In Which A Conversation Begins Over Beers
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!
In Which Little Is Remembered
Consciousness is a tricky thing. If asked later, Spike would have said that the first thing he became aware of that morning was the headache. On the day, however, it was the sounds and smells of food preparation that lured him to wakefulness. This was followed shortly by the confusion and apprehension.
His senses, somehow simultaneously dulled and over-sensitive, bombard him with fuzzy information. The unmistakable aroma of bacon surrounds him in its embrace, and the sizzlings and poppings of its frying bring joy to his beleaguered stomach. He's on a soft cushion, but his back and neck are bemoaning the aggrievance of harsh springs under the padded exterior. A sofa? Or a terribly uncomfortable bed?
He tries to swallow and grimaces at the hockey puck of painful dryness in his throat. He decides that he needs water, dammit, and he ought to go about finding some. It is this urge that drives him to open his eyes. This is when Spike becomes aware of the headache. It is dull. It is slow. It is heavy.
So significant is the pain between his temples that Spike does not appreciate the significance of the full glass of water that his left hand finds somewhere. If asked later it was probably "up your ass you pedantic fuck."
Author's Note
Hey guys. My life has changed a few hundred ways since last time, but I still want this to happen.
So, here I'm doing a thing I never planned on doing. For two totally un-similar reasons, I'm going to pause work on this chapter. One is that I'm writing this at four in the morning. Two is that I've spent the past few months not writing because I couldn't decide on how I wanted this story to play out from here. So, here's how I'm going to do this:
You, yes you, dear reader, are being handed the reins. A certain somepony (or someone, since this is a mostly humanized [but they're not really humans, it gets COMPLICATED] world) is making a lovely breakfast! But who? Howsabout you pick? That's who!
So, if either of the probably two of you who will read this want to vote, just throw me a comment. In my mind it was Twily or Dash, but let's just open this up all the goshdarn way. Any of the six (and maybe someone else??) are (is?) available! *bonus music goes off*
Also please yell at me until I write more because your comments are literally the only reason I remembered I wrote this goddamn disaster of a fanfic. And honestly, comments are the number one reason for anything happening ever. That's probably a lie, but if any of the other (read: Actual) writers in this world are anything like me, comments mean the world to them. Me. Us. I confused myself with pronouns. Basically, if you read this and don't feel like voting? No worries. Just go leave a comment on the last fic you read. It could be an emoticon. Just say something. It will make someone's day.
In Which Little Is Remembered, Part II
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!