Hit Hard
Chapter 0: Life Ain't Cute As A Button
The only time Button had truly ever felt hopeless was when the GameTrot downtown in Ponyville closed when he was about twelve. Or, when that time his friend Rumble accidentally destroyed his backup JoyBoy, which the first one was already destroyed to begin with. Not to mention being grounded for something he was framed for. These are all things that fester in a young stallion's mind, morph him into a "traumatized" colt, and then grow up to get over it. These scenarios that already happened were easy to get over, move on and mature from. It was life, and a life Button had no problems with. He enjoyed this life.
However, Button wasn't one to 'get over' things like this. He wasn't one for holding grudges, per se, but he was one for never forgetting the smallest, most ridiculous scenarios and having a problem with it. He didn't judge anyone by their character (save for a few bullies) and he never isolated anyone based on an accident or what they did wrong. No, he really liked to just talk it out and repair what was damaged. This, however, wasn't repairable, not for him. Not by a long shot. This wasn't an oopsy-daisy neither; this was a huge, huge deal.
Even as he sat there with his hands on the steering wheel, his eyes puffy and red. Even when his knuckles underneath the layer of fur turned white, or his nostrils flared more wide than normal, he couldn't help but wonder; Can I even.. forgive her? Was this a dream?! A stupid, fake dream that just wants to ruin my life!?! No, it wasn't. He pinched himself on the arm to make sure, as he was fairly superstitious about his notoriously bad luck in life.
He smacked the steering wheel, roaring for a few moments before slamming his head on the horn of his steering wheel, not bothering to let it off as the car screamed bloody murder in the street of the neighborhood he was currently parked in. The car felt bad and was only screaming to make sure he wasn't alone, which was a lie.
Button Mash felt terribly, terribly alone right now.
The car continued to scream murder, choking itself to a halt when he raised his head off it, hitting it on the head cushion of his seat. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as tears started lining themselves down his tear-stained cheeks once again. He labored his breathing, the same hand that struck the steering wheel doing it five more times in harder, fist-clenched poundings. Button hated this, he hated what this felt like. Button's mind raced over things like these. That.. whorse! That isn't.. nice to say- but- that WHORSE! Why?! There was no reason- I thought it was good, it was fine! I thought it was peachy-keen clean!
It wasn't that he really hated her, he just hated her for what she did.
It isn't every day you walk into your friend's house to see his you-know-what in your fillyfriend's you-know-who.
Button slammed his head on the twelve-o-clock of the steering wheel, scratching his head furiously. He was hell-bent on trying to scratch that memory out of his brain. Sadly, no matter what he did, it only seemed to burn more. The more he scratched, the more crystal clear the details became. She wasn't drugged, she wasn't intoxicated- this was pure willingness to cheat on him. It made it all the more worse when she even tried to apologize afterwards. Their names were already deleted in his phone, he checked.
His throat hiccuped as tears continued to pour down his face.
Sweetie Belle
Rumble
They were gone, gone for good. It was over, all over. Button could only ask himself as he stopped scratching his head, instead grabbing it and thinking over and over. Why isn't it going away?! Why isn't it going away?!? The excruciating emotional struggle that festered like a tornado in his brain, flinging all good memories of him and Sweets to the wind, watching their happiness and nostalgia fling away into the distance, the deep confines of his brain locking them in tight. What did he do to deserve this? Was he not good enough? Was he not good down there? Was he even worth it? What was wrong with him to make her do this to him?
Questions swam in his brain as he exhaled a long, long sigh. He finally had recuperated enough through blurry vision and tickling cheeks from the dropping tears to take his keys out of his pocket, put it into the ignition, and turn them. The car churned to life, his eyes in that moment no longer flashing happiness or even innocence, rather, they were just eyes. There was nothing emotionally connected to them. It was like seeing a business pony walk by you in Manehattan, just dead to the world and only focused on their work or whatever they were thinking. Never stopping to check on you or say hello, only listening to their phones or walking very fast with papers flying out of their overstuffed briefcases.
Button Mash told himself he wouldn't become like those people, like his father, or brother. He didn't want to be those two, and his mother supported his decision, as well as support his brother's decision to follow in his late father's hoofsteps. Speaking of which, when he finally put the car into drive to accelerate out of the neighborhood, away from Rumble's house, away for good, he asked himself another question as he wiped his eyes of tears and fought more from coming out. What would Dad do?
His question would never be answered. Frustration screamed in his skull, rattling his bones to a shaking anger as he turned onto the main street towards an intersection. Overrated, generic pop-rock played on the radio as he sat there, staring ahead towards the light, just waiting for it to turn green so he could go farther away from this hell. The light didn't change, making Button continue to stare at the light, losing himself in his thoughts as the whiney-sounding singer continued screaming his heart out over the instrumental. His finger tapped impatiently on the steering wheel as time ticked.
The screaming stallion grated on his ears long enough, he mused bitterly. He turned the radio dial to another station. This station had some more generic hip-hop playing. His ears twitched as his angry taps on the steering wheel morphed into slightly less angry, but on beat taps on the steering wheel. Button sighed again, his body becoming slightly less tense. Unknowingly to his left, a distinct mare was adding extra make-up on herself with the built-in mirror in the lip gloss's container. If he had bothered to look, he would've spotted none other than Silver Spoon being that mare.
It took her only a few moments, recognizing the uncharacteristically brooding stallion to her right, an eyebrow cocked in confusion before the light turned green. His car began rolling away from her, stealing her attention for a few seconds before the beeping horns of cars behind her stirred her attention. She drove forward, quickly reaching for her phone to text her group of friends about his strange behavior.
Button Mash continued on, leaning his left arm on the door's arm rest. He rested his head on his palm, his other hand steering lazily as he thought the entire situation out some more. Am I just.. not good enough anymore? Am I just bad looking? She wouldn't of gone out with me if I wasn't good looking.. maybe I did something wrong? Maybe I made her do that? WHAT DID I DO?
It was never what she was or what she did at the time, only what he could've possibly done wrong. Button Mash just thought like that for most of his life. Even when he was crossed, betrayed, humiliated, cheated on, the list goes on. He never thought of how it was their fault, only how it was his. He was strangely selfless in this aspect, and it was extraordinarily unhealthy.
Button wanted to hit something. He wanted to destroy something, wreck something, damage something. He breathed hard in his snout and out of it as he straightened his back and weirdly put his hands both ten-and-two on the steering wheel, stretching his arms as he leaned back in a vain attempt to stifle his growing anger. Remember when Button Mash mostly thinks about how it was his fault? Luckily, this wasn't one of those times.
"WHAT THE FUCK RUMBLE!" He roared, stomping his foot that wasn't on the gas pad. "WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING FUCK!"
His eyes wild, he switched lanes to turn off of the road and onto the back roads that parted off this street into his rundown neighborhood. Ever since Dad died about ten years ago, when Button was probably six or seven, the family's money dropped pretty bad. There was no more two-story house in Manehattan next to everypony else, where he could have fun and be a normal colt. The funeral was changing, the city-to-rural-town exchange was changing, and the sight of his Mom breaking down every couple of months was especially changing for his brain. He learned quick that life wasn't fair and that being close to ponies wasn't a great option. They could die on you, and leave you with terrible pains that followed you the rest of your life.
Button added this scenario to the fresh file in his brain, 'Reasons to Not Have a Relationship'. Dying was also recently added in afterwards, followed by distrust and back stabs. Those came with the territory of cheating, sadly. His car began to rock gently as the dirt roads kicked up dust behind his car, something he'll never miss when he leaves this dumpster fire of a town when he's older. Leaning off the door, he grabbed the wheel with his left hand used his now-free right hand to fish into his pocket for his phone. Occasionally looking down at his phone but prioritizing the road, he dialed a number of a good friend, Spike.
He put the phone to his ear steering a bit more physically to keep control on the dirt road. His teeth became bared with an angry cringe after rerunning the dreaded scenario in his brain. At the same time, a car drove past him, going the way he came. The phone rang, letting Button collect his thoughts as he gave another strong sigh through his snout.
"Hello?" Spike answered. Button couldn't keep his composure.
"Spike- Spike, listen dude! I- I don- I don't know what to- what to do!" Button stammered, tears starting to sting his eyes ferociously again as Spike audibly scrambled to his feet to pace around his own room back in his house, concern in his tone as he slowed Button down.
"Chill! Chill! What happened, bro?"
"Sweet- Sweets cheated on me, dude!"
"WHAT?!"
"Y- Yeah! Fuckin'.. with.. with fuckin' Rumble!"
"RUMBLE?!"
The car rocked a bit as he drove, forcing him to refocus his mind on getting center in his lane on the dirt road. Spike fumbled with words, unable to form coherent sentences as he did this. Button glanced at his rear view mirrors for a second before looking down the road again.
"That's.. messed up, bro. Seriously, what?" Spike was clearly in disbelief, the beautiful ball out of left field striking him again with another friend's issues.
"Yeah Spike.. I- I don't know what to do, man! Sweets.. she.. why would she do this?! What did I do wrong? Was.. Was I not good enough?! The fuck do I do, Spike?!" Button moaned, not hearing Spike's answer as he had accidentally dropped his phone after hitting a not-so forgiving bump in the road. He groaned in frustration, slapping his hip with a balled fist before yelling out. "Hold on, Spike!"
He lowered down, reaching for the phone. He did not see the group of foals place a large log on the road to block it off. Button grabbed his phone, checking to make sure he was still calling Spike before sitting back up, phone on his ear. "I- I didn't," he sniffed, "hear you the last uhh.. coup- couple of seconds.." Button started. Spike began to speak before Button screeched out, "Say it agai- HOLY MOTHER OF CELESTIA!" Dropping his phone on the floor again to steady his wheel, Button also jammed his foot on the brakes. The car's wheels roared under the poor dirt road, the stress getting to the front tires as the driver-side front tire popped, sending him into a spinning frenzy as any junk, dust and dirt or just miscellaneous items flew everywhere. The worst was yet to come as it continued spinning violently and clearly without control towards the log, the foals quickly jumping out of the way as the unprotected rim unluckily jammed into the log.
The car screeched, turning over as it begun to spin up and over like it was in a washing machine. The entire world spun violently in Button's eyes as each bump caved the ceiling in further and further. The glass in each window turned to spiderwebs immediately, before just popping in a hurricane of glass that got stuck in his fur, underneath the seats, pretty much everything! His arms stiffened on the wheel as his eyes closed, the car continuing its barrel roll of terrible luck before it finally collided with something extremely harsh that Button couldn't really tell what was. Why he couldn't, well, his world was spinning and his head that was about to collide into the steering wheel and surely break his snout suddenly flushed out an airbag that sucker punched him right in the face, knocking him out cold to the world right before the underneath of the car caved up, awkwardly bending his leg to break it to cap off his string of terrible, terrible luck.
The foals that had ducked it slowly stood up, eyes wide and ears pinned. One of them, a colt, slowly pulled out his phone and dialed the emergency services while another gulped. "Uhh.. you'll have to pay.. to-.. to cross.. here..?"