Bang! Bang! Bang!

Granny Smith, Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom sat at the apple family kitchen table, preparing for what would otherwise be a normal breakfast.

Yet something was different. A certain family member, who was otherwise known for her punctuality, hadn't yet emerged from the bedroom she shared with her new husband this morning.

The banging noises from upstairs were a clear indication why that was, and the dark shadows under their eyes proof that it wasn't a singular occurrence these days. While Granny tried her best to plug Apple Bloom's ears with her hooves, the muffled cries from above could be heard.

“Oh, yes! Faster, Spike! Give it to me hard!”

“Ungh! I'm about to come, AJ! Where do you want it?”

“I'm close, too. Shoot it inside of me!”

““AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!””

The cries of pleasure slowly fading, the three Apples at the table sighed in relief, only to have their ears perk up again at another shout from Applejack.

“Spike, fire!”

“Where?”

“The curtains. Get the fire extinguisher!”

“On it.”

Psssshhhhhhhtttttt!!!

“I think I got it.”

“Make sure to get all the embers. We don't want another flare-up.”

A few more minutes passed, and the newlywed couple came down the stairs, Applejack seemingly glowing with happiness, or perhaps more aptly happy with her afterglow. “Good morning, everypony!” she said brightly, only to be greeted by silent glares.

As soon as they'd sat down, Granny Smith cleared her throat. “Now listen here, youngins. Ah certainly don't begrudge you your...” She stopped, casting a glance at Apple Bloom. “... marital activities. But could ya keep it down a little? We haven't had a solid night of sleep for a week now.”

“Aw, come on, Granny. We're not that loud,” Applejack protested, looking towards her brother for support. “Are we?”

The stallion simply stared at her with an unreadable expression. “Eyup.”

Applejack blushed. “Well, what did y'all expect? I asked whether it was alright for Spike to move in here.”

“And we all gave our okay,” Granny pointed out. “But this is just too much. Three times last night, and now in the morning, too.”

“Well, it's a very fresh marriage,” Spike said in embarrassment. “And the walls are awfully thin. I already asked Twilight to look into some kind of soundproofing spell.”

“It's not just the noise, youngin! You do realize this farmhouse is made out of wood, don't ya?”

Spike hung his head. “Sorry, I'm trying my best to be careful, but...”

“Now, that's unfair, Granny!” Applejack jumped in to defend her husband. “It's a perfectly natural thing for a dragon to breathe fire when he, er...” Now it was her turn to glance at the filly at the table. “... reaches a certain point during a certain exercise.”

“But it is a problem! Never mind the smoke whenever he starts to snore, we face imminent danger of being burned out of house and home every time you two … decide to take a few dance steps together.”

Finally Apple Bloom had had enough. “For pony's sake!” she exploded. “Stop pretending like ah don't know what y'all are talking about.” She got up, walked around the table and positioned herself between the couple, laying one hoof each across their shoulders. “Spike and AJ are married adults. They have sex! There's nothing wrong with just sayin' it.”

The two of them began to blush furiously. “Apple Bloom,” AJ muttered in embarrassment.

But having picked her side in the argument, the filly went on full steam ahead as she always did, not giving much thought to her choice of words, but making them even more passionate. “Ah like having these two around, doing their thing. Ah like having a new brother-in-law, and their noises don't bother me while I'm sleeping.”

Granny Smith raised an eyebrow at that. “They don't?”

The filly shook her head. “Naw, ah've learned lots of new words just by lying awake in mah room next door and listening to them talk.” Then she turned her head to look at Spike. “That reminds me. Ah wanted to ask you guys something. What does cunnilingus mean?”

Applejack gulped hard, looking at her grandmother with a sheepish expression.

Granny Smith's head looked more like an orange right now, the green of her coat withdrawing to the rapid expansion of red, like a volcano about to blow. “YOU TWO! YOU'RE BANNED FROM HAVING SEX IN THE HOUSE FROM NOW ON!”

“What?” Applejack was taken aback. “The whole house? Where are we supposed to go?”

“AH DON'T CARE! TAKE IT OUT INTO THE ORCHARD IF YA HAVE TO! BUT KEEP A LID ON IT IN HERE!”

* * *

“I'm sorry,” Spike said dejectedly while he and Applejack were standing alone in the yard after breakfast. “This is all my fault. Do you think Granny Smith hates me now?”

“Aw, don't worry about it, sugarcube,” she reassured him. “Granny's just not fully come to terms with the situation yet, so she needs to vent a bit. Ah've seen it happen before. She'll simmer down by dinnertime. Heh. Simmer down. Get it?”

Spike gave her a look.

“Sorry, not funny.”

The dragon sighed. “Alright, you know her better than I do. I'll just try to steer clear of her for the time being.”

“Eyup. Should be fine. You going over to Twilight's?”

He nodded. “I may have moved out, but I'm still assistant #1, especially with that new castle library to manage and Celestia sending mountains of books to fill it.”

“Well, have fun at work.” She drew closer to him, closing her eyes and waiting with her lips puckered up.

Taking a look around, Spike determined that nopony else was there, so he leaned in with a blush creeping across his cheeks. “You, too. See you later, … honey.” They'd had sex plenty of times, yet a simple goodbye kiss still made his heart flutter, like it was somehow the more intimate act, even though their lips only touched briefly.

“Later, sugarcube,” Applejack replied, evidently not minding the nickname he'd used for the first time just now. Giving him a wink, she sauntered off towards the orchard for her work.

Spike couldn't help but stare after her with a dreamy smile, looking at her tail sway with her gait, giving him fleeting glimpses of that gorgeous plot. Being married sure was great.

“Oops, better get going,” he told himself.

“Eyup,” a deep voice confirmed, and Spike could feel a strong forehoof being wrapped around his neck as he was yanked into an unintentional hard left turn.

“What the...?” He went down onto the floor of the barn, looking around just as Big Mac closed the door behind them, leaving them in an ominous darkness, safe for the light that fell in through a few cracks in the old wood. It seemed like his green eyes were hard as emeralds. “Uhm, Big Macintosh. Did you need something?”

“Eyup.” The stallion drew closer, putting his considerable weight deliberately into each step until he was hovering over his new brother-in-law. “Did ya get her pregnant?”

“What?”

His eyes hardened even more, making Spike cringe back involuntarily.

“No! No, I didn't!”

“How do ya know for sure?”

“Well … uh … we … did use protection.”

“What kind?”

“Look, do you really want me to get into...”

“What kind!?” Big Mac repeated his question in a rumbling tone.

Spike took a deep breath. It looked like he wasn't gonna get out of this without giving detailed information. And of course, he knew that honesty was generally the best strategy when dealing with the Apple family. “We bought some condoms in Las Pegasus before our … wedding night.”

“Can ya prove that?”

Spike gave him an incredulous look. “Like how? Do I look like I collect used condoms to you?”

“Ey...” The stallion grunted before finally shaking his head. “Nope.”

“Hang on. I just thought of something,” Spike said, going through his bag with a sigh. He was fairly certain that he'd just stuffed it in there back then, and never bothered to take it out. Having found it all the way at the bottom, between dust and old candy wrappers, he handed Mac the crumpled piece of paper. “Here's the receipt. Happy now?”

The earth pony's eyes bulged, and he snorted angrily. “A hundred pack?”

“They were on sale?” Spike suggested, shrinking back again.

“What about this morning? We heard ya pretty good.”

Spike had to think about that for a second before he realized what he meant. Shoot it inside of me! “Oh, that. Yeah. We're not using condoms anymore.” Seeing the hulking stallion draw closer again, he waved his claws frantically. “Wait! What I mean is that we don't need 'em anymore. AJ saw her doctor about a prescription after we got back. She's on the pill now. But if you wanna see a receipt for that, you'll have to ask her, not me.”

For a moment Big Macintosh seemed like he was actually considering doing just that, but then he sat down on his haunches with a sigh. “Ah'll take yer word for it. But ah don't get it. If she's not pregnant, then why did she marry you?”

Spike scratched his cheek. “Why she married me then?”

Coming up with an idea, he resumed to stare intimidatingly. “Did ya get her drunk? If she was drunk, and now she's too stubborn to admit she made a mistake...”

“No, I didn't get her drunk. Well, not until after the wedding, anyway,” Spike protested. Frankly the notion that nopony would marry him unless their judgment was impaired was a little insulting.

“Then ya blackmailed her into it!”

“That's it! I'm not playing this game anymore,” Spike said in disgust, standing up and getting ready to leave.

“Aha! Ah got it! Ya got some brain slugs from that Pony Trek Convention and used them to brainwash her into marrying you!”

Spike almost literally fell over at that statement. “Now that's just idiotic!” he shouted. “Besides, the brain slugs from Pony Trek don't work on earth ponies! That's why Commander Biker was able to save the ship in Episode 26.”

Big Mac once again got right up in his face, their noses almost touching. “Eyup, but in Episode 37 the Illurions used an amplified resonance pulse from a modified deflector to shift the entire bridge section out of phase, resulting in an infection of all the bridge crew, including Biker. Only Lieutenant Commander Beta was immune on account of being an android.”

Spike blinked. “Big Mac. You're a Trekker?”

“That's beside the point.”

“And what exactly is the point? You do know that you're being ridiculous, right? Brain slugs and Illurions aren't real.”

Once again the stallion sighed. “Ah know. It's just that, AJ and ah grew up without our parents. Ah was the one supposed to protect her, to look out for her, to keep her from making mistakes that'd make her unhappy. And ah wasn't there.”

“And you think marrying me was a mistake?”

Big Mac gave him a look. “Ah don't know. Was it?”

Spike took a deep breath. “Look, I know we kind of hit you guys out of the blue with this thing. But we were both there, in front of that Las Pegasus city official about to go on lunch break. Granted, we had a Humgonian cosplayer as our witness, and we did get the Imperial March instead of the Bridal March...”

“Not helping yer case, Spike.”

“Sorry. What I'm trying to say is: No one was more surprised than I back then. The question was asked, and then AJ turned to look at me, and she said: 'I do.' In that instant, I promised myself that I'd do anything in my power to make her happy. And that, by Celestia, is the truth.”

Big Mac pondered that for a good, long while. Finally he unlatched the door to the barn, letting the sun back in. “Ah guess that'll have to do for now.”

“Big Mac,” Spike said with a smile, happy to have gotten through to him. “Thanks.”

Looking over his shoulder, the stallion added: “But if ya end up hurting her, life in a Humgonian prison colony will look like paradise compared to what ah'm gonna do to you.” With a grunt, he walked off to get started on his own work for today.

Spike nodded dumbly to himself. “Eyup. There was definitely a connection made here, albeit through a veiled threat regarding the legendary cruelty of a fictional warrior race. Glad we had this talk, big guy.”

Author's Note

As the shock among their family and friends slowly fades, Spike and AJ make it clear to everypony that they intend to make this relationship work, despite its strange beginnings. And that means dealing with the in-laws.

Next chapter, we'll be focusing on Applejack trying to mend fences with her grandmother and a certain fashionista.