Chapter the Twenty First, or “In Which We Move On With Our Lives”
I stop outside of Twilight’s door, which was right across the hall from us. Ok, Sebastian, just stay chill, stay focused, and let her see that handsome smile of yours! I grin to myself, checking how I looked in the hallway mirror.
Whoa, there, bucko! I scold myself. Four people in one morning are enough for you! Tone down the charm a bit, will ya? I automatically adjust my face to be a little more serious.
Jesus, kid, where are you going with that face, a funeral? A weasely, Gilbert Gottfried-like voice asks mockingly in my head. At least give her something to think about in the shower!
Your hormones, you must not let control you, a Yoda voice replies warningly.
Indeed, young Sebastian, use the Force- the Force of Self Control! An Obi-Wan voice agrees.
Well, there’s a question you gotta ask yourself. A tough voice suggests. ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?!
I look at my reflection wearily and see that it’s just as confused as I am. “Time for my medicine,” I mutter, and I reluctantly pull out a green inhaler from my shirt pocket. I close my eyes and take a deep huff, feeling the rancid aerosol spread through my mouth. I suck in as much air as I can before finally pulling the damn thing out of my mouth. Alrighty then, are we cool everyone? I ask myself mentally.
No one answers back.
I sigh in relief and proceed with the task ahead. “Twi?” I call, knocking on her door. “It’s me, Sebastian. Are you ready for work?”
A small moan is my only response. “Twi? You ok?” I call, starting to get worried.
”Sebastian… Help…” Twi’s voice cries weakly.
I start frantically trying to open the door, but the knob stays firm. “Don’t worry, Twi, I’ll be there soon!” I yell through the door.
“Hurry…” she moans. “It hurts so much…”
I pull out my credit card and jam it between the lock and the door frame. It works, and I burst through the door, looking around frantically. “Twilight?! Where are you?!” I cry out, searching around the apartment.
“Not so loud…” she groans pathetically. I find her sitting at the table, wearing a lavender night robe and fuzzy pink slippers. She looks absolutely awful, clutching her head between her hands. “Oh, my head…”
I let out a sigh of relief. “God Twi, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
She just groans and starts rocking back in forth in her chair. “Ugh, is this what alcohol normally does?” she asks unsteadily.
I try to restrain my laugh. “Yeah, hangovers suck, don’t they?” I say wryly. “It can feel like your head is going to burst- Oh God no,” I stop dead in the middle of my sentence, suddenly remembering what Sparkler had told me:
Do you KNOW the psychic energy a hang-over can cause? It’s enough to give you humans, who by the way, have a microscopic amount of magic, a massive head-ache! With the standard unicorn, that equates to an energy beam to the tune of a gigawatt of power!
“HIT THE DECK!!!” I cry to no one in particular, and I leap behind Twilight’s couch.
She looks blearily to me. “Please, not so- BWAAAAAAH!!!” Her eyes bug out, her lips turn bright red and puffy, and a massive beam of energy suddenly blasts out of her mouth, scorching the nearest wall.
Damn, that would have been funny if it weren’t so fucking scary, I think to myself as I watched the charred hole in the wall slowly reform itself back to its original state. Suddenly remembering why I was here, I turn to her to find that she was already looking better. “I assume you’re feeling ok now?” I smirk.
She shakes her head like a dog trying to get dry. “Wha?” she asks dazedly.
I chuckle and help her up off the chair. “C’mon sweetie, time to get dressed and ready for work!” I chuckle.
Suddenly, as if realizing where she was, she shakes me off and looks at me reproachfully. “Don’t ‘sweetie’ me, mister!” she growls, pulling herself away from me. “I’m still mad about last night!”
The smile slips off my face. “Oh yeah…” I say, scratching the back of my head sheepishly.
She gives me an icy glare and snaps her fingers. Within seconds, she’s dressed in a purple blouse and black pencil skirt, with her done up in a tight bun. Combined with her pink glasses and the evil eye she’s giving me, she looks like the world’s most pissed off librarian fantasy. “Let’s just go,” she mutters, marching past me with her pink purse floating after her.
I try to grab her shoulder. “Twi, wait up- AAAAAH!”
As soon as I touch her, her eyes glow a bright, angry pink. I feel a shock course through my arms and I’m thrown back about nine feet away from her.
Realizing what she’s done, she gasps and runs over to where she blasted me. “Oh Sisters, I’m so sorry Sebastian!” she cries as she tries to help me up.
I moan a little, trying to get my teeth to stop chattering. “W-w-w-wha-a-at j-j-just ha-ha-happened?” I ask shakily.
She hits herself over the head with her floating purse. “I’m really, really sorry, I just lost control!” she explains frantically. Her hands grow light pink and I feel a soothing aura suddenly wash over me as she grabs my hand. “I was just so mad about last night for some stupid reason, and I just didn’t want to talk to you, which was stupid, cause we were drunk anyways and we didn’t know what we were doing, and-“
“Ok, ok, it’s fine!” I say loudly, putting my hand on her shoulder to make her stop.
She looks at me with big, watery eyes. “Really?” she asks softly.
I smile gently at her. “Yeah, don’t worry about it,” I assure her. “We all lose control now and then!”
She sighs in relief and hugs me close. “Oh thank the Sisters,” she sighs, in relief. “I was so scared I really hurt you…”
I chuckle and pat her back to calm her down. “Trust me, you’ve only ranked as the fifth most painful thing a girl’s ever done to me when she was pissed!”
She lets out a noise between a giggle and a sob. “What was the first?” she asks, her question muffled by my shirt.
I pull away from her gently and grin. “Well, the scars are in a place I don’t generally show to the public…”
She blushes bright pink and buries her face into my chest. “Sorry, I guess I got too personal…” she murmurs.
I smirk. “Because you know, this right here isn’t personal at all!” I chuckle.
She suddenly pulls away, jumping a good nine feet away from me. “Oh Sisters, I keep doing that!” she says angrily to herself.
I laugh and get up by myself. “Don’t worry; I have that effect on women.” I grin cockily.
In response, her floating purse promptly smacks me upside the head. “Well, at least I know you’re ok now,” Twilight says with a grudging smile.
I grin wryly as I rub my head. “Glad to put your mind at ease, Twi.”
She laughs and walks closer to me. Her hand begins to glow again, and she touches my head. “That better?” she asks, moving her hand around.
I sigh in relief as the healing aura courses through me. “Thanks, Twilight,” I say gratefully. “What’s in that purse of yours, anyways? Stone bricks?”
She sticks out her tongue in a playful manner. “If you must know,” she says in an adorable know-it-all voice, “I put a space-extending spell on the inside of my purse so that I can be ready for anything!”
I scoff. “Really, Twilight, you couldn’t fit EVERYTHING in there!”
She gives me a grin. “Try me,” she challenges.
I roll my eyes. “Alright, how about if there was a flood and-“
Without giving me time to finish, she promptly shakes her bag, and a sturdy red plastic kayak with enough room to suit two people plops out. “You were saying?” she smirks.
My jaw drops to the floor. “Jesus, Twi, that purse must weigh a fuck-ton! How the hell can you even lift it?!”
She giggles. “Telekinesis is all about surface area, not mass,” she explains. “As long as the object’s small enough for me to keep my focus on it, I don’t have too much trouble lifting it!”
And thus, the Force is explained I think to myself. “Well, we’ve still got an hour to kill.” I say offhandedly. “What would you like to do?”
She thinks a bit before shrugging. “I don’t know… Hey, aren’t those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?”
I look down to find that I was indeed in the same suit I went to work in the day before. “I guess you’re right,” I admit. “I didn’t really have time to change when I came down here.”
“Wait, why would you come down here in a hurry?” she asks curiously.
I suddenly realize where this conversation would eventually drift to. “You know what, I’ll go change right now,” I stammer nervously.
Twilight nearly jumps at the opportunity. “Oh, let me come!” she says excitedly. “I still haven’t had a chance to examine human male physiology!”
I start to say no, but an idea pops into my head. You know, it’ll only take a second, I assure myself.
What?! No way, man! What happened to four people in one morning is enough?! I mentally scream back.
Oh come on, she’s begging for it like a bitch in heat! I whine back. Let’s just have sex with her a little!
How the hell can you have sex with someone “just a little”? I demand.
…Very carefully?
Yeah, how about NO?!
Fine… Asshole…
I let out a deep breath and look her in the eye. “Not today,” I say firmly, and ignoring her bewildered expression, I promptly turn around and go across the hall without looking back.
Ten minutes later…
I walk back into Twilight’s apartment with a fresh suit and tie. “Hey Twi, I’m back!” I call into the room.
“I’m in the kitchen!” she calls back.
Where every woman should be, I snicker to myself.
You fucking sexist pig, I think back reprovingly as I sit down at her fairly modern table. “What are you cooking?” I ask upon seeing her at the stove.
She turns around with a fairly grumpy expression on her face. “Well, it WAS going to be a hay omelet,” she groans, pulling a small black, flat object from her frying pan.
chuckle. “Paula Dean, you are not, Twi.” I smirk.
She gives me a quizzical look. ”Who?”
“Forget it,” I say dismissively. “So I assume you’ve got the schedule for today, right?”
She nods and a small phone with a pink aura around it floats over to her. “You’re meeting with a client today at nine, giving a lecture at Emory at twelve-thirty, and you’ve got a psychiatrist appointment with Dr. Clark… I didn’t know you went to a psychiatrist!”
I raise an eyebrow. “What’s the big deal? There are tons of things you don’t know about me,” I say rather coldly.
She blushes and quickly looks away. “Sorry… it’s just that you seem so… confident! Why would you need help?”
I shrug. “Hey, no one’s perfect, Twi, not even me! Of course,” I add with a playful wink, “I’m pretty damn close.”
Her purse hits me upside the head again. “Quit it!” she say, annoyed.
I give a small grunt of exasperation as I rub my head tenderly. “Quit what?”
“Quit being such a flirt!” she snapped back.
“I’m not flirting!” I say defensively. “I’m just trying to be funny!”
“Oh, please!” she huffs. “All you ever do is strut around like a peacock, grinning and looking so damn pleased with yourself! You think you’re so smart, and so funny, and so handsome, and so muscular-“
“You think I’m muscular?” I ask, surprised.
She turns a bright shade of pink. “No!” she says a bit too loudly. ‘You just act like it, pushing out your chest and flaunting your heavenly biceps-”
I burst out laughing. “Are you even hearing yourself talk, Twilight?!”
Her face deepens to tomato red. “SHUT UP!!” she wails, and she goes running into her room, slamming the door behind her.
I groan and get out of the chair, running after her. “Twi?” I call through the door.
“Go away!” she yells back.
“Oh come on, it was just a little joke!” I protest.
A small sigh comes from the other side and the door opens just a crack. ‘It’s not you,” she says in a defeated tone. “It’s just… I really like you, Sebastian!”
Oh shit, here it comes, a voice snickers in my head. I smile nervously at Twi, not quite sure what to say. “Uh… What do you mean by that?”
The door bursts open and Twilight buries her face into my chest. “As in LIKE like you!” she groans. “And I don’t want to scare you off by saying so!”
Seriously, does she even hear the words coming out of her mouth?! I ask nastily to myself.
Come on, that took some guts! I say back in Twilight’s defense. The least you can do is to give her a shot!
But do you really want to? I ask myself.
… No… But it’s not because of her! I just-
Don’t want to lose her?
I guess so…
The voice snickers in my head. Well, you can’t keep it up forever. Just give it a shot and let’s see how it goes, shall we?
Not now! Just... some other time! Please, just not yet...
The other voice lets out a sharp laugh.Coward.
I ignore him and look Twilight dead in the eyes. “Look, Twilight, I’m going to be completely honest with you,” I start.
Twilight cuts me off with a groan. “Let me guess,” she says pitifully. “I’m fired and you don’t want anything to do with me?”
“What?! NO!” I say dismissively. “I just want to say that, well… I just can’t get into a relationship right now! I mean, I’ve got this weird thing with Applejack, and I somehow just had a foursome with Rarity, Fluttershy, and Big Mac… I just don’t think I could be the best boyfriend I could be for you right now, “ I admit.
She stays quiet for a while and nods. “I understand,” she says quietly, looking down.
I pull her chin up so that I could see her eyes. “Look, I wish I could be ready for you, but… I’m just not, ok? It’s not you, it’s me,” I assure her.
Way to be original Sebastian, the voice snickers again.
I ignore it and press on. “Look, right now, I’m all over the place Twi, and I’m afraid that if I’m like this with you, then… Well, someone’s bound to get hurt, you know?”
She suddenly gives me a steely glare. “Promise me that when you’re ready, you’ll give me a call,” she demands, pushing her face close to mine. “Promise me that I won’t be just some empty bottle waiting on the shelf to be filled.”
That’s what she said, that damn voice cackled, but I nod solemnly. “I swear, you’ll get the first call.”
She kisses my cheek and goes back into the kitchen without a word. I follow to find that she had telekinetically set the table with milk and cereal. Wordlessly, we sit down and eat breakfast, occasionally stealing glances at the other. Finally, Twilight speaks up. “Just out of curiosity, how exactly did you wind up with Applejack?” she asked.
I grin wryly. “It’s a LOOONG story…”
She giggles a little. “Why not tell me over dinner? As friends, I mean,” she adds quickly.
I chuckle. “Sure. I know this awesome place to get soup…”