Several months ago, Spike had finally talked Twilight into letting him have a bedroom of his very own! Spike also had a new, larger sleeping basket, with plenty of room for a twenty year old dragon.
One morning, as the rising sun's light angled through his bedroom window and woke him, Spike rubbed his eyes.
"Wait," he said to himself. "Did that really happen?"
He rubbed his eyes again. "Yes, I'm pretty sure it did."
Spike glanced down at his basket, and looked around the room.
"If it really happened...where's my new special somerock? I shouldn't be all alone in here."
Spike climbed out of bed. He pulled up the blankets and sheets, shaking each one out carefully and inspecting the floor afterwards. Finally he rechecked the inside of the now-bare basket, and rechecked the entire room.
Spike felt a growing sense of worry: "If Boulder slept over last night...where IS he?"
Being fully awake, Spike felt an urgent need to use 'the facilities.' He ran out of his room and down the hall. And down another hall, right past Twilight's own bedroom, and into the small bathroom where he plonked his hindquarters down on the toilet, latching the door imperfectly in his hurry.
After a minute, Twilight's voice came through the door. "Spike?" she said. "Was that you, running for the bathroom like some kind of maniac?"
Spike didn't answer.
"Spike?"
Spike hunched down, worrying about where Boulder was.
"Spike, if it isn't you, I'm going to have to call the pest control service again to get Trixie out of our bathroom. Or whoever you are."
Spike sighed. "It was me, Twilight."
"You were running so fast. How many times do I have to tell you, whenever you eat mineral roughage, you should eat some nonmineral smoothage with it. Otherwise THIS kind of thing happens. What did you eat last night, anyway?"
Spike sighed again. "I didn't eat ANYTHING. I just..." He leaped off the toilet, and looked down into the bowl.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit." The bottom of the bowl was coated with fine black sand. Spike sniffed, detecting the distinctive smell of freshly digested basalt.
He had a terrible idea of what might have happened to Boulder. Why, when Spike woke up, Boulder had been missing. Why Boulder didn't seem to be anywhere.
"Should I scoop up the sand?" Spike asked himself. "It would be terrible to deliver Boulder to Maud as a pulverized, digested corpse, but that's still better than not giving Boulder and Maud any funeral or closure at all."
He had another thought, in some ways even worse. "If I just flush the toilet extra hard, the evidence will be washed away, and maybe I won't ever have to confess."
No. He could never do that. Boulder deserved better. Maud deserved better. He opened the door, resolving to get some kind of container...
Twilight pushed her way into the room, and pulled the toilet's flush chain. "Spike! How can you be as old as you are, and STILL not remember to flush after you use the toilet?"
"NOOOOOOOO!" Spike screamed.
Twilight blinked. "You weren't done yet?"
Spike howled with anguish. "I don't know how to even begin to tell you."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
The thing that had just happened had seemed to Spike the worst possible thing in the world. It STILL seemed like the worst possible thing in the world. But Spike now realized, having to talk about it right away felt like a close second.
"Um...let's make pancakes first."
***
Twilight ignored her plateful of cooling pancakes, as she stared at Spike. "So your best guess is, after you finally confessed to your crush and took him to bed with you, while you two were sleeping together...you ATE him? Is THAT what you're telling me?"
Spike sobbed, his shoulders heaving. "Boulder always smelled so nice...but I can't believe even in my sleep I ever would have EATEN him...but I saw the evidence in the toilet bowl. If you hadn't flushed when you did, you would have seen it too. The only thing that could have happened to Boulder is--"
Maud walked into the room. "Hello, Spike."
Twilight blinked. "Maud. Haven't we talked about social skills?"
"Rainbow Dash flies into your house at random times, without any invitation."
"Jocks don't HAVE to have social skills."
"But rockhounds are different? Why is that?"
"Never mind. I have...a difficult question, I guess."
Maud looked unblinkingly at Twilight for a moment. The moment stretched to a minute. The minute stretched towards two...and Maud spoke. "What question?"
"It's about you and Boulder. When was the last time you saw him?"
Maud said, "Ha. You should know. You were there. At the party last night. The party where somepony threw Boulder in the punch bowl and got him drunk."
"Um...yes. THAT party. And do you know where Boulder went, after that party?"
Maud shook her head. "I came here to ask you that. Because I haven't seen Boulder anywhere, since last night."
Spike put his claws over his face. "Maud. I have something I have to tell you...but I can't. But I have to. But...but..."
"Oh," Maud said. She reached one forehoof inside her dress' front pocket. "There you are." She pulled out a basalt pebble. "You were with me all along. You played a prank on me, making me think you were missing."
She listened for a minute. "Oh. That is a problem." She looked right at Spike. "I know you and Boulder are friends. So maybe you know what happened. Something IS missing."
Spike's mouth went dry. "Oh."
"Boulder received a joke gift last year, from some other friends of his. It wasn't in very good taste. You know how some shops sell inflatable dolls, or inflatable sheep, that stallions might give to the groom at a bachelor party?"
"Um...I guess I might have heard of something like that?"
"Boulder's inflatable rock sex doll is missing. It looked very much like Boulder himself. That was why his friends thought it was such a funny idea to buy it and give it to him. They said, 'here, now if you ever need a body double...now you have one. You can skip out on boring events, or tiresome social obligations.'"
"Oh," Spike said. "I'll...be sure to keep an eye out, in case it turns up. So we can give it back to Boulder."
"Thank you," Maud said. "Boulder says thank you too. Well...we have some other places to check, in case Boulder's doll turns up. So I can't stay."
Spike and Twilight nodded. "See you," Spike said.
After Maud left, Twilight smiled tentatively. "So I guess this is good news?"
"Hooray, I guess? Boulder is alive. Yay!" But Spike still seemed flustered, fidgeting with a pancake fork, his claws wrinkling it and straightening it back out, and wrinkling it again.
"You aren't a cannibal!" Twilight said. "That's good."
Spike nodded. "But last night...I remember last night well enough to know I didn't take home a rock and another rock...I mean, a rock and a fake rock. I just took home the one rock. Or the one thing. I mean..."
Twilight nodded slightly.
"Twilight, I thought Boulder went home with me last night, but I guess he ditched me and sent a sex doll in his place. And I didn't even notice he wasn't real!" Spike moaned. "Am I that unattractive, that Boulder would send a 'body double' home with me in his place? And am I THAT bad a lover, that I didn't even notice my lover wasn't real? And how could I have EATEN him? I mean, TRIED to eat him in my sleep, and really eaten what I thought was really him? This makes me feel terrible in more ways than I can even keep track of!"
Twilight walked around the small kitchen table, and wrapped one of her wings around Spike. "There, there. I know who you need to talk to."
"Who? Who can possibly make this any better?"
"Our sister in law is the Princess of Love. Let's go visit the Crystal Empire, and see what she has to say about all this. I'm sure she can put it into perspective, and give you some good advice."
Spike sniffled. "I sure hope so."
***
Outside, walking through the streets of Ponyville, Maud whispered, "I can't believe you'd do such a thing."
She listened for a minute.
"Ok, I get it. So your twin brother is a jerk. The kind of jerk who would want to steal your new beau away from you. But just letting Peter TRICK Spike into taking Peter home with him, and not warning Peter about dragons and vore and how to keep dragons from eating him in his sleep...that's going too far."
A minute later, Maud replied, "If that's how you feel about it...I'm not talking to you either."
Maud and her rock continued homewards, each giving the other the silent treatment.
Author's Note
I've also shipped Spike in
TAnimal Instincts (Spike x Angel Makes Perfect Sense)
Spike realizes he's a 'furry.' But he also has the rough, violent intimate instincts of a dragon, so he can never truly be himself with soft-skinned furry creatures like ponies. A Spike x Angel story.
Mockingbirb ·
1.4k words
· 19
4 ·
618 views
TLove Hurts (Spike Is Full of Splinters and His New Girlfriend Is on Fire)
Twilight Sparkle demands an explanation. She spends most of the story getting it.
Mockingbirb ·
1.6k words
· 224
14 ·
2.1k views
