He hadn’t meant to, he really hadn’t. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was all over and the poor animal was dead. But that didn’t matter now. All he could do was try and rinse the floor and walls clean of blood before Twilight came back.
He could still feel it—his claws tearing through the frail creature’s skin, his teeth severing the rabbit’s spine. He could still taste it, too, even after going through the bathroom’s entire stock of mouthwash. That coppery, disgusting, brilliant taste.
He shuddered and tried to push those thoughts out of his mind. He needed to get this done.
With a final stroke, Spike picked himself up from his hands-and knees position on the floor and slumped against the wall behind him. He stared numbly at his handiwork, clutching the scrub brush limply in his claws. The floor was now coated with a sickeningly pink blood-water-soap slurry that made his stomach churn.
That poor rabbit. It hadn’t died quickly.
At least he felt better; the week-long bout of faintness and feebleness which had accompanied the sudden six inches he’d seemingly gotten overnight had finally subsided. He did feel like he was going to vomit, though.
He sighed and forced himself to stagger to the broom closet and grab a mop. After a bit of thought, he grabbed a bucket, too, and trudged upstairs to the bathroom to fill it, resting the mop against the wall by the gory, bubbly mess.
His crippling guilt refused to leave him alone.
He should’ve known. Guessed. Something. It was his own body, for heaven’s sake. It was right there in front of him, every time he smiled in the mirror.
Fangs didn’t exist to grind hay and vegetables. They weren’t there to crush gemstones to powder. Fangs served one purpose in nature, and one purpose only.
Killing.
Slaughtering.
Rending flesh from bone.
The poor thing never stood a chance.
It had happened mere hours ago and he could barely remember it. All he got were a few blurry, gorey images of the poor rabbit, ripped open and squealing, and the intense urge to eat. He could remember how it felt though. It felt right. Disturbingly, sickeningly right. Then nothing.
He pushed the bathroom door open with his free claw. It, like everything else it the library, was finely crafted from hard-polished oak. A small blessing, that polishing job; otherwise the marks of his mindless brutality would never come out, no matter how hard he scrubbed.
And after the nothing, of course, he woke up in a puddle of blood and mangled bits of flesh and fur. He shuddered at the memory. That much fluid shouldn't have been able to fit in such a small creature.
Spike dropped the mop bucket in the sink with a loud clang and grabbed the hot water valve. He struggled with the handle for a minute, trying to get his shaking claws to comply with the simple actions he needed them to do. Finally, he got a grip on it and turned it so hard it almost broke. While the water gushed into the pail, he inspected his reflection.
He certainly looked healthier than he had that morning. His scales were already staring to get their luster back and his eyes were looking much less bloodshot. Save for the heavy bags under his eyes from overwhelming shock and the drying blood and gore coating the lower half of his face and most of his chest, he looked perfectly fine. He raised a claw and scratched some of the caked gore off his cheek and into the bucket. He groaned, grabbed a rag, dampened it, stepped into the bathtub, and began to scour the mess from his scales.
After he finished cleaning himself off, rinsing out the tub, and burning the rag, he shut the water valve, grabbed a towel, and trudged back down the stairs, sloshing water out of the bucket with every other heavy step but not really caring.
He’d been charged with critter-sitting that night while Twilight attended some sort of library thing in Canterlot. However, Fluttershy had needed Twilight to watch a rabbit of hers who kept getting into everything while she wasn’t looking that same night. One 30-carat bribe later, and it was Spike’s job. The instructions were simple; Fluttershy would drop it off at ten-ish on the doorstep and Spike would bring it in.
He’d been really hazy that day, a weaker than usual. Twilight had noticed and had even contemplated calling off her library thing and watching the rabbit like she’d promised, but Spike had said he was perfectly capable of doing it himself and shooed her out the door.
There wasn’t much to remember after that. Fluttershy had brought the critter in a fair-sized chicken wire cage and Spike had brought it in. A few minutes later, Spike heard it squeal and went to check on it. It had cut its haunch on a flyaway wire. Spike took it out to treat its wound… smelled the blood… and everything after was a heated blur.
He was almost done mopping up the mess now. He squeezed the mop out one more time before plopping it back into the bucket. He removed the towel from where he’d slung it over his shoulder and wiped off the excess water from the floor and the small areas of the wall where he’d had to scrub off spatters of blood and other unsavory things.
With the last of the mess gone, it looked like nothing had happened. Spike had already come up with a half-cooked story while he dumped the mop bucket's contents outside about the rabbit running out the door at some point. Fluttershy would be upset, of course, but it wasn’t like he could actually tell anypony about this.
Once more, Spike trudged up the stairs. He gave a last, heavy sigh and collapsed into his now-much-too-small bed, exhausted, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Author's Note
This is an idea I had a while ago, so I finally used it to get myself out of writer's block. It's not as well written as I would like (actually, it's not really written well at all), so I'll probably fix it up later. Or maybe not.
