Spike downs a mouthful of water and his throat cries out in anguished reprieve. He swallows another. Next he is standing, and then walking. Eyes report nothing of note, but their information is warped by lenses misshapen by the pressures of sleep. He rubs them and goes to the first floor restroom under the stairs. The mirror there tells him nothing surprising. He looks bad. Hair is matted flat, clothes left unruly. He leaves the bathroom.

Following his nose, he finds Twilight Sparkle at the helm of the stove. By sight and smell, he determines that she seems to be piloting it towards a full English breakfast, with eggs cooked two ways and pancakes added for good measure. Spike thinks that this measure is very good indeed. In all, she has six skillets going on the range and about another six suspended at various points in the air around her, small purple fires flickering beneath them. Her small frame is made larger by bulky sweatpants and an over-sized hoodie. Both are her signature purple color, and he fails to not notice the "SPARKLE" written over the seat of the pants in large block letters.

"Lo-" he manages to croak before coughing once and restoring functionality to his throat. "Long night?"

Twilight turns abruptly, and the sound of cast iron and food hitting stone-tiled floor fills the room. For half a blink, Spike thinks he saws the floating pans drop an inch or two as the fires under them vanished. Then everything is as it was. Twilight is looking him with annoyed eyes, but there is no sign of anything having hit the floor as the octarine glow on her forehead slowly fades from a shine to a glow and the skillets continue to float steadily in the air.

"Did you just?" Spike asks.

"Yeah," Twilight says, raising a hand to massage a temple. "Only naught-six-four seconds. It's grand-scheme negligible."

Spike says the last three words with her, mimicking her. She's said them countless times, usually after throwing immeasurable energy into something like reversing the drop of a few pots and pans.

"You just startled me. It was a very long night. Rarity's upstairs, by the way. I was trying not to wake her, but I missed the shockwave."

Spike takes all this in with a nod. It wasn't like her to miss a soundwave with a localized reversal, but he figures that if Rarity is upstairs, she has good reason to be tired. Rarity had been staying over pretty regularly, and it was an open secret as to why.

"Sorry I scared you." he says to the back of Twilight's head. The front of it seems to be busily moving food that has finished cooking, the glow from her forehead having picked back up. "Where's Rainbow?"

"Left a few hours ago." Twilight says back, not turning around. "Early training. Should be back later for the game."

Spike rubs a temple or two of his own. It was a stupid mistake, trying to drink with Rainbow Dash. And not one he'd have made if he hadn't come back with more than a few drinks already muddling his brain. Rainbow Dash is an Airlight. Her body removed the alcohol from her system hours before his could do the same. She had probably woken up bright-eyed and bushy. Airlights move fast, but they metabolized faster.

"Plating you up," Twilight says, "you want scrambled or over easy?"

"Dealer's choice."

Twilight Sparkle practically - Spike believes not literally, but he isn't watching watching her feet - glides over to the table and drops a plate at her place and his.

"So," she starts as soon as his mouth is full of sausage. "You and Dash?"

Author's Note

Another super short update, but I'm hoping to make them a lot more regularly!

Twilight won the vote, and I think that set me in a direction I really want to go!