How to Say No

Everything was going to be okay.

Well, in a fashion. Ember wasn’t going to tear Thorax’s throat out, at the very least, and as far as Spike was concerned that put this escapade firmly in the ‘win’ column. It even looked like they might be something resembling friends. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d pulled that one off, but he also knew better than to complain about it.

He did know how he’d made the mix up in the first place, though. Inviting both of them the same day? A disaster he should never have let happen, but…

There was always the dreaded but.

And of course it was Twilight. It had been getting to him more than usual these past few weeks, and he’d been distracted, and that all-pervasive hollow feeling had been every day and he’d clearly not been paying enough attention when he invited the Dragon Lord and the King of the Changelings to Ponyville. He’d overlooked.

At least having guests at the castle always made Twilight too scared to ask him the question, too scared to summon him to her room and do all the things she wanted. And even though this had all been a chaotic nightmare that Spike just wanted to forget, at least he’d been able to get away from Twilight, if only for a little while.

No, stop that. Don’t think like that. You love Twilight.

And he did, of course he did. He always had, always would. He just didn’t love the evenings, didn’t love who she became.

But they’re the same pony.

Spike stopped thinking about it. It was too complicated. Too difficult.

And there was always the catch, too. Twilight wouldn’t ask the question tonight, but once Ember and Thorax had returned to their kingdoms, she’d no doubt want to make up for lost time. She always did.

But forget that for now. That was for later.

Ember stretched back on her chair, yawning widely and inadvertently (or, knowing Ember, very much intentionally) showing off her rows of fangs. Thorax had tapped out about an hour ago, Twilight and Starlight earlier still, and now only the two dragons remained in the dining hall, talking and avoiding sleep. Or at least Spike was, because the sooner he slept the sooner the dawn would come, and then Ember and Thorax would be leaving and soon enough he knew Twilight’s moans would be echoing off the crystal walls.

Maybe Ember was, too. She certainly showed no signs of tiring, although he was pretty sure she never would. That would be like weakness, and Ember would never dare let that show through her gruff exterior.

The talking stopped. They’d both run out of things to talk about. And for a while they sat in silence that only grew more and more awkward with each passing moment.

“Hey,” Spike began, desperately trying to keep the moment alive and not let it sputter out, not be stuck alone with his thoughts or worse have Ember decide it was time she went to bed too. “Do you think-”

“My father wants me to find a mate,” Ember said, bluntly, cutting him off.

“O-oh.”

“Yeah.” Ember’s voice was dull. Contemplative. Resigned. “He says that a dragoness my age shouldn’t be without a clutch, especially a dragon lord without an heir.”

Spike wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure she actually wanted to him to say anything, either, because after a short pause she barrelled on.

“And, I mean, I’m the dragon lord now so I don’t have to listen to him if I don’t want to. But maybe he’s right?” At this she did look at Spike, searching his face. Seeing if he agreed.

He didn’t really know either way; the dragon kingdom had always seemed like a harsh, unforgiving place to him, and he never knew if his opinion was truly a ‘dragon’ one to have. He thought it probably wasn’t.

“Do you want a mate?” he asked. It seemed like the safest bet.

“I don’t know,” Ember replied, with a shrug. “Dad keeps hinting about Garble-”

Spike winced.

“-but he’s an asshole, and I can’t stand him. I definitely don’t want him as a mate, that’s for sure.”

“I mean, there’s gotta be better options out there, hasn’t there?” he asked, deeply relieved. “Not every dragon is Garble.”

“You’d be surprised. Dragons are greedy, we can’t help it, and especially males. I’m pretty sure most of them would only want to be my mate because they might be able to usurp me. And even if they didn’t…” Ember shuddered with revulsion. “Can you imagine having to sleep with a dragon like Garble? Gross.”

Wrinkling his snout, Spike tried very hard to imagine literally anything other than that. “Er, no. I can’t.”

Ember looked him up and down as if seeing him for the first time, then snickered. “Oh yeah, right. Sorry. I just don’t have anyone I can vent to about this back home. Most of them are the same ones I’m supposed to be picking a mate from, and Dad is… Well, he’s Dad. You’ve seen what he’s like.”

“Yeah,” Spike said, neglecting to mention that the apple didn’t fall all that far from the tree.

“It’s why I was kinda relieved to get your invitation,” she continued. “Get away from Dad breathing down my neck, and get away from all those ‘suitors’.” Ember scowled. “Most of them just came up and flexed in front of me, like I’m some pitiful dragoness who needs a big, strong mate to come protect me. I can protect myself,” she asserted. “I can protect my whole kingdom.”

Spike couldn’t help but grin at her unabashed confidence. “Yeah, I know you can. That’s why I gave you the sceptre, I knew you’d be a great dragon lord. The best, even.”

Ember smiled too. At least, Spike thought it was a smile – with Ember it was often difficult to tell. “Thanks, Spike. But I’ve had to fight to keep it. Not everyone agrees with you, and I had to make an example of more than a few would-be troublemakers.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but he was very sure he didn’t want to find out. Sometimes he forgot how scary Ember could be, but it never took him long before she did something to remind him again.

“And the last thing I need,” Ember continued, “is a dragon like that as a mate, one who thinks he’s better than me. One who thinks dragonesses should be egg-layers and nothing else. Fuck those guys.”

“So… maybe you don’t need a mate?” he ventured, wincing a little at her abrupt profanity.

Ember’s tongue pushed out the inside of her cheek, as if she was tasting this idea, trying it out. “Yeah, maybe. But then if something happens to me it almost guarantees that one of those same lugheads will end up on the throne instead.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t like it, but Dad’s right. I need heirs. Dragons I can bring up right, teach how to be strong, how to rule. Flame knows my Dad never taught me, so I gotta be better than he was.”

Ember’s eyes fixated on Spike for a moment, narrowing, analysing. He shifted uncomfortably under her piercing gaze, but just as he was about to ask if something was wrong Ember leaned in closer. “Thanks, Spike,” she said. “You’re a good friend.”

“Any time, I guess.” Confusion scrunched his features. “But… you still don’t know who’d be a good mate, do you? I don’t think I really helped, we’re kinda just back where we started.”

Ember leaned closer still, close enough that he could start to feel the heat radiating off her scales. Or was he just imagining that?

“No, I think you helped,” she murmured, and her voice was different.

Oh.

He knew that voice, had heard it night after night, a hoarseness and huskiness that was never in any other context but this one. Had heard it ask him

Spike will you come to bed with me Spike will you fuck me Spike will you let me ride you till we’re all sweaty and I’m cumming on your cock and you wish you were anywhere else

the question on so many evenings, although until now he’d only ever heard it from Twilight. But even from Ember, someone from whom he’d never have expected it, it was unmistakable. How could he ever miss it, when it haunted him as it did? When every night he waited with almost bated breath just to see if Twilight would use it?

Ember was so close now; when had she gotten this close? Her snout was almost touching his, her eyes staring hungrily at him as if she was considering just how good he would taste if she devoured him. In some ways, he supposed, she sort of was.

“You know,” she said, still in that voice that conjured flashes of flared wings and twitching tails, “a lot of dragons think living with the ponies has made you soft. That you’re not a real dragon.”

Spike swallowed as she stared so intensely at him, her foreclaws coming to rest on his legs, deceptively gentle. “Yes,” he said quietly, not sure what else he could do. “I know they do.” And he did know, because they always told him at every opportunity. Garble and the others had always delighted in it whenever they met.

And then there was the other thing – how much he hated the evenings with Twilight, something he knew a full-blooded male dragon should be jumping at the chance for. And so deep down, even Spike wondered. Maybe they were right. Maybe he wasn’t a real dragon, not anymore. Maybe he was soft.

Ember must have caught it in his expression, because she growled low in her throat. “They’re wrong,” she told him, with so much confidence and surety that even Spike couldn’t help but believe it, if only a little.

And it was only a little, because deep down those nagging thoughts lingered. Even as Ember drew close to him, practically pressing herself against him, Spike still just wanted nothing to do with this. The Dragon Lord herself trying to entice him, and all Spike could think of was Twilight and sticky sheets and needy moans and all-encompassing shame and guilt.

Ember’s claws began to move up over his scales, sliding over his chest. “You’re not soft, you’re just different,” she said. “A dragon who isn’t driven solely by power or greed. A dragon who would make a much better mate than any of those other males I’ve had to turn away…”

And there was the question. Ember asked it differently to Twilight, not really asking at all but telling him. Twilight asked if he wanted to fuck her, and Spike always said yes. Ember, on the other claw, was telling him she wanted to fuck him, but that slight change didn’t really make all that much of a difference. It still made him deeply uncomfortable, her roaming claws against his scales making him want to lurch back in his chair, her closeness making him hot, too hot, uncomfortably so. At least since they were both dragons there wouldn’t be any sweat this time.

Because he was going to say yes, he already knew. This was going to happen, Ember would take exactly what she wanted from him. Maybe it would be better than Twilight, maybe it would be different. He wondered what being the Dragon Lord’s mate entailed, if he’d have to live with her in the dragon kingdom. He didn’t want to leave Twilight, but some part of him did feel some small relief at the thought. But then there’d be Ember, and maybe it would just be like swapping one evil for another.

As it turned out, Spike didn’t even need to say yes. Or maybe he answered in some other way, in the same way Twilight could sometimes ask the question without words. Sometimes she would shoot him a look across the room that could only mean one thing, that could only ask one question, and Spike would be in her room again that night as he grabbed her flanks and came inside her.

But Ember was different. She simply took what she wanted, leaning in and pulling a kiss from Spike, pushing him back in his chair. Her tongue flitted from between her fangs and wrapped around his, and that was different too, and he wondered if that was why Twilight liked his tongue so much. And then the chair tipped, and rather than try to catch him Ember simply followed the motion through and they sprawled to the sparkling floor together, Ember on top of him now as Spike lay beneath her in a position he was all too familiar with. Although not with a dragoness. Not with anyone, really, aside from Twilight. Only ever Twilight. Always.

But he still knew this, knew what she wanted, knew that Ember would almost certainly be even more forceful about taking what she needed from him. And so Spike said yes with his actions as he relaxed against her and let her deepen her kiss and he could already feel her hips starting to press against his sheath, see her tail swishing back and forth in excitement. Said yes because it was the only thing he knew how to do.

And as she pinned his arms on the floor beneath her claws, he let her. As she let out a possessive growl, nipping at his neck, Spike let her. And as Ember pressed herself so intimately against his sheath, and he could feel a familiar warm dampness as she gyrated against him in an attempt to draw out his cock, Spike let her.

And still she was kissing him, pinning him, claiming him. Ember’s tongue against his scales, and sometimes her teeth as well. Her claws holding him so firmly. Her weight on his waist as she straddled him and her hips gently bucked against his, already imagining his length inside her, already trying to rut him even though he wasn’t even hard yet.

Ember frowned, but it didn’t last long before it was replaced by a salacious smirk as she released her grip on him and slid herself backwards, ending with her maw just above his sheath.

“Are you nervous, Spike?” she breathed. “It’s okay, I am too, a little bit.”

He wasn’t. But how could he possibly begin to explain his reluctance now that her slickness was drying against her scales, now that he could see that she’d reached between her legs to play with herself, staring up at him with blazing lust? Now that he’d already said yes?

And so instead he just nodded, and Ember’s smile (and this time it was a smile, he was sure) was warm and surprisingly gentle.

“We’ll take it slow, then,” she murmured, and then her tongue flitted out and pressed against – and then into – his sheath, wrapping around him and drawing him out, as Spike finally felt the blood rush to his cock and it started to stiffen. It didn’t take long before the appeal of a dragon’s tongue became apparent, as Ember wrapped hers around his shaft and pulled him into her mouth, and it already felt better than anything Twilight had ever done.

But.

There was still a but. Ember was better at this than Twilight, that much was obvious, although Spike wasn’t sure if that was experience or just that a dragon was better suited to this.

But.

Because even though Ember was better, even though he was already fully hard and Ember’s eager ministrations made him shudder and hold back grunts as her tongue rolled around his entire cock at once, even though the pleasure was undeniable, Spike still didn’t want this. And with every surge of pleasure, every instinctual buck upwards into her mouth, every sloppy breath that Ember took as she pulled back to gasp around his length, the weight in that had settled in his stomach grew heavier, more uncomfortable.

He’d hoped if Ember was better than Twilight, different to Twilight, then maybe this would be okay. Maybe he would want this. Maybe he wouldn’t just feel sick and dirty and used. Maybe he wouldn’t see the silhouette of Twilight in the dark of her bedroom as she bounced atop him.

But none of that happened. This felt the same as it always did, conjured up those haunting memories he hated, and he supposed this was just what sex was like.

Ember released him from her mouth, satisfied with her handiwork, and Spike’s cock gleamed with her spit and he watched as a glob it rolled down from the tip all the way to the base. She was breathing heavily, now, as she mounted him again, and Spike couldn’t tell if it was from holding her breath as she blew him or if it was just pure desperation. Perhaps it was both. Either way, as she pressed her now even wetter cunt against him and he could feel her part slightly against his length – so ready to take him in, to swallow him up and devour him like Twilight did – he could see the almost feral lust in her features as she gazed down at him.

“Are you ready?” she murmured.

And Spike said yes. Just like always.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see her sink down on top of him, not wanting to see that moment where yet another friend decided he was better placed beneath her, giving her what she wanted. And so he lay there and waited for her silky folds to envelop him and make him her toy for the night.

And waited.

And waited.

Spike opened his eyes again, confused, and all the lust Ember had shown before had melted away, revealing nothing but concern. Her hips no longer grinding against him, her tail no longer swishing back and forth in that almost mesmerising sway from before.

“Are you… not into this?” she asked, slowly. “Because you don’t look like you’re into this.”

That wasn’t the question. Not the one he was used to. That was a very different question, and Spike didn’t know how to answer it, although perhaps his hesitation was enough of a response because Ember pulled herself away from him, kneeling between his legs.

“If you don’t want to do this, we can stop,” she said.

“But isn’t this what you want?” he asked.

“Yeah, of course it is. But only if you do too.”

And as soon as she said that, the weight that had been building seemed to plummet, leaving him torn open and hollow. Leaving him empty. Leaving him feeling sick and alone. Because now he knew, for certain. Now there was no denying that the things he’d done with Twilight weren’t right, weren’t what this was supposed to be.

He wasn’t the strange one. It had just never been right, and, unlike Ember, Twilight had never noticed. Never cared? Surely not, but that’s how it felt, that’s what had left that crawling sensation beneath his scales every time.

Mortifyingly, Spike’s vision began to blur with tears, and Ember blinked in surprise. She recovered quickly, though, at least enough to pull him into an awkward, stiff hug, gently patting him on the back as she cradled him in her claws as though she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do with them. She probably wasn’t – Ember wasn’t exactly the hugging type – but it was still nice. Nice that she tried. Nice that she cared.

She relinquished her grip and it all felt too soon, her embrace so comforting even if Ember was clearly struggling with it. She shifted slightly, and he wondered if it was that urge between her legs still making demands that he couldn’t fulfil. His cock was still hard, even though they were long past the point where it mattered, even though it was cold as her spit dried against the air, and they sat there on the floor and none of it mattered and Ember’s gaze never once flicked down, fixated on his face. He didn’t know if that was something she was consciously doing but he decided it wasn’t important. He was thankful for it either way.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and she must have already known the answer.

“No,” said Spike. The truth, for a change.

“Do you, uh…” Ember chewed the inside of her cheek. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” he repeated. Also the truth.

There was more cheek chewing. “Are we gonna talk about it anyway?”

Spike swallowed. “Maybe.”

Ember pulled her legs up to her chest, settling herself across from him. Nothing was hidden like that, everything on full display, but it still didn’t matter. Spike’s length had shrunk back into his sheath now anyway. For a moment they sat in the quiet dining hall beside the toppled chair, and it was nice. It was nice just to be with someone who maybe didn’t understand but at least wanted to.

She didn’t prompt him further, but eventually Spike started talking anyway. He started from the beginning, from the first night in the library, and once he’d begun he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. The words rolled out of him, a tidal wave of repressed emotions that finally poured free and Ember sat there and let them wash over her, her expression unreadable. Occasionally she would nod encouragingly if Spike paused, just to let him know she was still with him, still listening. Still caring.

And then he was done. The room was quiet again. Spike was exhausted, and even though that crushing emptiness had abated a little it had been replaced with tiredness that seemed to take up all the space the emptiness had left behind.

Ember took a long while before she said anything, but this silence wasn’t awkward, not like before. It was a rest.

“You don’t owe Twilight anything,” she said, eventually.

Spike frowned. “I know I don’t.”

“But you keep going along with it.”

“Yeah.”

“Even though you hate it.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Spike stared at the crystal wall, watching the light dance inside it. He couldn’t look at Ember anymore, not directly. Shame forced his eyes away. “Because she needs me to.”

Silence reigned again, for even longer this time.

“Spike, if you don’t ever say no she won’t ever stop asking. And then you’re never going to be okay.”

“I know.” More truth.

“And you’ll never stop hurting.”

“I know.” Even more truth.

“And I don’t care what she’s done for you, that’s not fair. You deserve to be happy, too. You don’t deserve this.”

“I know.” A lie.

Ember sighed heavily before shifting over beside him and hooking her claw around his shoulders. It was less stiff this time, and Spike’s head rested against her chest, and he sat there and felt the soft rise and fall of her breathing lift him. “So, are you going to tell her?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“That’s just a no with less commitment,” Ember reprimanded. “So I can’t hold you to it later on.”

Spike shrugged. She was right, of course, but it wasn’t as though he could tell her that. Plausible deniability was the whole point.

“Well, you do whatever you want, Spike,” she said. “I can’t make you do anything.” Ember pulled him closer. “Just… promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Spike nodded, already knowing this was a promise he’d probably have to break. “I will. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Your mate.”

“Oh, that.” Ember’s snout wrinkled in distaste. “I’ll work something out. I’m the Dragon Lord, after all.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted.”

She gave him a long, hard look. “Have you ever heard the story about the generous dragon?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“I guess you didn’t grow up with dragons. I heard it a lot, but it’s been a while so I might get some bits wrong.”

Spike shifted a little in her embrace, getting comfortable as she cleared her throat. Ember didn’t seem to mind, and while Spike was pretty sure she’d regret showing so much compassion later on, he was happy to take advantage of it now. Her scales were warm, and her embrace felt safe, and for the first time in a long time that hollow feeling was staying away.

“So,” Ember began, “a long time ago there was this big dragon. But unlike all the other dragons, this one was generous. He wanted all the other dragons to be happy, because he was pretty sure that would make him happy, too.

“Over the years he’d gathered a big hoard, and the generous dragon sat and looked at all his gold and jewels and thought to himself ‘Why do I need all these? Other dragons would like my gold and jewels so much more, and they’d be much happier with them than I am’. And so he went down the mountain he lived in, and he gave away his whole hoard to the dragons he found there, and they accepted it gleefully.

“But the generous dragon still wasn’t happy.

“He lay in his empty cave and thought to himself ‘I don’t need this big cave. There are other dragons who don’t have a cave of their own, and it’s not fair that they don’t. I’ll give them my cave’. And so he went back down to the bottom of the mountain and told the dragons he found there that they could have his cave, and they accepted it.”

“Gleefully?” Spike asked.

Ember smiled. “Gleefully,” she agreed. “So then the generous dragon had no cave, nowhere to live, and he still wasn’t happy. He saw so many dragons that still wanted things, still needed things, still weren’t happy themselves. And so he didn’t stop. Any food he caught he gave away, any gems he found he passed on, and soon he started to grow tired and sickly. He lay in the dust, starving to death, and he was still unhappy because he had nothing left he could give, nothing the other dragons would want.”

She paused for a moment, thinking. Remembering.

“And as he lay there, dying,” she continued, “one last dragon approached him.”

“And gave him some food, right?” Spike asked, hoping more than believing.

Ember shook her head solemnly. “No. She went up to the generous dragon and told him how beautiful his scales were. And the generous dragon gave them away, too, and then there was nothing left of him.”

It took Spike a moment to realise that this wasn’t another pause but the end of the story. “Wait, he just dies? That’s how it ends?” he asked, incredulously.

“You try ripping your scales out and see how far you get.”

Spike shuddered at the thought. “But maybe he was finally happy, at the end?” he ventured.

“I don’t think so,” Ember replied. “I think he hurt himself over and over to give away everything, and the only thing left to show for it is a skeleton at the bottom of a mountain somewhere.”

Spike mulled this over, and now Ember’s embrace didn’t feel so warm anymore. Or maybe it was everything else that had gotten colder. “That’s a pretty dark story,” he said.

“Yeah. Dad used to tell me it a lot,” she said, almost wistful. “He usually used it to justify being an asshole, but I think it’s still pretty important to remember.”

“I guess.”

“You’re a good dragon, Spike,” she said. “But I couldn’t help but think of that story when you gave me the sceptre. And if you never care about your own happiness then you’re gonna end up giving away everything else, too, just like the generous dragon did. And then what was the point?”

“Of what?”

Ember shrugged. “Anything.”

Silence blanketed the room again, and they sat together on the cold floor until Spike’s legs went numb beneath him.

***

The castle was quiet again. Thorax and Ember were gone. Starlight had retreated to her own chambers for the night, and Spike sat with Twilight in the same dining room he and Ember had spent so much of the previous evening in. His eyes kept returning to the place on the floor where they’d been sitting, where they’d sprawled and Ember had been on top of him and then beside him and then holding him gently as she told him what he should do.

And she was right, he knew she was right, but that didn’t mean he was going to do it. He didn’t even know if he could do it, if he had the strength to finally turn Twilight down, to finally refuse to give her what she wanted. He thought he might, with Ember’s story echoing in his thoughts, but that still didn’t mean he would.

Perhaps he would simply keep it as an option. Something he could do later, when he needed to, when he had no other option.

That’s a lie.

Yes, it was. Keeping it like that would be exactly the same as never doing it at all. If he didn’t have the guts to say no this time, he wouldn’t the next time either, or any time after that. And keeping it as an option would just chain him down even further. Having an out would stop him from trying to find a different one.

No, if he wanted to break the cycle, if he wanted to take Ember’s advice, it would have to be tonight. He knew Twilight would ask tonight, she always did if she’d been separated from him, and so they sat together and Spike waited for her to ask the question.

Twilight wasn’t looking at him. She stared at the long-empty teacup in front of her, as if she was searching for something in the dregs left behind. She wasn’t, though. Spike knew what she was doing, because she did it every time. He knew the truth. She was putting it off because she was embarrassed.

It was almost hard to imagine, after so many years of spending nights together, of her pulling him into bed and fucking him hard enough to make it creak. But she was. Sometimes to the point where she couldn’t even look at him while she asked, her cheeks burning with shame.

All that would change once they got to her bedroom, of course. Once her lust took over and she became that different pony that never seemed to notice how Spike was feeling, never seemed to feel any of the nervousness from before. And so Spike waited, trying not to drum his claws on the table, trying not to make it seem like he was waiting for her to work up the courage to ask the same question she always did.

He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say if he refused. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, so many things that weighed against him that he needed to let go, but he also didn’t want to hurt her. That was what this had always been about, after all. Spike couldn’t bear to hurt Twilight, not after everything she’d done for him, not after everything they’d been through together.

She was family.

And even though he knew Ember was right, even though he knew this was right, it was still one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. And so he was grateful for the pause, for Twilight’s hesitation. It gave him time to think.

Perhaps the direct approach was best? No, Twilight, I don’t want to. I’ve never wanted to. I only went along with it because you did and so I'd do whatever you wanted and you never saw how much I hated it never saw that I didn’t want to fuck you that I didn’t want-

Hm. Probably not that, then. He didn’t want to lose his cool and get angry at her.

Perhaps he could fake a headache? No, of course not, that was laughable. Even if it worked, it would only put this off for one night, and would just be delaying the inevitable.

Perhaps…

Perhaps…

When Twilight did finally ask, Spike still had no idea what he was going to say.

“Hey, Spike?” she asked, quietly. “Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?”

Spike took a deep breath, fixed his eyes on hers, and answered. “I-”

He faltered, almost immediately.

Not because he’d changed his mind, not because he’d thought better of it, but because he’d noticed something. Something in Twilight’s expression, in her voice, that he’d never noticed before, not when he’d treated the question with resignation and automatic replies.

Expectation? Excitement? No, that wasn’t it. Hesitation? Embarrassment? Perhaps. Trepidation? ...fear? Why would Twilight be scared? That didn’t make any sense.

And then, in an instant, it did.

Twilight knew he didn’t want to. She always had.

Kind of.

Sort of.

A little bit.

Enough that she was scared he’d say no, at least. Enough that she was scared he’d prove her right, make all her worries true. Because if he did say no, if he rejected her advances, they would be. She’d no longer be able to deny it, not to herself, not to anyone. Every night they’d ever shared together – a lie. Every time, half-hearted at best, and at worst? Even Spike didn’t want to think of it that way.

And he knew that if Twilight’s fears were ever realised – if he said no here, tonight, any night – it would destroy her. Completely. Utterly. Twilight would never forgive herself for what she’d done, would never allow Spike to forgive her, either. And Spike could never do that, not to her, not to Twilight. Because no matter what, no matter how much she hurt him, he loved her.

He would do anything for her.

And so, with Ember’s warnings still spiralling in his head, Spike said yes. Just like he always did.

Just like he always would.