> The Serendipity Of Love
>  by soulmates
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> the universe has moved for us
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------




THE SERENDIPITY OF LOVE
by smallcrystals






FLASH, SHE TYPES.
And then she types Twilight  into the small stadium textbox next to it.
Her finger hovers over the Generate button.
It’s sort of— actually, it is a step she can’t come back from. Similar to stealing chocolate from the cabinet. She’ll only have one piece and then when the sugary cocoa melts on her tongue, she’s already breaking off another. 
She has no hypothesis, no background information about the topics she’ll see – it’s impulsive. Impulsiveness isn’t something Twilight Sparkle is accustomed to, not even during circumstances of anxiety. (She’s more disorderly, too far in her thoughts to make any hasty moves.)
Twilight looks up from her phone. Pushing the bridge of her glasses up her nose, she blinks, goosebumps at her sides searching for any eyes that might catch her. The classroom was empty when she arrived and no one walked in, so the adrenaline must originate from the device in her hands.
Taking one more unfocused glance at the three empty rows around her, she predicts what he’ll say once their Chemistry teacher lets the rest of the students in.
You know you shouldn’t be in a lab without a teacher, right? he’ll tell her in that classic teasing tone, without any real purpose. Just to start something.
Teachers trust me in here, unlike someone, she’ll eye him. Then, he’ll aggressively signal with a cute pout on his lips to the rainbow-haired person in the row in front of them.
Surprisingly (okay, maybe not so surprisingly), he doesn’t disrupt the class like she anticipated originally, only making Twilight the cure to his boredom when she completes the set work ahead of everyone else. Sometimes she’ll humour him and return his antics so she can have a perfect view of the pretty red blush coating his cheeks.
Twilight shakes her head and glances down at her screen again. A simplistic website displays back at her, consisting of mainly white with light yellow and grey accents and black for the main text. Her eyes move to the digital clock in the corner of her screen, checking if time is still by her side and hasn’t raced off to the few minutes of lunch.
It hasn’t. With that, she presses her eyes shut and clicks Generate.
Hoping she hadn’t somehow missed the button, she gingerly opens her eyes to the words in the curved-cornered box.




Your prompt: Flash doesn’t like talking on the phone, but Twilight always calls them instead of texting. Twilight admits that it’s because they want to hear Flash’s voice.




Well.
Twilight does. Want to hear his voice, that is. She likes his voice too and isn’t afraid of admitting that either.
After overhearing Flash Sentry quietly singing while waiting for their homeroom teacher to show up, she turned back and told him she found his voice really pretty to listen to. He made the most adorable confused noise, eyes wide, lips forming into a natural pout. Back when they called each other friends with affirmed nods and not-so-painfully-awkward smiles, Twilight didn’t mean it to be that kind of compliment. Flash didn’t take it as such either.
Objectively, Flash Sentry is… very attractive. In many aspects. Even when she wasn’t attracted to him, she’s had her moments where she paused to grasp how gorgeous he really is. Like, how does his skin look so good, the slope of his nose is perfect, how do his lips create such a structurally pleasant smile and oh my gosh, he has a dimple! It takes her a minute to fathom that this boy is very much real and not some celebrity or prince she should know.
Looking back on it now, everything’s in a different light and she rethinks those words with butterflies in her heart. 
If she remembers correctly, Flash verges on the line between tenor and countertenor. Very soft voice, sort of a hug and an affectionate nuzzle, which personifies him well. But it’s also loud when he’s laughing, making jokes and enjoying himself.
It’s… fitting. Twilight’s chest gets so, so unexplainably warm when she hears it. 
His singing, though, oh Starswirl. He knows how to play with autotune effectively, but when he sings raw and live, he’s incredible. The word isn’t even suitable next to the Flash Sentry’s vocal abilities.
He’s somehow powerful but gentle all at once, playful but he can also switch his tone to painfully forlorn if he so wishes. How he can control his voice without much effort— Twilight has never seen someone with this much talent.
Her role in The Rainbooms is inadequate to his skill. Needless to say, due to the scale of Flash’s determination and interest compared to hers but regardless.
(Okay. Yeah. She’s biased. But the amount of business cards from entertainment companies stacked on Flash’s bedroom desk implies otherwise.)
The Rainbooms are the most popular band at Canterlot High, but if it wasn’t for their reputation as superheroes, that current status would’ve still rightfully belonged to the Flash Drive as it had before.
Twilight takes a glance at the words again.
They text more than they call, which is not really a reflection of their relationship, more so on their generation as a whole, but when they do call, they’re often late night or extremely early morning calls. Twilight adores them.
(Flash’s unhealthy sleeping hours have influenced hers too, but, on school days Flash has been sleeping and waking up at more reasonable times so, in his words, it cancels out like PEMDAS.
“You mean ‘like algebra’.”
“Whatever!”)
She does love his voice, finds it soothing, charismatic. He’s the cutest when he rambles, his voice going higher when he talks quicker, trying to squish in his main points in as well as whatever bounces to his mind. Twilight refrains from pulling him into hugs and pampering him with kisses because one, rude, and two, they’re not there yet. But once she can, she’ll ask.
He’s very loveable and it’s only recently that Twilight starts to see herself falling in love with him. Assumptions like those this early on in their relationship aren’t a good idea, but if things go well, she hopes that’s where they end up.
She blinks out of her head and looks at the tab name. OTP prompt generator.
Flash won’t find it weird, right? It’s a prompt generator. For fanfiction. Flash is a fanfic connoisseur with the number of tabs he has opened on his phone browser. Eighty-something? It looks like a mess. What harm is this going to do? She’ll be surprised if he’s never heard of this site before. It’ll be fine.
Twilight generates another.



Your prompt: Flash having to comfort Twilight because Twilight just encountered a very large, unpleasant bug outside that scared them.



A loud, embarrassing snort breaks the silence around her, which, more embarrassingly, turns out to be from herself.
She was wondering if a prompt in this collection fits them better reversed. Flash is much, much more terrified of bugs. It’s unfair how hilarious and cute it is to see him freak out over a spider dangling a foot away, curling into himself as far away as possible while whining at his friends to get rid of it. 
The fact Flash doesn’t take him that as emasculating is nice to see too. He just. Doesn’t like bugs. He’s not self-conscious over it and immediately resorts to piercing remarks if made fun of. His periodic fiery attitude aligns with hers wonderfully and it does nothing less than light the match in her.
(She remembers Fluttershy’s complete expression of horror when Flash asked Twilight to kill that spider. It’s occasionally bizarre how those two are childhood friends; they are as much different as they are similar.
Though, Flash’s phobia of bugs doesn’t mean Twilight likes them either. Insects are still, in her opinion, eccentric despite her extensive understanding of them. So she squished the spider in the tissue she used to catch it in while Rarity distracted Fluttershy.)
Tapping on the screen once again, her eyes zero in on the new words.



Your prompt: Flash helping Twilight dry and brush their hair after a shower.



The domesticity of the prompt leaves her feeling like she’s wrapped in fluff, like those filters. She imagines the scene through that filter and it’s filled with cosy cream colours, Flash throwing a small towel over Twilight’s head while she yelps, telling him she knows how to dry her hair. He’ll insist on doing it anyway. He’ll brush her hair like the action requires all the care in the world, perhaps itching a spot on her scalp that’s been bothering her, and plait it for bed. He can do really nice plaits.
Twilight squeals quietly. Cheeks heated, she whines and lightly smacks her forehead onto the table.
She forgets how overwhelming these emotions can be, the shivers from her daydreams— the fact she will be sitting next to the person she romantically likes. And that he’s real. She silently imitates a scream to get those emotions out of her system, then sulks with a pout. 
Sentry, the things you do to me.



Your prompt: Flash touching Twilight’s face and telling them that their face is really soft.



Twilight shifts in her stool. It’s not out of discomfort.
They are… truthfully, still getting used to this development. Dancing around the bushes for so long due to their ‘past’ made jumping into a relationship a horrible decision. Neither of them knows what’s too much, what’s not enough.
In the case of someone as affectionate and anxious as Flash, he underestimates so much. Doesn’t want to cross any of Twilight’s boundaries, even any she doesn’t explicitly agree on.
Sometimes it’s adorable how he shies away. He behaves like he was caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. He’s so… insert common reaction to cuteness. If she creates a line graph about how quickly the serotonin in her body increases when Flash is his dorky little self, she guesses the x-axis will range between 0.0 and 0.1 seconds while the y-axis ends at a number she can’t even see because it exceeds the scale. 
But there’s a sting in her chest when he removes himself from her. He realises he’s too close. He’s used to their unsaid rules of don’t tease too much, it may come off as flirtatious or do not hug closely, too intimate for friendship (when Flash is typically spotted cuddling with their friends all the time). Simply because their current hugs carry romantic intent doesn’t mean that was what they always symbolised, so she can’t blame Flash for needing time.
Whenever they’re shoulder-to-shoulder and something makes those eyes turn into crescents, he collapses onto her dearly while he laughs, holding her to keep himself from falling. But it ends as quickly as it happens; he immediately pulls away and stutters an apology.
Twilight didn’t think anything of it before. It wasn’t a constant thing. But after that one day, one moment, she noticed everything else, an invisibility spell revealing every move previously veiled.
She hopes he knows that she loves it. Being close to him lathers every inch of her heart in oxytocin, making her feel like she’s got flowers blooming on her body’s imperfections. As Twilight slowly brings him back into hugs, she remembers how it feels, how these wonderful sensations swirl inside her and pull her lips into a smile. She wants to be as close to him as physically possible, wants him to know she craves his clingy tendencies and that he doesn’t have to hold back because of what they once were.
They can’t leap in head first, of course. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Counter to that though, if they wait too long for the right time to come, it might not ever come.
One step at a time is the most appealing solution, even if it’s a little painful. They reach a point where the relationship may be moving too quickly for them, they’ll step back and retry later. It may feel like seasickness in their stomachs but who says love is easy-sailing?
She learned that the hard way.
Twilight glances down at her phone, staring back into a dark reflection. Her cheeks look significantly darker and redder than they were – they feel like they are at least – so she straightens her back and switches her phone on. She presses the cold of her backhand to her cheeks to transfer the heat elsewhere.
The same words pop up on the screen. She wets her lips.
She has no idea how Flash’s hands will feel cupping her jaw but she dreams of all sorts of things. They’ve booped each other’s noses before, squealing quietly at how cute the other person’s nose is. (Flash’s nose is cuter.) They’ve hugged, cheeks squished for photos. They’ve gotten close to each other.
Besides, Flash can’t live without teasing the eternity out of Twilight. Especially during Chemistry, when they attempted to stare each other off, playful tension stirring the air around them.
She shakes her head when she thinks of Flash’s casual affectionate nature and how that intertwines with the fact he likes her romantically. Right now, in an empty classroom, her body is vibrating with warmth. What will she be like when kisses become a regular?
Twilight blows a breath out, groaning to herself. She tosses thoughts about kissing out of the forefront of her mind for now as there’s no doubt she’ll malfunction so horribly Chemistry will be the last thing she’ll focus on.
Oh no, have I broken you, Twi? she hears his stupid voice and his stupid laugh. Bastard.
If Past Twilight had found this site, she’d probably use it for ‘relationship inspiration’ or whatever in Starswirl’s name she would have come up with. Brainstorm what their relationship will be like based on what’s happened so far, maybe. Prepare herself in advance.
It’s one of the aspects that led to her inevitable break up with Timber Spruce, striving for perfection instead of effort without realising it. Twilight tried to find the exact result of an experiment that was still in its first draft.
Now… she has no excuse as to why she’s doing this. That’s it. It’s just for fun. Indulging in her dreams, yes, but that’s all. So far, at least, it’s reminding her of thoughts she’s had about this relationship. She doubts she’ll remember them when lunch ends, worst-case scenario, and she doesn’t care that she won’t. It’s just for fun.
Fun.
“I know relationships shouldn’t just be about having fun, but sometimes I feel like we’re both too— careful? And have too many thoughts of what will happen to have fun,” Timber told her. “Y’know? We’re driving each other away and— well. Here we are.”
They were both trying too hard in different areas. Too scared. Even more scared to voice those fears too. What they had haunting them wasn’t uncommon, especially amongst people their age. Not to mention how both of them are a product of their environment.
Twilight’s still scared of what the future holds. Knowing how hard Timber took the breakup too (so Flash said, she will never hear this from the boy himself) and his issues of thinking everyone in his life will just walk out eventually, he’s scared too.
The lack of communication sent them down, down, down. Approaching their relationship more maturely than, say, the relationships she’s overheard her fellow Shadowbolts go through, didn’t save them from that. They would be stupid to think they wouldn’t come across similar issues.
They were stupid to think that.
Flash convinces them both that it happens. All their friends do. You’re young, you make mistakes. 
Hearing that does make it easier to look back on old times. The memories aren’t sour at all. She still smiles at them and hopes Timber does too. And it’s not his fault if he doesn’t, if he’s thrown out too-intimate-to-be-platonic photos of them.
They’re still best friends if that’s any progress. None of their fun moments turned rotten, they’re still the TS squared duo. She doesn’t want to lose their bond over something that didn’t work out; it would hurt more to not speak to him ever again.
She’ll never admit it – the boy’s got too much of an ego as it stands and Flash and Soarin look exasperated enough trying to ground what’s currently there – but he’s left quite a mark in her life. She hopes she won’t make the same mistakes again with Flash.
Letting out a sigh of mixed emotions, mostly positive, she tries for another prompt.
Twilight stifles a laugh at the next one.



Your prompt: Flash and Twilight are playing a co-op video game. Flash keeps goofing around and Twilight just wants to get past the first level Godammit.



That’s something she can see happening. Twilight’s never been great at or really intrigued by most video games. There’s more entertainment in Sunset and Rainbow having a rage quit instead. Flash gets irrationally angry to some extent too, only if someone else messes up horribly and he scolds their brains out.
He’s also the one out of ‘FlashLight’ (what Timber and Sunset like to call them) that will be more likely to goof around purely to get under other’s skin. Such as Fire Boy and Water Girl; she can see him jumping around, not doing what they’re supposed to with a cheeky grin on his face. All while Twilight grumbles under her breath.
Flash Sentry as a friend had been a pain in the behind. But now Flash Sentry as a boyfriend – oh, oh – is her pain in the behind.
Mine.



Your prompt: Flash and Twilight literally sitting in a tree, kissing.



She rushes to tap the button again, her cheeks flaming at an outrageous degree, heart rate speeding.
The next one makes it worse. She doesn’t even want to think about that scenario.
Well—
Nope, nuh-uh, no. She clicks generate again.



Your prompt: Flash and Twilight spending the night on the perfect hill for stargazing.



It’s funny. Twilight can never stay focused on the stars anymore. She’ll be too busy thinking about what Flash said.
“The universe must’ve loved you so much because it placed all the stars in your eyes. That’s all I can think about when I see that you’re actually listening to me unlike a lot of people. You have an entire galaxy in your eyes.”
Twilight coughs and gulps to push her heart back down her throat.
Flash, by some chance, simultaneously finds the best and worst times to be poetic and paint those words in her head.
She loves the stars. It makes sense for her to be an astronomy genius, but suddenly, nothing else matters. Nothing else tugs at her heartstrings than what Flash told her that day. The words are a couple of weeks old, yet they feel yesterday-fresh. Her heart thumps in the same rhythm as it did then, filling her head. Twilight’s never failed at anything, but if there needs to be one, she’ll fail to hold back her smile when thinking of that day.
But absolutely ironically, the prompt she sees after drags the smile right off her face.



Your prompt: Twilight travelling long distances just to see Flash.



Long distances.
College.
Living in her head, a little pest always asks what about next year? When she mustered up the courage to say something to Flash, reconsideration tried to pull her back like vines latching onto her arms, moist and uncomfortable. They’re in Senior Year and have only got so many months to see each other daily. Then it will fall into weekly, maybe even monthly, quarter-monthly. Yearly. 
They’re already going through this transition. What about then when they won’t have school to help them meet up? Would they find a way to work around their courses? What if Flash gets into an entertainment company that clogs up his schedule and they distance? What if they place a dating ban on him and—
Twilight’s eyes twitch closed. 
It will be fine.
She generates another again.
And frowns at that one too.
Twilight releases a heavy, frustrated sigh. Her legs press together to stop one of them from bouncing. Prompts like these were going to come up; why didn’t she think of this before? With the rise of realistic fiction, some stories are too real and, shockingly, Twilight of all people wishes to ignore reality but—
Goodness. She shouldn’t be thinking about what if’s.
Vicious thoughts now thwack at her brain after it’s attempted its irritating poking around, but she squeezes her eyes to get it to stop. She’s not going to get anywhere worrying about stuff that’s out of her control. Don’t repeat the same mistakes.
It’ll be okay. She counts to ten in her head to stop her racing heart.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Twi, you okay?”
The dulcet voice doesn’t startle her as much as it eases her out of her head. Twilight much prefers the latter.
She turns, switching off her phone and meets gently wide, vivid cornflower eyes. The second thing she notices is that up close the winged eyeliner stroked over the edge of his eyelids is seamless, accentuating his blue eyes. They’re the sky when the sun is out, the light too bright to see all the stars, but they shine best when covered by night’s indigo overlay, revealing all those hidden.
While her eyes may show the universe to hand, his veiled universe will always be the prettiest.
And stars, is he beautiful. Faint red eyeshadow colours his eyes under the eyeliner, blending well with his skin that Twilight nearly, just nearly, mistakes it for his natural blush. She expects it, of course, when her eyes flit down to his lips, a watermelon pink that’s a lot more pronounced than their regular colour – not that she knows or anything. They’re probably pigmented. So delicate. They most likely feel so too.
Oh. Wait. He asked her something. Shoot.
“Uhhh, yeah, I’m— fine!” She pulls on a trying smile. The hopes of it turning into a real one sound less like prayers, thankfully, and she relaxes into it.
Twilight’s eyes scan the lab, slowly filling up with students she presumes were outside when she was busy with her phone.
The drag of rubber from lab stools against the floor brings her back to the boy taking his seat next to her.
“You sure? You kinda look a little shaken up,” he said, frowning, eyes concerned. Her hand itches to hold his, to find his warmth before she has to get used to the cold. She’s fine with the cold. But she likes the warm better.
There’s rustling of folders and pencil cases around them, jackets and bags shoved under their chairs. Flash glances around, sitting properly but finding her hand and holding it tight beneath the desk.
He mildly wrestles his bag with his other hand to get his books out. Twilight would tell him to let go of her hand but this is cute. He whispers a cheer of triumph, throwing a smug look at his defeated school bag. It clatters against the science table’s body as he drops it, obtaining her focus, then the circles Flash rubs on her backhand with his thumb picks it up from there. Tension stops swirling in her head.
Flash tilts his head towards her and mutters with a smirk, “you know you’re not supposed to be here without a teacher, right?”
It’s to distract her. Her heart beats for a different reason and she chases it. “You think they’ll trust you in here?”
“You’re just as klutzy as I am, Sparkle.” He leans in, nose tips nudging against each other. Twilight runs her tongue over her bottom lip as she glances into that sky of irises. And argh, how badly does she want to close the gap between them. The days lag on wrenchingly, tracing those lips with her eyes and not with her own lips.
She snaps out of it and fake growls in response, attempting to bite his nose. Giggles overload her head when Flash jerks away and growls back at her in the same manner.
That’s another thing she’s glad hasn’t changed. Or had even developed. Their back and forth. For one hour, they will be flirting until one of them cracks under the heat, which their best friends have stopped quirking their eyebrows at, with the assumption that it’s still all fun and games. Other hours consist of utter nonsense that makes their lungs ache, only to cackle harder when their classmates look at them with the most alienated looks. 
(If she and Timber were on the same wavelength with their humour, she and Flash are on the same spot of that wavelength.)
Twilight holds her laugh when he eyes her, playfully suspicious. She slides her phone in front of her pencil case so their teacher doesn’t see it.
“You look so pretty today,” she says.
“Just today?” He chuckles but she catches onto that small glow at the compliment. Twilight swats him in the arm. “Ow! Is that how you treat pretty people?”
“No, just you.” Her eyes give his attire a scan. “You’re the only one that can pull off a black hoodie and beige cargo pants while your face is decorated as such.”
Now Flash flushes visibly, looking down with a bashful smile. “I, uh, woke up too early today and decided why not?”
“Good decision.” She makes an effort to pointedly look at him so he feels the wrath of her attraction. As his girlfriend – girlfriend. Girlfriend!  – it’s mandatory he knows how pretty she finds him.
“You look good too,” he says.
Twilight tips her head. “Are you just saying that?”
“No!” he sort of exclaims and makes a light, wet click with his tongue. “Is it still that hard to believe that I find you attractive?” He sort of pouts.
Yes. Because she’s not used to people telling her that without being in a place where obligation can be present. Her friends compliment (and flirt with her) all the time and she knows they don’t do so because they feel required to as her friend but they can be lying. People lie all the time.
Timber, Flash, girls she’s encountered at the rare high school parties she attends for Pinkie – it’s different with them as they, casual people, don’t have any reason other than they find her really attractive. It’s… something.
She, in this dress shirt she tugged blindly out of her closet, beige-grey slacks that don’t trap her body heat well in this weather, hair in a lower ponytail than usual, is attractive? Flash’s eyes abide on the watch a relative gifted her and— okay, maybe she doesn’t look bad. While the feeling has yet to settle into her definition of truth, it does make her feel pretty good.
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I want you to compliment me more.”
Timber taught her this. Self-appreciating humour is much better than self-deprecating humour. Healthier too. She doesn’t like that he’s right and knows him better than to think that is the only reason he’s cheeky, but. Whatever.
“Should’ve just asked, then. I’ll make you wish you could take that back.”
“Try me.”
When she flips her wire-bound notebook open to a new page, she hears the indistinct click of a pen. Flash twirls his pen in his left hand and her eyes briefly mesmerise themselves in the movement.
“If it’s okay to ask, what were you doing on your phone?” Flash asks quietly, looking at the device. “I was first in line outside – yes, I know, stop looking at me like that – and every time I peeked in through the window, you were on it.”
Twilight’s going to cave anyway but an opportunity to tease him makes itself known. “Am I not allowed to look interested in something on my phone?”
He decides to play along when he says, “no, only me.” He imitates a sad face and a voice squeals in her head. He doesn’t keep the act up long, slipping into a bundle of laughs, looking embarrassed that he even said that. Sweet, pleasantly infectious sounding laughter that Twilight bursts into her own set of giggles too.
She reaches out, flicking his forehead. He lets go of Twilight’s now warm hand to rub the spot, making a cute strangled noise from the pain.
He slaps the same hand over his mouth. The sound he made was loud and even Twilight stills.
Gaining no reaction from it, they wheeze silently, heads falling onto their desk.
Twilight speaks next, hushed. “I, uh,” – she reaches out for her phone gingerly and hides it under the desk once it’s in her grasp – “was looking up…” The words escape her as she quickly opens her phone. It’s easier to show him anyway.
She quickly generates. Twilight then blinks at her flightiness but reasons that the prompt prior isn’t the best to show Flash. She turns her phone around for him to see.
“Oh!” Flash says, mouth forming a cute o. “I know this prompt generator!” He skims over the words Twilight hasn’t brought herself to read yet.
His eyes widen and he blushes, vision glued to the screen.
“Oh.” It comes out as a whisper with enough emphasis that she can hear it over her classmates. He looks up at her through his lashes, pressing his lips together to conceal his smile, which breaks out anyway. “Do you wanna kiss me?” he asks, almost mouthing the words as the class settles down.
The question catches her so off guard her eyes bolt to her phone screen, pulling it up to her face to hide it from Flash like he hadn’t seen it already, completely disregarding the school rules. 



Your prompt: Twilight and Flash haven’t kissed yet. Each time Twilight sees Flash, they think to themself, “I’ve gotta do it this time,” but they keep being too shy to do anything. One day a friend asks Twilight if Flash has ever tried to kiss them and Twilight just screams.



Twilight wants to scream.
Flash holds his bottom lip between his teeth as he laughs (she is totally not looking at the curve of his pretty cupid’s bow, no), revelling in her reaction. He shoves her phone down to her lap before a teacher can see it.
“You put our names into the prompt generator?” he snickers but not out of malice. Her heart unwinds in his smile, but she recovers as the teacher begins the class.
It’s another revision lesson. As the teacher speaks, Flash looks at her in a way that has her head begging to return the look. Hesitance seeps from the waver of his eyes – she’s not sure if her peripheral vision is distorting what she sees – and there’s a vague change of expression, something Twilight can’t puzzle out when her attention is split like this. 
She assumes he’s already zoned out after Miss said revision lesson, so she keeps her eyes on their teacher. At least one of them has to have a clue about today’s tasks. A glow in her heart, perhaps not a glow but a throb, a pulse, encourages her to touch him, give him some affectionate contact. Desire fills her fingers and before she knows it, she’s rubbing his hip, curling the touch to the small of his back. She takes his fingers in hers for good measure too, rubbing over the slightly worn knuckles.
There’s another shift in his expression. And instead, he transfers his eyes onto his desk and folds his fingers into hers.
“You okay?” she whispers when they’re working.
Flash finishes off a question to turn to her and he nods with a small smile, not reaching his eyes. Twilight frowns slightly and leans in closer, nuzzling her nose into his cheek to get him to properly smile.
And it works! Flash shies away with a head tilt inwards, letting out a giggle.
Twenty or so minutes pass and her answers to the worksheet set are laid out neatly in her notepad. She lets out a silent sigh at the classroom hum, her eyes, unsurprisingly, following the fluffy, short poof of sapphire hair.
The boy caps and pockets the lip balm she presumes he spread a layer on, his eyes still on his work. Letters belonging to the word Strawberry find their place along the balm tube, bringing in thoughts Twilight assumed she had under control. They must taste of strawberry, right? and thus proceeds the cycle of her gustatory refreshing every strawberry flavoured candy and pastry onto her tongue. Her body tenses under the weight of all the feelings she has to shiver to get out of it. 
Lab lights dapple and curve accordingly on his lips, adding a lovely touch to them. When he continues working away at the last page, she blinks to properly get herself out of that trance. Come on. 
Twilight grits her teeth while scolding herself for getting so crazed before sensing Flash turn still. His eyes sneak a not-so-sneaky look at her and she silently simpers as he narrows his eyes at her. Cutie.
What, he raises his eyebrows at her.
Twilight shrugs a shoulder. Flash quits his work in favour of relaxing the elbow furthest from her on the desk, leaning in again. Their noses almost touch this time and a breath stumbles on its path out of her lungs. Flash wiggles his eyebrows. Twilight returns the gesture. Flash tongues the inside of his cheek and Twilight’s eyes follow it with a sharp breath to make him think he’s got her wrapped around his finger.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
“Which one? There were two,” she counters.
He pauses. Twilight follows his eyes to her lips, drawing up an estimate of what he’s chosen. But with the surprise arrival of swimming adrenaline, it slows down that process to bring forth more thoughts of soft lips against hers, gentle to burning kisses that will have her loopy in seconds.
Her heart’s doing that thing again where she swears Flash can hear it thumping too and it’s slowly convincing her that if she just kisses him it’ll let her rest.
“Sentry.”
They jerk away from each other like thunder, lab coolness freezing them. Her heart almost stops entirely, forcing a warning stroke through her blood vessels.
Their Chemistry teacher’s voice is quiet enough that other groups of conversation don’t stop, but it’s loud enough so they hear it.
Not happy with their proximity, she gives them a Look. But there isn’t much irritant in her expression, more exasperation aimed at Flash, assuming he’s disrupting Twilight like he does normally. (It’s only when she’s far ahead of everyone, so he isn’t really distracting her. Actually, one can argue he’s distracting himself. That’s fair.)
“Have you finished?”
“Yes,” he lies.
Twilight stifles a snort.
Seemingly unconvinced, the teacher keeps eye contact with him to study any subtextual clues of his dishonesty. She looks like she found none, so she tears her eyes away to the worksheet with her answers in red ink.
“What did you get for the last question?”
Flash shoves his usual uhh’s down with a gulp visible to Twilight only. He glances down, looking at the answer to the wrong question.
His eyes search for the question on her book when his head is fully down. Twilight keeps her sight on Flash, trying her best to move out of the way convincingly enough so he can see her answer.
(All right, maybe Flash has influenced her quite a bit. As long as she isn’t the one that’s cheating.)
“Esterification with concentrated sulfuric acid, producing—”
“It’s one mark, you don’t need the product bit. But, correct.”
“Ah, okay,” Flash says, disguising a breath of relief with a hand rubbing the back of his neck. (It’s a habit he has; she picked up on it a month ago. Now she can’t stop noticing it.)
Twilight strikes a line through the product she wrote in her answer, an oh taking a misstep in her throat.
“I’m sure you two have brought your own revision you can be getting on with,” their teacher says.
Once their teacher is back to whatever she was doing, Twilight lines her head face to face with Flash’s. She has no clue where this surge of assertiveness came from and what she’s about to agree on can potentially send all her organs into utter chaos but she still holds herself strong, her aim set on the back in their back and forth.
“Yes, I want to.”
Flash jolts, not pulling back but innocently blinking at her. “Want what?”
A light heat fills her cheeks as she switches on her phone, only looking away to unlock it. Her confidence will run down the drain if she declares it. She holds the phone right-side-up and grins cheekily at the red rushes to Flash’s cheeks.
“Oh.”
“Mhm.” She doesn’t try to stop herself from looking at the way his tongue swipes over his lower lip, but she still grips the fabric of her trousers, curses and the word kiss bouncing around in her head like heated gas. “And what was the other question again?”
Flash looks down at her phone. “I didn’t expect it to be answered, it was more rhetorical and a thought I voiced out. But I’ll ask anyway ‘cause I’m curious – why did you put our names in a prompt generator?”
“Uh, well, I… don’t know. For fun?”
He nods, understanding, not expecting anything more. “Wanted to see what kinda cute fanfic scenarios we’d get stuck in together?” he teases.
“…Maybe,” she says, voice small.
He plants his elbow on the desk, his forearm raised so their teacher can’t see what they’re up to.
“Do you want to be in those situations?”
“What kinds are there?” he asks as if he didn’t say he knows this prompt generator. 
Twilight moves her arms just to do something. “Domestic stuff, you drying and brushing my hair,” she says, now swaying in her seat, “stargazing, playing video games but it’s just you messing around…”
Flash chuckles.
“Yeah, those sound really nice.” His smile is lopsided, showcasing that dimple Twilight urges to kiss. It’s on his right cheek, a cute little dip that makes his smile all the more enticing, spotlighting the aura around him.
She can’t see magic in regular people but sometimes she feels like she can with some. They have this glow they have and Flash’s glow is rich.
“What others came up?”
“There was one about bugs. Something about you comforting me because I saw a large one.”
“Oh. Those little nuisances.” Flash curls his lips in adorable disgust. He scrunches his face, most likely at the thought of one of them.
“Yeah, it… worked better the other way around.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely. Anything else?” he asks curiously.
She leaves out the one about them kissing in a tree and the… other one.
(They were parents of the main character in their school play last year, but that’s different. Rarity was their ‘child’ and she was Mr and Mrs Soot’s child. Not Flash and Twilight’s child.
Being actual parents with their own children, genetically tied to the both of them— goodness.)
Twilight’s eyes scout for nothing tangible in particular as she sorts through her head. The only ones left she remembers are ones that sparked specific topics she probably can’t speak to him about in public.
She settles on, “Just stuff that made me think.” Her fingers find each other in her lap, slithering around the others as that foul pest called Anxiety does so to her heart.
Flash’s expression wilts. Not to the intense worry he sometimes wears in these situations, merely a sliver of confusion resting upon his features. The concern is still there in those skylit eyes.
He rests his feet on the ground as he carefully moves his stool closer to her. Their knees interlock and her nerves bask in the comfort he always carries around.
“You okay?” He places his hands on hers, leaving enough room so she can keep fidgeting. His warmth doesn’t stray. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it right now so I didn’t push. But it’s your call, Twi.”
“You shouldn’t have to make my communication your responsibility.” She doesn’t look up.
“I know. I can’t read your mind. I’m not Sunset, unfortunately,” he jokes and Twilight manages to laugh. “Some of the prompts can be way too realistic. If you have worries, you’ll end up associating those with whatever you find. It seems like it has. So… do you want to talk about it?”
Twilight hesitates. They’re not in the right space. Anyone can overhear, notice the tense air and try to listen in because this is high school and nosy teenagers are everywhere.
They haven’t really… told anyone that they’re going out. Other than Sunset Shimmer and Timber Spruce. It’s been two weeks since they confessed and less since they did something with their confessions, so again, they want to take their time with it.
Talking as they are, in a relationship, will have rumours spreading like hydrochloric acid filling up a clear container. Eighteen-year-olds, wildly enough, still don’t know how to mind their own business.
(Not that she can blame them. Two students had been discussing gender and sexuality a few Chemistry lessons ago. One of them was clearly not queer and the pair’s whispers did get violent enough that she and Flash tried to listen in, startled.
Rainbow, who sat next to them, being as queer as people could get, eventually got involved too. The conversation wasn’t super pleasant. An encounter like that would probably get Flash and her irritable in an instant.
They’re as susceptible to being nosy as everyone else and so. Yeah.)
“I… don’t know. There were multiple that sort of got me thinking.”
Thinking is a word she’s grown to dislike immensely after the Friendship Games. She translates it to her anxiety acting up mostly and since then, it’s stuck and left a horrible taste in her mouth. It’s the same for Flash too. He doesn’t particularly favour it either, given his social anxiety.
“Just wanted to check,” she says, straightening her posture. “You don’t find this,” – she holds up her phone – “weird, right?”
Before Twilight can continue, Flash shakes his head, eyebrows tightening. “Of course not. As you said: it’s for fun. Yes, admittedly, it would be a little weird if you didn’t know I liked you back. But you do.” He shrugs, easing her heavy shoulders.
“Okay, good.” She inhales heavily.
“And then again, most of us are delusional when we have crushes, so…” He smiles at her with a coy tilt of his head. “I wouldn’t entirely blame you because if I had a crush on you without ever meeting Princess Twilight, I, uh,” – he dodges his eyes away before returning them to her – “probably would’ve done something similar.” 
Twilight crosses her ankles with a laugh to stop them from swinging about. 
His words detour and process through her mind again and a restless feeling sinks into her stomach as if she had just heard some bad news. “Um…”
Her eyes fall onto the clock in the classroom.
Oh.
The lesson ends in seven minutes.
“Actually—” Twilight rushes to explain herself when she sees the alarm in Flash’s eyes. “You’ve got a free period next, right?”
Flash nods slowly.
“We can talk then. Before sixth period.”
He appears justifiably unsure. “You sure you’re gonna talk about it?”
Twilight encloses her hands onto his. “I promise. I— I think after class is more appropriate.” She signals with her eyes around the classroom, hoping it’ll pass through to him.
It does. He nods, satisfied with her answer. “Okay.”
“Okay.” She smiles. Then glances at his work. “Finish the questions.”
Flash’s pout lasts for a second before he’s picking up his pen again.
Seven minutes hindered. She’s unsure if she should be happy about that. With four minutes to spare, Flash gets the questions done, deciding to incline back on his stool like an elementary pupil to pass the rest of the time. He grins cheekily at the disapproving look Twilight gives him.
(She doesn’t scold him anymore for it. He’s more careful than an eight-year-old. But even if he isn’t, it’s not like Twilight won’t throw her books out to help.)
They’re already steadily packing away when the bell rings. The teacher’s “your homework is revision!” drowns out here and there, but they’re out the door before everyone else, nearly plunging headfirst into a sea of lowerclassmen.
(Flash swims out quick with her tailing him, a talent he says he developed after some of the younger students started confessing to him. Twilight’s never seen him so uncomfortable in her life.
“Is this how the teachers feel when they overhear students talking about them? I think it is.”
“Welcome to being eighteen, Flash.”
“I turned eighteen four months before you did, Twi.”
“Technicalities.”)
Depositing their books into their lockers takes about five minutes. Twilight has a snoop around in his locker with her eyes, over band polaroids, across pictures of their friends. They hover over photos of him, Timber and Soarin squished in a photo booth – the one photo of Flash and Soarin, platonically, kissing a super shy Timber on a cheek each never fails to make her smile – and everything feels unreal for a moment.
(“You play the drums?”
“No, I just steal drumsticks.” His laugh echoed in the hollow of his locker. “Yes, I do play. Occasionally.”)
She’s friends with people she wouldn’t have even considered; she’s had experiences she wasn’t expecting to have until college,  or ever if she accounts for the magic. Yet here she is, telekinesis hands, eight best friends who also have a lot of other friends that actually like her and one of those best friends is her partner.
Flash slumps against the locker next to Twilight’s.
“Do you wanna walk around and talk? Any particular place, maybe?” he asks after she closes her locker.
Twilight bites her lip. “I think walking and talking might be a good idea. Once everyone else is gone.”
“Still don’t wanna tell anyone yet?” he asks.
“…I’m not opposed to it. Just not at this moment. Do you?”
Flash shrugs. “Same as you, honestly. We can be casual about it?”
“Casual how?” A slow smile forms over her.
He shrugs again, this time with a more knowing smile. Twilight elbows him with no real intent.
She plays with the rings on his fingers as they wait out the flood. His fingers are long and slender, nails a pretty shape. The rings are fitting too. Some days he would wear thick rings and other times he would adorn his fingers in rings like the ones he’s wearing today, thin wrapped loops of gold and rose with elaborate patterns. Everything about him is so kissable.
Twilight’s starting to think she’s going a little insane. She doesn’t ask Flash to reassure her. He’ll just agree.
He takes her hand in his right as the playing got boring for him, holding her fingers like she’s royalty. Flash presses his lips together and a second too late does she realise he was holding back a smile, but she tugs her hand away before he could kiss her knuckles. Her flustered reaction has him simpering. 
Flash’s wincing at the bell provides karmic amusement to her and she smirks, unbothered.
Once the hallways clear out, Twilight takes Flash’s hand in hers and swings them. Flash grins and grips her hand tight.
Turning the corner, she begins with the penultimate prompt.
“One was about me travelling long distances to see you. That reminded me of college.”
Flash stiffens, not too much, but she knows. He keeps listening, eyes on her, a tiny velvet smile in place to comfort her if she needs it.
Just when she’s about to get distracted by this pretty boy again, she tongues at her teeth in thought for words.
“I don’t want us to go quickly with this relationship,” she lowers her voice, “because we’re still getting used to this.” Flash nods. “It’ll be overwhelming if we jump too far.” She chooses not to add it’s overwhelming for me now with all this love I have for you to prevent any stress. It was intended to sound cheesy and cute, but as the sentence lingered, it uncloaked possible unwanted reactions she can do much better without.
“But I’m a little scared about how much time we do have. It’s not… much.” Twilight frowns.
Her heart picks up as she grows apparent of her teary eyes. She blinks, trying to bat the water away. It’s not that serious, come on.
Flash’s eyes and eyebrows ease. “Twilight…”
The usage of her full first name and not Twi doesn’t help keep the sting away from her eyes. She sucks in a breath.
“I-I want to go to college. You— either want to go too or to an entertainment company. What if we—” Twilight swallows. “What if we don’t— can’t stay together?” She looks up at him, hopeful and terrified.
Twilight expects an answer like I don’t know. She can’t pressure Flash to know what to do; he’s in the same boat. 
When Flash looks away from her, a shiver runs through the nerves of her arm. Her eyes are a lit fuse, growing more frantic as it burns.
“That could happen. I can’t say it can’t. We may not get accepted into the same college if I do choose to go. And I can’t act like companies would want me dating while I’m training. Or after I’ve debuted, if I manage to get that far. That’s kinda obvious,” he says, placing the words out. It’s his way of sorting out unpolished thoughts; Twilight appreciates that he’s comfortable enough to do so around her without worrying about unwanted critiques.
“Yeah,” she says.
Continuing in a much more subdued, intimate voice, he says, “I know this isn’t you saying that you want us to break up or anything. And… I think we should still keep that mindset as we go on. Plus,” – a smile makes its way to Flash’s mouth and Twilight’s mood brightens – “if you think I’m not gonna use whatever power I have to keep seeing you, then I’ll say you have very little faith in me.”
She beams.
“I’ve kept Rainbow, Fluttershy and Soarin in my life for all these years, despite everything with Sunset,” he continues.
(Twilight remembers the story – of the times Flash genuinely thought he lost his childhood friends because he got with the wrong crowd but couldn’t do anything about getting them back. How after Flash got them back, there was still a crack of hopelessness in his voice when talking about what happened. Even with the cheeky gaze Flash gives her, she’s starting to see the vulnerable side of him behind it all.)
“If you wanna stay, I’ll do anything to make sure that happens,” he says.
Sentimentality aside, her cheeks warm up, her body curling into herself. She nudges him with her shoulder out of chagrin, sending him toppling off his feet in midstep.
“Oi,” he bites back. Flash shoves her back and her heeled school shoes criss-cross over each other, sending her side-first into a random locker. Her grip on Flash’s hand remains, so she ends up pulling Flash with her. 
He braces an arm on the locker to prevent any more accidents. Flash stares at her for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, that shy, embarrassed laugh which sends his top half off balance. Twilight’s right there to catch him.
He rests his head on her shoulder for a bit, his laughs spreading into gentle pants as he calms down. His smile, hidden from her sight, is radiant enough she can feel it against her body.
“You’re so cute,” she utters.
Flash’s got the prettiest blush dusting over his cheeks. They’re so close she can spot the specks of glitter in his eyeshadow and the little blemishes on his face he chooses not to cover up. They make him so earthly yet so ethereal, so…
Her smile fades the moment reality clicks in. Flash’s expression crumbles after hers, but he doesn’t ask what’s wrong.
“Hey,” Twilight starts, “it’s okay. I would travel long distances for you. Even if… even if this,” she gestures between the two of them, “doesn’t work out romantically, I think we’ve reached a point where it would feel terrible to lose you as a friend.”
Flash had the fondest smile on. Twilight imagined the electrocardiogram of her heart rhythm would have an outline of a spark somewhere on it.
“...Yeah.” He looks down, eyes wavering on invisible words. “It’ll be hard, though. Knowing our history.”
Twilight half-nods.
“That’s… another thing I wanted to bring up.”
Her mind scans the memory of the words.



Your prompt: Flash getting to go back in time and change something bad that happened in their past with Twilight.



“Do you…” The words taste strange. “Have you ever… wanted to change the way we met?”
Flash’s eyes widen, eyebrows collapsing at the weight of thoughts Twilight can see build and coil up.
She doesn’t like that look.
“What?” he says, words whisper-thin.
“As in. Because of our history and how that’s complicated a lot for us, have you ever wished you met me differently?” She looks up at him. Worry bubbles under the skin of her nose because Flash’s face is unreadable aside from the initial shock and Twilight doesn’t like that.
She goes on to add, “it’s just that— this isn’t a typical situation. What do people even do? We can’t ask anybody because they will just respond with the same I don’t know. I— I, yeah, I, might, occasionally wish we met differently just so we wouldn’t have this awkward tension between us and I want you so much sometimes it feels so overwhelming. Sometimes I wish you never met Princess Twilight so you didn’t have to hesitate around me but I don’t want you to think I don’t like our relationship the way it is and—”
His hands, now cold, cup her jaw in such a delicate manner it lulls her. Flash tilts her head up. The action allows her to pause while taking in the face, the eyes that naturally bring safety along.
“It’s okay, breathe,” Flash says. Twilight didn’t realise how shaky her breaths turned. Each failure of a smooth breath hikes her heart rate up. “You’re okay, we’re okay. Just breathe with me.”
He does. She processes how delicately he takes in air and exhales it out, how calm he is. That’s what she wants.
In. Out. Ten seconds. Another ten seconds.
She closes her eyes and lets her muscles relax, which causes her to sway into Flash’s chest. He doesn’t touch her directly, hands hovering over her body to steady her.
Her mind clears. She nuzzles her face into the soft skin of his neck, breathing in his lilac laundry detergent that’s so distinctly him, wrapping her arms around the prominent curve of his waist that his hoodie hides. Flash does the same, one hand cradling the back of her head, tucking his face vaguely into her neck too.
A wave washes over her body. The heat dissipates like the tide and it’s replaced with a coolness easing her mind.
Maybe she does like the cold too.
Having Flash in her arms is lovely. Really lovely. She hasn’t gotten around to searching into how specifically bodily contact raises oxytocin levels (she always gets distracted), but Flash’s potent presence in her life now might get her started on that.
“Thank you,” Twilight mutters.
“Of course, baby,” Flash says, voice smooth.
Twilight squeaks at the endearment. Flash giggles and presses a kiss to her temple. Soft soft soft. The warmth is back in her body, but it’s a frivolous type of warmth, her nerves tingly and synapses electrified.
“You’re okay?” he asks.
“Mhm.” Twilight nods too.
“Do you want to keep going or has that taken all of your energy for today?” he says it like it’s a joke. Twilight would think that if she didn’t know better.
“I… I think we need to talk about this. I might put it off for longer if we don’t.”
Flash nods. “Yeah, same.” He gives her a sheepish smile.
He tugs at her slightly sweaty hand, leading her through CHS’ hallways.
“You mentioned awkward tension. Can you… are you able to— I don’t know, elaborate on that?”
Twilight presses her lips together. “You… sometimes… no, I— I don’t know why you do this but whenever you accidentally get touchy with me, you instinctively pull away.” Like during Chemistry today. Oh. “I think I have an idea why, but I want to hear it from you.”
“Ah,” Flash says. Hope sparks. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Yeah, I, uh— it’s still hard getting out of that mindset, y’know? We’re together, you know I like you and I know you like me but. I still haven’t gotten used to… us.”
Twilight hums.
“I… you know I’m a really affectionate person and—”
She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, that photo booth picture of you, Timber and Soarin didn’t give that away.” 
Flash sputters. “Twilight!”
“I know, I’m just messing with you! I’m not the only one that’s fun to tease.” Twilight grins, eyes curving in mirth. “You want to kiss boys that badly?”
A whine escapes Flash’s throat, cheeks red. “You’re so annoying!”
She half-expects him to make a comment about her with girls but he chooses to be the better person, apparently. Twilight twirls a strand of her hair around her finger with a giggle.
Flash shakes his head, sighing. “Sometimes I wanna hold you all the time, go for the urge to hug you whenever the hell I want. But… actually, first, I feel like I’m being annoying and distracting. Clingy.”
The words and two don’t leave Flash’s mouth as Twilight shakes her head frantically.
“No, no, you’re not!” She frowns. “You’re really not, it’s okay. You’re never unreasonable, you like physical touch and you know I reciprocate it. That’s not a bad thing.”
Flash appears like he’s trying to believe her as best he can but can’t. Her chest throbs. 
With nothing else coming out of her mouth, the words not coming to her, Flash takes that as a sign to continue. “And, two, there’s always this voice in my head that still likes to remind me that you’re not the Princess. I don’t know why it says that because I was never like this with her.”
Twilight doesn’t want to start thinking, this isn’t about her, but as the silence prolongs, fear reshapes creepily in a part of her brain.
Flash doesn’t let it stay though, because he says, “I guess. I think I need to hear it from you? That you’re okay with me being like that? Something keeps telling me to stop so I… I don’t know, am ready for the point at which you tell me to dial it back? Like I’m expecting it to happen eventually.” Doubt plays with his features so cruelly. Seeing that drags a sharp pain through an atrium of her heart. 
Twilight hugs him. Squeezes her eyes and hugs him, hugs him for what feels like a long time until he hugs her back. 
“Not only am I okay with it, but I also want it so bad,” she says. Something keeps telling me— her eyes well up. “I try to show you that by pulling you back into hugs. But— I can see that you could’ve interpreted that as wait until Twilight initiates first. Which is valid! I just. Yeah. Forget whatever you did when we were friends. Or whatever your silly brain is telling you. I want this.”
Flash wraps his arms around her shoulders, hand cradling her head against his neck. He nestles into her, his grip tightening and loosening with every, admittedly, shaky breath. Twilight has to smile.
“You smell nice,” she also has to comment.
He cocks his head with a pitched hum. “Yeah? Better than the Creed Aventus cologne I wear?”
Twilight scrunches her face. “Absolutely not. You need to wear it more often.” She snuggles back into him.
“But then you’ll grow used to it and you won’t be obsessed with me anymore.” Flash sounds like he’s pouting, sounds like the damn sad face emoji. Colon, open parenthesis, everything. :(. He sounds like that.
Twilight hates ever revealing how much she loves that cologne on him
(No, she doesn’t.)
Throwing a weak fist to his chest, she gets him to let out a stupid, playful oof and to stupidly rub the spot. Twilight mouths I hate you and Flash sticks his tongue out at her.
He knows she loves this. She won’t admit it out loud where he can hear her, but she can tell herself in the comfort of her room before screaming into a pillow. This is what she wants.
But, she wonders, wallowing in a warmth too warm. Her question still stays unanswered. Not any fault of Flash’s – talking about that issue, in particular, was necessary! Just…
If Flash had the opportunity… does he ever want to go back and change anything? Even if time travel has its own wormholes that Equestrian Magic can’t figure out, does he want to?
For example, what if they bumped into each other and he handed her glasses back with a simple apology, already realising this was not the Twilight he knew? (That sounds so peculiar at this point.) What if Flash had watched his step and avoided her? 
The concept feels terrible, but it could have made everything easier for them to handle if meeting Princess Twilight was inevitable for him. They could’ve met later in life, in the college library or through work. Maybe life would have thrown her off course and she would become one of his music producers? Princess Twilight would’ve been a distant memory blurred together with all the other mishaps of a growing teenager that it wouldn’t affect their relationship as much. 
Conversely… Twilight can’t think selfishly; the Princess and Sunset’s association with magic isn’t that easy to ignore. What else would’ve changed? Does she want any of those changes?
Frustration piles. Every time she puts off confrontation, it reminds her of that one time she put off so much work the accumulation sent her into a panic attack. Twilight’s eyebrows act like a faulty shield for her thinking, dangerous territory thinking eyes, the same way her arms would try to cover her face from anyone seeing her like this.
It’s still so stupid.
“Hey,” Flash starts, nudging her shoulder with his hand. “You look like you’re in your head again.”
“You would be right,” she replied.
Flash smoothes a hand over her head, a soothing movement Twilight takes note of for when she needs help sleeping. She struggles to keep her eyes open but succeeds with an aggressive shake of her head against Flash’s chest.
“Again, um—” Twilight clears her mouth. Her head latched onto that reaction Flash gave when she asked that question and it taunts her with it, sings and laughs her into stupidity again.
“Does this… have to do with anything I said?”
“No, no!” Twilight scrambles to shake her head, startled. “It’s… Have you ever actually wanted to change the way we met?”
Flash slowly releases her from his arms. She nearly lets out a disappointed noise from the loss yet it’s not like she doesn’t know why.
She risks a glance at him. He’s tall. She’s not particularly short, but he still has five inches on her. 
A face of realisation rests on Flash’s features. “Right, I— uh, sorry, I just realised I had misinterpreted what you were asking.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Your, uhm, reaction to that question wasn’t one I was expecting. You looked… shocked.” Sorry starts tumbling out of his mouth when she moves to stop him. “It’s fine! Don’t worry. I get it. Let’s say not change, but just— do you wish you met me differently?”
Seconds pass along with silence. She rubs Flash’s arms in solace.
“Sometimes,” he admits quietly. She would say she wasn’t anticipating that, but honestly, she doesn’t know how she would’ve handled any other answer either. Logic supports Flash’s response, but that doesn’t mean the problem is easy to solve. “When stuff gets a little too much, yeah. But I know it is just wishful thinking more than anything. I wouldn’t dare meddle with the magic aspect of it myself,” he shuddered, making her smile. “And… the moments where it does get too much aren’t very common anyway. Nothing downright horrible either. So I don’t see a point.” 
Twilight nods. “That’s good to hear.”
“Do… you said sometimes you do too? What…” He doesn’t meet her eyes. “What part of everything that’s happened between us do you think causes the most issues?”
How Flash levels his voice and makes sure his questions are clear enough is beyond her. However, it makes these types of conversations all the more comforting and manageable.
“I… think a lot of our issues due to our past can be solved by reassuring each other of things we’re scared of. Or of things we know aren’t true but we need the other person to confirm it for us. Like you said.”
“Yeah,” he says. His mouth stays open but he hesitates like he’s frozen in time. “Part of me… still thinks you don’t like me like that.”
Twilight’s heart drops. “What? Really?”
“Mhm.” Flash pulls the corner of his mouth into his cheek. She would say he looks really cute but it’s an inappropriate time. “And I think… the reason why is because you liking me aligns with something Princess Twilight did. She liked me. I’ve spent a decently long time differentiating you two that you doing something Princess Twilight had done… throws me off. Like, you two aren’t the same person, why are you acting the same. It sounds so stupid out loud but. Yeah.”
The more Twilight got to know him, the more she noticed his little ticks and nervousness and— anxiety. Flash’s head is as bad as hers. The signs flare up and it hurt seeing every one of those she identifies off by heart fit into his silhouette. 
She nods despite it all, taking her eyes away so she can absorb this. It’s… familiar, actually. Not the words, the atmosphere. Soon it resonates with Twilight that this is something she’s felt before but never outright expressed.
“Y’know,” she begins, “I saw that a lot with the girls when we got closer.” As these words replay, her head bombards her with corrections on top of her racing thoughts. Confrontation and talking out feelings— Twilight sighs heavily. She talks slowly as she resumes, “Whenever I did something that Princess Twilight would do – we share quite a few habits apparently – they would act really strange about it. Because we’re different people, right? They tried to— engrain it in their head but it sort of… boxed the statement in.” She pauses. “When it shouldn’t have been.”
“Yeah.” Flash inhales and exhales an entire vital capacity worth of air. His eyes tell her he has something to add, the shape of them transforming ever so slightly with steady understanding. Twilight’s body shakes in suspense. “I think I’ve… Just because you do something she would do doesn’t make you her. Just because you like me doesn’t mean you are her and just because I reciprocate that doesn’t mean I like you because I liked her.”
It’s a lot. Twilight hasn’t heard it all so distinctly before, but she consumes it like fresh, cool air.
“Does that make sense? My tongue feels like it’s been pulled.” Flash rolls his tongue as if he’s trying to get a bizarre taste out of his mouth.
Twilight giggles. “No, yeah, it does! I think we’re getting somewhere.” She graces a smile upon her lips and holds it even as she turns away to consider her words. “Maybe…  the way we word it messes it up a bit. It’s not that we are different people, per se. It’s that we are not the same person.”
Expression still and simple yet so telling, Flash looks at her and waits. The corner of her eye gently alerts her of the hesitant movement in his left hand and she grasps it in hers.
“People are like Venn diagrams,” Twilight goes on. “Me and Princess Twilight have more in common than say, me and you, but we are still very different too. I won’t do the same things she does, but if I do anything she has done, that still doesn’t mean I am her.” The last words are repeats of Flash’s but sound more like a conclusion, the cherry on top. Her exhale following those sentences is thick, something Flash notices but doesn’t comment on. “Which means, if I like you, that’s just something that’s happened by coincidence. I’m still only me.”
“Yeah,” Flash says.
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!” His smile grows, voice energetic. Flash looks utterly relieved and she holds back from running her hand through his hair. “I’m so exhausted,” and like that, his face unleashes every form of tiredness well-trained popularity hid. He lets go of a drained laugh. Desire to pet his head expanding, Twilight flexes her palm. 
“Hug?” she suggests instead, arms out. It’ll be, like, the second time they’ve hugged in less than thirty minutes but feeling that pastel-soft embrace again has more power over anything logical.
Flash’s nod is tiny and cute and Twilight wastes no time holding him close again. Cheek pressed against the cotton of his hoodie and the firmness of his chest, she smiles. “You’re so cuddly.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she mutters.
There’s something she wants to say. Doesn’t know if it’ll add much or if Flash will say something that isn’t what she wants to hear. But the comfort surrounding her head compels her to say, “Me liking Timber definitely made things messy.”
“Ehh,” Flash replies. Twilight halts the waver of her heart until he’s finished. “I’d argue that literally letting anything happen would make this situation messy. If every route leads to a messy result, it technically means none of the routes are messy, right?”
Twilight hums. That makes sense. A sinking feeling spotlights itself in Twilight and she can’t place what it is. Unaccepted guilt? It is much easier for her to take the blame even if she doesn’t deserve it, but Flash won’t like that at all.
She shakes her head at herself. Stop being silly, he’s right. Flash laughs, probably because her head movement tickled him.
“I think the Timber Spruce route was the best decision,” he says.
Twilight snorted at the wording. “The Timber Spruce route.”
“Ah, yes. The Timber Spruce route.” Flash transforms his voice into somewhat of an announcer’s tone and says, “Introducing the Timber Spruce, May 28th, a Gemini— I think?” Twilight nods. He’s learning his astrology! (Against his will, yes, but it’s not like she, Rarity and Timber don’t outnumber him.) “Shameless, loud, pun master, a baby, but also Prince Charming to literally anyone our age attracted to boys.”
Twilight titrates the consequences of disclosing this one fact, only to discard the experiment completely as the words pass her filter. “Did you know he’s shyer around boys?”
“Is he?” The pitch of Flash’s voice makes a drastic shift. Boisterous laughs erupt out of Twilight. “Oh, wait, yeah. I thought it was just him being a baby.”
“I’ve never seen him stutter so much than that one time he tried to flirt with a boy.”
“Oh my God. When was that?”
“Remember Applejack’s Nightmare Night party?”
“Then?” He breathes out another laugh. Twilight can almost see the memory pass through Flash’s head in the quiet. Twilight’s wingwoman act broke apart when she watched Timber fumble with his words, red blending with the brown skin of his cheeks for the first time in the longest ever, coming back to where she was seated with his demeanour practically buzzing. “Damn, wish I utilised that before we got together.”
“Soarin’s right there,” Twilight offers.
“Oh, Soarin’s gonna have a field day with this information.”
I can only imagine. Twilight draws back as carefully as she would use a pipette, but Flash doesn’t look like he minds. The giddiness returns with a gallop, searing the air around them as if she’s in a romantic comedy. Dancing together through the school halls is only something Twilight laughed about in her own time, yet her body’s glittering with joy as they shush each other in the presence of Mr Doodle’s corridor.
Twilight spends a bit of the free time they have left analysing the makeup Flash has on and Flash jokes about her actually being obsessed with him. It’s not like that isn’t true though, and Flash is just as much obsessed with her as she is with him anyway.
Flash, with his city sky eyes, nuzzling his perfectly shaped nose into her cheek to tease her, with a tender finger pushing her glasses back up her nose before she can, arms around her waist whenever he gets the chance to.
Rich, wild in a manner that’s so calm, head-spinningly stunning. This must be the honeymoon phase.
He coaxes her to generate more prompts with a poorly-hidden smirk, nearly jumping in his spot when he glances over at her phone. 
Flash is so close – she just wants to stare at him. (Perhaps at his lips. Twilight pushes that sentence out of her mind so it doesn’t linger.) Like this, where he can look wistfully at her too and make her heart flutter endlessly. Y’know, he finds you just as attractive, right? 
Twilight runs her tongue into her cheek to distract the thoughts, clenching her fists.
One glance at her phone does more than that action did at pulling her away. The prompt is a nice one finally and washes her brain of unsettling notions. 



Your prompt: Twilight reminiscing about the time they first met Flash. They’re still in awe of how far they’ve come.



Flash smiles at the screen and generates another. 
“Hey, uh,” Twilight starts, not that she needs to. With his head tilted down, Flash looks up and listens like the sweetheart he is. Attentive. Eyes light, stance welcoming and comforting. She can lean in and kiss him now—
She snaps out of it, switching her phone off and tucking it away. “I… um.” Say it. Twilight’s not sure what she’s going to say until everything leaves her mouth. “I… really like you. I know I’ve said this already, but I really like you. And I’m really glad you want to try this with me.”
Flash gazes at her like she’s the galaxy. He chuckles, permanently rosy. “I really like you too. And you know how hard it is for me to say that without getting into a panic.” His stare falls to the floor. “I…”
Twilight tries so, so hard not to make a sound when she follows Flash’s eyes and she realises where they’ve landed.
“Can I—” He meets her eyes. Curious and charming. Twilight’s heart tumbles into arrhythmia. “Can I kiss you, actually?”
All words, from intelligent to slang to prose to scientific vocab, escape her. (She didn’t think that was possible.) She’s just. Vacant. The school bell interrupts anything she could’ve said so there isn’t any point in rushing to say something, but the ringing rattles her empty head. Her lips tingle at the image and she presses them together before she does anything absurd like kissing him as a response.
Flash places a hand on her shoulder and taps it in the direction of the wall to her left. He moves with her too so no students rush between them. He leans against it and looks at her again, expectant but noticeably high-strung.
“D-don’t you have— class?” Her voice is croaky, oh no.
Why did she say that, what is she doing, that’s not— you’ve been descending into your grave just to kiss him all day and right now, he’s given you his consent to that yet you do this?
Flash scoffs with a roll of his eyes and oh, right, he has Music. He picks up on her recollection and says, “Miss loves me, I’ll be fine,” like she didn’t already know that. And I’m the teacher’s pet?
Twilight ignores how easily she memorised the visual movement of his lips right then as if she’s going to study it and figure out why she finds rulebreakers so attractive.
Before he can say that she doesn’t have to, and he appears very ready to say that, she says, “if I kiss you now, though, you’re not going to be paying attention in Music.” Her rationale bangs on the door of her brain to get her attention, but Flash steals it right back.
“I mean, it’ll be a nice distraction,” he sing-songs with the irresistible tilt of his head. “And do I even pay attention in Music anyway? Thinking about you is more productive than anything else I could be doing.” He bites his lip. It’s a different lip bite this time.
He’s so. A mentally coded thesaurus for the word hot flashes right across her eyes.
Do you ever just look at something and realise how much you want it?
Her chest craves and craves and craves under the zoned-out chatter of the halls.
Yeah.
Twilight groans low in her throat instead. “You’re— oh my God.” And right when she knows he’s not expecting it, she reaches, tugs on his t-shirt collar and pulls him down, connecting her lips to his.
She feels him freeze with a sharp inhale through his nose, but he’s kissing back immediately. Nothing about it is surprising, his lips are soft and smooth, taste like strawberry and his body warm. What makes it all the more euphoric is the mix of climatic music, tender electricity, rapture, home. Her arms wrap around his neck like a reflex, myogenic even and her back creates a balanced arch into him as he holds her waist, the kiss deepening. 
He’s just right against her, their noses slotting perfectly without her glasses obstructing. He kisses in a wondrous way, reassuring, not too hard and all she can think about is whoa. What’s the science behind kissing again, everything’s gone blank. 
You need to breathe. She lets out a faint unhappy noise when they draw back, her breaths overriding it. A trace of ascending jagged lines forms from her heartbeat like she somehow ran at the speed of loyalty.
Twilight feels like she might float away. “There.” She would laugh at her pathetic voice if Flash wasn’t in the same state she’s in. Eyes a tiny bit dazy, eyebrows tension-free, lips redder.
Flash blinks heavily like he woke up from a dream and releases a specific breath, flustered and heated.
“Yeah, you’re right, I’m not gonna be paying attention.” He chuckles breathlessly and she does too. She can’t stop smiling, feeling abnormal levels of various temperatures in different parts of her body.
“Is this what you meant by casual?” Her voice drops. She trails her fingers over his chest.
Flash bites his hip, stealing a glance at her fingers before holding her wrist still.
While contemplating this choice, she gazes at him and then lifts herself on her toes to kiss him again. This time Flash is more prepared and doesn’t take a heartbeat to kiss back, humming when Twilight slides a hand to his jaw, hiding their lips from the flock of students racing beside them. The students don’t spare them a single glance judging from the breezes brushing across their skin and it’s great when she kisses him again.
The school bell breaks them apart and Flash frowns. “Okay, wow, biphobia. CHS is biphobic.”
Twilight laughs, smacking him in the chest. “Shut up.”
Flash adjusts his bag on his back. “Before I go,” he says. “Can I take you out after? Just for a little something.”
Her whole being thrills at that. It doesn’t matter if Flash can tell, but he presumably can. She nods eagerly.
“Milkshakes?” he asks, voice like a guitar strum. “At Sugarcube Corner?”
Twilight smiles languidly. But then says, “I’m paying though.”
She bites back her laugh at the way Flash’s face drops. He’s so easy to tease. “You— No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am?”
“I’ll get there first.”
“With your tardiness? Please.”
“With your speed? Don’t start,” he laughs.
Twilight baulks. “Hey, that’s a low blow—” The late bell rings for the first time. “Saved,” she snarled. 
Flash literally teehee’s as he waltzes past her in the direction of his class. He spins around and grins at her. 
“Can we meet in the foyer instead?” she exclaims, cheeks aching from grinning.
“Yeah!”
“Okay!”
That entire exchange has him so visibly overjoyed she longs to kiss him again. But he’s already so far away. Oh, Starswirl.
Flash waves at her, arm high and zestful. “Can we share a milkshake?”
A fuzzy glow envelopes her. Yes. Yesyesyes. “Then we’re buying two! And you’re paying!”
She halts and then slaps her hands over her mouth. “Wait, no!”
His laugh booms across the walls to her. “You can’t take it back now, Sparkle!” he shouts back.
Twilight growls and shoos him. “See you after school!”
Flash smiles, dimple present, and hurries off. 
Twilight’s screaming in her head, performing all sorts of fast-paced gymnastics she can never pull off in real life. 
Mild conversation fills her ears, all shapeless and uninteresting. Twilight reaches for her phone and switches it on, meeting the prompt Flash generated.



Your prompt: Flash and Twilight trying to hide their relationship. However, it turns out everyone knows they’re dating.




Twilight chuckles to herself with a shake of her head.
“Cough up my fifty, AJ,” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoes somewhere behind her.
“Argh, haystacks.”
Her eyes widen.