Spike lets out an involuntary sigh of exhaustion as he fumbles his key into the lock. Finally managing this act of dexterity, he opens the door to the small wing of the palace that he and Princess Twilight call home. He goes through the usual rote activities; kicks of his shoes, takes off his flannel overshirt, drops his keys in the dish by the door. He is just getting to the "check refrigerator" phase of the process when he notices movement on the pull-out-couch in the living room, just adjacent to the kitchen. It never struck him as odd, and he couldn't be sure he was even aware of it, that a Princess's wing would have an honest-to-god pull-out couch that could belong in a roadside motel. But sure enough, someone is sitting up in a bed that he was only vaguely aware existed.

"Just put it by the door," the sitting individual says with a voice that sounds like it's being filtered through sand.

"What?" Spike says, with the mental acuity of a particularly slow chimpanzee.

Rainbow Dash, who turns out to be none other than herself, clears her throat. "What?"

Spike, finding himself at an impass, is completely unsure of how to proceed. He is faced with a clearly tired, and somewhat less clearly drunk, Rainbow Dash waking up in a place where he was sure there wasn't supposed to be a bed.

"Sorry I woke you up," he manages. An unimpressive but honest attempt at normalizing the situation.

"Nah. 's fine. I was getting up. Need to pee." All of this is said with no clear indication of when one word stops and the next starts. This impressive ambiguity is matched by an incredible marionette motion by which she extricates herself from the bed and lurches towards the restroom in an act that resembles the dead more than the living.

Spike blinks. Blinks again. Feels coldness and remembers the open refridgerator.

"Heygimmeabeerokay?"

Spike takes a moment to determine whether what he just heard was some attempt at language before looking up to realize that Rainbow Dash has re-appeared looking somewhat more conscious. Her titular rainbow hair is dishevelled in a a way that seems subtly intentional. She is wearing a shirt much too large for her that drapes casually over one shoulder, and she might or might not be wearing shorts under it.

Spike stares blankly.

"Beer? Cervesa? Uno mas?"

One of those phrases seems to strike a brain cell currently manned in Spike's shell-shocked head and he shudders to automatic motion, grabbing a pair of beers from the fridge. They are ice cold bottles of alcoholic pisswater, and there is always a supply of them in the kitchen refridgerator for the less sophisticated friends of the princess. Spike and Rainbow are chief among that number.

He shambles over to the apparently existent bed, which she has recently re-entered, and offers a bottle. She, in turn looks him up and down briefly before taking it. He is wearing jeans that fit him well, black socks, and a white shirt that simply has "OK" scrawled in large letters on the front. She assumes this is some indie band merch and makes a mental note to look them up. His belt is... somehow wrong. She can't place it exactly, but the simple fact that she notices his belt makes her think that it must be wrong in some way. Like it was hastily re-adjusted.

"Thank," she says, taking the beer and popping the top quickly with one hand, a move that Spike is certain defies at least two of Newton's laws, but he decides that he won't rat her out. She downs half of it in one lengthy gulp and reaches a hand out for the second bottle. "Did you get one for yourself?"

He hands her the second and walks back to the fridge, grabbing two more. "I thought I had."

She laughs as if he's made a brilliant joke and tips the neck of her nearly empty beer toward him in salute. "So," she begins, as if addressing a board room, suddenly impossibly awake and aware. "Who ya been fuckin?"

Spike mentally spits out his beer. He can't do this physically as he has not yet finessed the cap off of the first bottle, but he believes that his expression does enough to convey the general idea.

"What?" he says, repeating what is beginning to be the common refrain of the evening.

"You come in this late?" She asks, raising an eyebrow that speaks paragraphs of interrogation.

Spike shrugs honestly. "Poker night with the guys. Nothing as fun as what you're thinking."

"Why not?"

"Why isn't poker as fun as sex?"

"A good night of poker is as good as sex," Rainbow answers. "That isn't what I was asking." She has somehow begun her second beer despite no visible process of opening it, nor even of finishing the first.

"..." Spike counters, giving his mind a moment to catch up. He isn't slow; in fact he is quite intelligent. His work with the Princess has also given him plenty of practice with following conversations that jump from one subject to another mid-sentence. He is, however, somewhat drunk. And more than somewhat exhausted. And more than more than somewhat unready and unwilling to be thrust headlong into a conversation about the joys of sex with a woman easily ten years his senior, who also happens to be nearly best friends with his mentor and boss.

"...?" Rainbow eyebrows back.

"What?" Spike cleverly retorts, smiling dimly at this genius conversational riposte.

Rainbow Dash sighs in defeat. Spike's brilliant conversationalism has bested her in this battle of wits, and she must come right out and say it.

"Why aren't you getting any?"

Spike counter-sighs in more defeat. The brilliant Dash has cut through his stalling like a hot girl through butter. He knows that isn't quite right, but his mind is a bit addled still and the beer isn't really helping. At this thought, he goes to take another sip to find that he hasn't actually opened his beer yet, and Rainbow is drinking one of the two that he brought for himself. He smiles at this realization. Opening a beer is an act that he can focus on for two to three seconds, therefore delaying having to think about whatever it was that he had been talking about.

"Here," Rainbow Dash says, reaching out and mystically removing the bottle cap with a wave of a clearly enchanted hand. Spike is left to frown dumbly at the bottle and take a sip.

Yep. Tastes like cheap piss. He takes another sip. Still piss. He smiles and takes another sip. "What?"

"Say "What" again, I dare you!" Rainbow Dash says in the deepest voice she can muster. This turns out to be a few octaves deeper than Samuel L. Jackson, but she doesn't let that bother her. "I double dare you motherfucker!"

Spike is actually confused for a moment and almost says the aforementioned interrogative once again before catching himself. His mind slowly tumbles back to the question that was asked and he gives the only answer he can think of. "Should I be?"

Author's Note

Short chapter I wrote in just a few minutes. I've had the idea kicking around in my head for ages, and I figured the best thing to get me to write it would be to write a draft and start posting it. I realize it's incredibly short so far, but be cruel and honest, let me know what you think so far!