Pinkie Pie had been laughing for close to fifteen minutes now.

To the ever-increasing ire—and disturbance—of her friends, the pink-haired party girl had barely breathed or paused since the bottle had sealed her fate as Spike's partner for the upcoming week.

She had snickered, chortled, and giggled her way through a hiccuping fit before spiraling into a trilling, reedy series of airy gasps. The girls had watched on in troubled fascination—Twilight especially was torn between scientific curiosity and practical hysteria—but it seemed that Pinkie Pie simply didn't need oxygen the same way other humans did.

It had been funny at first—Applejack and Rarity had rolled their eyes at Pinkie being Pinkie, while Fluttershy and Twilight had simply looked on, mildly amused. Dash had chuckled with her for a while.

But then Pinkie had gone three whole minutes without so much as inhaling, and the girls agreed with a shared glance that the bitch was starting to creep them out a little.

Around the seven minute mark, Pinkie's sniggering had caused tears to leak from her eyes, causing the mascara on her eyelashes to stream down her face in dreary, malformed streaks. Her voice had grown uncharacteristically deep and gravelly, a result of her overused throat. She clutched her heaving chest as if she was in pain, but still she laughed.

The weaker-willed of them would later cling to Applejack as they slept, using the muscular young virago as a sort of charm to fend off the sure-to-come night terrors. Applejack herself clung to Twilight, who ended up not getting any sleep that night.

The Princess of Friendship had made the mistake of making eye contact with Pinkie as the shorter girl's eyes had danced across the ceiling and had fallen on her friends. Pinkie's eyes had only grown more piercing for the ruination of her makeup, and Twilight found herself unable to look away. Which she kind of wanted to do, since Pinkie's laughter had begun to die out.

Her lips were flushed red, pursed in suppressed amusement, and Twilight's eyes flicked to them before meeting Pinkie's gaze again.

The two stared unceasingly at each other, Twilight's eyes strained and anxious, Pinkie's studious and mirthful. The pressure weighed on the Princess's chest like an anvil as her heartbeat sounded out each increment of the increasingly pregnant silence.

A single bead of sweat rolled from Twilight's searing hairline, making a path down past her temple and continuing over her collarbone, until it sank into her too-small pajamas.

The baker stirred, as if the small act had roused her in some way. Smiling, with her chest heaving gently from the remnants of laughter, she made her way across Twilight's carpeted floor, crawling with hands and knees. Twilight could only watch, pinned in place by her friend's watchful orbs.

"Twilight," Pinkie spoke, and holy shit, her throat must've been raw by the sound of her voice.

Twilight blinked, breaking eye contact with Pinkie long enough to see the hand being offered to her.

"Shake my hand, Twilight."

The Princess twitched, Pinkie's flat command shocking her out of her trance. "What?" she asked, flinching away. Rainbow Dash stared at Pinkie, bug-eyed and frozen.

"We had a deal," the baker clarified. Her smile was unusually stretched, and she wasn't blinking. "Shake my hand."

The remaining girls migrated across the room from Pinkie, latching onto each other's shoulders for support. Fluttershy peered out at Pinkie from behind Applejack's back. "I don't think you should, Twilight," she whispered. The other girls nodded in shaky agreement.

Swallowing, Twilight tried for a grin. "Actually, um, Pinkie, maybe...I mean, it might be best if we just went for a re-spin–"

Before the words had even finished tumbling out of Twilight's mouth, Pinkie's hair deflated, falling well past her chest in dull magenta locks.

"Then again," Twilight said hastily as she willed her pajamas to remain shitless, "that wouldn't exactly be fair, would it, girls?"

Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy all shook their heads in terrified unison.

"That's more like it!" Pinkie exclaimed, and with a disturbingly loud sputter of air, her bouncing, springy tresses were returned to their usual luster. Smiling, she again extended her hand to Twilight, who eyed the soft pink palm dubiously. After a long, idle silence, she hesitantly took Pinkie's hand in hers and shook it.

"What do you have planned for him?" Twilight asked as she pulled her hand back, already feeling as if she'd made somewhat of a mistake.

But the party planner only smiled in response, falling back on her haunches and arching her back as she stretched her arms. "I'm not going to spoil the fun, Twilight," Pinkie chuckled, eyes closed as she got to her feet. "And even if I did," she said, bringing her hands close together and staring down at the girls looking up at her, "you couldn't stop me."

Pinkie clapped her hands together twice, and with a resounding hush, every last light in Twilight's room fizzled out.

Rainbow Dash cursed violently, twitching as she and Applejack both flailed in surprise in the dark. "I freaking hate it when she does creepy shit like that," she groaned, wiping the sweat from her brow.

"Why do you even have clap-on's?" Applejack asked Twilight, her voice tight and accusatory as she cradled a shaking Rarity in her arms.

"I don't," she answered, illuminating their small circle with a soft violet light springing from her hand. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen. "Those were candles." She looked down at her palms, pondering a small something that lay in it. Her breathing hitched.

Rarity swallowed, shifting in Applejack's strong embrace and pulling her knees up to her chest. "I just wonder what drove her to make that wretched cackling for so long."

"I think I have an idea," Twilight murmured, turning over the small slip of paper in her hand. She held it up so that the others could see.

"What the fuck," Rainbow breathed, eyes wide as she took in the small, delicate script written on the hastily torn parchment.

It was Spike's name, on a slip of paper taken from the bowl of eligible men relating to their previous game.

Ironic, they found, that Pinkie had drawn the young man's name when the bottle had landed on her as well; ironic that, as evidenced by the playful handwriting and the tittle in Spike's name being replaced by a heart, Pinkie herself had added Spike to their selections.

It was roughly midnight when Spike felt the chill run down his spine.

He didn't exactly remember waking up from his dead sleep—only a sensation of cold air on his brow, the hot, reeking sweat causing his shirt to cling to his back. He breathed heavily as he pushed his nightcap up on his forehead, brushing his steaming hairline as he panted for breath.

Spike didn't know how he knew, but he was certain of one thing: he was being watched.

Heart racing, he squinted as his eyes roved over the darkened bedroom. Save for a long beam of moonlight, buffered by a pair of sheer purple curtains, Spike's room was filled with an all but impenetrable darkness.

He couldn't pinpoint where his intruder stood, but he was sure of their presence—he could feel the air shifting as it did when another was near. It smelled sweeter than usual as well, and held a tightness that portended imminent conflict.

A shadow shifted near the corner of the room, and the motion immediately drew Spike's attention. A pair of gleaming blue eyes peered out at him, unblinking.

The young man backed into his headboard, shielding his bare body with the purple bedspread he slept under. "Rarity?" he asked tentatively.

"Nope," a small, light voice called out, and Spike sighed in relief when Pinkie sauntered into view. She smiled gently at him, but the humor of her lips seemed to stop before it reached her eyes.

"You scared the crap out of me," Spike laughed nervously, lowering his guard as the tension left his limbs. The comforter fell from his shoulders, exhibiting his bare arms and sweat-coated collarbone. Pinkie's eyes traced the motion with blatant, if not detached, interest.

Spike rubbed his arm absentmindedly, feeling awkward at the young woman's uncharacteristic silence. "So, uh...what are you doing here so late?"

The baker blinked, looked down at her much-too-small blue pajamas, then looked back up at Spike with a raised eyebrow, as if to say What kind of stupid question is that?

"I mean, in my room," the young man clarified.

Pinkie shrugged. "I was looking for you."

An unwelcome bead of sweat rolled down Spike's waist. "Why?"

She didn't immediately answer, but instead sauntered her way to his bed. Pinkie's movements were slow but deliberate: she never put too much swing into her hips, never went beyond the invisible boundaries of subtlety in her motions. The silence was orchestrated: she wanted Spike to leer at her, and she wanted it to be very clear that she knew he was doing it.

It was on purpose that she softened her gaze enough to the point where Spike didn't feel obligated to look her in the eyes for fear of appearing salacious. Pinkie knew from experience that eye contact would do nothing but force conversation where none was needed. They would talk when she wanted them to talk.

She reached the edge of his mattress, and Pinkie's chest gave a delightful little jump when she saw Spike swallow at the sight of her bare midriff. Sitting down, she casually flipped her hair over her shoulder, bringing the young man's eyes up from her stomach and forcing him to look her in the eyes. Pinkie was satisfied to see the beginnings of a blush on his face.

Once she felt enough time had passed, Pinkie fell backwards on the bed, letting her body bounce and her hair flare out behind her. "I won the wager, y'know," she said, crossing her arms behind her head.

Spike's eyes widened, and he seemed to stiffen. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," he said quietly, and suddenly the heat in his forehead became ants in his palms, and he ran them, sweating, over the dark grey bed sheets on which he sat. The itch in his hands didn't seem to go away, though, and the fact that a young woman who was currently donned in far-too-tight nightwear lay sprawling out on his mattress didn't help to stop his brain from slowly melting.

Even as he thought it, Pinkie inhaled deeply, and the gap of skin that was her uncovered stomach increased, until he could see the outline of her rib cage. Her chest arched slightly into the air—she was yawning, her eyes were closed, and Spike swore he could smell the cotton of her taut pajama top from where he was sitting. Was she doing it on purpose? Spike couldn't tell, he'd always been too oblivious to know when a girl was flaunting herself—

Pinkie's mouth closed, and Spike preempted her speech with a question, as if to assert that no, he hadn't just been staring at her tits. "So, uh, you," he gulped when his voice cracked and Pinkie raised an amused eyebrow at him. "You seem kind of...quiet?" He rubbed his arm and looked away from her gaze. "Compared to usual, 'swhat I mean."

She laughed a short, harsh-sounding laugh, and it was just disturbing enough to clear Spike's senses for the moment. "It's been a long night," she explained, rolling onto her side. She supported her head with her left hand, assuming a laidback thinking position, and drew one calf up as she curled slightly into herself.

Spike was noticing that her resting pose actually framed her hips rather well, as well as the fact that Pinkie was the kind of woman whose ass you could see coming from the front, when he finally realized that she hadn't finished speaking to him. "Huh?" he asked, and fuck him, he'd actually been drooling.

If Pinkie noticed, or took offense, she made no indication of it, other than a surely unrelated shifting of her hips. "I said I was sleepy."

Despite himself, Spike couldn't help but snort and grin through his nervousness. "You're on a bed," he said without thinking. Pinkie, for her part, continued to not look offended. If anything, she looked impressed that he'd had the balls to insinuate what she thought he was insinuating.

She smirked. Leaning forward, she clutched at the corner of the mattress and pulled herself forward, until her face was level with Spike's. "Well," Pinkie said slowly, "you're not wrong." She breathed out excitedly, and as the warm air rushed over Spike's face and set his stomach to a cold boil, he noted that her breath smelled like sour apples.

Pinkie was barely touching him—her chest curled next to his side, her thigh grazed his thigh, her fingers on his collarbone—but Spike's body was responding as if they'd already been...active for the past few minutes.

He knew it had something to do with her eyes: she wasn't looking at him in her usual friendly, furtive way, but instead she stared very nearly into him, in a way that seemed to demand more intimacy than any physical approach. Pinkie peered into his eyes with such blatant investment that Spike was inwardly surprised that he hadn't picked up on it prior to tonight. He almost looked away out of embarrassment, but her hand on his neck prevented it.

"Scoot over," she commanded, and she was already pushing him when he obliged her.

Soon after reaching the middle of the bed, Pinkie straddled his waist and wrapped her thighs firmly around it. With one hand, she pushed Spike down onto the bedding, while using the other to tease the space just south of his bellybutton.

Without a word, and never breaking eye contact, the young woman began to grind herself up and down her partner's body, taking note of the tent he was pitching through the thin veneer of his clothing. She made sure to glide over it with her hips, savoring the hard heat holed up in the young man's sparse cotton pants.

Spike gave a pleasant shudder at the feeling and instinctively thrust his groin up at her, causing Pinkie to gasp in blurry surprise, before she shoved back down in stubborn retaliation.

Truth be told, Spike had absolutely no idea what to do, and it showed: nervously, his hands raced up his apparent partner's thighs, until they clutched at her rear and pinched hesitantly, as if asking Is this okay? Though he was excited beyond anything he'd ever felt up to this point in his young life, nothing had prepared Spike for this sudden introduction into foreplay, and part of him felt far too uncomfortable asking the woman on top of him for guidance. Why did he feel alone all of a sudden?

If he showed how inexperienced he was—would she lose interest? Would she laugh at him and call the whole thing off? Spike wasn't even sure if he was ready to be intimate with someone else—wasn't sure if he wanted it, from her, even—but he felt some virile compulsion to prove himself all the same.

Unbeknownst to Spike, Pinkie had picked up on part of his internal conflict and decided that things would move quicker if she was in charge. She'd enjoyed him groping her, to the point where she'd been stunned at how much she had missed feeling rough hands on her body, but he'd hesitated too much for her tastes.

Through the haze of her mind, she wrenched his hands away from her bottom, and pinned them above his head with her own. As he lay there, immobilized, Pinkie descended upon his neck, and when he shrugged away with a moaning chuckle, Pinkie reasserted her mouth and peppered his skin with deep, searching kisses. Her tongue roamed over his flesh, committing his taste to memory and feeling the muscles and veins pulse under her touch.

It was funny, Pinkie thought as she worked at him, how different men were from women when it came to kissing. She had always been the dominant one in the few relationships she'd had, and even when 'practicing' with Rainbow Dash, she usually found herself on top when the subject turned to tongue-mashing. Then again, most of her kissing experience came from Dash: with her, it was practically where she'd learned most of her moves and eventually perfected them.

Kissing Spike had been nothing like with Dash.

For one, it was obvious that he'd had absolutely no experience whatsoever, meaning that he was completely dependent on her direction. He was more patient than the few boys she'd dated, and certainly less aggressive. Indeed, as her chest ground into his and her teeth bit into the section of neck just left of his shoulder, Spike groaned out an "Oh God," and writhed against her in perfect submission.

And, well, she couldn't just not ram her tongue down his throat after a compliment like that, so Pinkie buckled down and crushed her lips to his.

As her tongue invaded his mouth with uncharacteristic forcefulness, Pinkie wondered what he'd eaten to make his lips and tongue taste so good. Then she realized that he probably hadn't had anything in his stomach since that hot chocolate from before, which explained the sweetness of his mouth.

Spike seemed content to let her work—even more so than before, his inexperience showed in his kissing, as he hesitantly tilted his head to the side to allow her better access to his mouth. He had no desires to embarrass himself in the presence of an expert, so he remained just shy of passive as she dominated his jaws.

Though, that wasn't to say that it didn't feel amazing. Despite his lack of practice, even Spike could tell that Pinkie was an exceptional kisser, regardless of the taste of bitter apples on her tongue. The fact that she had sought him out and cornered him was a massive confidence booster—not even that, he reasoned, it was more like his ego was getting a backrub, and from Pinkie of all people...

The next morning...

"Ugh!"

Twilight winced at her friend's shriek, and seriously would have considered muzzling Pinkie if she wasn't confident the girl would find her way out of it. "Not so loud," she groaned, laying face down on one of Rarity's armchairs. "My head is killing me." She wore a lavender camisole and a pair of tan capris. Rarity stood across the room from her, clad in a pristine white blouse and black wide-cut pants.

"That's what you get for indulging in excess," the dressmaker clucked at her, staring over her red-rimmed glasses as she faced away from her friends. Her hands handled a stretch of measuring tape as she double-checked the seams of one of her creations. "Just because we don't drink in public doesn't mean you ought to cartwheel past the BAC legal limit."

Twilight moaned painfully into the fabric. "Please," she groaned, drawing her knees up to her chest and cradling her head in a pillow, "don't lecture me when I'm hungover, Rarity. I don't think my brain can withstand the irony."

Rarity rolled her eyes as she continued to move around her work-in-progress. "Turnabout is fair play, Twilight dear." She smiled over her shoulder at the cringing Princess who was currently writhing on her furniture. "Heaven knows when I'll get another chance at it."

"Try next Saturday morning," Rainbow Dash groused, arms and legs askew as she lay sprawled out on one of Rarity's loveseats. She wore a black wife beater and sweatpants, as well as a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses. She drank briefly from a bottle in her hand—hard lemonade—before wincing and allowing a shiver to run through her limbs. "Can't have our weekly 'Lonely Bitches Anonymous' meetings without some friendship lube."

Twilight looked over at her friend, her face the personification of disbelief. "Why are you still drinking?"

Dash scratched at her stomach, her nails digging into the hardened muscle of her abdomen. "Ever hear of 'hair of dog'?" Turning on her side, she angled herself towards the others. "And speaking of mutts," she turned to Pinkie with a shit-eating grin, "how's life in the doghouse?"

While Pinkie fixed the athlete with a withering scowl, Rarity perked up and faced the two. "Come again?"

"My scuttlebutt sense is tingling," Twilight narrated in a sarcastically nasal voice, only to cry out in pain when her hostess flicked her dead in the temple.

When Rarity looked to Dash to elaborate, the girl simply shrugged. "You were probably asleep when it happened, but Pinkie came back to the room about half past midnight."

Rarity raised an eyebrow, her hand on her waist. "Having returned from...?"

Twilight chuckled, her eyes still sheltered by Rarity's blessed throw pillows. "From getting rejected."

Crossing her arms, Rarity moved her lips slowly as she recalled the events of the previous night. Pinkie hadn't left the castle, of that much she was sure. But Rainbow's smug attitude and Twilight's relaxed humor could only mean that—

"Really, woman?" she asked, turning to Pinkie, who sat petulantly on the round partition which the dressmaker reserved for showcasing outfits. "You couldn't wait, say, twelve hours?"

The baker grumbled some unintelligible response, crossed her arms, and looked away.

Sighing, Rarity turned back to Rainbow and Twilight. "Why'd he turn her down?"

Last night...

As he reassessed his thoughts, something clicked in Spike's head—or rather, his tongue—something that prompted him to immediately sit up and seize his partner by the arms. Pinkie looked at him, face frozen in surprise, her shoulders rigid. Spike stared at her in return, completely stone faced.

"Have you been drinking?"

She blinked, and it was clear that in her current state she was wondering why such a question mattered. Clearing her throat, she answered quietly, "I, uh...yeah? I mean, it was just some hard cider–"

"How much?"

Pinkie squinted at him, unsure whether or not the question was a trap and considering whether or not she should lie to him—considering what was the fastest way to get back into his mouth. "Like...seven?"

That morning...

"I was too busy nearly pissing my pants at the time," Rainbow admitted, "but I forgot how Pinkie gets, like, super zen when she's smashed. Like she's the opposite of herself. You don't even know she's drunk."

Rarity tossed her hair over her shoulder, beaming radiantly at this news. "Well, it just goes to show you what manner of gentleman our Spike is." She went to Twilight and clutched her by the shoulder. "You did good by him."

Surprised, Twilight said nothing, but smiled gently and covered her face bashfully. "It had nothing to do with me," she said softly, turning on her side. "He's just that kind of person."

"Damn straight," Rainbow agreed, and she was grateful for her shades hiding the burning of her eyes. She knew how very few men would resist the urge to take advantage of a young woman in an intoxicated state, and it pleased her immensely to know that Spike was one of them. Her respect for him only grew when she had found that he hadn't hesitated in sending Pinkie back to the room, despite the woman's protests that she was perfectly able of giving consent.

To combat that confusing swelling in her chest, she leaned forward on the loveseat until her torso hung lazily over the armrest. She raised her bottle in tribute. "It's a rare man who'll turn away some perfectly fine ass."

At this, Twilight frowned and sat up, lacing her arms around her kneecaps. "It was just some harmless kissing, Rainbow Dash. It's not like she was trying to sleep with him, right?"

She looked to the sullen girl sitting on Rarity's exhibition stand. "Right, Pinkie?"

Pinkie was sweating.

Last night...

As Spike's eyes widened to a bulge, Pinkie immediately concluded that the truth was overrated. She held up her hands to try to head off his anger. "Now hold on—"

"Seven bottles—" he hissed incredulously.

"I'm just a little buzzed, really!"

"Most people are in bed after six!"

Pinkie laughed nervously, only to wince at the rough pain in her throat. "I mean...I'm in a bed, aren't I?" The laughter died at the look on her friend's face, which showcased his complete lack of amusement at her turning his previous statement on its head.

"What did you even think was going to happen when you came in here drunk?" he asked angrily, arms outstretched. His face seemed to burn with indignant displeasure, and perhaps a hint of embarrassment.

Pinkie shrugged awkwardly, her earlier confidence long-since departed. "I dunno," she confessed, cocking her head innocently, "I mean, I was just trying to get piped, y'know?"

That morning...

On one hand, Twilight knew she should want to choke the Pink Menace out for soliciting her young ward for sex, and not even an hour after their wager match had concluded at that. On the other, she knew how the baker consistently made shitty decisions even on her good days, so she couldn't exactly expect much better from Pinkie Pie in her drunken state.

And to be perfectly honest, hangovers were a bitch to deal with. Summoning up the energy to be pissed at her friend would only prolong Twilight's agony.

It was this clarity that allowed her to voice one of several observation's about Pinkie's admittedly hilarious strike-out.

"You probably embarrassed him," she remarked, gaining the attention of the other three girls in the boutique. "I don't think he would've minded as much if you weren't drunk, because frankly," Twilight said, shrugging, "Spike's really prideful. Your being intoxicated likely meant to him that you saw him as an easy lay."

Pinkie blinked in apparent confusion, cocking her head. "I don't follow."

Twilight opened her mouth to elaborate, but Dash beat her to it. "He thought that you were coming on to him because you liked him."

"Wh—I do like him!" Pinkie sputtered.

Dash shook her head. "As in, 'capital L' like, Pinkie," she said, emphasizing her point with air quotes. She placed her head in her hand as she gazed patronizingly at the younger woman. "So when he found out that you were only there cause you had some mad beer goggles on," she shrugged. "Well, let's put it like this: you probably made him feel shitty, in the same way a fat chick feels getting hit on by a drunk guy at a bar."

Rarity sucked on her teeth. "Damn."

"So, in short," Twilight said with an air of finality, "you blew it."

"Pretty much," Rainbow Dash added.

"I almost wish I was there to film it," Rarity said, frowning as she rubbed her shoulders.

"Wow, thanks guys." Pinkie grumbled, falling onto her back and staring pointedly at the ceiling. "I doubt he'll want to house-sit with me now, too."

Rarity placed a hand on Pinkie's knee in sympathy. "Everyone has their off days, dear, but cheer up." She smiled gently at her friend. "Spike is a fine catch, to be sure, but he's not the only fish in the sea."

The baker only groaned and rubbed her eyes until they turned red. "I don't want another fish. I want him."

Rarity and Rainbow Dash shared a mutual grimace. So much for that, they managed to communicate silently.

"Pardon me for asking," Rarity said slowly, "and no offense to you or Spike," she said, directing her speech to Twilight, "but what makes him so special?"

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer, only to realize that she didn't exactly know how to say what she felt. For crying out loud, where would she even begin? She could practically teach a class on why she felt...whatever it was she felt about him, on how a word like 'like' was only a fraction of the thing in her head that reared itself whenever Spike came to mind.

She knew from past experiences that trying to convey to her friends what she felt would just end up leaving everyone confused and frustrated. Doubtless Twilight knew some obscure term or phrase for it, and not for the first time Pinkie felt a small pang of jealousy for not being as smart as her.

Pinkie sighed to herself. She hated it when she didn't feel smart.

"I don't know," she finally said, turning away from her friends and crossing her arms.

The three older women shared a look amongst themselves. All of them were used to the random, excitable, standard-issue Pinkie that they'd spent the better part of the last decade with; none of them quite knew how to handle her when she was so...low-maintenance.

Twilight looked to Rarity, who looked to Rainbow, who looked to Twilight. They silently screamed at the others to stop being stupid and take control of the situation, She Needs Some Help.

You're the leader, Rarity and Rainbow contended speechlessly.

Screw that, you're the social butterfly, Twilight seethed at the irate dressmaker, and you're her best friend, she communicated to Dash.

They argued among themselves in this manner for several more moments. Pinkie rose to a sitting position, looking uncomfortably mousy as she brushed her hair behind her ear.

Rainbow Dash fixed the taller violet-haired women with death glares—Bunch of pussies, I swear to God—before rising from her seat and slinking her way to the young woman now looking up at her with so much uncertainty.

Dash resisted the urge to sigh and rub the bridge of her nose. These fucking girls made her life so much harder than it had to be.

"You still want him?" she asked Pinkie, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her sweatpants.

The young woman nodded, somehow managing to look both earnest and terrified at the same time.

"But you're scared you're gonna fuck up again," Dash guessed.

Pinkie nodded again.

Rainbow Dash exhaled, reaching up and removing her sunglasses from her face. "You won't," she said with her trademark conviction, "because we've got your back." She tilted her head slightly towards Twilight and Rarity, prompting the two women to stand up and reaffirm their loyalties to their friend. "And friends don't let friends fuck up."

"Not twice in a row, anyway," Twilight added with a smirk.

Pinkie half-smiled at her friends' small show of solidarity—for all their joking, they were always there when she really needed them. "But, I mean, I really upset him—"

"Pinkie," Rainbow sighed, sitting down next to her friend, "you wanna know your problem?"

The baker slowly closed her mouth, and she deflated ever so slightly.

Without waiting for an answer, Dash pressed on. "Perspective," she emphasized, gently pressing her finger into Pinkie's shoulder.

The three of them collectively blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?" Twilight asked uncertainly. Rarity silently looked on, her lips pursed in tempered anticipation: she knew enough of Rainbow Dash's habits to realize when the young woman was about to make a fairly insightful observation.

"I mean that you're looking at this in a negative way, when it really isn't even all that bad." Dash wrapped an arm around Pinkie's shoulders and leaned gently against her. "He's a little embarrassed, yeah, but now he knows that you're interested in him, right?"

"I guess," Pinkie admitted, still uncertain.

"And he's already seen you at your worst," Dash added, "so chances are you're not gonna be able to scare him off."

The girls nodded slowly, seeing what the athlete was getting at. Twilight snapped her fingers. "I get it. 'There's opportunity in every failure?'" she asked, guessing at Rainbow's meaning.

"She didn't fail," Rainbow stressed.

Pinkie looked up at her, face blank.

Rainbow, to her credit, never broke eye contact with her. "She just found out what doesn't work."

As they sat on the opposite side of the square from their target, Pinkie bumped her shoulder against Dash's.

"Hey."

The shorter girl glanced sideways at her friend, removing her lips from the straw of her milkshake. "Yeah?" Rainbow asked, looking over her shades at Pinkie.

Pinkie had lain her head over her crossed arms while they waited at the cafe table for Twilight and Rarity to return. A red and white-striped umbrella shielded them from the harsh midday sun. "I'm sorry I made fun of your boobs the other night," she said quietly.

Dash waved off the girl's comment in her usual detached manner. "Water under the bridge, P." She bumped her shoulder against Pinkie's in return. "We wouldn't be friends if we didn't talk trash about each other every now and then."

"Really?"

"Yeah really, ya fatass."

Pinkie could only snort and giggle as she ran her palms over the thick black wire of the cafe table. "Better a fatass than no ass," she retorted playfully.

Dash chuckled in reply, but didn't contest her point. Instead she shifted her body to angle towards Pinkie's, and allowed her eyes to roam over her friend's body in speculation. Pinkie seemed to tense, as if the woman knew she was being scrutinized—hell, Dash reasoned, she of all people would be used to it—but she remained silent and kept her eyes fixed on the young man currently running errands across the way.

"See something you like?" Pinkie finally asked, allowing a bit of good humor to seep into her tone. Her eyes remained riveted on Spike's far off figure.

Rainbow Dash sat backwards in her chair, aligning her back with the table and resting her bare elbows on the edges. Allowing her body to calm, she dipped her sunglasses past her nostrils to look her friend in the eyes. "Are you okay, Pinkie?"

The girl finally broke her silent survey of Spike and refocused her attention on the athlete next to her. "What do you mean?" she asked, her bright blue eyes narrowing.

Rainbow shrugged, looking up at the umbrella as she tried to summon up the words that had been running at the back of her mind for the past few weeks. "You've been really mellow—like, for you—for a while now. You haven't been, y'know, your usual 'totally random' self." She thumbed the edge of the table and glanced away before meeting Pinkie's eyes again. "Me and the girls, we just wanna know if maybe...maybe there was something going on that you weren't telling us about?"

Pinkie turned on her side and placed her head in her hand in a thinking position, glaring in a very un-Pinkie fashion. "I don't need you guys checking up on me. I'm not stupid."

Dash held up her hands in self-defense. "No one's saying you are, P. But that doesn't mean we don't worry about you."

"Did Twilight put you up to this?"

"No one put me up to it, Pinkie." Dash said, looking exasperated, insulted, and perhaps a little bit hurt. She brushed her hair back and sighed away the indignant retorts that would have once sprung so readily to her tongue. "I know I don't always show it, but you should know by now that I'm always gonna have your back." Rainbow's hand met Pinkie's halfway, and rested there on it. She looked her firmly in the eyes. "You should know how much we love you."

Pinkie, for the life of her, wanted to continue being mad at her, at them, for this unspoken act of infantilization. It wasn't the first time that the girls had singled her out as the least mature—not that they weren't absolutely right about it, but it didn't give them the right to treat her like the little sister. It didn't give them the right to question her faith in them.

Groaning, Pinkie bumped her head into the table. "I know," she ceded petulantly, returning Dash's grasp and thumbing the woman's small, coarse fingers. She could never stay mad at her girls for long, especially not when Rainbow opened up to her like this.

"So what's wrong?" Dash insisted quietly, her voice low and, strangely enough, almost...matronly.

Pinkie lifted her head from the shelter of her arms and met Dash's unusually consoling eyes. "You can't tell Twilight," she pleaded, her face set in a crestfallen droop.

"I'll take it to my grave," Dash swore. Not quite as good as a Pinkie Promise, Pinkie resolved, but there were few things she trusted more than Rainbow Dash's word anyway.

The baker sighed, rubbing her temples as she gathered her thoughts together. "Lately...well, for a while now, actually," she amended, "I've been feeling tired. Like I'm slowing down, or something." She stared out across the market, unseeing and unfocused. "And I was kind of worried at first, when I noticed it happening, because it was like...I would go down for a nap, but when I would get back up, I'd still be tired. Like, I didn't get that energy back, and I don't think it's gonna come back."

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened slightly, but she said nothing. Instead, she let her hand twitch against her friend's to assure her that she was listening.

"And, I mean, on one hand," she said with a nervous shrug and hand gesture, "it's kind of easier for me to focus, and," her eyes briefly touched on the green-haired young man haggling with a stall vendor a stone's throw away, "I've started to, uh, notice different things. So it's not all bad."

She felt a strange urge to turn to her right, and found the all-too-telling smirk on Dash's face to be giggle-worthy.

"But at the same time, it kind of has trade-offs," Pinkie soberingly admitted, crossing one ankle over the other. "Like, I'll be surrounded by a crowd of people, but instead of talking with everyone and having fun, I just don't feel up to it anymore. My head starts to hurt, I can't stand the noise, and I start to feel..." she shrugged awkwardly, "...alone."

"You must hate that," Dash murmured.

"I hate it!" Pinkie said, almost seething as she shuddered from the memory of not being herself. "It feels like I'm a fake, because not loving being around my friends is probably the least Pinkie thing you could ever do!"

"So let me get this straight," Dash said, sitting up. "You hate being alone, like more than anyone I know."

"Definitely," Pinkie confirmed.

"But for some reason, being around tons of people now just makes you feel even lonelier."

"Yeah," Pinkie said, frowning and nodding. "I dunno, it's like...whenever I'm at a party or whatever, it's kind of like I'm stuck on—"

"On an island?" Dash finished.

Pinkie's breath hitched and her eyes widened, before she closed her mouth and nodded rapidly at Dash as if the girl had read her mind.

"Yeah," the athlete had said, frowning and rubbing her neck, "I get that sometimes too. All of it."

"Really?"

"Yeah," she said, leaning against the table and absently stroking Pinkie's palm with her thumb. "Mostly. I know I'm not as hotheaded as I used to be, for one."

Pinkie snorted gently. "Could've fooled me."

Dash rolled her eyes at her best friend but continued. "It's just, one day, it's like I looked at myself and saw all this shit that I'm wasting. Like how I'll waste all this energy spazzing out over the little stuff, or how I've slept like half my life away, or how I've never been on a date—"

Pinkie gasped, and the sound was enough to break Dash out of her rant.

Scowling, Rainbow turned to Pinkie and eyed her critically. "You didn't hear anything."

"Hear what?" the baker asked, feigning ignorance. "What are we talking about?"

Frowning, Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and grunted. "Whatever. The point is, I get where you're coming from. What I don't get, though, is how he," she said, gesturing with her head to the young green-haired man with basket in hand, "plays into all of this."

Pinkie hunched her shoulders in a telltale clueless shrug. "I dunno, it's like...I dunno. If you're feeling sad, then all you have to do to fix it is to be happy, right?"

Dash snorted. "It's not that simple, Pinkie."

Pinkie blinked, then looked at Dash as if the girl was playing a practical joke on her. "Yes it is," she said slowly, as if her reasoning was obvious.

"Alright, alright," Rainbow said, crossing her arms and flipping her hair over her shoulders, "I'll humor you." She fixed the younger girl with a flat stare. "How do you just up and make yourself happy whenever you want?"

It was plain to see on Pinkie's face that the girl desperately wanted to believe that Dash was playing her: how else could she not grasp something so simple?

Speaking carefully, so that her friend wouldn't get lost in the translation, she answered, "The same reason I throw parties...?" She squinted at Dash, scrutinizing the girl for any sign of misunderstanding or unaccounted-for retardation. "By making other people happy first."

Rainbow Dash blinked. Then she blinked again.

"Right, of course," she said, rubbing her face as she sat up in her chair. Of course that would be how Pinkie saw things, it was so obvious now that she thought about it. Hell, the girl had devoted an entire song to proclaiming just how much she thrived on making others smile. "So, how would you go about making him happy?"

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer.

"Aside from being his slam piece," Dash added quickly.

Pinkie closed her mouth.

After a lengthy silence, Pinkie gradually resumed her resting position on the table, once again peering at the young man who was nearly finished with his grocery shopping. Rainbow silently followed her gaze, head in hand as she inhaled audibly and adopted a forlorn look of longing.

And somehow, even in the noise and bustle of Ponyville's mid-morning market, Spike felt their stares, and turned to face them, curious.

"He's lonely too," Pinkie said softly, sighing to herself and feeling sympathy leak out of her chest and move in his general direction. "I can fix that."

Dash was the first to break the three-way eye contact, as she pivoted to put her back to the table once more. "Someone ought to," she said, voice equally soft as she donned her sunglasses and pretended to be less jealous than she felt.