As Spike settled onto a modest stool and prepared to spin a tale of intrigue to his listeners, he found himself wondering what Twilight would think.

The Princess of Magic was many things, but 'child lover' was not one of them. Spike knew that his caretaker would likely never have consented to look after Pound and Pumpkin in their parents' absence, much less recite to them an improvised bedtime story; he wondered how many small blessings she had missed out on in that manner.

In that same vein, Spike knew exactly how favorably Twilight would react to his pretend-marriage to Fluttershy—that would be to say, not at all well, considering her overprotective nature as of late.

Then, as the pink-haired angel herself practically coasted into his lap and Spike realized just how thin a sweater dress and stockings could be, he came to the conclusion that Twilight could think whatever the hell she wanted, as long as it was from a distance.

As his arms circled Fluttershy's waist and the older woman riposted with a downright sinful repositioning of her hips, the increasingly distracted teenager begrudgingly admitted to himself that he owed Twilight a debt.

For all the fun he'd had with the Cake twins, that was. If his suspicions and hopes were right, and he ended up owing the woman any Fluttershy-related debts in the near future, he prayed to whatever gods would listen that Twilight would never know he owed her for it.

"Now, where should I start?" Spike asked to himself, rubbing his hands together and leering at the twins roguishly.

"At the beginning, probably," Pound snarked, reclining on the bed and resting his head on his arms.

"Bite me," Spike returned. "Let's see...yes, that's right." He grinned down at them. "You two didn't know that I'm part dragon, did you?"

Pound and Pumpkin both narrowed their eyes at Spike from under the covers, the suspense of Spike's claims broken. "We're not stupid," Pumpkin snapped, crossing her arms. "Why would you say something that's obviously a lie?"

"Yeah," Pound agreed, looking upset and let-down, "there's no way that's true."

Spike smirked, looking at the children craftily until they shifted in discomfort. "Are you sure?" he asked slowly.

"Positive," Pound asserted.

"Would you bet your life on it?" the teenager questioned. He leaned in closer, allowing them to examine him closely.

Pumpkin gasped. "Your eyes...why are your pupils slanted like that?"

He held their gazes for a moment longer. Then, "Do you still want to know how I fell in love with Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy perked up, and squirmed slightly in Spike's lap in anticipation. Pumpkin nodded her head rapidly, while Pound looked on, suspicious.

"I still don't believe you're part-dragon," he muttered.

Smirking, Spike tilted his head back, aiming into the air, and spat out a small stream of green fire.

The twins stood stock-still, jaws agape.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

They nodded.

"Great," Spike said, smiling when he heard Fluttershy giggle. With that little display, he'd made them question everything he'd said so far, and made them consider whether or not he had been telling the truth.

"Now," the teenager said, in a tone that implied his story had begun, "as everyone knows, dragons love treasure, and I mean we love it. The stuff drives us crazy, and the rule wasn't any different for me."

"So you became a pirate?" Pound asked.

"No, shut up," Spike said. "I may not have had collected a lot of gold or jewels, but that was only because I was smart, ahead of the curve." He tapped his temple, winking at the kids. "A dragon knows the worth of things, and I found something more precious than anything you can find in the ground."

"What was it?" Pumpkin asked earnestly, laying on her side and looking up at the young man.

Spike smiled, allowing one hand to stroke Fluttershy between the small of her back. "Friends."

Pumpkin ahhed in recognition, while Pound rolled his eyes and smothered himself with a pillow. "That's so lame," he groaned into the fabric, before turning towards the wall.

"It really isn't," Spike said, continuing to massage his faux-wife's back—going by her soft, subtle circling into his lap, she appreciated it—as he scooted forward on the stool. "Do you know why so many dragons are always grumpy and mean?"

The twins shook their heads no.

"Well, it's because they're lonely," Spike said, and he felt Fluttershy press back against his chest. "No one ever tells them that they're smart, or handsome, or particularly good at anything. I mean, sure, they've got a whole bunch of gold and jewels and junk, but in the end," Spike shrugged, "it's just...metal and rocks. Nothing that can love you."

Pound pondered that, frowning as he lay next to his sister.

"Well, what about their parents?" Pumpkin asked.

"A lot of dragons don't get to know their parents," Spike confessed, looking somewhat sad. "I didn't know mine."

"Really?" Pound asked, wide-eyed.

"Really," the teenager said, but he soon smiled after the fact. "'Course, that ended up not being such a bad thing. I grew up with a great family, fell in love, helped save an ancient kingdom from an evil king..."

"Is he telling the truth?" Pound asked Fluttershy, who nodded in the affirmative.

"I was there," she confirmed. "He was very brave."

"Brave but scared," Spike laughed, tightening his hold on his partner. "But the point is, I couldn't have done all that if I didn't have my friends. Otherwise," he shrugged, "I'd probably be laid up in a cave somewhere, bitter and lonely for the rest of my life. Or a stripper, who knows."

Fluttershy smacked him on the arm.

"Oh right," he said, remembering the purpose of his story. "Well, at the time I didn't know it, but Fluttershy wanted babies too. Only problem was she couldn't decide on who to have them with."

The aforementioned woman huffed, crossing her arms.

"But you couldn't really blame her, you know?" Spike continued, resuming his massage of Fluttershy's back. "After all, she was even more famous than me, so she had plenty of guys to choose from."

"Really?" the twins asked.

"Uh huh," Spike nodded, grinning and jostling his 'wife' slightly by the waist. "She scared a dragon away when he threatened the town; she stared down a cockatrice and saved Princess Twilight's life; she convinced a very nasty man to see the error of his ways, and so on. She was even a supermodel for a while, believe it or not."

Fluttershy flushed on top of Spike's lap. "It sounds impressive when you talk about it like that," she fretted, "but it really wasn't much at the time. I was just doing what anyone would've done."

"And that's what makes you awesome," Spike said, giving her a one-armed hug. "So, somehow, Fluttershy heard that I wanted to have a baby, and so she found me one day, and she cornered me."

"She did?" Pumpkin turned to Fluttershy. "You did?"

"I guess I did," she said, shrugging.

"What'd you do next?" Pound asked.

"She told me that she could get me all the babies I wanted, a whole pile of 'em, but first I'd have to defeat her father in mortal combat."

"Who's a lumberjack," Fluttershy reminded them.

"What happened?"

"Oh, it was very dramatic," Spike said. "He challenged me, and we dueled."

"With swords," Fluttershy added.

"On top of an erupting volcano."

"During a thunderstorm."

"And you won?" Pumpkin asked, wide-eyed.

"You're darn right I did," Spike said excitedly. "And a good thing too, cause if I hadn't, the two of you wouldn't be alive."

"Somehow I doubt that," Pound muttered.

The teenager shrugged. "Believe what you want. After the duel, we had our wedding. Rivers of champagne, lots of people crying, the whole deal."

"And then?" Pumpkin asked.

"And then," Spike said, waggling his eyebrows, "we got to work on getting us some children."

Slowly, Fluttershy turned her head to look at Spike, her mouth set in a flat grin.

"How did that work?" Pound asked, now sitting up, interested.

"Well, you see," Spike said, "we'd met all the requirements: we were married, we were madly in love, and we'd paid off our car notes."

"You don't have a car," Pound noted.

"Yeah we do, you just haven't seen it yet, so shut up. We'd gotten all that stuff done, and we were on our honeymoon."

"Where did you go?"

Spike grinned. "We vacationed in Los Pegasus. Saw a lot of great sights, danced on a few tables, the usual stuff." Fluttershy giggled next to him. "Then, well, we came back to the hotel room, and Fluttershy looked so beautiful, like more than usual." He turned to the kids. "Hard to imagine, right?"

They nodded uncertainly, much to the pink-haired caretaker's embarrassment.

"So we sat down on the bed, we looked at each other," Spike said slowly, "and we were so much in love and so ready to be parents," he inhaled deeply, "we stayed up all night filling out the paperwork."

Fluttershy, Pound, and Pumpkin blinked collectively.

"Paperwork?" the twins asked in unison.

Spike nodded earnestly. "For the stork."

Fluttershy had to bite her hand to keep from laughing at her idiot partner's remarks.

"I knew that," Pound hurriedly said.

"Me too," agreed Pumpkin.

"Right!" Spike said, nodding. "Now me and Fluttershy, we wanted a kid that was just like the two of us. Someone who was kind, beautiful, brave..." He smiled, as if looking at something off in the distance. "We wanted a kid that reflected the best of ourselves."

Fluttershy's heart soared as she recalled Spike's sappy, overly sentimental habits, and going by the looks on the kid's faces, they were eating it up too. Pumpkin looked on, wide-eyed, while Pound stared down at the bedspread, blushing.

"So we sent the stuff in, but it took a long time—about nine months or so. Then, one day we got a letter in the mail. Unfortunately," he said, rubbing his neck, "they said there was no way they'd be able to do it. Their exact words, the company that makes babies, was 'One person can't have all that good inside them. They would explode!'"

"Twice," Fluttershy said, wiping her eyes.

Pound looked confused. "Can you do that? Can you explode twice?"

"You can explode three times if the universe really hates you," Spike said.

"So what happened at the baby factory?" Pumpkin asked.

"Well, ideally we wouldn't to go to jail for premeditated infanticide, so we compromised." Spike smiled, tapping Fluttershy on her thighs as a signal for her to get up. He leaned on his elbows on the edge of the mattress, staring one child in the eye, then the other. "They took the biggest baby they had in the factory, filled it up with a couple pounds of kindness...beauty...and bravery...and BAM!" he yelled, clapping his hands and startling both the children. "They karate chopped it right down the middle, and instead of one big newborn, there were two little ones. One girl, one boy."

He bumped Pumpkin on the forehead. "The little girl, she was destined to be as beautiful as the most beautiful woman in the world, just like her mother. And I mean gorgeous," he said, winking at Fluttershy standing at the corner of his vision. "But in the real way. Not just here," he said, booping her nose with his finger, "but here," pressing gently against her small beating heart.

Pumpkin's face turned cherry red as she buried it in her hands.

Spike turned to Pound, smiling mildly. "And for the little boy, he was made to be as brave as the bravest man. Not because he didn't fear anything," he said, shaking his head, "but because like his dad, he feared everything, but carried on anyways."

Pound bowed his head, swallowing and uncharacteristically silent.

"Their parents thought it was for the best," Spike said slowly, looking up at Fluttershy and peering mysteriously at her. She breathed in fascination—he was doing that thing, the thing where the old man in him—or dragon—came out and said something wise and insightful far beyond his years. "They had spent so long looking for a companion, for a kindred spirit, that they didn't want their children to waste a single second searching."

Pound and Pumpkin stared at Spike, open-mouthed, before turning to look at the other. Their mouths closed as they beheld each other in a new light, as if they had always been two halves of a person and had just now realized it.

"Of course," Spike said, looking past the two children at nothing, "they couldn't keep the kids, or else everyone would know what they were up to, and they'd be run out of town. So they entrusted their offspring to a couple of pastry chefs, who always wanted kids but couldn't have them."

"Why not?" Pound asked.

"Oh, they were both men," Spike said simply, and Pumpkin wrinkled her nose. "And their parents waited for years, biding their time until the day when their children were old enough to learn the truth. And so...that," Spike said, speaking with an air of finality, "is the story," he kissed them both on their eyelids, "of you."

Fluttershy blinked the tears from her eyes, as she realized the story was over. Smiling and tender-eyed, she made to embrace her partner, but the children got to him first.

Spike sighed contentedly as Pound and Pumpkin both embraced him from his sides, and he returned the gesture by holding them both about their waists. "I'll see you guys in the morning," he said lowly, sounding almost sad, before releasing them. Pumpkin kissed him quickly on the cheek before pulling away under the covers. She peered at him in a queer way, studying his face with unadulterated attention.

"Goodnight, my dears," Fluttershy whispered, kneeling down and kissing each of the children on their foreheads.

"Night," they both replied, and as the lights were turned off, Spike was sure he could see a pair of small blue eyes tracing him even in the dark.

They'd made it to the living room before Fluttershy jumped on him.

"That was brilliant," she cried, holding Spike by the hips and beaming. "That was just so clever and unbelievably sweet of you to say those things."

Spike laughed gently, returning the hug, though Fluttershy apparently didn't plan on releasing him anytime soon. "Just telling a story, 'Shy," he said. "Maybe something I would've liked to hear as a kid."

"But how?" she asked, genuinely curious as her hands rested on his belt line. "How did you come up with all of that on the fly?"

Spike scratched his head. "Not all of it was on the fly," he admitted. "Most of it I came up with on the spot, yeah, but I was working from a general idea I'd been thinking on all day."

"What was it?"

"'Friendship is one mind in two bodies,'" Spike said, holding up a finger as he slid gently out of Fluttershy's grasp, even though it felt comforting to be held by her. "It was some old proverb that Twilight had posted on the fridge, and it came to mind."

Fluttershy smiled in understanding, crossing her arms over her waist. "I see. You thought of it because they're twins?"

Now Spike looked somewhat guilty, not allowing his eyes to meet Fluttershy's. "No, actually." He rubbed his shoulder. "I, uh, was thinking of that whole 'kindred spirits' thing I mentioned earlier, and, I dunno, I kind of...thought of you."

The pink-haired woman blinked, dropping her arms to the sides of her waist. "Really now," she murmured, and if Spike had been looking closely, he might have seen her pupils dilate as she looked at him.

"Is...that okay?" Spike asked, laughing nervously.

"Certainly," Fluttershy insisted, smiling. "Would you care for some tea?"

Considering the uneasy pace his heart was currently jogging at, Spike concluded that a refreshment would do wonders for his nerves. "Tea would be great, thanks." He sat down on a comfortable green couch just under a window, peering silently as Fluttershy strutted away. His eyes fell to her lengthy, well-shaped legs. Oh man, I hate it when you leave, but I love it when you go.

His hostess set the kettle in her kitchen on to boil, before taking a large bag and retreating to the bathroom. Taking advantage of her absence, Spike changed into his nightwear—a plain t-shirt and purple shorts—and deposited his day clothes into a nearby bin.

Soon after, the door to the bathroom opened, and out swept Fluttershy, barefoot and adorned in a pleasant yellow satin nightgown that hung just short of her knees. Her hair, which usually extended well past her shoulder blades, was bound into a tight but comfortable bun.

She smiled as she strode up to Spike, who realized a little late that staring with an open mouth could be seen as rude.

"May I sit with you?" she asked him.

"Please do," Spike said, hoping he didn't sound too eager. He resisted the urge to bite his cheeks; was it a trick of the light playing across her chest, or was Fluttershy not wearing any undergarments?

Part of him felt it necessary to hold back from being too forward with her, but then he recalled her conduct from earlier that evening. Aside from groping him somewhat casually, Fluttershy had been nothing but reciprocal when Spike initiated contact with her. It was this thought that circled his mind as he sat up on the couch, rising until his head was a scant few inches from hers. "You pinned your hair up," he observed.

Fluttershy's hand went instinctively to the small bun. "Does it look okay?" she asked somewhat shyly.

Spike reached up and gently nudged her hand away. "Your hair is always down, so I never see much of your skin." His fingers played across the nape of her neck, stroking softly against the bundle of nerves and gently massaging her incredibly supple flesh. "It looks nice," he amended, gazing pointedly at her lips.

Fluttershy sat relatively still as he examined her; going by her experience with familiarizing herself with others, humans and animals alike, it was good that Spike was willingly touching her. "I can wear it like this more often," she said softly, almost so Spike couldn't hear her. Her hand moved to drift over his wrist, and when the contact held and he didn't shrink from her, Fluttershy continued her search.

Slowly but not without respect, her hands roamed from wrist to arm, grazing over bicep to pectoral, caressing the well-formed muscles until her slim fingers touched upon his clavicle. She paused to admire the bone structure—he was strong and healthy, life thrummed under the skin and sinew—before moving on.

He had a weak spot, she knew it. All of her friends did. Rarity's was in the small of her back, Rainbow's in the soles of her feet, even Twilight would melt into a puddle if you massaged just under her ear–

Her fingers pressed against the hollow of Spike's jaw, just under his chin, and the young man shuddered heavily. There we are, Fluttershy thought victoriously to herself as she pulled Spike up gently so as to have better access to his upper half. This was it, she decided, this was how she'd win him over to her.

Her hand cupped the side of his face, her thumb massaging firmly at the sensitive muscle under his chin. "Do you like that?" she inquired softly, rubbing his side with her other hand as she brought her hips to rest on his thighs.

Spike only made a deep groaning sound and nodded, his eyes closed tight.

Smirking, Fluttershy gently tipped the young man's head back and pecked at the spot with eager and unbearably plush lips. Spike twitched, before slackening his body and making himself more readily available to his partner.

"There's my guy," she said coaxingly, continuing to pepper his neck with kisses and massages. She worked her way across his flesh, pressing with tempered passion and leaving his unspoiled body searing, until finally she neared the edge of his mouth.

Spike's hands rested on his partner's hips, holding her back in weakened protest. "Mm, Fluttershy, I–I'm not sure..."

She was just on the corner of his lips. "Not sure about what?" she asked lowly, kissing again and pressing lightly into his chest with hers.

"The kids–"

"The kids are asleep," Fluttershy asserted. She brushed his chin with her hand and came to sit on him fully.

"But–" he started to say, but the older woman was having none of it. She kissed him straight on the lips now, kneading against him and patiently counting out the moments until she could ease her tongue into his mouth. The few protests Spike had left generally died out, smothered by his partner's lips until his only comments were groans of satisfaction.

"Okay–mm–okay," he said, trying to sit up, before being pushed insistently back down into the couch. Resigning himself to his fate, Spike allowed his hands to drift past Fluttershy's waist, gliding over the satin of her nightdress and pinching down on the flesh of her inner thigh–

Fluttershy flinched.

Spike looked up at her, face reddened and chest beating heavily. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing that she had stopped moving entirely.

The older woman didn't respond. Instead, she leaped from her seat, brushing her dress down and staring straight ahead as she marched into the kitchen. With rigid movements, she jerked the kettle from the stove top, poured the steaming water into a waiting mug and teabag, and downed the whole mixture without waiting for it to cool.

Spike's eyes widened as he shifted on the couch. "Are you okay?"

She nodded her head up and down, leaning into the counter and nearly breaking her nails on it with her grip.

"Stellar," Fluttershy answered, her voice high-pitched and strained.

The next few days were both the best and worst times of Spike's young life.

On the downside, Fluttershy would spend most of the day at Twilight's castle, leaving Spike to take care of the children while his partner worked. He had grown to greatly care for the Cake twins, love them even, but his undue share of the labor involving the two irritated him, especially when considering he'd only volunteered to help share his friend's burden.

On top of that, even when she was home Fluttershy's free time was scarce: between taking care of her animals and spending what quality time she could with the children, the contact the two adults had together was little more than fleeting.

But when Fluttershy wanted to make a move...

Holy shit, could the woman move.

It hadn't taken Spike long to piece together the fact that, if she wanted to, Fluttershy could be a real tease. Maybe it was just a series of honest mistakes; maybe it was payback for their "experimentation" getting her a little too heated on their first night together.

The former had initially seemed the most likely the first few days; a misplaced hand at the breakfast table accidentally knocking a container of jam onto Spike's jeans, followed by Fluttershy apologizing frantically and toweling away the mark that had fallen so conspicuously close to his inner thigh; reaching over him as he sat on the couch with the kids, she absentmindedly straddling his waist and affording him a decent view of her chest while she adjusted the blinds; asking him to smell her perfume, then coaxing him to brush the hair from her shoulders so that his hands grazed her neck.

Other times, she wasn't so subdued with her actions. Much like Pumpkin, Fluttershy had taken to sitting in Spike's lap. She was fond of leaning close to his chest and draping her long, bare legs directly in his line of sight. Sometimes he would pretend not to notice, refusing to play her game and would instead read one of the magazines Fluttershy was wont to leave hanging around her house; sometimes, when his nerves felt especially frayed, he would lose their little battle of wills and knead her beautifully toned thighs, while she would smirk coquettishly to herself, victorious, before kissing his jaw tenderly.

Technically, Fluttershy hadn't done anything that could be seen as sexually motivated, but to Spike, every action she took felt as if it were a small rebellion. She was all smiles to his face, as well as to the children, but there was an aura of...something, he couldn't really say what, something giving purpose to the woman's subtle but deliberate actions.

Whatever she was doing, it was working.

Spike found himself distracted and unmotivated throughout the day; Fluttershy had left with the animals to start back cleaning Twilight's castle, and even now, these hours later, the young man was looking to the clock, waiting for her to get home and wondering just what the hell he would do when she did. He felt irritable, and confused, and really fucking horny the entire day, and all the more pissed off because she'd only done it to make him want her when she wasn't there.

It was the most female kind of payback she could inflict on him, and Spike didn't know whether he wanted to suck it up and not give her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm, or say Fuck It and haul her off to the bedroom as soon as she walked in the front door.

He wondered if this was part of the married life, if the subtext and the power play came with the territory. One thing was sure, though: he'd never been more turned on, for so long, in the entire span of his life.

"Spike?"

The young man looked down, blinking. Pumpkin had been waving her hand in front of his face, looking worried. "Sorry honey, what is it?"

Pumpkin's cheeks colored with the nickname, but she continued nonetheless. "You've been staring off into space for a couple minutes now. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he reassured her, smiling and rubbing the small girl's shoulder. "Just...waiting for Fluttershy to come home."

"Fluttershy's not coming back until late," Pound pointed out, sitting upside down on the couch as he read one of Spike's comic books. "Said she was going out with Rarity after she got done cleaning for the day."

Spike's eyes widened in surprise. "She said that?"

Pumpkin nodded, looking up at him worriedly. "She said that this morning at breakfast. You nodded so we thought you knew."

"S'probably cause he was 'lost in her eyes', like a mook," Pound noted.

Soon after that, Spike duct taped Pound to the wall for "being an insubordinate little prick."

"You know, you're acting a lot like a needy housewife," Pumpkin observed as her caretaker shuffled around the kitchen, cleaning whatever lay in sight, doing whatever he could to keep himself busy and less focused on his partner.

Spike groused at the little girl as he leaned over the kitchen counter. "Do you want to go up on the time-out wall too?"

She shook her head no, visibly zipping her mouth shut with two fingers.

After finding he had run out of things to do, Spike resorted to moping for the rest of the afternoon. Every so often he'd take to looking out the window and sighing, wondering just how long it would take for his friend to come home.

Fluttershy sighed as she leaned back against the moist wood railing.

She wasn't sure why, but it seemed like it had been ages since she'd last been to the spa with Rarity. She could feel the accumulated stress from the past few days melt from her aching muscles and drip to the floor, intermingled with the countless beads of sweat trailing down her skin. Beside her, Rarity leaned back, arms spread out to either side as she too took in the cleansing steam of the dark, woody sauna.

The seamstress's hair lay out of a towel in a rare show of disarray, one that few others besides Fluttershy ever saw. The younger girl felt privileged at being able to see Rarity with her hair down, both figuratively and literally: no one else, not even the other girls ever got to see Rarity in such a deliberately unkempt manner. The stringy, dark hair suited her, Fluttershy felt, but then again Rarity could wear a rotting potato sack and still be the most gorgeous woman in the room.

Rarity must have felt her gaze, as she turned her head to look at Fluttershy, and wow, her dazzling blue eyes had an even stronger stare than Pinkie's. "Is something wrong, dear?" she asked, and Fluttershy shook her head 'No'.

"You just look really beautiful today," she answered, shrugging and smiling.

The dressmaker's eyes widened imperceptibly, before crinkling with an appreciative smile. Her lips pursed in mirth. "Why couldn't you have been born a man, Fluttershy?" she asked petulantly as she leaned to face her friend. "We would've been perfect for each other."

Fluttershy doubted that, but she found the thought somewhat entertaining. "It's for the best," she murmured, laying both her hands on the luxuriant white robe trimmed with purple that was customary of the spa. She yawned. "You would've just wanted me for my body, anyway."

Rarity chuckled. "I guess you know me too well." She reached her hand across and squeezed Fluttershy's. "I know you've been busy lately," she said, flipping her head to clear her face of a few wet hair strands, "but I truly am glad that you made the time to come here with me today." She scrunched her nose as she looked at the warm amber-red ceiling light overhead. "You're so easy to be around, you know, and the others just don't appreciate these things the same way you and I do."

Fluttershy returned the squeeze. "I feel the same way," she said, and she meant it.

Over the years, she'd come to really look forward to her time with Rarity. She loved her friends, she really did, but none of them cared about their appearances the way she and Rarity did. Of course, Fluttershy would never claim to hold herself to the same standard as her violet-haired friend, but she still loved to look her best. She liked to look beautiful, liked others to see her being beautiful and think she was beautiful too. After all, she worked hard to look good, and it paid off every day. Fluttershy loved it when others noticed her hard work, and being a woman was certainly that if nothing else.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash didn't understand the appeal of extensive self-maintenance, or didn't care. Pinkie and Twilight saw the merits but apparently didn't think it was worth the time or energy. Rarity did.

Their trips to the spa had caused the two women to rub off on each other; Rarity found herself becoming more patient and sympathetic, especially in Fluttershy's presence, while Fluttershy herself became more readily eager to speak of her own life, and had come to confide her own secrets in the older woman the same way Rarity had come to confide in her. Now there were few things that the two women didn't know about the other, and the candidness was both exhilarating and refreshing to Fluttershy.

No one but Rarity knew about the Journal, or the ideas for that zoology book that she'd yet to run past Twilight, or just how much money Fluttershy had saved up from that modeling stint a few years back. In the same vein, Fluttershy was privy to some of Rarity's deepest thoughts, such as her private fears for her friends growing old, alone and unmarried, or of what would happen when Sweetie Belle eventually grew up, or her apprehension bordering on terror when the bottle nearly landed on her those nights ago.

"I don't know what I would've done," Rarity had confessed, to Fluttershy's surprise. "All these years of me thinking I'd be ready for him when the time came, but then it came, and my mind...blanked. Poof," she said, imitating an explosion with her fingers before sinking back on the bench. "So many years of playing myself up as a 'mistress of romance', and I don't even trust myself with the power I hold over one teenage boy."

"It's only natural," Fluttershy assured her, rubbing her friend's thigh. "He's an important person to all of us, and you were just being considerate of that. If you weren't, then it would've been a problem."

Rarity had smiled in appreciation of her coaxing, but it was clear that it hadn't done much to restore her self-confidence.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do with him, Fluttershy," she said, and was displeased with how much fear she'd allowed to seep into her voice. "He's going to want an answer out of me one day, and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do-"

"What do you mean, 'he's going to want an answer'?" Fluttershy asked before she could stop herself.

Rarity blinked at the interruption, looking at her pink-haired friend in confusion. "On whether or not we can be together," she said slowly, as if this were an obvious fact, brushing hair out of her face.

Fluttershy resisted the urge to huff, feeling a twinge of annoyance spring up in regards to her friend. "You seem awfully confident that he won't turn out to be interested in someone else." She crossed her bare, slicked legs, feeling a heat rise up in her chest that had nothing to do with the steam.

The seamstress's mouth worked silently for a moment, before curling into a coy smirk. "I see what this is about." She leaned forward, placing her head in her hands as she looked placatingly at her friend. "Fluttershy, dear, you must be confused."

Fluttershy's back went straight and the girl felt a cold wave of How dare you shiver through her body.

"You see," she said, chuckling, "you and Spike and the dear little twins, you've been playing house for the past few days or so. Now don't get me wrong," she said, holding up her hands in a mock-defensive manner, "that is extremely cute, if nothing else." She smiled thinly. "But the only reason he isn't already mine is because I haven't moved for him yet."

"I thought he wasn't yours because Twilight said he wasn't," Fluttershy countered.

"Oh, don't play this game with me," Rarity snapped, annoyed. "You don't know how."

"You'd be surprised," the caretaker said quietly.

Rarity scoffed, and Fluttershy flinched at the sound of utter disbelief. "Surprise me, then. Go ahead."

The younger woman's chest wracked with anger. She wouldn't have said this to any of the other girls, she would have at least had some faith in their ability to keep a young man like Spike interested. She hated it when Rarity did this, when she felt the need to flaunt her power, when she felt the need to speak down to Fluttershy like she was some virginal mess, to be ugly to her–

She fished her phone out of the robe's pockets and opened it to the dial pad. Sniffing, she wiped the sweat from her ear as she entered Spike's number. She held the phone up to her head as it dialed, maintaining eye contact with Rarity all the while.

He answered partway through the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hi," Fluttershy said warmly, crossing one leg over the other. "How have you been?"

"Fine, I guess," she heard him say, though it was obvious he sounded anything but. "Me and the kids just had a do-nothing day. How are you?"

"I'm just wonderful," she near-purred, and she caught Rarity roll her eyes, though her arms seemed to move a bit jerkily as she laid them over her lap. "What are you doing right now?"

"Right now?" There was a pause. "Uh, Pumpkin and I just finished watching one of her shows." He chuckled. "Pound didn't want to, but I made sure he hung around for it."

"So you're not busy?" Fluttershy asked, seeking confirmation.

"Not at the moment," he said. "Why, what do you need?"

Fluttershy paused for effect, before letting her voice lower, conspicuous with mischief. "What are you wearing?" she asked.

Rarity flinched.

There was silence for a moment, and Fluttershy swore that if Spike ended up making her look bad, or weak, he'd pay for it when she got home–

"What's it to you?" he asked, his voice flirty and eager. Fluttershy beamed; if he was upset with her for teasing him the past couple days, he wasn't letting it show.

"It's in your best interests to cooperate," Fluttershy said coyly, looking down and biting the inside of her cheek.

He snorted. "Right, sure. I've got on a purple t-shirt and blue jeans. Happy?"

"What else?"

There was a sound of clothing shuffling before his next answer. "Black boxers, you perv."

Fluttershy chuckled, glad that the volume on the phone was loud enough so that Rarity could hear. The other woman worked her jaw, looking suddenly wary and agitated, though she said nothing.

"Show me," Fluttershy said, shocking the both of them.

"What?"

"You heard me."

She swore she could visualize him putting one hand on his hip and staring incredulously at the phone. "And just why should I do that?"

Now it was Fluttershy's turn to roll her eyes, though she knew the boy wouldn't be able to see it. "Because, you goober, I'll return the favor."

Silence again. "Now, or when you get home?" he asked, cautious but intrigued.

"Both," she answered gladly, before terminating the call.

In the intervening silence, Fluttershy smiled beatifically at the woman next to her, proud of her imminent victory. "Spike's actually quite shy, as a lover. He's more submissive than you might think," she commented, and part of her felt satisfied at seeing part of Rarity's resolve break, the woman's face falling and turning grey. The rest of her felt sad, though. Because of her, the source of a large part of her friend's confidence and pride for the past few years had just vanished.

Poof.

Rarity started to open her mouth, but her voice broke, and she simply stared at the ground, clutching her elbows.

Fluttershy's phone buzzed, startling Rarity out of her dazed state. Attempting to ignore the crestfallen look on her friend's face, Fluttershy held the phone up to her face, grinning uncharacteristically.

She whistled.

Spike had certainly come through, and Fluttershy was once again reminded of the young man's growth over the past few years. She didn't know how he knew to pose for the picture, showing her just what she wanted, but there it was: his boyish face, his beautiful green troublemaker eyes, his not-too-toned, not-too-soft stomach and well-defined Apollo's belt, a hint of the dark black boxers hiding his delightfully firm–

She blinked. Now that she looked at it, it looked almost exactly like her sketch of Spike from a couple of days ago. She frowned–it had to be a coincidence, there was no reason to believe that anyone other than herself and Rarity knew of the Journal's existence.

Still, Fluttershy had to admit, it was a good look for him. She decided that he had earned that returned favor, and then some.

Smiling, she turned to Rarity, whose eyes bulged as she took in the young man in the photo. "What do you think?" she asked, holding up the phone. "Couldn't you just gobble him up?"

Rarity swallowed as she eyed the picture, as if she were thinking of doing just that.

Laughing lowly, Fluttershy got up from her seat to sit next to her friend. Rarity followed her motions cautiously, as if she weren't sure of what the younger woman would do next.

"Get ready to smile," Fluttershy said, leaning in and wrapping an arm around Rarity's waist.

"What are you doing?" Rarity asked, uncrossing her legs. Fluttershy noticed that the woman's pronounced accent seemed to have dropped.

The caretaker shrugged off the top half of her robe, to Rarity's shock. "Returning the favor," Fluttershy answered, boldly squeezing her arms together so that her bare breasts became more pronounced. To her credit, Rarity only ogled at the sight for a couple of seconds. Fluttershy didn't have much in the way of endowment–few women from Cloudsdale did–but her perky, well-formed breasts, glowing with sweat, framed her deceptively firm torso beautifully.

Rarity stammered for a moment, strands of wet hair falling into her flustered face. "You–you're not going to show him, are you?" she asked, dubious of Fluttershy's uncharacteristic boldness.

"Of course not," the pink-haired woman said, smirking. "We're going to show him."

The dressmaker stared at her friend, uncomprehending, before feeling a hand pull at the back of her robes. "Wha–HEY! Where do you think you're grabbing?"

Fluttershy yanked Rarity's robe down to the woman's waist, leaving her top bare. "Oh, wow," she proclaimed with wide, searching eyes, "Rarity, your chest is gorgeous."

The dressmaker felt her ego inflate at the praise, in spite of Fluttershy's rash actions. "I know that without you telling–" She made a gurgling sound as she felt hands on her chest, feeling Fluttershy's nails dig gently but insistently into her bare breasts. She turned to the side to shield herself from prying hands, but Fluttershy was having none of it.

Click!

The artificial shutter sound on Fluttershy's phone went off, and Rarity froze. "You didn't," she hissed.

"I did," Fluttershy said, shrugging. With one hand she held off her vengeful friend—Rarity didn't look nearly so beautiful with a hand smushing her face—and sent the image to her waiting partner.

"Fluttershy, I swear, I am going to murder you."

The aforementioned traitor rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Can we postpone that until after I get laid?"

Rarity choked.

"Oh look," Fluttershy said, smiling, "he responded."

Despite her anger and embarrassment, Rarity was immensely curious of Spike's reaction. He'd waited nearly a decade, after all, how did the body of his once-crush measure up to his expectations? "What did he say?"

Fluttershy's eyebrows raised as she looked down at the message. "He says that he's going to have to put his penis in a sling."

Rarity snorted, then immediately covered her mouth. "Really?" When Fluttershy nodded in the affirmative, she asked, "Did he say anything about me?"

The caretaker shook her head. "No, not–oh, hold on, he sent something else." She scrutinized the text momentarily, before laughing. "He's worried that you saw the picture."

Rarity leaned forward over Fluttershy's lap, resting on hands and knees on the moist wooden bench. "I approve," she breathed, her earlier ire towards Fluttershy forgotten.

Fluttershy nodded, sending off Rarity's reply. She sat back on the bench, feeling the hot wood press into her exposed shoulder blades.

It was funny; all it had taken was a phone call to Spike, the object of their shared affections, and suddenly the power dynamic between the two women had completely shifted. Now Fluttershy was the bold and confident one, and Rarity the meek and mild one. And to top it all off, she was going to go home to two lovely children and a gorgeous young man who would rail her right into a hospital?

Fluttershy loved her life sometimes.

"He's glad," Rarity's voice said, snapping Fluttershy out of her trance.

"That's nice," Fluttershy smiled. She turned to her friend. "Wanna tease him some more?"

Rarity blinked, before smiling uncertainly. "If you want to, why not?"

Fluttershy beamed, grasping her spa buddy by the shoulder in appreciation. "That's the spirit. Now, get on top of me."

As Fluttershy crossed the bridge leading to her home, she sighed in contentment. The ordeal with Rarity had worked itself out rather nicely: while the fashionista had been extremely reluctant to admit defeat, she was gracious enough to apologize to Fluttershy and gave her word not to interfere. If anything, she was grateful to Fluttershy for allowing her a chance to enjoy Spike's affections by proxy, for being able to indulge their mutual attraction from a safe distance.

That made Fluttershy wonder, however: who she was to Spike that she could negotiate who got close to him?

It would seem awfully presumptuous of her to declare him as hers, as off limits, simply because of a few days worth of kissing and teasing. Were they dating? Or just overly-deprived amateurs, glad to have someone to vent their passions to?

Was she wrong to consider giving him a threesome for his next birthday?

She wasn't sure of the answer, but even if she was, it wouldn't change her goals. He'd be leaving in a few days, and Fluttershy was determined to give him a reason to keep coming back.

As she neared the house, she heard loud voices coming from inside. Frowning, she wondered what could be the cause of so much noise.

"...for the last time, we're not doing Patty Cake!"

"Why not?" came a girlish voice.

"Because it's not hardcore enough!"

There was a sound of exasperation. "It's not supposed to be hardcore! It's PATTY CAKE!"

Fluttershy rolled her eyes as she walked up to the door.

"We're doing 'Rockin' Robin', and that's final!"

"Or what?"

"Or no more bedtime kisses!"

A gasp. "You wouldn't."

"I'll give them all to Fluttershy and make you watch, I swear to God."

Hearing her name, the pink-haired caretaker opened the door and stormed in. "Did somebody say 'bedtime kisses'?"

Both Spike and Pumpkin looked up at the sudden entry. Pumpkin's face fell. She looked to Spike. "Okay, okay, we can play–"

"Too late!" Fluttershy squealed, rushing forward and grabbing Spike by the hand. He chuckled at her boldness and allowed himself to be led up the stairs.

"No!" Pumpkin cried, "my kisses!"

Spike turned, smiling, and scooped Pumpkin up in one arm. "Get dinner ready, and I'll give you all the kisses you want. Deal?"

Pumpkin froze in place, suspicious. She squinted up at him.

Sighing, Spike leaned in and smooched the young girl on the nose.

"Deal!" she said, slipping out of her caretaker's grasp and running to the kitchen.

"Oh yeah, and get your brother down, or something," Spike added, as he continued up the stairs with Fluttershy.

"Oh, now you care," Pound grumbled, still attached to the wall.

Fluttershy blinked, pausing on the stairs. "Why is Pound duct taped to the wall?"

"I can't feel my legs," he called out.

"No reason," Spike said hurriedly, pushing his partner up into the bedroom and watching her muscles shift through her black pants.

They slipped past the creaking door and locked it, breathing somewhat excitedly.

The two stopped in the middle of the room, feeling no rush to release the other from their grasps.

"You look nice today," Spike said in a near-whisper, leaning back on the edge of the mattress and holding his partner by the wrists.

"Do I, now?" Fluttershy asked softly, smiling as she rested between his legs and kicked off her flats. Her light brown sweater hung over her deceptively small body, hiding most of her torso and contrasting her slim, shapely legs by comparison.

"You used to model, genius," Spike pointed out, looping his hands around Fluttershy's waist, "you tell me."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow, before retreating from her partner's grasp. She studied him momentarily, before allowing her mouth to curve into a small smirk. "Would you like me to model for you?"

Spike groaned. "After today, I don't think my dick can take much more stress."

"Oh, it'll take a lot more before I'm through with you," Fluttershy said, and Spike slowly clamped his mouth shut.

The older woman turned so that her back was facing the bed. Pushing herself onto her bare toes, Fluttershy made a show of stretching, flexing her legs and causing her sweater to ride up past her bellybutton. Raising her arms over her head and clutching an elbow, she looked over her shoulder and fixed the man on her bed with a half-lidded stare.

Spike swallowed heavily. His mouth was slightly ajar as he got up from his seat with outstretched arms.

"Not yet," Fluttershy insisted. She ran her hands over the exposed skin of her stomach as she shifted to another ballerina-like pose. "You can't touch me until I'm finished."

The teenager groaned, but acquiesced to her demands. He returned to his spot on the mattress. "You've got some nerve saying that," he commented, "after pulling that stunt with Rarity earlier."

"We were just expressing ourselves," she countered, laughing softly. Facing away from him, she fell to the ground, holding her torso up with her arms and bringing attention to her legging-adorned rear, which clung to her like a second-skin. "She thinks you've got a nice butt."

"I think I have a nice butt too."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes, turning onto her side, flipping her hair over her shoulder and bringing her leg to line up with her bellybutton. "You should've seen how jealous she was."

Spike sat up in his seat despite himself. "She was jealous?" At Fluttershy's nod, he shifted nervously. "What does she know about us?"

The caretaker rolled to face him, pressing her chest to the ground and raising her hips to the air. Spike swore silently—the dimples on her ass were visible through the sheer fabric.

Fluttershy smiled thinly. "She knows what we've been doing." A pause. "She knows what we're going to do."

"You told her?" Spike asked, raising his eyebrows.

"In detail," she shrugged. "I had to, she didn't think I was serious about you at first."

The green-haired teenager cut his eyes at her, admiring her form even as he pondered her meaning. "'Serious about me?'"

She held his gaze, wondering what she would need to say next. "Spike, I won't pretend that I know what we are right now," she admitted, "but I do know that I want to keep going." She moved on her hands and knees to the bottom of the bed, perching her head on Spike's knee and hugging his leg to her chest. "It's only been a couple of days, and it feels like I've learned more about you now than I have in the past few years."

Spike's face softened, but his posture still suggested that he held some reservations. "Like how good of a kisser I am?"

"Well, there's that," Fluttershy admitted, and she frowned on the inside, realizing that of course it would be more difficult for Spike to connect to her emotionally as opposed to physically. "But there are other things, too."

"Such as?"

Fluttershy bit the inside of her cheek. Should she tell him? Doing so would run the risk of insulting his pride and closing him off to her, which was the last thing she wanted...

On the other hand, she'd show him just how well she knew him, just how similar they really were. She could let him know that she could get inside of his head better than anyone else, because she hoped for and feared the same things he did.

Kindred spirits. One mind in two bodies.

Making up her mind, she sat next to him on the bed. "I've learned that you're scared," she said, bumping her head against his and taking his hand in hers. "Scared of the people you love, the ones you've devoted yourself to, and what they can do to you. You're scared that you already love them more than they could ever possibly love you back, and that they'll hold that power over you forever, even if they don't know they're hurting you with it."

Spike said nothing, and Fluttershy wasn't sure if she'd offended him or not, but she didn't feel like checking his face to find out just yet. She lowered her gaze to his chest, unwilling to look him in the eyes.

Fluttershy sighed. "You've let your heart grow so big that it gets heavy at times, and you don't know who you're allowed to pour it out on because no one's ever told you. And then, when you get the chance, you...you hesitate, because you're afraid they won't take it seriously, and they'll make fun of you, or leave you because they'd think that you're–"

"Weak," Spike breathed.

Fluttershy tightened her grip on her partner's hand, and was comforted when he returned it.

He shook slightly on the bed, his voice tremulous. "How...how could you know that...?"

"Spike," she said, looking him in the face now—he needed to know she was telling the absolute truth—"I've learned so much about you in the past few days, and it's been more of a pleasure than you'll ever know." She rubbed his jaw with a tender hand. "You're funny, and noble, and so full of good that you just don't see in most people. And I feel ashamed of myself for not seeing it sooner, but at the same time I'm glad," she confessed, laughing happily, "because I got to you before anyone else could."

She looked him in the eye, taking note of his reddened eyes and scarlet-hued skin. "I swear to you," she said quietly but firmly, "that I'll always stand by you, however you need me. I can take better care of you than anyone else. I won't leave you, and I won't make fun of you, because I'm just like you." Her hands pressed to his chest, before winding around his neck. She lifted her lips to his ear, before pursing them for a whisper: "And I believe in people like us."

Spike sighed shakily, leaning on Fluttershy and allowing himself to be held by her. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, listening to the other's heartbeats and hearing the tiny footsteps of the children downstairs.

His face fell to the crook between Fluttershy's chin and shoulders, and he grasped at the woman's waist. "Thank you," Spike said quietly, moving his hand to embrace hers and feeling her fingers intertwine around his.

The older woman felt shivers race across her skin at the contact, but managed to keep herself composed. She started caressing his neck and running long fingers through his moist, matted hair. "We could be together, even when the kids leave. We could try for the real thing."

Spike raised his eyebrows, looking up at Fluttershy in mild surprise. "You mean, like dating? Boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Fluttershy shrugged. "I was thinking more like 'partners'. Or...lovers," she added tentatively, watching his expression.

The teenager's face lit up, and Fluttershy felt a laugh spring up in her throat, as if the implications of being intimate with her wasn't something he'd been dwelling over the past couple days. "I didn't think you'd want me for something like that."

"Like what?"

"Falling in love."

Blinking, Fluttershy chuckled before embracing her partner in a tight hug. "I already love you, Spike," she said, feeling his heart beat against hers. "I've always loved you, from the moment I met you." She pulled back, holding her arms wrapped around his waist. "And if we do this, if we go down this road, it'll change, that's all." She kissed him on the corner of the mouth. "I can only love you more than I do now, but that's only if you'll let me."

She pressed her lips to his mouth, and, drawing back, found that he followed her as she pulled away.

"You don't have to decide now," she said, kissing him on the mouth again, "but it's–mm–it's something to think about."

Spike said nothing, but continued to press against her. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and Fluttershy jumped in place. Before she could appreciate the gesture, however, he pulled away hastily. "Thank you," he repeated, breathing heavily.

Fluttershy smiled, tilting her head downward and obscuring her face with a curtain of pink hair. "You don't have to–"

"Yes I do," Spike interrupted, surprising her by gently pushing into her with his chest and coaxing her onto her back. His hand kneaded her hips, moving up the side of her torso and bringing her loose-fitting sweater riding on his fingers. "Before this week, I..." he shook his head. "I never really felt any of the things I felt here. I never felt funny, or clever, or, or attractive, or like people could depend on me to be in charge, or anything. And it's like I didn't even have to try!" he exclaimed, looking down at Fluttershy with subdued jubilation and gratitude. "It just came naturally to me, like I could just be myself and other people would somehow like me for it."

He brushed the hair from Fluttershy's face and kissed her, long and deep. She shuddered beneath him, wrapping her arms around his torso and encircling his waist with her legs.

Spike receded and kissed his partner gently on the eyelids, and reached farther up her chest. "So thank you," he repeated, smiling gratefully, "thank you for making me feel...necessary."

And when one hand clasped the breasts hidden under her sweater, and the other snaked through her overly thin leggings and into her damp loins, Fluttershy's second thought was her pride in making a difference.

She wanted to scream when his fingers penetrated her, but Spike must have had taken the arching of her back as a sign, because he quickly silenced her frantic moans with a deep kiss. "No screaming," he admonished gently, "the kids are right downstairs."

Fluttershy had a few choice words about how much she cared about the kids hearing them right now, but she was somewhat distracted.

Instead, when Spike hooked his fingers inside of her and stroked her clit with a moist thumb, she settled for biting her tongue and glaring indignantly at him for the teasing.

The young man raised an eyebrow at her expression, though he didn't seem deterred in the least. "That's some look you've got there," he commented, continuing to thrust his fingers in and out. He pulled the sweater over her head and shoulders, leaving it on the side of the bed. "Getting teased doesn't feel all that great, now does it?"

Fluttershy opened her mouth to retort, but Spike pinched down on her clit and all that she managed was a gurgling sound. She shifted in his grasp, feeling an unbearable heat in her chest despite only being clothed in her slim black bra and leggings.

"I bet you thought you were off the hook," Spike taunted, grinding his fingers out of her and pressing one into her mouth. "But you can't just bait me like that for days and not expect a little payback."

Fluttershy, despite herself, grinned and wriggled in place, releasing his waist from the grip of her legs. "I'd do it again," she asserted, jostling her head ever so slightly to add her messy hair to the effect.

"Oh, I bet you would," the teenager growled.

"I'm awfully sorry," Fluttershy insisted, batting her eyelashes unconvincingly. Her hands traced his stomach, caressing the muscles of his torso and shyly shuffling the obtrusive purple t-shirt out of the way. "I was just having a little fun. I hope you won't be too hard on me."

Spike sighed, and though his lap was out of Fluttershy's sight, she could hear a belt buckle coming unfastened, followed by a zipper coming undone. Excited, Fluttershy pushed her partner's loosened jeans from his waist with her feet, laughing gently when she heard his startled protest. Her eyes settled on his black boxer shorts, and as her hands immediately clasped on the mounds of firmly toned flesh, she knew that all of her past trials and tribulations were worth suffering, if only to gain a handful of that sweet, sweet ass.

"Having fun down there, sport?" Spike asked, and Fluttershy looked up to see him smirking at her.

"Shh," she whispered, palming her partner's behind and sighing. "We're having a moment."

Spike rolled his eyes, though his face marked him as flattered at her interest.

He closed the distance between their bodies. He heard Fluttershy gasp beneath him as his loins aligned with hers, and she felt his hardened length through thin layers of fabric. He could feel the heat of her torso, the sweat pooling in her modest cleavage as she arched into him.

"What day do the kids go back?" he asked lowly.

"Saturday," Fluttershy breathed, hurriedly pulling her leggings down past her knees before doing the same for her partner.

"Saturday," Spike repeated, sounding the word in his mouth. Pushing under the black bra, he held his lover's breast in his hand, tweaking the small pink bud in his fingers. "Clear your schedule for that day."

"The whole day?" she asked, sweating with nervous excitement and writhing under his handiwork.

"The whole day," he reaffirmed, grinning. He kissed her firmly, stroking the back of her teeth with his tongue and bruising her lips bright red. "Are you ready?"

She responded by kissing his throat, then pushing up with her hips once she was sure they were lined up correctly–

"Ow!" Fluttershy yelped, scrambling backwards and accidentally colliding with the headboard. "Ouch," she groaned to herself, rubbing her bruised head.

"What's wrong?" Spike asked, leaning over her, worried.

Fluttershy sucked her teeth. "Wrong hole."

Spike stared blankly at her, before bursting into laughter. "You mean you forgot where it was?"

"My hand slipped," she said petulantly. "It's not funny,"

"It's kind of funny," Spike insisted, chuckling. His gaze slowly changed as he looked at her, going from teasing and mischievous to anxious and animated. "Hey," he said hesitantly, "before we get into this," Fluttershy glared at his unintentional pun, "I...I've never done anything like this before."

She rubbed his cheek consolingly. "Neither have I," she admitted. "I'm right here with you, so there's no need to be scared."

The young man laughed nervously, twitching as the tip of his member brushed against her folds. "Why would you think I'm scared?"

Fluttershy shrugged jerkily, trying for a grin and failing. "Because I am."

Before he could respond, she pulled him deep into another kiss. She rubbed at the center of his back, massaging his muscles and getting them to lose their tension. When he was sufficiently distracted, Fluttershy reclaimed her grip on his rear and successfully maneuvered him into her.

Her knees shook slightly as they hovered inches above her partner's waist. As he entered her, and Fluttershy felt the intrusion spread her apart so readily, she thought to herself that she might just start to begin to understand the craze of sex, of why so many people sought it and why it sold so well.

So that's what this is like, she thought, tightening her grip on Spike's rear and widening the gap between her thighs a bit more. It hadn't hurt nearly as much as she'd heard it would—only a flash of pain, and then she'd forgotten it had happened. Like getting a tooth yanked out.

In her innermost thoughts, those few introspections which even Rarity was not privy to, Fluttershy had always been terrified that she would be horrible at sex. She'd wondered, if and when the time came she entrusted herself to another person, she'd be any better than a dead fish, too humble and reserved in bed to enjoy herself, much less give any enjoyment to her would-be partner. It was something she'd feared, intensely, as it seemed not only possible, but quite likely that she'd end up just a pretty face with no passion behind it.

But this...

"Are you okay?" Spike asked, holding himself up with his arms and frowning at her stillness.

"Do that again," Fluttershy whispered, eyes wide.

Her partner was confused at her shift in demeanor, but he obliged her request nonetheless. Raising his hips from his lover's, Spike shivered at the warmth he left behind, before shoving back into what felt more than anything like moist, burning silk.

Fluttershy shuddered gleefully, inching backwards as she felt a delightful little tickle run nearly to her stomach as her partner penetrated her for a second time. She hugged her waist to his, pulling back when he did and gracefully gliding back up to meet him when he stroked into her.

"Oh," Spike groaned, and his arms went weak for a moment, failing at the joints. Fluttershy was reminded that for all his wittiness and sexual appeal, he was still an inexperienced teenager, and she resolved to be angry with herself later for not cherishing the moment in which the two of them took the other's virginity.

But all that aside...

Fluttershy wanted to scream in happiness. As Spike picked up the pace and Fluttershy had to bite into his neck to keep from groaning, she realized that she wasn't bad at making love. If anything, with some practice and a little elbow grease, she could be pretty damned good at it. She felt a sort of internal confidence, the same she felt when comforting others, or drawing, or getting up in the morning and making sure she looked her best: this was something she could do exceedingly well, if only she put her mind to it. If she and Spike—young, only recently of age but wise before his time—really took it seriously, really managed the thing, then they could be superb lovers someday soon.

She could see herself teaching Spike to care for animals, and him being good at it; Spike holding Pumpkin in a hug and shooting Fluttershy a look of such blessed kinship and longing that was reserved only for her; she and Spike actually going to Los Pegasus on a honeymoon, actually dancing on tables and going back to hotel rooms and seeing each other look more beautiful than usual; she and Spike, simply being in love and simply being good to each other.

They could stay up late and talk to each other until the sun rose, or go get lost in a field somewhere and feed each other with no one watching, or stay inside on a rainy day and listen to the other's heartbeats, because they were lovers and lovers were allowed to do those sorts of things...

All in good time, she thought to herself, kissing her partner in the sensitive spot just under his chin. Spike groaned, his pace slackening as he continued to pump into her.

"I don't think I'm going to last much longer," he grunted. Despite his meager forays into the subject of sex—what few books Twilight allowed on the subject—no amount of clenching his stomach or distracting himself would keep him going for long. His rosy-faced partner simply looked up at him, letting out small 'oh's' and 'mm's' each time he sank into her, and Spike could only wonder where it all that dick went.

"It's okay," Fluttershy reassured him, smiling. Her face was glazed with sweat and sported a dusting of a blush. "Just do your best. We've got all night, after all." Her smile widened when she saw his face lift, and she immediately resolved to do her best to drive him to a great orgasm.

Fluttershy wrapped a hand around her partner's neck and brought him close to her lips. "God, it's so big," she groaned directly into his ear, and she felt his muscles tighten as he held her. Even if she had to ham it up a little—just a little, he was good enough that she didn't have to overly embellish her enjoyment—she knew that his performance was directly tied to her reactions. She knew people well enough to guess at how important a man's confidence was when it came to lovemaking.

"Oh please, please," she moaned, and she nearly yelped when he switched positions on her. Now she rode him while he lay on his back, thrusting up into her and she rolling her hips back down to meet him. A delightful little slap sounded each time he bottomed out in her, causing Fluttershy's fingers to dig into her lover's chest. Her long pink hair formed a curtain around their faces, obscuring everything else from view and giving a magenta-colored hue to each other's appearance. Fluttershy's face was full of wonder as she stared down at her young partner, rubbing his cheek gently even as his fingers had seized her ass and spread her even wider with a tight handhold on each firm cheek.

"This could be our lives from now on," Spike said, his voice trance-like, face both blissful and dreamy. He lifted Fluttershy's hips up and brought them coasting back down onto his cock, buying an unusually loud squeak from her and driving a line of liquid appreciation down her thigh.

Now Fluttershy was sweating more readily—she wasn't used to prolonged physical exertion, and they'd been at it for a while now. "Do you want that?" she asked, and she was surprised because she felt somewhat close and Spike still hadn't finished yet. "Do you want this life—with me?"

Spike looked up at her, and whether it was the exertion or an honest blush that colored his face, Fluttershy couldn't tell. "Honestly? I feel like I could do anything with you, Fluttershy." He looked her in the eyes so she'd know he was telling the absolute truth. "I don't think I've ever felt so...fulfilled. I want the laughing, and the homemade dinners, and the power play, and–and seeing you walk in the door at the end of the day–"

"And the kids?" Fluttershy asked, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

Spike blushed. "Well, I mean, I'd definitely be up for that, and I think we could make great parents someday, but it's a little soon–"

Fluttershy, eyes bulging, held a hand to her mouth and coughed. "I, uh, meant...babysitting. With the, um, twins."

Spike stopped completely. "Of course you did." His hands covered his steaming red face. "God, I can't believe I just said that."

Fluttershy, for her part, was at a loss for words. Was he really okay with thinking that far ahead?

"It's, uh, nice of you to be open to that, though," she said, and tentatively started moving her hips again to try to get back on 'subject'.

He laughed nervously, and resumed pushing back into her. His hands roamed over the globes of her rear, feeling the ripples on her flesh arrive with each lazy thrust. "Sure thing," he complied, then added as an afterthought, "honey."

She looked at him, her face thunderstruck. "What?" she asked slowly, sure she hadn't heard him right.

"You heard me, darling," he said mischievously, sitting up now and bouncing her up and down in his lap. "If we're gonna be together," he grunted, hugging her to his chest and driving into her moist, scorching flesh, "then we need pet names."

Fluttershy laughed, gyrating her hips as she drove herself onto his cock. "I like honey. You can be bubble-butt."

Spike snorted. "I am not letting you call me that."

"Sweet Cheeks?"

"Nope."

"Sugar Bottom?"

"Try again."

"Ass Face?"

Spike gasped, leaning back and staring at Fluttershy. He smacked her soundly on the rear.

"Ooh," she said, sucking her teeth in. "I think I just found something that I like."

Her partner raised an eyebrow. "Oh really, now?" he asked with a grin, raising his hand to spank her again, sure that his plan was a brilliant one.

Several seconds later...

"I didn't mean to spank you that hard," he pleaded to her, face down on the bed in shame. His guiltiness exceeded Fluttershy's actual displeasure, but she wasn't about to let him know that. After all, she could still milk the situation a bit further...

"I'm sure you didn't," she said soothingly, in her best 'I'm-not-angry-at-you-just-disappointed' voice. "But whether or not you meant for it to happen, it still hurts."

"I'm sorry–"

Spike's apology was cut short by Fluttershy pushing him backwards on the bed, then straddling his face with her hips. The skin on her rear was flushed red, nearly bruised, but not quite so.

"Kiss it better," she ordered, and with only a moment of hesitation, Spike complied. And for his first time being in the dog house, he found that it wasn't actually all that bad.

Dinner was awkward.

Pumpkin and Pound looked to their guardians, wondering why one was staring directly at his plate and pretending not to notice anything around him, and why the other was eyeing her partner and chewing her tongue while she did it.

"Um, Fluttershy?" Pound asked, breaking the painful silence, "are you two having a fight?"

"Of course not, sweetie," she answered with a smile. At the sound of her voice Spike twitched, and the small movement was enough to bring Fluttershy's eyes back on the young man like a magnet. "Your father just...took things a bit far when we were upstairs talking."

Pumpkin looked at the young man, who seemed to curl even further into himself. "Is he in trouble?"

"He's screwed," Fluttershy answered shortly, and Spike sank in his seat until it seemed his knees would hit the floor.

"'said I was sorry," he seemed to groan, but if his pink-haired companion heard his whine, she didn't acknowledge it. The twins shared a look with each other, but otherwise said nothing.

After dinner, all it took was a halfhearted kiss on the cheek to convince Pumpkin to draft her brother for cleaning up. She beamed at Spike from the sink, and through the young man's depression he realized how easy it was to sucker a younger person of the opposite sex into doing what you wanted. He could see why Rarity did it every chance she got.

"You two are just wonderful little blessings," Fluttershy cooed, embracing them from behind in a hug and kissing Pound on the cheek. "Now we'll be back down soon. We've got to get our turn in the bathroom before it's time for bed."

The twins nodded, and as Fluttershy turned to follow her partner up the stairs, she winced at the still-warm pain on her rear that had made sitting a chore.

Reaching the room, she closed the door behind her. Spike sat sheepishly on the corner of the bed furthest from her, not meeting her eyes but clearly aware of her presence.

Rolling her eyes, Fluttershy grasped her partner by the arm and lugged him to the bathroom. She leaned over the empty tub to crank the hot water, feeling Spike's eyes on her rear, before coming to a standing position in front of her pretend-husband.

"Strip," she said simply, and with little hesitation he did as told. Spike's shirt hit the floor, and the caretaker let out a sigh that could only be described as ravenous.

"I was under the impression that relationships are supposed to be equal," Spike commented, and as he shuffled out of his pants he could see the gears whirring in Fluttershy's head as she studied his physique. He wondered if she'd be visiting her sketchbook when they were finished.

"Generally, you'd be right," the older woman said, biting her thumb as she looked him up and down. "But you're still in trouble."

Spike stared at her in surprise. "Even after all that?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "What about when you're in trouble?"

Fluttershy made a gravelly, muted sound in her throat but said nothing else.

The young man simply smirked at her, before turning around to get the rest of the bath ready. Being familiar enough with the small room after the last few days, he took a small reddish bottle from a nearby cabinet—pomegranate-scented bath salts—and poured a measure into the steaming tub.

"That smells heavenly," Fluttershy commented. She stepped out of her shoes, only to stop when Spike held up a hand to her.

"Allow me," he said lowly, and Fluttershy obliged him, holding her hands out to her sides for his convenience. Her skin tingled delightfully as he lifted her sweater off of her chest, followed swiftly by her modest black bra. She then sat on the edge of the bathtub, holding her legs out for him. Grasping her by the ankles, Spike kissed her on the sole of one foot—Fluttershy giggled at the act—before shedding the opaque black clothing obscuring her long, slim legs.

Slowly, and never losing eye contact, Spike kissed his way up his lover's body, starting from her ankle and tenderly leaving each spot with a moist impression of his lips. He paused on her stomach, and his face grew clouded, before moving to her ribs, her small but perfect breasts, her delightfully pale neck, her thin pink lips, her unsuspecting eyelids–

Chuckling, Fluttershy wrapped her legs around Spike's waist—a position of which, he noted, she seemed to be growing increasingly fond. Rising to his feet, Spike carried her to the bathtub, taking care to find the matted support in the porcelain container before lowering themselves inside.

Fluttershy's grip on his waist loosened, and as the pleasantly hot water and suds engulfed their soiled bodies, Spike couldn't help but reflect on how amazing his position was: one of his best friends, a beautiful, kind-hearted caretaker slash ex-supermodel, was currently bare-ass naked with him in a bathtub. The tension from the past few days receded; it hadn't disappeared completely, and some part of Spike hoped that it never would. But it had lessened somewhat, as if it was paying off somehow.

As they lay together, simply content to listen to the other's heart beating and thereby confirm their sanctuary, Spike suddenly felt that it was too perfect; things simply couldn't be this sublime without some sort of imminent heartache. Experience and intuition had taught him that much.

A change had to come in the very near future, something wretched to offset all the good, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what. With a glance down at Fluttershy, who lay so content on his chest, eyes closed and breathing easily, he knew instinctively that it wouldn't involve her.

But what?

After putting the children to bed, the two adults retreated to their usual cots in the living room. Comfortable with each other's bodies as they were, they spared no formalities and changed casually in each other's presence, with both man and woman having their fair share of over-the-shoulder glancing.

Fluttershy finished first, and after throwing her shirt at an unsuspecting Spike's face, and after Spike realizing that even though it actually smelled pretty nice it was still kind of a dick move, the two young adults wrestled each other to the ground, laughing. Spike grasped her about the back, seizing hold of Fluttershy's waist, surprising her, before landing with her on the couch.

"I let you win," she lied, gasping for air as she pulled herself to the edge of the sofa, her stomach pressed against the worn cotton cushions.

Spike snorted, falling on her back and rubbing her shoulders. "I bet you're just gonna let me do this, then," he whispered into her ear.

Fluttershy had little time to react, yelping as she felt his hands on her thighs. He yanked up the hem of her nightgown, exposing her pale ass to the evening atmosphere.

"Grab on to something," she heard him say, and shit, he wasn't kidding. He lined himself up with her womanhood—it wasn't hard, she'd been winking unintentionally since he'd grabbed her—and absolutely skewered her.

Fluttershy clutched a nearby throw pillow to her mouth and cursed violently into it, with enough passion to make her partner stumble and blush. As he bottomed out inside of her, her feet kicked at the cushions, the motions only bringing more attention to the invader in her womb.

"Am I still in trouble?" Spike asked innocently, grinding his hips into hers and sending her toes a-clenching. He groaned as his hands roamed over her hips and thumbed the dimples on her ass. "God, you're soaked."

Fluttershy writhed on the cushions, her bravado gone—he didn't know, he couldn't really know since he wasn't receiving, but he was really fucking DEEP inside of her when he said that.

Her fingernails nearly broke whenever she moved, because to move was to be reminded of that wonderful vulnerability, which on one hand felt amazing, but on the other was absolutely terrifying and mind-eating. The thought that she'd bought his ferocity with all of her teasing and mischief made it that much sweeter.

Her voice hoarse, Fluttershy cried, "Please!", and bless him, he understood.

Spike took a handful of her hair, pushing his partner's head back into the cushioning. It was needed, the both of them knew, for when he really got to plowing her, as the slapping of flesh against flesh was loud enough without adding her groans to the mix.

His dick surged in and out of her at a steady pace, pushing her roughly into the fabric and leaving her delicate ass tender and sore, much more so than earlier. Fluids leaked freely from Fluttershy's crotch, easing the passage as Spike stormed into her again and again.

He was thankful for their earlier exploits that evening in the bath, as having come already meant that he could pleasure the two of them for a substantially longer period of time, and with much greater force. Indeed, as Fluttershy shook her hips back at him, returning her lover's thrusts shakily and quaking under his assault, it was obvious that some part of her preferred his more aggressive lovemaking.

Over the slaps of their hips colliding—he had to make sure it wasn't too loud, or the kids might get curious and come down—he could faintly hear Fluttershy's shrieking into the pillows, and he wondered just how loud he could get her when they wouldn't be risking an audience.

"MMPH!" she cried into the fabric after a particularly harsh thrust, only to follow it in a string of moans when he got inspired and really started beating some hell into her. "MMH–MMH–MMH–MMH–MMH!"

Soon after, her voice broke, and Fluttershy curled over, her back curving beautifully as she hunched over on the couch, shaking strongly. Her walls clamped at Spike's member, doing their damndest to flatten his dick as hot, clear cum spilled from her womanhood.

Fluttershy had choked on her own breath, her left leg cramped, and she was pretty sure she might have tilted her back muscles the wrong way, but all of it was paltry compared to the aching, hot satisfaction in her loins: never in her life had she achieved orgasm that way, and never had it been so powerful.

She swallowed, clutching at the edge of the love seat and trying to gain a better position, despite the strength of her arms having run off with with the rest of her bodily control. It had been so long since she'd had any significant sexual excitement that she'd utterly forgotten the drain that came with climbing over that edge.

The sweat on her body—forehead, armpits, back, groin—made her acutely aware of the chill in the late night air, and the muscles in her calves felt like rocks. Fluttershy never knew that sex could be so much work.

She remembered reading something about women having an afterglow post-sex, but she didn't feel particularly elegant or graceful. She made to ask Spike if she looked any different, before she felt him start to push back into her.

"Ooh," she grunted, "I think I may need a breather." Her womanhood felt sensitive, much more so than usual, as did the rest of her body–

Which, evidently, Spike didn't care enough about to stop. "Not stopping now," he said, before shunting roughly back into her.

Fluttershy wheezed at the sudden entry, feeling his cock inside of her with almost painful perception. He had hilted himself inside of her in one stroke, as evidenced by his testicles resting just over the hood of her clit, brushing against her outer lips.

The older woman placed a weak hand against her lover's chest in halfhearted protest, not that it did much to slow him. "We have really," she said between raspy breaths, "got to talk about you going so de-hah–" she shook her head to clear her mind when he slammed hard enough to momentarily lift her off the couch. "About you going so deep." she finished, in a low, croaking voice.

Spike slid a hand inside of her dress, riding her sweating chest up to her breasts. "What are you gonna do about it?" he asked challengingly, groping her as he jolted his hips into her.

Fluttershy only made a low, mewling kind of sound. As the force of her grip increased yet again, though not as fiercely this time, followed by a stream of clear, hot liquid, Spike wondered if he'd made her come again.

The knowledge of his ability gave Spike a powerful sense of satisfaction, and as he watched his partner quailing under his motions, her ass slick and jostling, her face red and teeth gritted under his assault, he knew he was close. Already, he could feel his balls tightening, and then Fluttershy finally let out a disbelieving "Oh my God–"

And then the door to the bedroom upstairs opened.

The two adults froze in a cold sweat, both wondering if they'd already been caught. Shit, Spike thought to himself as he thrust hurriedly into Fluttershy in an attempt to finish quickly, shit shit shit shit SHIT.

"Spike!" Fluttershy hissed to him, her voice seething as a pair of small feet traveled down the stairs, "don't you dare!"

A tuft of orange hair became visible from their place on the couch—of course it would be Pumpkin—and Spike wanted to curse, he was so close, dammit!

"Spike?" she asked hesitantly, rubbing her eyes and walking up to the couch. "I couldn't sleep," she grumbled, "Pound won't stop snoring."

She wore one of his t-shirts, a light green thing with Wise Guy emblazoned on the front, which covered the entirety of her small frame, down past her knees. Spike would've thought the sight beyond cute if the little shit wasn't currently cock-blocking him on a phenomenal level.

Thinking past the panic and arousal in his mind and crotch, respectively, Spike did the only thing he could: he ripped the throw pillow from Fluttershy's hands, and, before the young impressionable girl could see his act of absolute debauchery, pelted her right upside the head with it.

Pumpkin fell to the ground, disoriented but ignorant. Spike winced; throw pillow or not, that thing had to have been doing close to fifty miles an hour when it popped the little girl in the cranium.

Fluttershy looked at the little girl collapsed on the ground, horror struck. She looked at Spike incredulously. "Spike, what the hell–"

But Spike was having none of it. Taking advantage of Pumpkin's brief incapacitation, he clamped his hand over Fluttershy's mouth and thrust rapidly into her unsuspecting womb.

The urgency of the situation affected the both of them, and as Spike saw Fluttershy's eyes roll in the back of her head, he felt himself spilling into her. His cock twitched and throbbed, shooting several hot loads into his partner's drenched womanhood. Spike's legs shook at the sensation, and as he came for the second time that evening and felt the heat make its invisible path through his dick, he quickly pulled himself off of his weary partner.

There we go, he thought hastily to himself, pulling up his sweatpants and pulling Fluttershy's dress down to cover her stained rear.

Just in time, he noticed, as Pumpkin started to pick herself up off of the floor, growling.

Preempting her anger, Spike swept forward and picked the little girl up in his arms. "I am so sorry, sweetie," he said, kissing her on the cheek and setting her on a nearby chair. "You startled me."

"That hurt," Pumpkin said indignantly, blue eyes radiating anger at the betrayal. Her small fingers dug into Spike's arm, so much that he nearly released his hold on her.

Spike frowned. "I said I was sorry, Pumpkin," picking her up again, only for her to push away from him. "Don't be like that," he protested.

Fluttershy got up from the couch, glaring at Spike and sticking her tongue out at him as she limped her way to the bathroom.

"I'm going back to bed," Pumpkin grumbled, trying to maneuver her way out of her caretaker's grasp. "Lemme go."

Getting down on his knees, Spike pressed his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes and forcing her to stare back. "I'm sorry I hit you," he repeated, reaching up and taking gentle hold of her wrists.

Pumpkin said nothing, stubbornly glaring at him and conveying silently that 'sorry' wasn't going to cut it.

"Are you going to stay mad at me forever?" he asked.

"Yes," she asserted.

Spike frowned, leaning back and visibly wilting. "Does this mean you don't love me anymore?"

Pumpkin flinched, shuffling on her feet before crossing her arms over her chest. "I didn't say that."

Sensing a weakness, Spike rubbed her wrists with his thumbs, before taking her hand and placing it over his heart. When she stared at him, uncomprehending of his gesture, Spike asked, "Do you know what that is?"

She rolled her eyes and huffed. "It's your heart, duh."

Spike nodded. "You know the special thing about dragon hearts?" he asked her, his voice lowered to a whisper.

She shook her head, and honestly looked as if she could care less.

"They're made of gems," he told her, and her eyes widened slightly. "But they're really, really fragile."

"Really?" Pumpkin asked, intrigued, but still visibly upset.

"Really," Spike answered. "Which is why so many dragons end up living alone and in caves," he explained, once again relying on his wit to spin a tale to his young listener. "Because if we ever meet any cute little girls," he said, poking her on the nose and causing her to giggle despite her anger at him, "and if those little girls get angry, or upset, or start to cry, well," he shrugged, "our hearts would break, and we would die."

Pumpkin gasped, looking down at the spot on Spike's chest where her hand currently rested. Her fingers curled slightly around the beating muscle, as if she feared shattering it in her grasp.

"I don't want you to die," she said hurriedly, looking up at Spike with wide eyes. "I'm not mad at you anymore."

Spike inclined his head towards her. "Thank you," he said lightly, smiling. "Now, it's time for us to go back to bed."

"Can I sleep with you?" she asked suddenly, and Spike realized with a start that that was the initial reason the young girl had come down the stairs in the first place.

"Why not?" he said, sitting down on the couch where he and Fluttershy had been occupied not five minutes ago. Pumpkin sidled up next to him, the two laying sideways on the couch as Spike draped a nearby comforter over themselves. "Did you want a story?" he asked, already feeling the soporific effects of the thick, musty blanket on his shoulders.

Pumpkin was silent for a moment. "Actually," she said, sounding wary of how he might react, "I was hoping you could sing me a lullaby." She looked over her shoulder at her caretaker. "If that's okay."

"Well, songs aren't usually my forte," Spike admitted, "but yeah, I know a few." He adjusted his arms around her. "There was this one that the Princess used to sing to Twilight and me, back when we were kids. Do you want to hear it?"

"Uh huh," she nodded, excited.

Spike smiled, then cleared his throat as he prepared to sing.

You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine...

Several minutes later, Fluttershy exited the bathroom—thank goodness she'd had the foresight to pick up a morning after pill, she hadn't been planning on letting Spike finish inside of her like that. Once she'd gotten over how insanely pleasurable it felt to be marked from the inside like that, she realized that with their current positions, the pleasure couldn't quite gainsay the risk.

Then again, she couldn't think of making him wear a condom, not now that she'd had the real thing.

Fluttershy huffed, blowing a messy strand of hair out of her face. They'd have to figure something out.

As she started to return to the living room, still limping, she paused as she heard a deep voice carrying throughout the lower part of the house. It lilted rhythmically, and Fluttershy realized that Spike was singing. Intrigued, she followed the sound back to the couch, where Pumpkin lay next to her caretaker, the back of her head just under his chin. To Fluttershy's dismay, the song was already over and she'd had no idea of what it was; Pumpkin's head was already nodding, and Spike's with it.

The older woman smiled at the sight, and realized that Spike loved being a parental figure more than he let on, perhaps even more than Fluttershy herself.

She started towards the couch, when she heard a creak at the top of the stairs. She looked up at the sound, only to see Pound standing there, a pillow in hand as he stared down at them. His eyes traced over his sleeping sister on the couch, and his frown seemed to tighten.

"Couldn't sleep?" Fluttershy asked gently, and the young boy started, not having noticed her.

"I can't, when she's not in the room," he explained, looking somewhat sourly at the back of Spike's head.

Fluttershy took him by the hand, guiding him to a nearby lounge chair. She grabbed a nearby comforter and draped it over her shoulders. "I may not be your sister, but I hope you don't mind sleeping next to me." Going by the look on his face, though, it looked as though he couldn't have minded anything less.

As he sat in front of her, his small head just in front of Fluttershy's chest, Pound shuffled nervously, as if he had something on his mind.

"What's bothering you?" Fluttershy asked softly, brushing his hair with her hand.

"Nothing," he said quickly. After a moment of silence, he took a shuddering breath, as if he had a freezing cold in his chest. "It's just...I used to be able to tell what she was thinking."

Fluttershy frowned as she continued to brush his hair. "And now you can't?"

Pound shook his head. "She just thinks about boys all the time," he said, as if the subject made him feel strange, or isolated. "She talks about Spike, like, a lot."

"Are you mad at him for it?"

He shook his head. "No, it's just...we haven't been as close as we used to be." He turned on his side, so that he could look at Fluttershy. "And I don't think she's noticed."

The pink-haired woman brought her face up to his. "Are you scared?"

He blinked slowly at her, lips drawn, before nodding.

Fluttershy smiled wanly at him, holding him to her chest. "It's okay to be scared," she whispered to him, "but you have to realize something."

"What?"

"You and your sister are growing up," she said simply, and going by the pained look on Pound's face, this was the one thing he didn't want to hear. "You might not be as close as you used to be, but that's okay. You both need space to grow, but that doesn't mean she loves you any less." She squeezed his shoulder. "That doesn't mean she's replacing you."

Pound's eyes widened, and his shoulders seemed to slump in relief, as if his worst fears had been abated. "That's...good," he said, yawning. "That's really good."

He backed into Fluttershy's stomach, eyes fluttering to close as he felt sleep take him again.

Oh.

Spike stood outside of Sugar Cube Corner, body rigid as he stared at the familiar establishment. Pound's luggage rested in his left hand, Pumpkin's in his right.

And when Pinkie opened the door, face ecstatic as she scooped the twins up in her arms, and Spike wondered why they and Fluttershy were laughing when all he could feel was a pang of ugly jealousy in his heart, he realized something about himself.

He hated saying goodbye.

That was what that feeling of foreboding had meant earlier, when he lay in the bath with Fluttershy and had felt an uneasy sensation of despair with no knowable cause. It was because some part of him knew that it couldn't last, no matter much they'd grown to love each other over the past few days. Because, despite the bedtime stories and the games, Pound and Pumpkin were someone else's kids; they were never his to love, or feel obligated to, and he knew now that he had gotten himself into this disappointment with his stories.

It all went by so fast, he thought to himself, and he walked calmly into the store, bringing the luggage with him.

He made his way to their room—see? Here was proof: Pumpkin's bed, orange and creme-colored, across from Pound's, brown and white. They'd had a life before they'd even met him, and they'd keep having those lives long after they'd gone back. They were never really his.

He knew he didn't even really have a right to be pissed off, but that knowledge didn't help his bitter mood.

Spike took a deep breath. The kids didn't deserve to have their day ruined just because he got lost in a stupid fantasy and wasn't happy to come out of it. He'd put on a good face for them.

Shuffling back down the stairs with his hands stuffed in his jeans, Spike heard Pumpkin's voice ask Pinkie, "So what did you do while we were gone?"

"Wait for you to get back," she said sadly, and despite himself, Spike had to laugh. Until he came back down the stairs and saw the twins standing there next to Pinkie, and his chest started to hurt.

Do you have someone you love? Do you have someone you love more than anything?

He went over by Fluttershy, and that made the pain recede a little. Sitting down in a chair, he took her hand in his, and without pause she rested in his lap, rubbing his shoulder, as if she knew without words the feelings he was experiencing.

Pinkie looked up from talking with the twins, and as she saw the two of them sitting together, hands overlapped, something clicked in her head. She visibly deflated somewhat, her smile seeming a little less bright, though Spike had no idea why.

Thankfully, before the scene could get any more awkward, Pound and Pumpkin made their way to their former caretakers, and Spike could tell by their meek approach that this was Goodbye.

"It...it was really nice getting to know you," Pumpkin said softly, rubbing her shoulder and looking just below Spike's face.

"We had a lot of fun," Pound added, his face uncharacteristically subdued. His hands were in his pockets.

"We feel the same way," Fluttershy said, eyes bright as she embraced the two children and sighed. "It's been such a pleasure having you at home." Releasing them, Fluttershy turned to Spike, silently imploring him to find something to say.

Spike wilted, and his grasp on Fluttershy's waist tightened, as if he was holding onto a pillow. "Do you have to go?" he asked petulantly, his head drooping as he looked sadly at the two children.

Pumpkin's eyes started to water. "Spike, we—yes, we live here, this is our home." She blinked sadly. "We have to go back."

Pound said nothing, but he took his sister's hand in his, and the small act seemed to give her strength. "We really enjoyed getting to know you, but...I'm not your little girl."

The look on Spike's face was one of such resignation and pain that the young girl immediately regretted her words. Pumpkin wondered if his heart was okay, and very nearly asked.

Fluttershy and Pinkie shared a look. The party girl, despite her disquiet, blinked in confusion. Going from their first meeting, she never expected Spike and the children to get so close.

"We won't be that far from you," Pound tried, but it was obvious that it wouldn't be the same.

Spike tried for a smile, with moderate success. "You're right, Pound," he said gently, and he took both of their tiny hands in his. "It may not be perfect, but we'll see each other again, just you wait."

He hugged them both tightly to his chest, and felt Pumpkin's hand just over his heart, as if checking to make sure everything was in order. "Take care of each other, okay?"

"Okay," they responded in unison.

Spike released them from his hold, though they continued their embrace for a few seconds more. Eventually, though, they stepped back and looked him in the eyes, examining him. At some invisible signal, they blinked, seemingly satisfied with what they found.

"Let's get you guys some breakfast," Pinkie said hurriedly, coming forward and grabbing the two children by the hands. As they allowed themselves to be led away through the kitchen doors and out of sight, they looked over their shoulders, mouths set in identical half-smiles.

Then the swinging doors stopped swinging, and Spike and Fluttershy were alone.

She nudged her head against his, running her fingers against the tender spot under his chin. "We should go," she said soothingly, eyes all but closed.

"Yeah," Spike said quietly, "yeah, I know."