The week had already been pretty underwhelming for Sunset Shimmer by the time she found herself being pushed too far. Which began the way most of her other underwhelming weeks did: a conversation with her mother.

“Why can’t you stop messing around with these entry-level classes?” the woman scolded over the din of the bar patrons on Monday afternoon. “None of these are going to get you anywhere in life! You need to apply yourself now or all that tuition money will be wasted on a bunch of ass-sitting and — and sexting!”

“Mom!” Sunset burst out, her eyes flying wide and glancing around the room. Two of the guys who had already been watching since before the word ‘sexting’, and now the other two were also brimming with interest following her seemingly-random outburst. Gritting her teeth, she leaned in over the bar and hissed, “I do not ‘sext’! How do you even know that word?”

“I heard it on TV! They say a lot of kids in class are distracted with sexting each other — and with your grades, I’m sure that has to be part of the problem! So don’t kid me, Sunny. Be honest!”

Groaning softly and pinching her fingers over the bridge of her nose, she shook her head. “Nope. Sorry, but I’m not even going to admit to sexting just to get out of this dumb conversation. My grades are up in the nineties again, and you know that. So why do you always have to crack the whip whenever I come by for a visit?”

“If you’d come by to visit me more, maybe we wouldn’t have to waste our conversations on me motivating you?” the woman goaded.

“Motivate my ass,” Sunset grumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Anyway, yeah, because this makes me want to come by all oh so often! It totally make sense! You know what, mom? Sometimes—”

“Sometimes what? You wish you’d never been born? I’ve heard that before.”

“No, I wish you’d never been born!”

The older woman blinked and threw her hands up in the hair, ruffling her shoulder-length dyed blonde hair. “Then you would never be born either! That makes no sense!”

“Yeah? I hear they’re doing some pretty cool things with test tubes these days! DNA, stem cells and stuff!”

Waving her hand at Sunset in annoyance, her mother turned back to the nearest counter and picked up a knife she had abandoned during their brief discourse. She started slicing pieces of fruit again. “Fine, then I’m sorry you couldn't have been a test tube baby! Sorry that my genes aren’t good enough for you!”

“Ugh! This is pointless — forget it!” Sunset’s converse squeaked as she whirled away to walk out the back door.

“Wait!” Sunset hesitated without turning around. “Take the food there.”

“Mom…”

“I don’t care if you’re angry. But I do care if you starve. Take it.”

Sighing, she stopped and reached over to pick up the three boxes of various foods — sandwiches, fried chicken and a sizable salad — that had been intentionally stacked there for her anticipated arrival. When she got to the back door, she heard a muttered, “You’re welcome,” before the sounds of the street drowned out anything else. Rolling her eyes as hard and impressively as possible, she stalked out into the parking lot.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Things did not improve for Sunset after she got back to her apartment and stuffed all the containers of free food into her refrigerator. She only got more irritated… with Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash was her current best friend, or what passed for one at any rate. They had a class together, lived in the same building one floor apart, and had the same part-time job. So, really, they were more BFFBDs — Best Friends Forever By Default. It wasn’t so much that they liked or disliked each other, because they got along fine. They just didn’t have a lot in common, and their personalities didn’t mesh well in that way that true kindred spirits usually wallowed in. The drastic amount of overlap in their lives simply made their tenuous friendship necessary.

However, the one thing Rainbow did that most often got on Sunset’s nerves was involve her in drama. And that drama almost always included somebody whom she truly could not stand: Rainbow’s childhood friend and current roommate, Fluttershy.

“Hey, you got a sec?” Rainbow grunted as she stuck her head in the door. They had traded keys almost a year ago, mostly in case one of them needed the other to grab something in case they had forgotten.

“Yeah,” Sunset sighed. “What did she do this time?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

Frowning, she finished walking in and let the door swing shut behind her as Sunset leaned back against the counter. “Fine, fine, you got me — but I honestly don’t know how to ask her to stop.”

“What is it this time? The chants? Oh, wait, wait — she replaced all your soda with green tea?”

Rainbow’s lips curled into a sneer. “That wouldn’t be nearly so bad; that shits full of antioxidants and junk. It’s good for you, even if it tastes like a cat’s asshole.” Running her hand through her multicolored hair, she sucked in a breath. “She’s… yoga-ing again.”

“So?”

“In the living room.”

Sunset stared at her friend blankly, plainly telling the girl that more information would need to be provided until she could understand the issue, and Rainbow ducked her head, grumbling, “In just a tank top and a thong.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Sunset sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Yeah. No. I don’t need that mental image.”

“I don’t need that actual image! Which I got in full 3D, like, ten fucking minutes ago! I mean, yeah, she’s like my best friend. And yeah, she’s nice as hell. But seriously, how do you up and tell somebody, “Hey, can you quit stretching out and downward-dogging or whatever in a way that flashes your vag at me? It’s kinda ruining my pop-tart!’ I can’t just tell her that!”

“Well, you managed fine just now. Just take that and try it out on her.”

Squirming, Rainbow leaned in and whispered, “I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s always been so sensitive, and I hate making her feel bad. Living with somebody is a lot different than just being buddies. This is like the perfect storm, and I’m no storm-chaser, okay?”

Sunset leveled a stare at the shorter woman. “Really? So, you want me to go in there and stare at Fluttershy’s bits while I ask her to stop being such an exhibitionist?”

“Please and thank you.”

Sunset’s expression was unamused.

“Okay, okay! I’ll buy you a pizza!” Rainbow relented, throwing her arms up in the air.

Smiling against her will, Sunset grunted, “Sorry, I just got a fridge full of Mom, so…”

“Then I’ll buy the pizza later in the week, when her food runs out! Please? Pretty please?” By the time she had made it down to one knee, Sunset was already sighing and nodding tiredly, so Rainbow popped back up and grabbed her by the elbow. “Thanks a bunch! You’re the coolest! Well, not as much as me, but pretty damn close!”

The conversation went by fairly quickly. There were a few quiet protestations from Fluttershy to the tune of “Oh… well… I didn’t think anybody would be bothered…” and “Our bodies are natural and Rainbow shouldn’t be offended by a little nudity” but those were quickly shot down with “Yeah, but thongs aren’t so natural, and you don’t have to wear one in the living room.”

Reluctantly, the free spirit that was Fluttershy agreed to at least wear shorts if she put her mat down in front of their plasma screen, and Sunset nodded vigorously as her hand remained in just the right location to block all sight of her from the waist down.

Thankfully, work at her university bookstore went a lot smoother. For one thing, because there were no crunchy granola hipsters working there — well, other than Wally, but he did a lot less to push his worldview on other people than Fluttershy did. And for another, there was Flash.

If you asked anyone other than Sunset about Flash Sentry, they would have told you that he was a hard-working stocker with a pleasant attitude. Nobody had a problem with him, and he had a smile and a wave for most of his fellow employees. Perfect attendance record. If you asked Sunset what she thought about him, she would stutter, drop whatever merchandise she was ringing up, and comment that he “seemed okay” before hurriedly changing the subject.

And Flash had a habit of taking his lunch break at the same time she did. Therefore, it made her quite a lot more irate than usual when a random customer asked for a complex return right before she was suppose to go on break.

“No, you only get the price you paid in the return, ma’am,” she patiently explained for the second time.

“But that is the current price!” she snapped exasperatedly. “If I want to get something else of equal value from your store, doesn’t it make sense that I get that much in return?”

“Not if you bought it when it was twenty-five percent off. Now if you find anything else that’s that price—”

“I want to speak to a manager.”

Narrowing her eyes at the middle-aged woman — who even had that swooshy, badly-dyed, bastardised pixie haircut to match her entitled attitude — she flagged down her shift lead, who came over to help out the fuming, delusional customer. A quick tap on the shoulder and a whispered word, and she was off on break; it wasn’t as if Sunset would be needed any longer.

Alas, it was not soon enough. As she reached the door to the break room, Flash was just leaving, balling up a sandwich wrapper between his palms. His smooth, supple palms…

Whoa... down, girl.

“Oh! Hey, Sunny, what’s up?”

“Hey.” Her mind blanked like that whenever he called her ‘Sunny’.

“Yeah… hey.”

Nodding, she said, “Yep,” then instantly wished she had said something else. What was she agreeing to? There had been no direct question other than “What’s up?”, which was not one that lent itself to a yes-no answer. “I mean, um… not much. You?”

“Food,” he said, raising the balled-up wrapper with an awkward grin. “Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Literally.”

Her laugh was too loud, and too long, and she inwardly kicked herself. Why was she colossally bad at talking to him? Reigning it in as much as she could manage by this point, she cleared her throat and did the thing she had been promising she would do for well over seven months.

“S-so listen… um, there’s this watching party thing going on in the anime club this weekend, and I thought I remember you saying you were a fan of Cowboy Bebop. So I was thinking, if you wanna go…”

“Oh yeah? This weekend?” He thought for a moment. Sunset watched very intently, hoping to catch a sign that he was actually excited or disgusted at the prospect of spending time with her outside work. After a moment he frowned apologetically. “Nah, I think I got a thing. Sorry, if you’d asked me a couple weeks ago…”

“I didn't even know about it a couple weeks ago,” she laughed awkwardly. Gutted. She was good about not wearing her emotions on her sleeve, especially compared with how bad she used to be in that respect. But it didn’t make the rejection sting any less. “No biggie, sorry.”

“What are you sorry about? I’m the one who’s gonna miss it. Spike Spiegel is, like, my hero.” Then he tossed the wrapper into a nearby trash bin, and patted her all-too-briefly on the shoulder. “Next time?”

Nodding, she watched wistfully as he jogged down the steps to the main sales floor. That was all the time she was given before another voice behind her asked, “What do you see in a guy like that, anyway?”

Sunset turned around, blinking as she took in her unwelcome company. “Can… can I help you?” she asked evenly.

“Just saying,” the tall, blond man said with a shrug. He was of a size that made her think he might be at least twenty-three, maybe twenty-five, but then again, looks could be deceiving. His clean-shaven face also gave little to no indication of age. “He’s kind of a wimp. You and me could have a lot more fun than you could with that guy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said with a mildly-amused expression. “But, see, I have to go eat now, so—”

“Great! So you’re on your lunch. Let me take you to the student union, buy you a sub.”

“No, thank you.”

Blinking in surprise, he asked, “What? Not good enough for you? Do you only go for the wimpy type, or what?”

That was when her jaw began to clench. It had been a while since she’d fielded one of these, but she remembered the steps like and old dance. “Flash is my friend. I invited him to a friendly activity. You are a stranger. I do not invite strangers out to friendly activities.”

“Doesn’t have to stay that way.”

Sunset glared at him. “Pretty sure it does. Now, can I please eat my lunch before my break is over?”

“Hold up,” he said with what he obviously believed to be an endearing smile. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name's Blueblood, what’s yours?”

Blueblood? Seriously? What kind of fucking name is that? Well… it wasn’t the worst she’d ever heard…

“Sunset. It’s on my nametag.”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed — way too hard, and way too long. Sunset cringed inwardly; was that how she sounded when talking to Flash? “Didn’t expect a girl like you to have a name like that.”

She felt her eyebrows going up, even if she couldn’t remember asking them to do such a thing. “And what kind of girl am I?”

Blueblood shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just… didn’t expect that. That’s cool, though.”

“Wow,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice as much as possible. It was difficult. “Your approval means… so, so much to me.”

“No problem at all. Listen…” Leaning in with his arm against the wall, she tried to ignore the faint whiff of pastrami she could pick up from his breath. “I mean, I do want to let you get lunch, but just… I’ll give you my number. No expectations, no strings.”

Pouting, she continued in the same barely-not-snarky tone, “Aww, why don’t I get any strings? Maybe strings are my thing. Maybe I have a string thing.”

“Hey, strings are great! I don’t know anybody who has a hate-on for them!”

“Guess I don’t either.”

Nodding, he finally seemed to sign in defeat. “Alright, you’re not into me. Must be not wimpy enough or something. I can accept that. But I’ll see you around campus, right? Maybe, if we talk a little more?”

“Then I’ll let you put a string around me?” Smirking slightly, she brushed past him. “Gotcha. I’ll keep an eye out for you. Don’t worry.”

Completely missing how she meant the last part, he said, “Great! Thanks, that’s… that’ll be fine!”

Then she reached the safety of the break room and shut the door behind her, leaning against it heavily. She was always fielding these kinds of passes from random customers, but some days, she could actually go home without feeling like a walking meat locker. Not today, it seemed.

A solid week of avoiding random come-ons from strangers, down the shitter.

Tuesday was thankfully less annoying. Her literature and culture class proved to be somewhat interesting; being that it was now October, they were getting into some material that the professor had clearly been waiting to approach from the very start of the term.

“... and the crystal ball is optional,” Professor Shine concluded at the end of her brief lecture, sweeping a strand of silvery hair behind her ear and smiling up at the room. “Now then, are there any questions? Concerns?

A boy in the front row immediately echoed “Concerns?” as if surprised by the word.

“Yes, concerns — and thank you for waiting until you were called on, Mr. Dusk. I often find that when we begin exploring the more… well, lets just call it, the more skeptical aspects of literature — such as magic and superstition — in class, there are always a few students who are a bit uncomfortable with the topic. It’s hardly surprising.” She spotted another hand up and pointed. “Question or concern?”

“Concern.” It was Rarity, of course. One of the many reasons she and Sunset no longer spent as much time together as they did in elementary school was Rarity’s inability to ‘live and let live’; she couldn’t seem to resist critiquing other beliefs. She was usually such a sweet and generous girl — or at least, she used to be. “Aren’t you worried about exposing our impressionable young minds to this nonsense? I mean, even just discussing it academically.”

The older woman’s eyebrows hiked up past her horn-rimmed glasses. “Really? Nonsense? Impressionable young minds? Those are a lot of presumptions, Miss Belle.” Turning her gaze around the room, she followed up with, “Do any of the rest of you feel as if I’m encouraging you to actively study magic? To actively participate in some sort of summoning ritual? Am I normalizing the practice? Proselytizing at you? Pulling the wool over your ignorant eyes and infesting you with darkness and blasphemy?”

There was a lot of silence. Rarity’s had went up again, and she got a nod to continue. “Professor, I honestly wasn’t saying you were trying to ‘convert’ us or whatever, just that… well, if you put these things out there, eventually somebody’s going to try them. Like, if you leave a bunch of unmarked pills on the table, somebody’s going to walk past and steal one, just to see what will happen. Don’t we have some responsibility not to spread possibly dangerous ideas that might lead to something harmful?”

“Ah.” Nodding sagely, the professor’s sensible brown shoes clacked against the floor as she crossed in front of the rows of seats. “What you’re talking about is censorship; the right to close down all discussion of ideals that don’t fit with yours, due to the chance that they might be harmful. And I understand the impulse; we want to protect ourselves as much as each other. That’s very noble, even if it is a baser instinct. You might think things like this are dangerous, but on the other hand, to some cultures and belief structures, such like Paganism, it is all that is sacred. So as you can see, it’s all subjective.”

She continued, “You stating that these practices are ‘nonsense’ tells me that you have grown up around the mindset that magic and spirit-summoning and ‘devil-worshipping’ are bunk, all because some people tell you as much.”

“Well… it does,” Rarity said flatly, overly-glossed lips set in a pout. “I could cite multiple sources that say to avoid such things, and to help others do the same.”

“Very true. Then again, that whole mindset supposes that your way is the only way.”

“It is, according to many beliefs.” Rarity argued simply.

“And it’s that unyielding tenet that led to hundreds, thousands of wars throughout history.” Waving a hand, she cut off further argument by adding, “Either way, my goal is merely to explore a fascinating and rich culture, not to try and ‘convert’ anyone. No one is asking you to compromise your beliefs by simply studying another from a historical standpoint. So, in the lay vernacular… suck it up, Miss Belle.”

Most of the rest of the class laughed when she added that. Rarity, however, did not. She plopped herself down in her chair and flipped her coiffed, perfect hair, folding her arms tightly over her chest. In her mind, Sunset knew, Rarity thought she was being marginalized, not realizing that was actually what she was trying to do to the material.

By that point, Sunset couldn’t even remember when she had started being disappointed in her oldest friend, but her dislike was reaffirmed nearly every time they saw each other. Probably around the time she started liking boys. Oh well; they both had their versions of like that were fulfilling from their own perspectives. They just weren’t meant to be friends forever.

Wednesday held no other incident besides Rainbow once again asking for Sunset’s help with Fluttershy. This time, it was excessive use of 'natural' fragrance oils, which played havoc with Rainbow’s allergies. The threat of having to pay for a new stock of Claritin made Fluttershy agree not to spread said oils out of her room — or whenever all the doors and windows were open.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Thursday. Two more guys hit on her while she was working the register, and while they were nowhere near as persistently douchetastic as the one who caught her outside the break room — seriously, what kind of fucking name is Blueblood? — there was a higher level of discomfort because she had to be nice to them, as customers. Working within the framework of a ‘polite and helpful employee’ maked it a lot more challenging to use such phrases as “Why don’t you fuck completely off, now?”

This, however, was nothing compared to the whipped cream topping of the shit sundae that was her Thursday. That would have come later in the evening, when her father called.

“How’s my little Sunshine?”

Sunset wanted to badly to snipe back, “I don’t know? Which little Sunshine are you talking about today? Because I’m twenty and definitely not a little girl anymore!” and very nearly did. But, knowing it would accomplish next to nothing, she deferred, “Not bad. How about you?”

“Great, great. Just back from a convention abroad and ready to crash for a week. I brought you something.”

“Really?” Sunset intoned dryly. “Like what? A pony?”

There came the laugh, the same one he always used. Forced, contrived. Unsure of how to handle to daughter he hadn’t hugged since she was eight. “Funny, funny! I didn’t realize I was paying for you to go to clown college!”

“Good one, Dad,” she laughed, equally as forced. “Anyway, glad you’re back safe and sound. I heard there were storms out there.”

“Same, but no groundings. I got lucky. Oh, hey — that’s my associate with our dinner. I gotta go. I’ll catch up with you later, alright?”

No surprises there. They only ever exchanged a few words — token niceties because they were family and they were meant to, and then he hung up while she was still in the middle of the word “Goodbye”.

The man honestly did not have the slightest clue of the damage he caused with such simple conversations, or how often they had sent Sunset digging through her freezer for her last half-empty carton of Neapolitan ice cream she kept there for just such an occasion. He would have been better off never calling her in the first place.

Over and over, both Sunset herself and her mother tried to convince her than he was simply selfish and absent minded. That they were both glad that he wasn’t an integral part of their lives, since he didn’t have it in him to be part of their family anymore. However, those words were only true coming from her mother. Sunset missed her father terribly, even when she hated the way he acted. When we was around, and behaving like an actual father rather than a stranger who spent the night inside their house once every few months, things were wonderful.

But that small shred of good wasn’t nearly enough to justify him coming back. For anyone involved.

Apparently, the week has just one last “fuck you” to send Sunset’s way. On Friday, she came so very close to reaching the relative safety of her beat up old coupe. Her keys were in hand, within inches of the lock. Then it all was ruined when a voice called out to her.

“Hey! Blondie!”

Both eyelids slid down and she groaned tiredly, her breathing coming slow and steady. All she could think of was, ‘Really? Blondie? That’s the best this asshat could come up with?’ Her hair was even more red than blonde...

The voice was louder when it spoke again. “Hey! I’m so glad I caught you… man, I don’t know what I was gonna do!”

When she finally found the willpower within her — somehow — to open her eyes, they flicked up to see a somewhat familiar face. He was part of the anime club, even though she didn’t think they’d spoken to each other directly more than twice. A sort of tall, gangly-looking guy, a touch underweight and with the beginnings of a patchy beard that he’d been desperately attempting to cultivate into maturity, he was also wearing a ratty black jacket, black jeans, a black hat over his sandy hair and, oddly enough, today we was sporting an orange Naruto shirt.

Well, his choice in anime aside, at least there was some variety of color.

“Gonna do about what?” Sunset asked flatly. She could manage to be polite for now. After all, he had no way of knowing what kind of week it had been for her. The “Blondie” thing was unfortunate, but he was probably just a dick who didn’t know any better, like her father. Benefit of the doubt and whatnot.

“Work,” he laughed weakly, a thin sheen of sweat already breaking out below the rim of his cap. “My car broke down and I need to be there in half an hour… I was gonna call a tow truck and all that but, well, how am I supposed to pay for it if I lose my job?”

“Where do you work?”

“The Subway on fifth.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sort of going in that direction, but not re—”

“I’ll give you five bucks spot. For the trouble. Seriously, I’m kinda screwed here. I could wait for the bus to show up, but…”

Nodding, Sunset thought it over. The five dollars would more than cover the gas between the parking garage on campus and his work, even including her drive home after. It wasn’t all that far. On the other hand, her little yellow car was going to be awfully cramped with the two of them, and she didn’t know the guy all that well.

“Let’s see the cash.”

“What?” But when she didn’t repeat herself, he shrugged and tugged out his wallet — on a chain, of course. A second later, the bill was in his hand. When she still didn’t move, he handed it over, and she slipped it into her jeans pocket.

“Alright, fine, but I’ll have to let you in from the inside. No automatic locks. You got a phone to call about your car?”

“Totally.” His smile was a lot easier now that she had accepted. “And thanks, seriously. You’re saving my bacon!”

As they left the parking lot and he called up the tow company, Sunset did her best to shake the earlier irritation. This wasn’t so bad; she made a couple bucks, and had done her good deed for the day. A positive note on which to end the craptastic week before she spend the entire weekend as a shut-in, doing nothing but watching Netflix in her underwear.

“So,” he began when he finished the call about his car — which, hilariously enough, was much nicer and newer than her own. “You seem sort of familiar to me for some reason. And I really mean it, not like in a pick-up like way.”

“Anime club,” she grunted.

“Oh. Oh, yeah! That blonde chick who came and brought in Trigun!”

Her eyebrow twitched at the “blonde” comment, but decided to ignore it. “So it seems, yeah.”

“That was pretty cool, yeah.” Then he seemed to notice he’d echoed her “yeah” and pushed ahead. “I mean, uh, I didn’t wanna bug you about anything like that, but since you are into anime and all, I wanted to ask you about the stuff you like.”

“Most of the stuff you show is good,” she admitted as they waited at a stoplight. “I mean, I’m not the hugest Dragonball fan — too much action and not enough story, especially by the Z years. Super was more of the same, but still pretty good.”

“What about GT?” he asked, blinking.

“What about GT?” Sunset shot back, her eyebrow cocked.

“Touché,” he grinned.

“But… yeah, the rest had been great. I might stop by for Cowboy Bebop.”

But she knew she was lying through her teeth; Flash turning her down had taken out all the appeal in attending. Now she would rather just watch it by herself with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

“Sick! It’s hard to get some people interested in the older stuff, unless it’s DBZ or Sailor Moon or something. We thought the Irresponsible Captain Tylor marathon was going to be a bust.”

Finally, Sunset smiled. “No way, that shit is classic. You should always hook some of the older fans up with something like that or Evangelion. Then more of the recent stuff for the younger weebos; Sword Art Online or Kill La Kill or something. Then there’s classic Card Captor Sakura for the girls and… some of the guys who have a ‘thing’ I guess.”

“Totally, totally.” The conversation lulled for a few seconds as they turned down a sidestreet, hoping to keep their conversation short and sweet by getting him to work as fast as possible. “I’m Snails.”

“Yeah, I know. You told everyone before you started Resurrection ‘F’.”

“I guess I did,” he laughed a little loudly. “What’s your name?”

“Sunset.”

“Cool, cool,” he said, and then the conversation decidedly petered out.

Within a few more minutes they were parking out front of the establishment. She put the car in park and turned to almost-smile at him. “Well, this is your stop, sir.”

“Thanks a bunch,” he laughed again, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning to look at her more properly. “Like I said, I really can’t thank you enough.”

“You already did,” she rolled her eyes. “With the money, and by saying ‘thanks’ about ten times.”

“Yup, yup. So, like, I guess I’ll see you around, at the club and stuff?”

“Sure thing.”

For a few seconds, he was nodding along with her, as if he would get out of the car at any moment and they would both get on with their lives. Then, instead of that rational — and absolutely acceptable — action, he leaned in and pressed his face in towards hers.

“Hey!” she yelled, hands pushed against his front. “What’s-- what the hell? What are you doing?!”

“I’m making my move!”

“Hey-- stop!”

“Just give me a chance!” he grunted, still trying to search out her mouth with his, hands pawing at her shoulders and upper arms as they struggled. Even when her nails began to dig in through fabric, it wasn’t enough of a deterrent. Finally, she was left with no choice but to lift one hand up and deliver the same self-manicured treatment to his face.

“Ow--ow!”

When they broke apart, he was clutching at his face, eyes wide in disbelief as his chest heaved with effort to supplying his body with oxygen. They both were; Sunset was pressed up against her car door, one leg up and her heel propped up against the seat cushion to provide an extra layer of protection should he lose his mind and go in for attempt number two.

“You… you didn’t have to— holy shit, I’m bleeding!” It was true; there were a couple of thin red lines on his face when his hand came away. “You scratched me!”

Numbly, she heard her voice say, “You tried to kiss me!”

“What the hell! Aren’t you sorry?” he flung back angrily. “I can’t believe you’d scratch me for just responding to your signals, I mean… how obvious can you get?”

“My... wait. Wait, what signals?”

“You know — offering to give me a ride? Saying we’d see each other at the club? Plus you got this whole, like, sexy blonde chick thing going on.”

“I’ve got—” she sputtered indignantly. “Y-you mean my old jeans and this crappy Blue’s Clues shirt? This is ‘sexy’ to you?!”

He still look surprised and angry, but finally a touch of uncertainty was started to creep in. “Well, alright… but maybe it’s just that it looks sexy on you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Sunset shouted. “You beg me for a favor, crawl all over me without asking me, or showing even the tiniest bit of interest in anime, and then your trying to blame it on a little cartoon dog?!”

“Hey, I call bullshit! Why else would you be using a sexy voice?”

“I... what… I can’t even— what is a ‘sexy voice’? What the fuck are you talking about?” Then she lifted her hand and rubbed at her face, hoping to avoid the headache that was already coming on. “You know what? I don’t care anymore. Get out of my car.”

“No.”

Sunset blinked, looking up. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” When she stared blankly at him, he folded his arms over his thin chest, his chin lifting. “I’m not leaving until you apologize.”

They both sat there in her car for ten solid seconds before she repeated herself. “Excuse me? You want me to… apologize? For what? For you trying to shove your crazy ass tongue down my throat?”

“For putting out all those signals and then changing your mind. And then making excuses for why you assaulted me!”

Both of Sunset’s eyes widened. “Wait. No, no. no. No Siree, you do not get to— I can’t even… just— get out! Get out of my car!”

“You seriously hurt my face. It’s bleeding!”

“I don’t care! I should have cut off your junk and shoved it down your throat for what you just pulled, you fucking doucheface! Be grateful it’s just a couple of scratches! Go get a band-aid and some bactine and leave me the fuck alone!”

Snails rolled his eyes. “Typical. This is so damn typical. Just because I’m not your type — not a jock that you usually date — makes me not good enough? Don’t meet your standards?”

Sunset’s mouth popped open in shock. She distinctly recalled another man earlier that week — Blueblood, ironically — that said something very similar about her taste in men and not meeting her standards. But with the blood rushing in her ears forced her to snarl back, “Do you even hear yourself? Meet my standards? Yeah, I have these crazy-ass expectations — like a guy asking before he slobbers all over me being one of them! A guy who ignores it when I tell him to stop is not. This— I just…”

Then she took the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car, hearing him say, “Wait, where are you going?” behind her. A second later, the passenger door opened and shut again. “Hey! Sunset, wait!”

“I can walk home from here!” she snapped over her shoulder. “I’ll come back and get the car later!”

“Wait, wait!” he jogged to catch up with her, his hand snaking around her forearm. “We’re not done yet!”

Oh. That did it. Even though they had already been arguing, and she had technically hurt him, she just wanted the situation to end. Manhandling her for the second time in a ten-minute period went way over her bullshit threshold.

“No, we really are,” she growled quietly, staring directly up into his eyes. “I’m going to walk back to my car, and I’m going to get in it, and I’m going to regret that I ever let you into my car in the first place. You, on the other hand, will remember this as the day you ruined a potential friendship just because you couldn’t understand that, for some fucking insane reason, I didn’t want to randomly make out with a stranger in front of Subway!”

“So, what? I’m friendzoned forever? Just for this one thing? God, what a bitch! What, are you on your period, or something? Fuck!”

Leaning in further, Sunset hissed, “Maybe I am. So, what? Now let my arm go, or you’re going to regret that, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” His voice was shaking his rage, and he tugged on her slightly. “What are you gonna do, huh? I’m holding onto you until we finish this conversation!”

They both locked eyes for a few long seconds, and she never blinked. The pounding of her heart and the sound of blood rushing in her ears was too loud for her to speak. Finally, he blinked first, and then looked away as he let her go.

“I’m sorry,” he said very softly. “You just… you hurt my face, and you didn’t have to do that. I don’t know why you got so bent over nothing, but I—”

“No,” she cut him off as she stepped back towards her car. “Sorry isn’t fucking good enough.” Then she got in and slammed the door, driving off before he could say or do anything further.

These were all situations that worked together to push Sunset beyond her breaking point — her comfort zone. That, and the unpleasant shift she felt downstairs a few seconds later, when she was still swearing and pounding the steering wheel. Not that she wanted to admit it… especially after the clichéd asshole line Snails had thrown at her. It was the only thing that could have made her week just a little bit worse worse.

“Fuck me… I really am on my period.”