//------------------------------// // Track 9: Seek And Destroy // Story: Heavy Rock // by CoffeeMinion //------------------------------// Limestone and Pinkie drove back home in relative silence, with Limestone contemplating how to talk to Flash based on Sunset’s advice, and thinking about Sunset as little as possible, and generally deflecting Pinkie’s questions with monosyllabic answers. She was, therefore, caught totally off-guard when they rounded the corner into the driveway and found an unfamiliar yellow car with blue trim parked there. “Hey,” Pinkie shouted, smiling. “That’s Flash’s car!” She leaned over and elbowed Limestone. “Looks like someone’s beau has come a-courting!” Limestone’s face worked itself into a wide-eyed grimace. “Flash is here, now?” “Yep,” Pinkie said, craning her head over. “And it looks like he’s talking to Mom and Dad. Oh, and Maud’s there, too!” “He’s talking to them? Right now?!” “Well, duuuuuh, who else is he going to talk to?” Pinkie frowned momentarily. “Probably not Marble…” Limestone turned a look of pure panic and ferocious rage onto her sister. “Sunset warned me he’d do something stupid! Look, I need you to get in there and get Maud out here so I can talk to her before things get any worse.” She sucked in multiple deep breaths, trying to fight back the sensation of lightheadedness that threatened to overtake her. Two seconds later, she bared her teeth at Pinkie. “Why are you still sitting here? I told you to get in there, now!” Somewhere in the midst of Limestone’s tirade, Pinkie’s hair had lost much of its volume, and her features had contorted into a look of slack-jawed, frozen terror. But with the latter outburst, she sprang into motion and bolted from the car to the house. Limestone watched her for a moment, but then looked down at her own legs as she struggled to control her breathing. She briefly contemplated how pleasant it would feel to vent her rage on Pinkie’s car, but she still needed it, at least for the moment. And she could visualize her dad saying that it probably wasn’t sisterly or something. She breathed and focused, trying to let the swell of anger she felt soothe her jangling nerves. Flash was inside. He had come here. He… A knock at the car door broke her out of her thoughts. She looked up with a scowl, but then froze when she saw who it was: Flash, grinning broadly and holding a small bouquet of white and red flowers. Limestone’s eyes focused on the flowers for a moment, then turned back to Flash’s winning smile. In the background, she watched as Pinkie skipped out onto the porch with a plastered-on grin that Limestone knew from experience was Pinkie’s “I’m-sorry” look. “Hey Limestone,” Flash said, his voice muffled by the door. Her parents followed Pinkie out onto the porch. Then Marble came out, too. Then Maud, whose face bore an expression of hurt, betrayal, and jealousy. If you knew how to look for it, that is. Limestone’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you doing here?” she managed. Flash held the flowers a little higher, and shrugged. “Do you want to come out? It’s kinda hard to talk through the door.” Limestone took another worried glance at Maud, then fumbled for the door handle and pulled. Flash took a step back, and Limestone slowly stepped out, keeping her body close to the door, using it to separate her at least somewhat from Flash. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking serious. “I know this has to be kind of embarrassing. I just wanted to give these to you, and I didn’t know where else I’d run into you, so I figured…” She looked at the flowers again. They were beautiful. As she looked closer, she could start to notice tiny spots of black on the edges of one of the roses embedded in the small bouquet, and a slight brown crinkled tone to one or two of the white flowers. She could even see the ripped-off corner of a price tag sticker on the side of its cellophane wrapping, though it didn’t give her many clues about the price beyond it ending in ninety-nine cents. But they were still beautiful. Limestone furrowed her brow. “No one’s ever given me flowers before.” Flash raised his eyebrows. “Really?” Limestone looked back at her family, feeling a growing tightness in her chest as she took in all of their expressions. Her mother appeared stern; her father bore a look of amused curiosity; Pinkie sweated through the strain of maintaining her fake smile; Maud’s expression looked as dark as she could ever remember seeing it; and Marble… Interestingly enough, Marble’s look was of intense focus in Flash and Limestone’s direction. The girl was leaning forward slightly, and her hands were at her sides for once instead of being clutched together or stuffed into her pockets. “Marble, you and me are gonna have a little talk later,” Limestone said under her breath. “Sorry, what?” Flash asked, smiling. “Nothing. Look...” Limestone paused, looked back at her family again, and felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment at having her emotions paraded out in front of them. Who was this boy to make her do that so publicly? The outrage that she felt began to stoke an old, familiar fire in her gut. As it built, her blood flowed faster and her nostrils flared. “How dare you,” she hissed. Flash’s smile faltered. “What do you mean, Limestone? I just thought…” “Yeah, well you thought wrong, Charlie!” She stepped out from behind the car door and slammed it like a thunderclap. “I don’t know what kind of floozies you’ve dated in the past, but if you think I’m gonna jump in your car, your pants, or anything else, just because you brought me some dirt-cheap gas station flowers on your way over to darken my doorstep, you’ve got another thing coming!” Flash winced, then looked back at her family, where Pinkie and Igneous were dutifully trying to shoo the others back into the house. He turned back with a look of anger on his face as well. “Come on, Limestone, you know it isn’t like that, and I don’t appreciate you saying that it’s like that in front of all them.” She scoffed. “You don’t appreciate it? How do you think I feel?! You’re not the one who has some guy coming and skeezing around her house!” “I’m not skeezing. I thought… just… why are you doing this?” Limestone set her hands on her hips. “I think it’s perfectly obvious why I’m doing this. You aren’t welcome here!” “I guess… if that’s how you feel…” His hands tightened on the flowers, crinkling the cellophane. “No. No, I don’t buy this, Limestone. Look, I may have overstepped here, and I'm sorry... but I get the sense from you that this isn't the real problem; that it's just part of your thing you do.” “I don’t have a thing!” “Yes, you do. And right now it’s like you’re trying to push me away.” She growled. “Ding ding ding, it looks like we have a winner! Now how’s about we give you the grand prize: One free all-expenses paid vacation to get off my property, with promotional consideration by my boot up your tailpipe if you have any problems with that!” Flash took a step back, gritting his teeth, visibly fighting down a wellspring of his own anger. “Okay. You want me gone, I’ll go.” He pointed the flowers at her. “But for the record, I don’t buy it. You’re a cool person in there under all the posturing you do. I’d like to get to know that person better. And maybe I’m a dork, but yeah, that feeling made me want to buy you flowers and surprise you with them.” He went quiet for a moment. “And even now, if you’d just drop the schtick and tell me what’s really bothering you, I’d still feel the same.” Limestone fumed, breathing deeply and balling her fists, but she neither moved nor said anything for several long moments. Eventually her face settled into a deep glower, and her breathing started to slow. “Okay, yes, there’s actually something.” Flash exhaled, relaxing his shoulders and letting his whole body slump a little. “Thank you.” She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to think of how to broach it. “It’s kind of messed-up.” A pause. “Okay, well… whatever it is, it isn’t going to get better unless we actually talk about it.” She took a deep breath, then opened her eyes again. “I didn’t write the lyrics. Maud did.” Flash furrowed his brow, but nodded. “Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, that’s cool. She’s pretty good at writing, you know?” “So you don’t care that I didn’t tell you?” He shrugged again. “Should I? I mean, you’re telling me now.” Limestone stood staring at him, poleaxed by his lack of a reaction. “So that was it?” “Uhh… no, there's a little more to it,” Limestone said. Flash took a tentative step toward her. She tensed slightly, and he paused. But then he took another step closer, and Limestone felt a knot of something start to unwind in her chest, and the great wave of anger that she’d been riding a few moments before suddenly deserted her. The feeling made her deflate; her shoulders sagged, and her breath ran out of her. Through all the tangle of emotions she found herself struggling with, one clear thought stuck out: I should talk to Maud first, before I just up and tell him that she has a crush on him. This was accompanied by the thought: Oh crap, I just told him there was more to it, didn’t I?! Stupid, stupid, stupid! “Are you alright?” Limestone looked up, letting the tension in her mind contort her face through a series of uncertain half-expressions. Eventually she sighed again and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a jerk, but that’s as far as I can go right now.” She felt something warm on her left hand, and she opened her eyes. Flash’s hand was on hers, and he was smiling again, and Limestone couldn’t put a name to the feeling that his smile gave her, but she bit her lip and set about trying. “Well, I’ll tell you what. Maybe we could get some dinner sometime and talk about it away from prying eyes? I’m really sorry about barging in like this. It was boneheaded of me; I see that now.” Limestone blinked. “Are you serious? I lied to you about the music, I can’t play bass to save my life, and I totally just blew up at you. You want to see more of me?” He gave her a wink. “Hey, all I said is dinner. Seeing more of you doesn’t seem like the right thing right now.” She blushed ferociously, but smiled. “That sounds nice, but if I can be honest with you, I think I’d like to jam with you again, too. I don’t know what you felt when we played last time, but it was… I don’t know.” Flash blushed a little. “Yeah, it was pretty metal.” Limestone gave him a sidelong smile. “You keep calling it that, but I've worked with metal tools and I don’t hear the connection. But then again, I’ve never been much into heavy metal. Or music in general, if I’m being honest.” He scratched his chin. “Yeah, I guess you’re more into rocks around here, aren’t you? So you think it’s rock?” She shrugged. “You tell me, music-boy.” “Well, I’m telling you it’s heavy metal, but I guess that isn’t good enough? So how about we compromise and call it ‘heavy rock?’” Limestone snickered. “That’s a stupid name.” “I don’t know, I’m told that compromise is an important part of a relationship, right?” Limestone’s look became serious. Flash’s grin faded, too. The two of them looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and a feeling of tense uncertainty built between them. After a moment, she broke away from his hand, and raised her other hand toward him. “I’d like to take the flowers now. Please.” He handed them to her. His eyes sparkled with a faint hint of a smile. “Well, I should probably… you know. I’ve done enough damage here for one night.” Limestone glanced at the house, and at the silhouettes of Marble and Maud staring out at them from two of the windows. She sighed, then met his eyes again. “No, I’m glad you came.” Flash smiled. “I’ll call you tomorrow, if that’s okay. We can figure out when we want to jam again.” She nodded stiffly. “I’ll look forward to it.” He took a step away, but then hesitated and turned back to her. He gestured toward her with his arms. “Limestone, could I…?” She closed the distance between them and hugged him. He gasped at the force that she put into it, but then weakly returned the hug. And awkward though it was, Limestone felt a sense of sheer amazing warmth permeate her skin from him. Limestone made herself step away sooner than she would’ve liked, then gave him a tight, thin-lipped smile, and set off toward the house. She took a moment to smell the flowers as the made her way up to the porch. Their odor was faint, but coupled with the recent memory of Flash’s body heat, they were intoxicating. A car door slammed behind her. Her steps faltered for a moment, but she didn’t look back. She was far more worried about what lay ahead of her. She opened the front door, and walked into a living hurricane of confetti, streamers, party-poppers, and other sundries, courtesy of a cheerfully-squeeing Pinkie Pie. “Ohmigosh, Mom, Dad, did you see that?! Limestone did it! She got a boy! She totally got flowers! Oh, are those daisies? Or posies? Ohmigosh, let me get a vase!” Pinkie vanished somewhere in the house, the only sign of her departure being the clattering racket she left in her wake. That just left Limestone standing in the doorway, covered in colored paper and holding a bouquet, and trying to bear up under her parents’ gaze. Her father smiled faintly, but then glanced at her mother, whose face was much more stern. He hastily cleared his throat and affected a similar look of uncertain displeasure as the one she bore. “Limestone Pie,” her mother Cloudy Quartz said, eyes narrowed behind her thick circular glasses and under her tight grey bun. “Verily, thy father and I are concerned about thee and the physical extent of thy relationship with this boy.” “Uh. Mom, Dad, Flash is… uh…” “Thy father hath told me Pinkamena’s words about this boy,” Cloudy Quartz said. “Verily he sounds honorable enough, though not a follower of our way. As such, thy father and I wish to speak with thee about our expectations for thee as thou embarkest upon this… courtship.” Limestone swallowed hard. “Please, Harmony, do not tell me you’re going to give me the sex talk right now.” Cloudy Quartz tensed, and her eyes went wide. “Igneous! See to thy daughter’s tongue!” She paused. “And, while thou art about it, mayhaps certain discussions would in fact be in order, given the circumstances.” “Yes, dear,” Igneous said. “Perhaps if thou wouldst be so good as to take our daughter’s flowers?” Limestone handed them to Cloudy Quartz, who held them at arm’s length, looking at them as though they were some kind of dangerous weapon. “Dad…” “Let us take a walk, daughter,” he said, gesturing toward the door. They stepped back outside, and Limestone was amazed to see how quickly sunset had faded to twilight; now even twilight was beginning to give way to starlight. She looked at Igneous. “Dad, please, whatever it is, I need to talk to Maud now. I was coming back to talk with her before Flash showed up.” Igneous glanced behind him. “Yes, but if thy mother hath said we should go and talk, then we had best go talk at least a little while, for the good of all.” Limestone snorted. “Man, I guess I know who wears the pants in this family, even if they’re hidden under a floor-length skirt.” “And I know how much my eldest daughter loves to provoke the biggest reaction she can get out of a person, regardless of her circumstances.” He gave her a wan smile. “Come, let us walk down toward the quarry and talk a bit. Thou canst text thy sister when we finish.” They set off down the path in silence, save for the sounds of the chilly evening breeze and the crunching of small stones underfoot. “You’re not actually going to talk to me about sex, are you?” Limestone blurted. Igneous considered this for a moment. “Wouldst thou like me to?” Limestone gave him a nervous half-frown. “Maybe?” He nodded. “All right. Limestone, daughter… please do not have sex with this boy.” She furrowed her bow. “That’s a bit different than how I expected ‘the talk’ to go.” Igneous stopped and turned to face her. “Limestone, thou art new to dating. Thou art learning much, and learning it quickly, and thou wilt surely find thyself beset by feelings that thou hast little hands-on experience with. In sooth, I cannot tell thee what to do or not do; thou art an adult and thou hast thy own mind besides. But I urge thee, look to him for the qualities of his heart and mind, not just his great handsomeness.” Limestone blinked. “Heh. You noticed that.” He shrugged. “Come, daughter; whatever I may be, I am not blind.” They set off again in silence for a moment. “I cannot know if thy relationship will long endure, but I daresay it will do thee good to try at one with someone honorable. And that is part of why I urge thee, do not rush to take things farther than they might go of their own if thou dost give them time and focus on the fundamentals.” She nodded. “Like, talking?” “Yes. And thy futures. What dost thou know of this boy’s aims in life? What does he know of thine? And do these things mesh?” “So is that how it worked with you and Mom?” Igneous smiled. “With thy mother and I, these things all fell into place so quickly. When we found each other we were both at our lowest points in life, but we had similar dreams.” He stared up into the starry sky. “I am a lucky man, Limestone; so lucky that I can hardly dispense useful advice about how to take the longer road, as I never really had to.” Limestone frowned. “You know mom’s kind of pushy, right?” He gave her a wry grin. “Sayeth the queen of tactfulness herself.” He sighed. “No, Limestone, I cannot pretend that our relationship hath been perfect. There are things we’ve both given up for the sake of keeping the peace and staying together. Most of them are fine, but some doth leave their scars.” They walked in silence for several minutes, each seemingly afraid to speak next. Eventually, Limestone felt a buzzing in her pocket. She stopped, pulled out her phone, and frowned. “It’s Maud. She says she wants to talk when we get back.” “We needn’t be much longer,” Igneous said quietly. “I suppose I owe thee some useful advice, and perhaps even about sex, if thou wouldst hear it.” “Okay,” she said, tensing her jaw. “Lay it on me.” “Sex is not about thee alone; it is about both of thee. It should reflect something that exists apart from both of thee, but that would not exist without both of thee. And it should nourish and sustain that thing, and add new aspects and dimensions to it.” He paused, breathing deep. “It needs trust, great affection, and respect. And it ought not be a thing divorced entirely from the reality of procreation, for that is part of it as well, even if one takes steps to keep that from happening.” Limestone pursed her lips. “Yeah, like you guys had the four of us in a span of three years, right?” He blushed. “Yes, and a vasectomy soon after. But think how old thy mother and I are now, and how long we hath been together, and how much longer both our lives might be.” She gave him an uncertain look. “Okay?” “That is why I say to take thy time. Choose once, and choose wisely, and thou hast the rest of thy life to reap the most enjoyable benefits of thy wisdom.” Limestone nodded, even as she tried to purge her mind of the specifics of that image. “Yeah, but not everything works out, right? Like you said yourself, not everyone gets to have the kind of story you and Mom did.” He shrugged. “Thou art likely to find many views, and much advice, and thou must choose what rings true for thee in thy life. I can only share what I know, Limestone. But I share it freely, and with love.” They stood together, looking at the stars. Then Limestone’s phone buzzed again. She looked at it and frowned. “This thing with Maud is going to be a problem.” Igneous sighed. “Perhaps not all of my advice is as sage as I might hope. I had thought it good to let her see thee dating, but perhaps it is a burden for her after all. Dost thou know what thou plans to do?” “I think so. I don’t like it, though. It’s going to hurt her.” “Sometimes there is pain in love, my daughter. But rest assured that I will walk with her as well, and talk with her, and be there for her as best as I can.” She nodded, but then paused, and narrowed her eyes. “So… has she asked you about sex stuff too?” Igneous chuckled. “Daughter, tell me what thou knows about thy sister Maud, and how she cloaks the depth of her true feelings in her silence.” Limestone grimaced. That would be a big yes, she thought to herself.