Twilight let out a cute yawn as she exited her room in a pair of very light pajamas. Last night had left her exhausted, especially afterwards when she was straining herself with thoughts of what she could have done to upset Ryan. She had no idea what was wrong with him or why he acted the way he did, but she didn't want to pry. It wasn't her place to make him give up personal information.

Never-the-less, she managed to get a decent amount of much needed rest, making her feel pretty rejuvenated. Hopefully she could make the best of today and patch everything up with him. She walked down the hall and entered the dining room where she spotted a rather odd sight.

Spike was standing on the table next to Ryan's unconscious body, a small stick firmly grasped in his hand. He held out the stick and used it to poke the human's exposed torso several times before finally noticing the purple princess standing by the entrance.

He had a look about him that held a strange combination of concern and disgust. He gave the body a couple more pokes before turning to face Twilight. "I think he's dead..."

Her eyes widened and she quickly made her way to them, looking over Ryan's form. She found something weird on his chest. She remembered seeing it before when he was in the hospital, and once more when he was dancing on that table in the Hay Burger, but she had never really taken the time to analyze it. After looking him over to confirm that he was still breathing, she looked over what she had seen earlier.

At first she was scared shitless; what she saw was a crater in his chest right above his heart. In place of the fleshy beating organ was something really bizzar and it appeared to be made of metal.

Spike leaned over, trying to get a better look at the wound. He looked at it and became just as stumped as Twilight, having no idea what he was even looking at. "What is that?"

Twilight shrugged with a concerned and scared look glued to her face. "I don't know..." She replied, staring down the area and trying to come up with some kind of explanation.

Her curiosity soon became too much and she reached out to touch it. Rather than reaching into his chest, her hand was stopped by a layer of smooth skin. Her expression shifted from dread to borderline confusion. Here he was, a gaping hole clearly in his chest, but at the same time not.

She ran her fingers over the surface of his skin, causing him to stir from his slumber. His bloodshot eyes forced themselves open and Twilight pulled her hand back as Ryan rose up into a sitting position and stretched his arms above his head.

Jesus, fuck...what happened last night?

Ryan let out a yawn and scratched his head, breaking a few dead hairs loose from his scalp and letting them fall to the floor. He looked over and saw Twilight standing beside him as well as the overgrown talking lizard she had as a pet; or, as he called himself, her number one assistant. He had never really gotten into a full conversation with him, allot of the time he did his best to avoid the little bastard.

He noticed them giving him an odd look, one that was starting to make him feel a bit uncomfortable. After a brief stare down he finally caved. "What the fuck do you guys want, a cookie? Get outta my face." He hopped down from the table and stretched once more, making him wince as something in his chest popped. "Ahhh, fuck. That one hurt a little."

Twilight slowly moved closer to him, not taking her eyes off of his chest. "Ryan, are you okay? I mean, really, okay?"

One of his brows raised at her as she asked this. "Yeah..." He replied, starting to feel a bit unsure about himself. "Why?"

She didn't say another word, she just pointed at his chest, causing him to glance down. He quickly realized what she was referring to and nodded his head. "It's just a tattoo. What, ponies don't have those?"

"A tattoo?" Spike inquired, "What's that, some kind of cutie mark?"

Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself to think about it. "It can be; in a way, I guess." Twilight told him what a cutie mark was during their date when he spotted a mare wearing a really short skirt. He saw what looked like a tattoo of a rose bush on her ass and followed up with a 'What the fuck?'

"Why is it on your chest then?" Twilight asked, "Cutie marks appear on a ponies flanks. Is it different in your world?"

He was going to give her a deadpan look, but then remembered that she had just said that ponies don't have tattoos. "No, these don't just appear."

Both Spike and Twilight glanced at each other with a confused look on their face. "I don't get it." They said in unison.

Now he couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Okay, in order to get a tattoo you have to go to someone who does them. They take a little machine with a needle, soak it with permanent ink, then draw whatever you want into your skin. You can get them whenever and wherever you want. Some of them, like mine, have meaning; some are just for fun or people or being just plain stupid."

They seemed to be catching on, but he could tell that they didn't quite get it. "Okay, give me a second." Ryan began, trying to think of a better way to explain it. "Think of it as a sticker. You can get what you want and put it on your body permanently."

That seemed to click as they both let out an 'oh' to show that they got the gist of what he was saying. However, Twilight wasn't quite done learning yet. Her mind was so curious about new things and she always wanted to understand them perfectly. "You said that some, like yours, have a meaning. What does yours mean?"

He let out an annoyed sigh and buried his face into his palms. It was way too early for this shit and he had just finished explaining what a tattoo was to begin with. "Tell you what; how about one of you gets me a cup of coffee and then I'll tell you."

In less than five minutes the small dragon brought a steaming hot pot of coffee to the table and several cups. Everyone took their seats and poured themselves a cup before sipping down the warm liquid.

Then there was Ryan, who set his filled cup in the center of the table and grabbed the whole pot. Once he had it in his grasp, he placed the edge to his lips and began gulping it down. There was about a quarter left when he finally placed the pot back down and let out a satisfied sigh and, soon after, a belch.

Spike and Twilight had stopped mid-sip to watch him suck down the coffee like water. Neither of them knew how any living thing could just do something like that and not get sick in some way, but they felt it would be easier not to question it.

Twilight took one more quick sip before setting down her cup and putting all of her attention back onto the human. "So, about your tattoo?"

Ryan gave her an odd look before remembering what they were talking about earlier. "Oh, yeah." He leaned forward and pointed at the torn flesh around the deep reed hole. "The crater itself was just cool, I liked how it looked; plus I felt like it was necessary given what it was based around."

His hand then moved over to the metallic device in the center of the crater. It had several gears, nuts and bolts, and even rubber tubes that stretched across the inside of the hole. "This is a heart made out of mechanical pieces. It's supposed to be a representation of sorts."

Spike was starting to get just as interested in this as Twilight was. He finished up his cup of coffee and set the mug aside. "A representation of what?"

Just as Ryan was about to say something he let out a very loud, very painful sneeze. After a few quick sniffs to make sure his nose was still working, he apologized and continued explaining. "In my world there was this saying, one that had two meanings. The saying was; You have a heart like a machine. This was used as another way of saying that you were heartless, or that you cannot die."

This got Twilight thinking. "Which one referred to you?"

"Both." He said with a shrug, "There were plenty of things that I had to go through that, by all rights, should have killed me. But, I fought through those things and survived. That's when my friends started saying I had a heart like a machine."

"How does the other one fall onto you then?" Spike asked curiously.

Ryan curled his lips inward, showing just how uncomfortable he was starting to feel. He bit down on them for a second before letting them move back to their proper places. "I have been in allot of relationships, most of which ended because I could not feel anything for the person I was with."

The two sat silently and listened to Ryan's story. "I tried to be with allot of different types women of various backgrounds, but it all just kept falling onto the fact that I genuinely didn't give a fuck about any of them. But, at the same time, they cared very deeply for me. I would leave them, their hearts would shatter, and even then I couldn't care less how they felt. That's when their friends started saying I had a heart like a machine."

Twilight's eyes started to water. If what he was saying was true then that meant that he didn't care about her. Everything they did together yesterday was pointless. For a brief moment last night, she thought that he was actually starting to like her. She was wrong, hedoesn't care about her and he never will. She aggressively rose from her seat and took off running down the hall. Spike and Ryan watched her take off, neither of them knowing why.

"What the hell's her problem?" Ryan asked, feeling something weird in his chest. It was like some sort of emptiness that he couldn't explain, followed by a sharp pain.

"I don't know." Spike said as he started to raise from his seat. "I should probably go check on her."

"No," Ryan said, making Spike stop dead in his tracks. "I'll do it, I need to talk to her anyway."

The dragon was reluctant to just sit back and do nothing about Twilight. She had been like a sister to him all his life so he did whatever he could to make sure she was happy. But, if Ryan thinks he can do it better, than who is he to stop him.

Ryan got out of his seat and made his way to Twilight's room. He could hear her crying from outside, but when he went to open the door he found that it was locked. He knocked a few times, pressing his ear to the door so he could hear her better. "You alright in there, sweetheart?"

"Leave me alone!" She shouted, sounded both sad and extremely pissed. "And don't call me, sweetheart!"

He paused for a moment, taking a step back from the door. He felt a certain level of anger growing in him and took a breath to bury that anger, the last thing anyone needed was for him to lose his cool. As much as he wanted to just walk away and let her cry out whatever it was that was bothering her, he couldn't. There was this nagging feeling in his chest that wouldn't allow him to leave. "Come on, talk to me. What's wrong?"

The door shot open, nearly knocking Ryan back. If he would have been just an inch closer, it would have smacked him right in the face. Rather than focus on that though, his attention became locked onto the sobbing mare with a very livid expression standing right in front of him. "Why does it matter!? You don't care about me and you never will! You said it yourself!"

"Correction," He said, raising a finger in the air. "I said I couldn't care about them, them being my ex's. I never referred to you at all in that whole thing." Despite the fact that he was starting to get extremely irked, he wasn't just going to let himself explode all over this poor mare. She's upset, doing that would probably just make it worse.

"Oh, come on!" She yelled, "Mr. Heart Like A Machine, you don't care about me at all! Everything we did yesterday was pointless! The games, the dinner, the kiss. It was all just a lie, admit it!"

Ryan's body was beginning to tremble, his skin taking on a reddish appearance. He was doing everything he could to hold back his anger, but the way she just kept pushing was making it very difficult.

Twilight took a step closer to him, getting in his face. Something he really doesn't like. "Don't just stand there all quiet! Say something! Do you care about me at all? Tell me the truth!"

I CAN'T TAKE IT!!!

"Shut the fuck up, you God damn horse!" He screamed, nearly being five times louder Twilight. His sudden aggressive behavior made her lose her offensive stance as she flinched and jumped back. "Holy fucking hell, you're going to give me an aneurism!"

He stopped yelling, taking no less than a minute to just breathe and let his nerves settle before continuing to speak. "Listen, I...I panicked, I didn't know what to do and I freaked out."

Twilight cocked her head a bit at him, her angered expression quickly returning. "What are you talking about?"

"Last night," He began, "I...God dammit! I did feel something...That time we spent together was the most fun I've had in years without physically hurting someone. And when I kissed you...I did feel something. I...felt at peace, like everything in the world was alright and that I could be genuinely happy...with...you..."

Twilight watched his features as he spoke, trying to find something, anything that would indicate that he wasn't being truthful. She found nothing, the only thing she saw was a guy forcing himself to open up, putting himself in a position that he was clearly very uncomfortable with to try and make her feel better.

"If that's true, then why did you leave the way you did?" She asked, still trying to see if he'd show any signs of deception.

He took a breath and nodded. "I told you, I panicked. I've never felt anything like that for anyone and...I hate to admit it, but it scared the fuck out of me. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to react. Hell, even now I don't know how to respond to what made that click the way it did. I'm confused...I'm freaked out. It's like they say, people fear what they don't understand and I genuinely do not understand this at all."

She was at a complete loss for words, her anger died and flowed away like dust in the wind, leaving her in an almost shock-like position. "I don't know what to say..."

Ryan shrugged, "Neither do I, but I might have an idea." Twilight gave him a look that urged him to speak. "We could start over. I could give his whole 'Being your mate' thing a try, I guess."

Twilight was hesitant, but she couldn't help but smile. She raised a hand to her face and whipped away the tears that were decorating her face. "I think I would like that."

Deciding to take the initiative, Ryan raised his arms. "Come on, bring it in." She wasted no time jumping into his arms, wrapping him in a surprisingly painful embrace.

Girl's a bit stronger than I expected...

Despite the fact that his lungs were being crushed by this mare's unnatural level of strength, Ryan wrapped his arms around her back and returned the hug. He let his mind wander on things to come; then he realized that he had no idea what was to come. Anything could happen at this point. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he wanted to dive head first into this new adventure, or brace himself for something disastrous.

Fuck it, let's just see what happens.

Author's Note

I posted this a little later than expect and for that I apologize, but I couldn't remember if I had gone through and edited it or not. I figured I'd rather be a little late than leave you all with shit. So sorry about that, but hey, at least now I know it'll be all good once it's posted.
Yes, I am writing this out before I have begun editing. DON'T JUDGE ME!!!
Also, it is late for me. So if I missed anything that may have been a little fucked up or even if it's just a simple grammar error, please let me know. I will go back and fix it once I am notified of the problem.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. Leave a like if you did, share it with your friends, and feel free to leave a comment below; comments make me feel special :P