The itching. That terrible, rampant, never-ending, invisible ants crawling up the skin. The insufferable, spine-shuddering, back-tingling, and most of all, just plain uncomfortable itching. It had no rest nor stop or even a moment’s respite from its constant torture on every single inch of his body. Oh, how he wished for a solution, nay, a miracle for his predicament. Unluckily for Spike, however, that just wasn’t going to happen the easy way.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!” Spike exclaimed in a hushed yell. He got on his hands and knees, surveying the damage he left this time. “Craaaap… That’s, like, three times as many as last time.”

Scales. Broken, colorless, dead scales littered the bedroom, trailing from his covers of his bed to the windowsill upon which he sat. He grunted, following up with a semi-cathartic moan as the scratcher struck the small of his back. He’d be in bliss if he could only reach a little lower… and then it snapped.

In frustration, he threw the broken scratcher across the room, a few patches of scales going with it. He hopped to his feet and started moving with no particular destination in mind. Every step felt like walking in a suit of sandpaper.

The floor was scattered with numerous other tools he had used in a vain attempt to cure his skin problems. Forks, knives, rulers, pencils and pens, and even a cactus, all serving as bitter past failures, broken beyond repair. It didn’t matter if something was semi-successful; the constant resistance from his itching hide broke them soon enough. And with the most obvious solution, a back scratcher, no longer useful, he was all out of options.

As he tried with all of his might to think of a possible solution that hadn’t occurred to him (Which was exceedingly difficult to do with the itch occupying his mind), a certain voice sounded out from downstairs that made his blood race.

“Spike, you’ve been up there for an hour! Are you sure you’re okay?”

At the sound of Twilight’s call, Spike dived for his broom. As he grabbed it, more scales fell from the bristles, which made him curse under his breath. “Y-yeah, Twilight, never better!” he called down below, desperately sweeping away the abundant supply of scales covering the floor. “Just… gimme five minutes, okay?”

“That’s what you said the last three times, Spike. Then you went right back upstairs. What exactly are you doing anyway?”

Dusting a pile of scales underneath his bed to join the others he had hidden there, Spike said, “Just catching up on my studies is all! Nothing to worry about!”

“Oh really?” Twilight asked directly behind him. Spike’s neck snapped back at the sudden appearance of Twilight, nearly falling over his own tail as he leaped back. “You know, if you need a little private time, you can just tell me. I know you’re getting on in age, so it’s only natural for these desires to rise up.”

“Twilight…”

The alicorn gave a wry grin. “I have a collection of Playcolts you can borrow—”

“That’s not what’s happening, Twilight!” Spike snapped, getting back to his feet. He towered over the mare; his draconian height grew apparent to Twilight, who was once again reminded that her little assistant wasn’t so little anymore.

“So, what is it?” Twilight took a few steps forward, stopping when she heard a crunch beneath her hooves. She looked down and examined what that could have been. “Oh! Oh…”

Spike turned around and pointed to his back, which was a grisly display of peeling scales and a skin complexion so bad his once bright purple scales were now dull and tarnished. “Yeah, I’m having problems in another area altogether, thank you for asking.”

“Spike, why haven’t you told me about this earlier?” Twilight asked, grimacing as she shook off the broken scale stuck to her hoof.

Spike shrugged, casually scratching a peeling patch of skin on his stomach. “I’d have told you if I knew. I thought it was a rash or something at first about a week ago. But then it grew to… well, this. I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Silly. You could have told me.” Twilight lent the sulking dragon a gentle hoof. "Spike, you know I'd drop everything to help you. I shouldn't have to remind you of that." She brushed a few errant scales aside. “This is perfectly normal.”

“It is?” Spike’s eyes widened.

Twilight chuckled, looking aside apologetically. “...is what I would be saying if I knew the process of adolescence for a young dragon. Sorry…”

He carried a little bit of hope, but Spike didn’t expect any sort of solution, even from her. He shrugged, then scratched at his arm sullenly.

“This calls for a little book search. You stay right there, Spike. Do whatever you have to, I'll clean it up later."

Dragging his claws through a particularly itchy portion of his lower back, he gave her a thumbs up. “Anything at this point would help. It feels like parasprites are crawling all underneath my skin.”

“I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyway…” Twilight muttered humorously.

“Um, Twilight, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when you said you’d help me out,” said Spike with a slur. He found it rather difficult to speak while hanging upside down, and he was pretty sure one of the pins was messing with his mouth muscles.

Twilight carefully levitated another pin to Spike’s back and inserted it between two dry patches. The dragon grunted, but it was only from the pressure. He didn’t feel a thing in terms of pain. “Acupuncture is a legitimate source of comfort and inner peace.”

“I’m not studying martial arts, I’m itching like nopony’s business. Can’t you ‘magic’ the itching away? Or use some science stuff?”

“Well, medicinal spells and science don’t really apply to dragons. All equine medicines will burn up in your stomach or bloodstream. Anything else would have a minimal effect at best. There’s no healing spell or itch cream that can penetrate your scales… Alternative methods seem to be our best option.”

“Well, let’s alternate to another alternative.” Spike folded his arms. Under any other circumstance, looking disgruntled in zero-gravity would be hilarious. He wasn’t amused. “I’m pretty sure I’m blaghping oughf.”

“Stay with me now.” Twilight spun Spike back upwards and gently levitated him down. However, she let him go a bit too soon, and he plopped onto the mattress by his stomach. “See? It’s a good thing we set that up, right?” She then pulled every pin out of Spike’s back without a second glance. Spike barely even blinked. “So, I guess it didn’t work.”

“Nope. Thanks anyway… I really mean that.” Spike flinched as he felt one needle in particular being pulled from his backside. It was right along his shoulder region, which now felt like it was on fire, coupled with its already unbearable itchiness. “Hey, Twilight, does my back look okay?”

“You mean other than your skin falling off?”

“Yeah.”

Spike hissed in a breath when he felt Twilight rest a hoof on his shoulder blade. “Actually, now that you mention it, it does appear a bit… lumpy. Uneven, actually.” She prodded harder, stopping when she noticed Spike tense up from the pain. “How long has this been going on?”

“Well, I thought it was a side-effect of the itching,” Spike muttered, his entire upper backside drowning in a sea of hotness. “But now it feels like my body is trying to grow out of my skin.” He gasped. “Could it be a tumor?”

“No, too big to be a tumor,” Twilight said, peering closer at the twin bulges along Spike’s backside. The largest amount of missing scales and peeling skin seemed to be centered around them. “This could actually be why you’re shedding in the first place. That’s my best guess.”

“Huh. Well, that’s closer than we were an hour ago.”

Twilight levitated the pins into a large jar and set it on her least stocked shelf. “Okay, now that we’ve tried acupuncture, I think we should move on to a deep tissue massage.”

Spike’s dorsal fins involuntarily perked when he heard that word. “Massage?”

“Well, it’s said relaxing the muscles in one way to cure the skin,” Twilight said, prancing over to a shelf while humming to herself. “I remember seeing a book about it earlier. All types of techniques to cure common ailments with just the use of another’s hooves. Not sure how effective it is, but hey, wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“No, it… it wouldn’t, uh…” Spike’s gaze fell from the shabby looking book to someplace a little lower. It was as if his eyes were magnetized to something so mundane to him. Until this moment, he had never realized just how naturally pleasant Twilight’s flanks were.

Spike swallowed nervously, involuntarily gawking at the slow wiggle Twilight gave as she opened the book, put on a set of reading glasses and bent over the reading desk. The early afternoon sun refracted off the perfectly groomed sheen of her rump. She must have been outside earlier. It was a hot day, so the little beads of sweat that slowly descended her curves were the flavor on the eye candy.

Twilight muttered something that Spike didn’t hear. “What?” he asked, shaking himself out of his trance.

“I said, I don’t think dragon tissue works the same as pony tissue. Do I have the right hooves for the job?”

Her hooves looked smooth as silk. Spike didn’t know why, but he wanted to grab them, feel them on as they fondled his scales. He wanted them to reach down and touch his—

“Spike? What do you think?”

Spike shook his head. When exactly did those thoughts get on his mind? Twilight was more or less his mother and sister, and now he was thinking about her like this? Maybe there was something worse than a simple skin rash going on here, he thought.

Twilight sighed, looking over Spike’s body. Her concerned expression intensified. “Hm, this must be worse than I thought. You’re getting red all over.”

Spike held his sides, turning away so he wouldn’t look at her. Already his back was aching up a storm of furious throbbing and an aloof itchiness he just couldn’t scratch. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he admitted.

“Do you have a fever?” Twilight asked. She placed a hoof on his backside, but immediately withdrew it away with a loud yelp. “Whoa, you’re burning up! Actually… you’re literally burning up!”

Spike glanced over his shoulder, noticing smoke a few errant flames pouring out the flayed skin patches on his back. “Oh yeah, those,” he muttered, smacking them roughly until they died down. “Don’t worry about it. That’s been going on for a while now. It’s not as bad as...” He trailed off as he furiously scratched at his arm. “Dammit!” he shouted through clenched teeth.

Twilight snapped back to the book. “Uh, right. Massage.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” Spike said, curling up on the mattress. He lay still, hoping a lack of motion would keep him from itching. “None of this is gonna work. I’d rather just wait it out. Dragon puberty is being a pain in the ass and neither of us knows how to fix it.”

“Actually…” Twilight smiled, eyeing a familiar book next to her reading stand. “There might be somepony who can help us.”

Spike rose and caught a glimpse of the same book. It had a green cover with the etching of an exotic flower. He smiled up at Twilight. The itch was feeling a little better already. “Twilight, I freakin’ love you.”