Three past two in the AM.
Small towns are always quiet at this time of night.
In most cases they begin their shutdown processes once the final vestiges of the sun have passed beyond the horizon. Lights hang and shine through the windows of homes and lights are doused in the businesses that conclude their days along with their owners. Blinking windows, oval, rectangular, and stained wax and wane themselves into the constellations that shine below the sky.
Books are read. Books are closed.
Dinner is eaten and the family gathers. The family eats, and they go to bed.
Foals are tucked in.
Parents tuck each other in, some making more foals.
Eyes close.
Dreams are dreamed.
To those with the ears to hear and those with the patience to listen, the underscore of the night can be heard.
Turning pages. Flip, flip, flip, the book is shut.
Families talking to the beat of clinking plates.
"Good night, mommy, good night, daddy." "And they all lived happily ever after." "I don't wanna." "Leave a light on, please." "That one there. That's Orion." "Be ready to be up early, there's chores to be done." "Sleep tight." "Nighty night." "I love you."
In some rooms, fabric presses together to house the slumber of the youth.
In others, fabric is tossed aside; clothes, sheets, quilts. Moans are moaned and sweet nothings whispered. "I love you."
The eyes never close at they same time, but they all settle like drifting sand as the moon rises.
Dreams start. Some are about falling, drifting through the sky in the embrace of merciless gravity. Some are of adventure; adventures in a blue box, adventures away from the Shire, adventures in the lands of Wonder and Never. Some scare children back into the waking world, sending them running to their parents room; and when they climb between their parents there are two reactions from two parents. Fathers try to be tough, gruff, and rugged while they burst with the pride only a father can when they know they are seen as a true guardian; and mothers smile, coo, and reassure their children and their spouses that everything will be okay, the whole time knowing that it is they who hold up half the sky.
All but one, or so he believes.
The clock tells him that it is three-hundred-and-two. The clock gives him digits that can add up to five and thirty two; digits that can be subtracted into one and twenty-eight. They can be multiplied, divided, added, subtracted, and arranged into bizarre jingles.
Red, glowing lines on a liquid crystal array.
Red, glowing lines that are reflected over the green, green of his irises; that emit a dull light that makes his purple, purple scales all the deeper.
Red, glowing lines that he's been watching change in the gaps his eyelids make at random intervals.
Red, glowing lines that don't bother Twilight enough to wake her.
He chuckles a bit, knowing nothing could bother to wake Twilight at this point. Reading twelve books at once is a sure-fire way to knock out any librarian, he'd have to remember that if he ever planned a book heist.
Four hours, give or take a few minutes.
He'd been trying all night, trying to sleep, but sleep had become hard work. It wasn't alien to him, lying awake at night, but he always fell asleep when he least expected it. Now though, sleep seemed elusive, impossible. It had been running from him for six days, a span of one-hundred-and-forty-four hours that he had rested for less than thirty hours in.
The red, glowing lines shifted to four past two in the AM.
Spike decided to take a walk.
Autumn walks were always pleasant. Cool, not cold, with just enough wind. He didn't need a scarf, all he really needed were his pj's, silk trousers that ended above his ankles that she had made for him.
In front of him seven halos of light fell upon the ground, raining down from their streetlamp clouds. In the seventh halo, an empty bench sat as a vigil to the park.
He stuck his claws in his pockets and tilted his head down, thoughts drifting to her. His feet fell into the dirt path and he thought about her hooves. The wind cooled his scales and spines, and he thought about her fur and mane. He hummed and her singsong voice rose like a mist into his ears.
He smiled and thought about the slumber party, the one he had no idea he'd be invited to.
The others had all gone to sleep and he began to make his way up to the loft, up to his bed. He was interrupted, but he didn't mind too much. He didn't mind that she didn't give him time to answer the question and simply obeyed the order. He didn't mind because, you know, it was the best sleep he had ever slept.
The memory was hazy, but he knew she gave him a kiss on the forehead when she woke up.
"Spikey, where are you going? You're sleeping with me tonight."
He could still hear her, feel her fingers tickle his snout, the warmth she emitted mingling with his, her lips in the early, early hours of the morning.
He looked up.
Less than a halo away, a colt sat upon the vigil.
His arms were draped across its' wooden back and his right leg curled over the other, bare hoof brushing against covered shin. A red star shone at the end of a white stick pressed betwixt his lips, leaking smoke that rose and lost density as it gained altitude. His hooves and hair shone out against his chestnut fur, bright gold. Hooves covered by shaggy fetlocks and a face half covered by shaggy curls that ran in all directions. A black turtleneck rose and fell as he breathed, gray denim shifted as his legs twitched.
The colt turned his head, opened his eyes -hazel, almost as bright as the curls above them- and said, "Hey."
Spike wondered where he came from, what he was doing out here, and why he hadn't noticed him before.
The colt stood up and took four slow strides towards him, dropping his cigarette on the ground. As it fell, Spike could see the words, "NEVER KNOWS BEST", scrawled onto its side in letters as sharp as knives.
"Can't sleep, huh, Spike?"
The colt was smiling, it was infectious, it really was. Spike couldn't help the grin breaking across his scaly snout. "Nah, not for a while, man."
The colt and the dragon laughed together. There wasn't a reason for it, there never is for tired laughter.
"Why not?" A yawn rose from the colts lips, "Insomnia doesn't suit you, Spike."
"Just can't. Haven't in a few days."
"Really now?"
It is important to know that Spike had found himself sitting on the vigil of the park with the colt, who’s name should be noted as Patchwork, an acquaintance of anyone who spent copious amounts of time in a library.
"When was the last time you had a good nap, you know, got really rested?"
"Couple'a days ago at a slumber party Twilight threw. I got to sleep next to Rarity." The grin broke out into proud, adolescent giggles. "Best sleep ever."
"Even before the sleepover?" A match head combusted and lit another cigarette. Patchwork took a drag and half of "NEVER" turned to ash. Nopony would ever know, but he was thinking about a mare named Honeysuckle at that specific moment.
"Best sleep of all time, man."
Spike closed his eyes and leaned back, smiling. Nopony would know for sure, but Spike was thinking about the way violet and emerald can contrast perfectly against a coat of white.
"So go sleep with Rarity."
Spike leaned forward and saw a red star float off away from the vigil and the halos.
She woke up to see green lines telling her that it was some ridiculous time in which there was somepony knocking at her door while she could be sleeping. She clothed herself in the plush armor of a lady woken at the wrong time and marched the march of Siegfried towards the reports that came from her front door.
The door opened.
Anger dissipated.
Everything was quiet.
He looked at her and admired what Twilight had taught him to be intrinsic beauty.
She looked at him and felt a heat rise to her cheeks.
"Rarity, I can't sleep."
Everything was quiet again, quiet enough for their gentle breathing to break the night air.
She smiled.
"Come in." Nopony would ever know, but the only things that had been getting her to sleep for the past few days were cheap romance novels and cheaper wine.
Nopony would ever know, but she had been wearing a gold necklace with a fire ruby set into it for months.
Nopony would ever know, but she felt offended that a gentle-dragon would keep a lady waiting this long.
A door closed.
One set of hooves followed by a pair of clawed feet went up a flight of stairs together.
In the darkness a robe fell.
Fabric rose and fell.
Two beings curled together and a few sweet nothings were whispered once one felt the other was asleep.
"I love you, Rarity."
A gust of wind blew outside and she felt blood rush to her cheeks.
"I love you too."
