get a vote. It’s not as big a deal when you’re, you know, a freshman, but for seniors? It’s their last chance.”

Sunset appeared to struggle with that, chewing on her thumbnail. It reminded him of when you work over a piece of gum for so long in your mouth that it becomes flavored rubber. She never said a word, either, just turned around, staring at the other her in the endless expanse of white stone. Pressed her hand against the surface and frowned when it wouldn’t give. He watched, from his periphery, as her hand rose to touch the gem at the tiara’s base, fingers so careful and sure. Exploratory. Wondering.

Flash gave her all the time she needed. She had a good point, earlier. If she wasn’t going anywhere, then neither was he.

Right when he was certain the quiet would swallow them both whole, the wind picked up, sending the leaves scattered about the courtyard flying and a shiver running down his back. The weather was already enough to make him shake; he didn’t want to think about how Sunset was faring. At least he had pants. Too-small pants, maybe, but pants all the same.

He opened his mouth, but she was always quicker than him.

“I was unexpected.” It wasn’t a question. Sunset’s lips had settled in a grimace, at odds with her state of dress. “And they didn’t like that.”

“Well—who cares what they think?”

She fixed him with a look, the kind with a capital ‘L’. Flash folded his arms across his chest.

“I’m being serious,” he said. “Everyone voted for you for a reason. I know earlier that I said the older kids might be mad but they probably voted for themselves anyway. ‘Cause you know what? In a year, they’re going to be gone and we’ll still be here. And there’s gotta be, like, formals at college and stuff.” He gave her a wink. “They can manage without one crown.”

“You really think so?” Sunset asked.

“I don’t think so. I know so. C’mere.”

The two of them had more decorum than other couples; there was one stairwell at the back of the school that this one guy and girl loved to make out in. Sunset and Flash only swapped spit in private. The Fall Formal kiss notwithstanding, of course.

On the other hand…

Taking her arm, Flash told her, “Even if no one else likes it, you being unexpected is what I like most about you. Alright?”

She met his eyes, head tilted in a question. He answered it eagerly.

This kiss was softer than what they shared onstage. Less teeth, certainly, but it was also just for them. There was no performance. No bright lights, no cameras flashing. Sunset’s hands settled on his shoulders, and he held her even closer, and for a while, they breathed almost as one. They did that right up until their lips had been locked together a bit too long and they had to separate, at risk of asphyxiation. Or something similar. Sunset would know the word.

When they split, there was barely an inch left between their noses, Flash’s breath hot on her face. He hoped it did well to keep her warm. She kept stroking his arm, something endlessly tender in her gaze.

Flash really did luck out, didn’t he? People always say that no high school relationship makes it past those four years, but staring at Sunset, with all this warmth bubbling in his stomach, he could see eight more years with her. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty.

Anything to be with a girl like Sunset.

Not everyone gets the best girlfriend.

He was lucky to have one.

“And you know,” he said, and she looked up at him, curiously, “nobody ever cares that much about the Fall Formal, anyway.” At her perplexed expression, Flash amended, “I mean, they do! Some do? I care. I didn’t mean it like—ugh, I’m messing this all up. What I meant to say is that there’s so many other cool things you can win.”

Sunset paused in smoothing out the wrinkles from his shirt, lip curled. “Like your heart?” she asked.

That same warmth from his stomach tinted his cheeks pink, and he covered his face. “Oh, now that’s just playing dirty!” he said, but he was laughing. “We’re already boyfriend-girlfriend. You don’t get to use pickup lines like that anymore.”

“Oh, please. You’re just upset it worked.”

Flash was. A little bit. He grinned all the same, and began to reach up to cup the back of her head, his brain cooking up something witty that might really pick her up, when his hand grazed something that wasn’t her curls. Or the tiara.

“Wait one sec,” he said. “You’ve got something in your hair.”

“I do?” Sunset’s hands fell away from his. “Here, I’ll just—”

“No, no. I got it. I don’t think it’s a bug, which is good, ‘cause ladybugs are weird.”

“Don’t touch my crown.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

In his hand was a leaf. A nice one, just that right shade of yellow. With a whistle, Flash held it up to the moonlight.

“Now you know fall’s really started,” he said. “Look at the size of this thing! Oh, man, you should see our yard this time of year. There’s so many leaves you can hardly see the sidewalk anymore.”

“You don’t say.”

“Kinda in the theme, too, right? I mean, it’s not called the Fall Formal for nothing. Though it is a little weird they call it that and not just the fall dance. Or they could make it rhyme? Since the Spring Fling rhymes and all. Maybe it could be the Fall Ball instead?” He snapped his fingers. “Ooh, you know, I think I’m really onto something here. I should email Principal Celestia about it. I’m sure I’ll have at least some sway since I’m dating the Princess of the Fall Ball and all. Hey, that rhymed too! How about it, Sunset?”

Flash elbowed Sunset, expecting her to laugh, or maybe even dig her elbow back harder. She could be mean when she wanted to.

But Sunset was motionless, her eyes glued to the leaf in his hand. Was her breath too quick, or was it just really cold? He watched her with a frown.

“Sunset?” he said. Quieter, this time. He knew how to read a room. “Are you okay? Did I say something bad?”

His girlfriend’s lack of response made him feel stupid for even asking. Mentally, he kicked himself. Hard.

“I didn’t mean what I said about not caring, earlier,” he whispered. “About the Fall Formal, I mean? If it came across like that, I’m really, really sorry. Sometimes, I don’t always think before I talk, which I’m trying to work on, but—”

“How did that get there?”

Something in Sunset’s voice gave him pause. She was still staring at the leaf, so Flash offered it to her, like an olive branch, but she stiffened and took a stumbling step back. Suddenly, he was glad she’d removed her shoes before they left. Kitten heel or no, he didn’t want her to fall and get hurt.

“Um, the wind, probably,” he said. “Or the trees got all—shaken. And you know. The leaf just sorta… fell.” Then he took her by the shoulder, brow creased. “Sunny, are you okay? What do you mean? Do you not like leaves?”

“I-I don’t—I don’t mind them, not at all, it’s just… Who moved them?” Feverish, she patted at the back of her head. Flash had never seen her like this. Gone was the confidence under the auditorium lights and the winning smile she’d directed to the yearbook photographer’s camera. In dusk’s unforgiving glare, Sunset looked lost, and worried, and scared. “How—how did it get in my hair? I thought we were alone out here.”

“We are,” Flash said. “Or we should be? I mean, I didn’t see anyone else. We could leave, if you wanted to? It’s really late anyway.”

He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He’d been the same at the party, but that was when they were trying to slow dance, and Sunset had arranged his hands to sit on her waist with all the grace of royalty. He didn’t know any of the motions now. He wanted to touch her, wanted to tell her everything would turn out alright, that his house was only a few streets away and that since she lived in the city, walking alone in the dark would be dangerous, so if her parents were okay with it, he could text his mom and see if she could pick Sunset up, too, so she wouldn’t have to go home scared.

But his own heart was a rabbit in his chest, and all he could do was stare helplessly at his girlfriend. Eventually, he decided to just stuff the leaf into his pocket, his hands following suit. He didn’t want to ruin what should have been her perfect night. He had never seen her cry before. And he never wanted to.

When Sunset spoke next, it was with a voice so quiet he could hardly hear it. Like she had to force the words out.

“I just don’t understand how that could be here.”

“Probably fell down earlier,” Flash said softly. He drew a breath in, and let it out. “It’s gotten colder way quicker than it normally does around here. Weird nature, I guess? Somebody up there’s gotta be pissed.” His gaze softened. “If you wanna leave, we can. I’ll call my mom. You don’t live far, right? Just downtown?”

Sunset gave a tiny nod. But she didn’t move.

As he pulled out his phone, he made sure to keep the conversation flowing. Especially since he got the feeling she wasn’t exactly in the mood for talking. “Yeah, I’m sure my mom won’t mind. To her, giving people rides means I’ve got friends to give rides to and in her book, that’s pretty good. Especially since I used to not have a lot of those. What’s your address, again?”

She rattled it off, a three digit apartment number Flash hoped to someday have memorized—they weren’t quite at the stage where that sort of information was commonplace—and he relayed it back to his mom through text.

The rest of that night was spent out on the curb outside the school. Sunset’s heels were next to her. Flash was next to them. The leaf was still in his pocket. He left it there.

“You’re sure that they fell down?” It was the first thing Sunset had said since he called his mom. She wasn’t looking at him. “Without any help?”

Earlier in the night, Flash might have laughed. He probably would’ve thought she was being funny. A lot of things were funny. He had just kissed a girl. Twice.

But he just took her hand in his. Squeezed it. Told her, “They don’t really need any. They just kinda… do that.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if he meant it as a joke or not, because Sunset didn’t laugh. She just pulled his jacket tighter around herself and kept her gaze firmly on the road.

She didn’t take off the crown until they got home.

Sunset Shimmer was the type of girl who paid for things by emptying all her pockets. On their one-and-a-half month anniversary, Flash gave her a studded leather jacket.

When she peered down into the gift bag, it was like she didn’t know what to do with it. Like she wasn’t sure what it was, even, until she took it out and she got a feel of the fabric. Even then, after it had spilled onto her lap and covered her legs, she just kept stroking the sleeve, as if in trance.

The jacket wasn’t new—not even he could afford that. But it was clean, and broken-in, and he had shined the spikes on the collar until his reflection shone clear.

Flash waggled his eyebrows. “So?” he said. “What do you think?”

“This is… for me?” Sunset’s finger caught on one of the spikes and she seemed startled at the poke. “Where did you get this?”

“Oh, I know a guy who knows another guy. Nothing special. Do you like it?”

“What is it for?” she asked.

“For wearing.”

The look she gave him could kill a houseplant. Flash raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay, fine, you caught me,” he said, all melodrama. “I know it’s not your birthday—unless you like to celebrate your half-birthday? And I know it’s not Valentine’s, either. Wanna know why I really got it for you?”

Sunset snorted. “When you say all that, I’m not sure I want to, anymore. And I don’t celebrate my half-birthday.”

“I got you the jacket because I love you, Sunny. And because you’re the best girlfriend ever.” For emphasis, Flash leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She went still. His smile softened, and he extended a hand to her. “Here, let me help you put it on.”

It fit her well. The sleeves were a little longer than they should’ve been, but he just took that to mean it would be cozy come winter. While she was marveling at the way the collar flipped up, he took his phone from his pocket and opened the camera so she could see herself.

Sunset squinted at the screen, smirking. “Damn,” she murmured. “I see why you wear yours so often.”

“Comfortable, right?”

“Among other things.”

Flash pointed his fingers at her. “Looking sharp,” he said, and she swatted at him.

Sunset Shimmer could throw a punch. She just couldn’t always take one.

Hearing that she was in the first big fight of the school year felt like someone had kicked Flash in the stomach and kept their foot there to make sure his skin really bruised. Worse still when the only reason he knew of Sunset’s involvement was because he followed Trixie Lulamoon on Snapgab, and she shared fight videos like it was a full-time job.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it was Sunset’s face that got smashed into the lockers outside the science classroom, but that hair was unmistakable.

When the final bell rang, Flash ran, not walked, to their usual meeting spot, the sidewalk a street over from the school proper. The vice principal shouted at him as he sprinted across the road without looking, but sue him, he was worried.

Sunset wasn’t the type to get upset to the point of physical altercation. She never had been.

The sight of her silhouette on the pavement wasn’t as encouraging as he had hoped. Slip a cigarette between her fingers, sling a baseball bat over her left shoulder, and he wouldn’t have been able to say whether that was his girlfriend or a junior high delinquent.

“There you are,” Flash said, breathless. “I didn’t—I saw the video, but I wanted to—I wasn’t sure if you were—”

“In school suspension,” Sunset recited dully. “One week. For assault of a ‘fellow student.’” Her head hung low, but it was hard to miss the busted lip, especially when it curled into a poor attempt at a smile. “Was more than one student, actually, but maybe Principal Celestia just wanted to play nice to the princess.”

Flash took her hand in his own, frowning when she flinched at the touch. “Princess?”

Then he noticed what stuck out of her bag. What she had worked so hard to get. Her pride, her joy.

To call it a crown would have been courtesy.

Understanding broke like dawn.

“Oh,” Flash murmured. “Sunset, I’m so sorry.”

She turned away. “Don’t be sorry.”

“If I’d been there, I would’ve—”

“I said, don’t be sorry.”

Sunset’s voice got loud at the end, like she wanted to yell but wasn’t sure she could control what might come out of her mouth if she did. He understood the feeling. Her other hand, purple blooming down her skin, reached behind her and retrieved the remains of the Fall Formal crown from her backpack. Her fingers curled around the sharp edges so tightly he was afraid she might hurt herself.

“My fault, anyway,” she said. “Someone said something and I said something back and maybe I shouldn’t have but that doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve it.”

“Do you know who it was?” Flash asked. “Like, who started it? Or who any of them were? Are they gonna get in trouble?”

“I don’t know. The main one talked like she was older, so probably a senior or something. There were a ton of other girls with her. I guess she just thought that I—what, do people only wear these for that one night and then never touch them again?” She shook the crown for emphasis.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Kinda.”

“Seems wasteful, doesn’t it?” Sunset gazed at the twisted metal. He couldn’t read her face. “To win something like this and never get to use it again. I made use of mine. Wearing it, I felt like…”

Her words trailed away, the thought incomplete. But Flash knew her well. He squeezed her hand.

“You’re my princess,” he told her. At the spot where her first knuckle met the second, he could feel the thrum of her heart as it worked overtime. “A-and some girls wear tiaras when it’s their birthday. So it’s not, like, super out of the ordinary, you know?”

The words were kind. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

They both knew it wasn’t her birthday.

Sunset blew air through her mouth, the same way horses do when they’re tired, and she kicked at the fence behind them. It rattled, but held firm. She was lucky there wasn’t a dog living in that backyard, Flash thought. The fences closest to the sidewalk always seemed to hold back the meanest ones.

For a while, neither of them spoke. He wanted to say a lot of things. Say sorry again, because up close, she looked awful, her hair a mess and her cheek swollen. Say something about the weather, even though the most interesting thing about it was going to rain later. Say something meaningful. Something important.

Something better than sorry.

But he couldn’t think of anything.

Bzz, bzz.

The distraction was welcome. Flash reached for his phone without looking. “I think that’s my mom,” he said quietly. “She’ll be here in five minutes, max. Do you still need a ride home? It’s no big deal.”

Absently, Sunset shrugged. “If your mom’s okay with it,” she said. “You said there was a video…? Like online?”

“Oh,” he said, and he cleared his throat. “Yeah, that’s how I found out. But it’s all blurry. You can hardly see anything. And you know my mom won’t mind. She likes you.”

“Do the people here always record fights? When they happen? Aren’t they worried someone will get hurt if they stay to watch?”

I was, Flash thought. I am. He asked her, “Did they not record them at your other school?”

“We didn’t have phones at my old school.”

“Oh. Well, people just like the excitement of them, I guess.”

Sunset’s nose wrinkled. “Fights like that are exciting?”

“You were in one,” he said. “What did you think of it?”

It was the wrong question to ask. She didn’t say anything else until his mom’s car drove up to the curb, and even then all that came out was a mumbled “thank you” to her for the lift.

“Such a sweet girl,” his mom had crowed. But Sunset just pressed her face against the window. The cool glass must have felt good, on her swollen lip.

When suburbia began to give way to downtown, Flash turned around from the passenger seat and leaned over. He whispered, “Sunny?”

Sunset’s gaze flicked to his mom, then to him. “What?”

“I love you a lot,” he told her. “You know that?”

She shifted in her seat. “I know.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”

“Do you know when the next one is?”

Flash blinked. “The next what?”

“The next try,” she said. “The next—Fall Formal, or whatever. When can I be princess again?”

“You didn’t listen at the Freshman Fair? They said all this stuff then.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I didn’t go to the Freshman Fair.”

“Well, there’s the Spring Fling,” he answered, after a moment. “In April, I think? Same deal, just with more flowers and less, um, gourds.”

Sunset’s eyes were on him, unrelenting. She had a bad habit of staring. Anyone else would’ve turned away, but Flash held her gaze.

She breathed in, out. Then, “Where can I sign up?”

Sunset Shimmer was not a mean girl.

Most of the time.

It was more that she was a girl who could be mean. But it came from a place of heart, Flash reminded himself. As she recruited two freshmen to help hang up posters defaming the poor soul who had recorded that first fight video. As she presented the lunch ladies with change he knew she didn’t have before that morning’s social studies class. As he read over the yearbook superlatives and saw her name in bold under a title better suited for an eighth grade bully. Sunset had a good heart.

He used to apologize for her. She wasn’t sure how it made her feel, but it made him feel better. After a while, he stopped handing them out. No one ever wanted to take them.

The thing was, before high school, Flash would’ve never called himself popular. It wasn’t the sort of adjective that fit with his name. Flash Sentry was easygoing, chill, and yeah, a bit of a klutz. (This amused her so much she started to keep a tally of how many times he tripped in one day. So far, his highest score was ten.) Not popular.

But when you date a girl like Sunset Shimmer, people pay more attention to you, and not just because they like the way you play guitar.

Sunset called it ruling the school. Flash said it was the sophomore experience. They canceled each other out, like…

“—PEMDAS, it was literally in the notes we took yesterday.” Sunset stopped tapping her pencil against Flash’s Algebra I assignment and gave him an unimpressed look. “Do you have the notes we took yesterday?”

The words stung, but then again, everything about her did. The points of her leather jacket glinted under the soft glow of the library light.

Flash sighed, long-suffering, and reached into his bag.

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.”

Sunset resumed her tapping. One, two, three, four. He counted the beats in his head. Miss Cheerilee was shelving books on the other side of the library, but even she didn’t tell Sunset to stop.

She knew better. Most people did.

“If you’re going to take this long I don’t even know why I’m helping you in the first place,” Sunset grumbled. “I have homework, too, you know.”

“Because Mr. Doodle’s after school tutorials are scary and you’re way better at math than I am. Don’t give me that, you are.” Flash heaved a folder out from his backpack, and it landed on the table with a smack. As he began to flip through the papers inside, he added, a little pointedly, “And don’t forget that I’m also your only ride home.”

“More like your mom is my ride home,” she said.

“Well, yeah, but she’s my ride home, too. And she’s also literally my mom. It’s, like, her obligation as a parent to drive me places.”

“Just give me the damn notes already.”

He gave her the damn notes already.

They talked like that a lot. None of it ever meant much. She still kissed him. He kissed her. She got him to skip eighth period to hang out in the library instead of running the mile. He didn’t stop her. This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve played hooky—and, knowing Sunset’s track record, it wouldn’t be the last—but, he reasoned, it was for a good cause. Report cards for the current grading period would be sent out this Friday and for all that Flash had gloated about his mom’s Ponyiac taking him wherever he pleased, presenting her with his current Algebra I scores would mean walking home for the next week. Maybe longer, should that grade drop lower.

It just wasn’t fair.

Sunset seemed to hardly try in class, and yet he’d never seen her get below an A in anything.

So, she was tutoring him. She had one hand on his leg, but her eyes were on him, at least, and her other hand held a school-issued graphing calculator anyway. There was no wrong or right way to learn about polynomial functions.

“Why do all of your fours look like nines?” Sunset was scanning the paper, face scrunched up like she didn’t understand it. If Flash’s grade wasn’t currently a 46, he might have laughed at her expression. “What was the problem you couldn’t do again?”

Emphatically, Flash gestured to the assignment in her hand. “Uh, everything? All of it? That whole page? Every single one of those problems is a problem.” Then he frowned. “And don’t do my fours like that. They’ve got character, that’s all.”

“Bad character, you mean. Is this a 9x or a 4x? I can’t even tell.” Rolling her eyes, she clicked her pen and scribbled on his paper. “Either way, it should have an exponent of three, so both are wrong. Honestly, do you listen in class?”

“I listen,” Flash said defensively. Sunset cocked an eyebrow, and he folded his arms across his chest. “I do! He just… like, I’m sure Mr. Doodle is great, and all. Like, he’s a good person outside of school. It’s just that he’s not a very good teacher inside school.”

“Oh, of course.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him. With that 4.0 GPA, she probably didn’t. He groaned.

“I’m telling you, he’s not. You just can’t see the truth of it because you’re his favorite and he showers you with praise, like, every day.”

“Not every day.”

Flash glared at her.

Sunset just smiled, tapping a finger on her chin. “Why, you’re right! It is every day. And have you never considered that maybe all the people in your class period are the problem?” Primly, she twirled a pen in the air. She did all her math in pen. They were only allowed to use pencils in class. Flash would never understand how she didn’t get points taken off for that. “I’ve heard talk of spitballs. How amateur.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure your class is even worse than mine is, so don’t start. We never get bad sub notes, or anything, but he took away our calculator privileges since one of them got stolen last week. Plus, during lectures he’ll just go on and on about his wife and his love of the Pythongorean theorem, which is, like, last year geometry stuff, so it’s dumb, and the spitballs were one time.”

“I’m sure it was,” Sunset said. Her eyes flicked down to his unzipped bag. “Any reason you’ve got a sixty-four count box of paper straws in your bag or are you just trying to make Sandalwood feel better about the steak from last week?”

“They’re—environmentally friendly?” Flash tried.

“And this calculator I’m holding here was taken without any force at all. Totally good for the environment. Perhaps not so much for a certain math teacher’s blood pressure.” When he didn’t laugh at her quip, Sunset cocked her head to the side, waving the calculator for emphasis. “Well?” she prompted. “Am I wrong?”

“You didn’t have to go and do that,” Flash said, scratching his neck. “I’ve got an app that we can use that can graph stuff. Calculators like that don’t come cheap, you know.”

The corner of her mouth curled up. “Oh, I’m well aware,” she said. “Why do you think I stole it?”

“Listen, I’m not trying to be mean, but all I’m saying is that Mr. Doodle’s gonna be upset when he finds out it was you who—”

The kiss Flash got pulled into was chaste. Sunset’s hand on this thigh was not.

On second thought, maybe that was why he was failing Algebra I.

He didn’t stop her.

Sunset Shimmer didn’t have many friends.

Not that it was bad or weird or strange to not have friends, and not that she never made any friends at all. Because she was capable of having them. She just never kept them.

It was the ironic sort of dichotomy—in the movies and TV shows about high school, it’s never the popular girl. Always the popular girls. They walk in straight lines down the hallway and have each class period together. When they leave for the bathroom, their group takes up every stall.

But Sunset? She just had herself.

And Flash. Since they were dating, and all. Her and him. Him and her.

Even still, he could hear her voice in his head—and the accompanying eye roll—saying, “Oh, come on. you’re my boyfriend. You say that like our relationship means nothing to you.”

It meant a lot to him. He just wasn’t sure it always meant the same to her. Popular boy didn’t have the same ring to it, anyway.

Sunset must not have minded that she was alone all the time. Or maybe she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She wasn’t the kind of person who actively sought out camaraderie. It would be more truthful to say she avoided it altogether.

Sure, she went to parties. She was always invited to them. Being her plus one didn’t hurt, either. Flash tagged along because he was supposed to, and sat on the couch nursing an orange soda until it was time to go.

“But parties,” Sunset explained, sprawled out over the front seat of his dad’s car as POSTCRUSH! played in the background, “are not for makin’… what’s the word? C’mon, you’ve gotta remember. It goes fr… frea… for… oh, fuck, what is it?”

She struggled for a bit. Flash leaned over and adjusted her seatbelt. She tried to bat his hand away, but it must have looked like there were two of them, since she was about a foot off. Her fingers just cut through empty air.

“Friends!” It was shouted like a revelation. He just turned the music up. K-Lo’s solo verse all but drowned her out. “Parties aren’t—they—you don’t make friends at parties, ‘cause they’re for makin’ out.”

“Sunset, we didn’t even make out at that party.”

“Yeah. But we could’ve. And we didn’t.” She let her hand drop to her thigh. “We could’ve. We—how come we didn’t?”

“Because you’re not in your right mind,” Flash reminded her. He didn’t like using the ‘d’ word. “And we already left Cherry Crash’s, anyway. I’m taking you home, remember? And when we get there you’re gonna to drink water, because you need to otherwise you’re gonna hate yourself in the morning. Your key’s in your bag, right? In the little inside pocket?”

Sunset did something with her shoulders that might have been a shrug. He took it like one.

“Good,” he said. “We can get that all sorted when we’re at your place. I don’t wanna take my eyes off the road. You know how people can get at night, they’re crazy. Sometimes they don’t even use their blinkers, which is just—”

“Flash,” Sunset said suddenly. “Flash. Flash. Do you like these parties?”

“When I’ve got friends there, yeah.” He did not point out that none of his friends were at the party they were just at. She probably didn’t even notice, tapping along with the music. “And maybe when there’s good food. Do… you like them?”

She did a weird snort laugh, as if he’d made a joke. “Friends?” she echoed. “Maybe—shit, you think I like them?”

Flash frowned. “Like what? The parties? Or the food? Or the frie—?”

“Yeah. Yeah, the parties.”

“I mean, you go to so many I just assumed that you did.”

Sunset threw her head back, colliding with the headrest behind her. Peeling leather was better than the hard vinyl of the stereo, he supposed. “Nothing’s there to like,” she said. “It’s all just show, or whatever. That’s why we didn’t kiss.” Then she winced, and smacked at her temple. “Ow.”

“Yeah, try not to do that. You—well, you got a good heaping, that’s for sure.”

Her fingers pressed deeper into her forehead, leaving little crescent moons in her skin. “Of the food?”

“Uh.” He paused. “No. No, not the food.”

“Nah, I’m just fuckin’ with you. I know you didn’t mean that.” Sunset squinted at him. “You’re bad at takin’ a joke. Know that?”

“I guess now I do.”

“S’okay. You’re hot.” She patted his head.

“Thanks?” he said. “Yeah, thanks.”

The car rolled over a pothole. She was jostled back to her seat. He smoothed down his hair from where she’d messed it up, keeping his gaze firmly on the road. From the speakers, POSTCRUSH! sang about something close to love. They used so many metaphors that sometimes it was hard to tell what the lyrics meant.

“Flash.”

He didn’t say anything, but he did use his blinker when turning left. Take that, he thought.

Sunset’s hand smacked his. Twice. “Flash.” She drew out his name. ”Flash.”

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Hey, don’t do that when I’m—what?”

“I have a question.”

“And I’ve maybe got an answer,” Flash said. Turning to look at Sunset, he pasted on a smile. “Just don’t hit my hand, alright? I’m trying not to crash us in a ditch.”

“Sure,” she said easily. “My question’s—so it’s—well, maybe you don’t wanna hear it. Like, it might make you mad. It’s dumb.”

Anything’s dumb when your breath smells like that, he thought. But he forced his white-knuckled grip slack. “I’m sure it isn’t,” he told her. “What’s up? We’re almost at your apartment, by the way. If you wanted to text your parents.”

“Do you not like me?”

Perhaps a ditch would have been better. Or somebody not using their blinkers on the highway. Or a combination of both.

Flash replied, voice steady and even, “We’ve been together since freshman year.”

Sunset was facing away from him, running a lock of hair between her fingers, but even the alcohol couldn’t hide her sarcasm. “Yeah, but like, that doesn’t mean anythin’. If some… like, somep—some person, they say they like somebody and then they don’t really, then it’s stupid. Yeah?”

“I-I guess so?”

“But you don’t say that,” she went on. “Never.”

“Say what? I—look, I just can’t understand you like this. Can’t we have this conversation, like, tomorrow? When you’re not, you know…?”

“That you like me like you mean it.”

To some, the impending red light may have been a saving grace. Now, it felt closer to a curse. His stomach churned.

“I do,” he said. He tried to look at her, to meet her eyes. She loved to stare. His shirt rode low. Her seatbelt rode too high up on her neck. “Sunset, I wouldn’t be dating you if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have—we’ve been together since freshman year. We’ve kissed. We’ve hooked up. I love you.”

“Sure,” she drawled. “And I do, too. I like you like I mean it. I say that I do.”

Flash couldn’t parse her tone. He tried for something jovial. Something that didn’t compliment POSTCRUSH!’s latest background breakup ballad. The light turned green. Her street was only a block away. The scenery outside the car melted away until it was just the two of them, his palms clammy on the steering wheel and hers tucked under her legs.

“That’s—that’s good, Sunset. Because I do love you.”

“And I do, too,” she repeated. But she still avoided his gaze. “Yeah. I do, too.”

He reached out a hand.

She didn’t take it.

Sunset Shimmer got kicked out of third period drama class halfway through the first semester of their junior year.

When he heard about it, Flash half-expected her to cry. She liked drama class, or so he thought. But she just seemed excited to have been placed in Art I.

He poked at his cafeteria spaghetti. It had twice as many meatballs because she always scraped them off her plate and gave them to him. “Isn’t that the beginner class, though?” he said.

Sunset made a face at the word ‘beginner,’ but waved a hand. “I need one more Fine Arts credit to stay on track for graduation next year,” she said airily, “and all of those ‘theatrics’ weren’t cutting it for me. Besides, I joined this class at just the right time.” Her eyes lit up. “They’re starting ceramics.”

“Like… pottery?”

“Among other things.”

“You like pottery?” Flash tapped his chin. There was a studio downtown; that might make for a good date. They hadn’t been on one of those in a while. And sure, they texted every day, and he walked her to almost all of her classes, but sometimes it felt like the two of them only dated while at school. At least she seemed happy. “I never knew.”

“It never came up. But that’s besides the point.” She leaned across the table, like they were swapping secrets. Flash drew closer in turn, but not without another bite of spaghetti. “The way I hear it, students get creative reign over these kinds of projects. I’ll get to make whatever my heart desires.”

“That does sound like a fun class. Any idea what you wanna make?”

She reached over and touched his cheek, smiling. This time, it actually looked genuine. “Wait and see, lover boy.”

As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait all that long. He saw Sunset’s project before she even did the big reveal, but with the way she made sure to drag it to every class, that might have been the point.

The thing about Sunset was that when she was obsessed with something, she didn’t stop obsessing with that thing. Earlier that year, the human services classes carried around eggs dressed to be babies in little tissue box cradles. Some lesson about parenting and responsibility. Flash only saw bits and pieces; his elective of choice was music.

Still, warily watching her from his seat as she laid the thing out on a delicate cloth, he was reminded starkly of those egg babies. Sunset resembled a doting mother more than a high schooler. That comparison only had more credence lended to it when she pulled a microfiber cloth from her pocket to polish away a scuff.

“That’s not a pot,” Flash said. It didn’t look ceramic, either, but he was already pushing his luck. “Didn’t you say—?”

Sunset barely spared him a glance. “I know what I said.” She raised the art project into the air, like it was something precious. Something to be revered. He ducked his head. “Wouldn’t this look good on me?”

She all but radiated pride. Flash couldn’t quite find it in himself to smile.

“Yeah,” he said absently. “I guess.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Her head whipped around. She said, “You guess?”

The classroom noise petered off into just their two voices alone. By now, they knew to stop talking when Sunset got loud. Even their teacher slowed his writing on the chalkboard.

Something like dissonance rang in his ears. Flash cleared his throat.

“It looks great, babe,” he amended. “Really, it does. You did a great job, like always.” He bent down so he didn’t have to look at her, fumbling with his backpack. “Hey, by the way, did you finish the homework? I had my dad check over it but I still couldn’t figure out—”

She didn’t even let him finish his thought. It was kind of hard to, with someone’s tongue down your throat. Her nails dug into his shoulder blades.

When Flash finally got her to pull away, it was not without struggle. Even then, she hung off his lips like a dirty little secret.

She wiped her own mouth with a grin.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

And Sunset sank back into her seat, chin lifted and arms cushioning her head. Before, the look on her face might’ve excited him. Now, it just made him feel hollow.

Because Flash was fairly certain that her art assignment hadn’t been to ‘plan out your crown’s design for the upcoming Fall Formal.’ The six-pointed clay star at the tiara’s temple begged to differ.

She still got an A.

Flash broke it off at her apartment. He’s pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to break up with someone, but there’s no manual on ending a relationship with Sunset Shimmer and he really, really didn’t want to look into one.

Besides, he had a permit. Sunset did not. That never stopped her from hitting the road, of course, but if the cops were to pull her over in Flash’s car, they would’ve dinged her for more than just driving a stolen vehicle without a license, so long as they found his corpse in the back trunk. He got this car last month. It even had Bluehoof speakers.

And it was those speakers that Flash fiddled with now, one hand on the steering wheel and the other positioned over the switch that controlled the volume, flicking it up and down, up and down, up and down. In this part of town, the radio got finicky. As he cruised through the stations, most of what came through was static and, if he was lucky, the crackly twang of a banjo.

He didn’t mess with the music on drives back from Sunset’s. Normally, it was her on stereo, feet against the passenger dash and fingers moving to pluck at the strings of an imaginary guitar. Normally, sugary sweet pop songs would be blasting from those speakers. Not country. Never country.

They both hated country.

Flash left the volume on low and ran a hand through his hair.

He supposed he was lucky. A small, terrible part of him expected he would leave that apartment in a body bag.

But Sunset was civil. Even opened the door for him on the way out. The hinges used to squeak. They didn’t tonight.

Flash could best describe her expression as a soda gone flat. She didn’t yell at him, after he told her. The words had scraped out of his throat like nails but she just stood there, hands in fists at her sides and shirt rumpled from sleep.

Was it obvious, he wondered? Could she tell what this was about? Did she know before he said it? Something in his face, his hands, his eyes, must have given it away, Sunset was always staring. He never visited so late on a school night. Surely she had figured it out by now. She was salutatorian of the junior class. She loved problems.

That was the thing, about Sunset. You never would’ve guessed it by looking at her. Flash certainly hadn’t. It must’ve been by design. She was just so damn smart.

It was why he liked her. Why she kissed him. Why he did it back.

What a pair they made.

Sunset Shimmer didn’t win Princess of the Fall Formal that year, but maybe that’s the sort of thing that happens when you put the entire student body in mortal danger.

The weekend turned into a week off, not that Flash was complaining—he used that time to finally get through Haymlet for his lit class. The statement on the school website said the break intended to “allow our students a chance to rest and recuperate following the unforeseen circumstances of the annual Fall Formal dance. We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience.”

It was bullshit, of course. The reason they didn’t go back to school was because half of the school they should’ve gone back to was in ruin. And because of the whole maybe-traumatizing definitely-scary magic usage.

See, mind control’s not like in the movies because mind control doesn’t normally exist outside of them. In the weird haze that comes with having your brain warped by a girl you used to kiss, Flash was torn between telling Twilight some off-kilter joke about how horses must have terrible hangovers or just leaving the dance early and taking an aspirin when he got home.

He opted for the latter. The other option would’ve only made his headache worse.

Flash drove home slowly, partially so he didn’t evoke Vice Principal Luna’s wrath by speeding in a school zone, but mostly so that he could peek at the gaping hole that now marred Canterlot High’s front courtyard. He wasn’t alone: the area was swarming with law enforcement, and he was positive most cars parked opposite the fire lane weren’t there for parent pick-up.

Like an accident on the interstate, nobody could pass the wreckage without at least one look. The local news van was there, too, reporters already stationed at the perimeter. Some stood so close to the edge of the pit it seemed they were willing to jump inside if it meant getting footage.

A well-dressed newscaster was speaking with a pair of underclassmen Flash recognized. The girls looked on the verge of tears, one dabbing at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief and the other holding her shoulder tight.

Had Flash not seen the two near the refreshments table only fifteen minutes earlier, laughing over their fruit punch, he might have been just as fooled as the newscaster. The guy looked almost more distraught than they were, but maybe those girls had been in that drama class. The one Sunset had been kicked out of.

The crater in the ground raised far more questions than it answered. Flash knew the neighborhood MyStable page was sure to be in a frenzy. The school’s budget was already stretched so thin; how would they even go about fixing it without slashing funding for another extracurricular?

To make matters worse, Canterlot High was supposed to host the Friendship Games this year. It wouldn’t even matter if they won a single event, not when their school’s edifice looked like that. Just more statue-defacing fodder. Maybe this could be the one year where Crystal Prep ditches that contrived clown wig and dresses their mascot in full demon regalia. Still, Flash’s expectations weren’t too high; the Shadowbolts might beat them at nearly every sport, but that streak didn’t quite extend to their fine arts program.

Sunset hadn’t known about the Friendship Games, when she first got here. Flash didn’t, either, but he had actually gone to the Freshman Fair and in all likeliness just hadn’t been listening when it was mentioned.

He felt bad for the freshmen. Really, he did. Not about them not winning the crown or about the fact that the girl who did didn’t even go here, but because their first high school dance got ruined by magic, and not the kind people write songs about.

His first high school dance was…

They were lucky no students had been hurt. Except for pride, of course, but that’s the sort of thing that only ever gets bruised. The worst Flash got was a headache. He felt sorry for the school nurse.

Sunset never did get that split lip checked out. The one she got from that fight. He’d told her she needed to, that he didn’t want it to scar or anything like that. She said she would be fine. He trusted her. He did that a lot.

Those two girls were still talking with the newscaster. Briefly, Flash thought of rolling down his window to see if he could hear what exactly the reporters were asking them. Maybe chime in with what he knew. Say, “I used to date the girl that did this!”

And if the newscaster’s mask slipped and something pitying seeped through, Flash would smooth the sting with a joke, like, “Oh, but before tonight, the most terrible thing she ever did was eat instant oatmeal straight out of the packet!” Then the newscaster would laugh. And he would try to do the same.

Then again, the image of watching himself on the daily news, talking about unicorns and magic and how his ex apparently has ties to both of those things, only made his temples throb more. His statement probably would just implicate him in the crime, too, and next week he’ll be handed a trowel with his name on it before he even walks through the main doors.

Or what was left of the main doors, anyway.

Dusk crept along the skyline like smoke, patient yet cloying. He did not roll down his window.

To imagine that he had kissed Sunset there at his very first Fall Formal. How cold it had been. The way her scent seeped into the leather of his jacket. And now the earth was overturned, the air sticky. He’d seen her, at the bottom of that pit. Not even the most talented seamstress could make that leather jacket look the way it did when he gave it to her.

Still, in the immediate aftermath, Flash found himself grateful that the principals wouldn’t have to pass by four pictures of his ex’s faces on the way to their offices, not that the existing three were much of an improvement. He never noticed it when they were together, but the older she was, the worse the portraits got. The one taken freshman year was the nicest because she wasn’t smiling in the forced sort of way. It was closer to a candid, like the photographer had captured her in the middle of perfecting her regal wave. He’d probably been making a dumb face at her from behind the camera, anyway.

But the second picture wasn’t the same as the one before it. All the novelty from the year prior was gone. Winning didn’t seem like that much of a surprise, anymore. And the third…

Flash usually fast-walked past that one.

How different would Sunset’s photograph have been this year, if things hadn’t gone the way they did tonight? Did she expect to steal Twilight’s crown and soar into the photobooth with it magically sealed to her head? Manipulate the yearbook staff into snapping a picture that no one could forget? Even if the student body had remained under her weird hypnosis, people still would’ve found a way to gossip. When they were a couple, everyone made sure to whisper. Split up, nobody cared. So they talked. A lot.

Sometimes about him. Mostly about her. That he always turned down gas money when offered and she just hopped in the front seat without a word. That he would help with homework and she would tell you the best place to shove it. That people liked him, and no one really liked her.

Not everyone gets four coronations.

Sunset was lucky to have three.

The leaf that got stuck in his windshield wipers was the last interesting thing that happened that night. Flash had only just pulled into his driveway, his headache making itself known once again with a terrible throb, and it was all he could do not to trip into his haste to get out of the car. There was a bottle of aspirin in the cabinet above the sink and he planned to make himself very well acquainted with it.

But the leaf caught his eye, just as it was caught in the feeble breeze. Flash watched it flutter. It was the kind of color that made you think of autumn: that nice, deep yellow.

The idea of brushing the leaf off crossed his mind, but when his gaze landed on the great oak standing guard over their sidewalk, he dismissed the thought. The hood of his car was bound to be smothered come morning. Fall really did stay true to its name.

Still, he lingered in the doorway. The wind picked up. The leaf remained. With the way the rest of tonight had gone, he was surprised a magical aura hadn’t already swept in and ferried it off into the stars.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking.

On the horizon, the sun sunk deeper into the ground. Flash did not follow it.