Refusal

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

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They had all gathered in the gymnasium. Crystal Prep Academy students across from the Canterlot High School counterparts.

It started off fine. Music, punch, all the kids were having a good time.

Things had been a little tense, sure, but Spike wasn't sure where the escalation started.

Either way, he didn't want to be here when it got worse.

"Hey, Twilight?" He couldn't just abandon her though, not with the Shadowbolts walking around with a chip on their shoulder and everything to prove. "You see that girl over there?"

She followed his finger and blinked at the person energetically prancing around the edges of the forming cliques.

"With the hair?" Big and pink and fluffy.

"Yeah. She doesn't seem too interested in the 'My side, your side' stuff. While I'm going to the restroom, why don't you go say hi?" He was pretty sure Twilight was aware of who Pinkie Pie was, he'd told her after all.

He'd even mentioned that Pinkie Pie made friends at the drop of a hat.

And then picked the hat up and made friends with it, too.

"Spike are you... Are you sure?" She was hesitating, uncertain how to even approach the pink ball of energy.

Not that Spike could blame her. In her own way, Pinkie Pie was the most intimidating of the elements of Harmony. Not for being mean or intimidating, but rather her unmatched energy and propensity to speak at length about every minor connection she made.

Nonsensical or otherwise.

"Yeah I... Really need to go. I know you don't mind finding a quiet place to think on your own, but right here that's in short supply. I'm not demanding you make a friend, all I'm suggesting is that you say hi." Something he'd finally figured out with this Twilight, after many halting, difficult conversations was a small part of how she thought. She liked having clear goals, she enjoyed knowing where the line in the sand was.

One part of her social difficulty was her lack of natural awareness of where that was for people, her difficulty in picking up on when she was getting close to crossing that line until it was well past too late.

"Alright Spike. Could... You hurry, please?" She relaxed slightly when he grinned in response.

He hadn't promised, but he would at least try.

Getting through the horde of simmering teens was difficult.

Not slamming through some of those teens when they felt it necessary to push him was more so.

Regardless, he tamped down that flame and soon opened the gymnasium door, stepping out into the hallway.

He walked through two hallways and turned one corner to a stairwell, sitting down on the lowest steps.

His left hand pressed against his abdomen while the other clutched his knee.

Maybe the punch had been too sweet? Or else the music was too loud.

The source didn't matter much, a distant part of his mind realized.

Whatever the cause was, his stomach was roiling and burning, his eyes were pounding in time with his heart.

He took a slow, deliberate breath and held it for a few seconds before slowly releasing it, counting out the seconds on his fingers.

Three more sets had him calmed down and seemed to reduce the migraine.

It did nothing for the clawing, burning in his gut.

"So. Spike. It's good to see you." He looked up to see who'd spoken.

Crimson and gold hair.

"Hey Sunset. It's good to see you, too." She looked so much happier than when he'd last really looked at her. Her back was straighter, she seemed almost proud.

"You're... Not looking so good." She sat down next to him and put a hand on his back.

She pulled it away almost immediately.

"And you feel like you're on fire!" She was exaggerating, though not by much.

"I am? That makes sense, I guess." He leaned forward, pressing harder against his stomach by leaning into his knees. "The doctors warned me I'd get used to the medicine."

"Medicine?" That sounded so mundane, and this, whatever was wrong with him, did not look mundane.

"For the fevers and coughing and vomiting." And aches and headaches. Other things.

"That sounds pretty bad." She looked him over, taking in the lines of his face and how loose his blazer looked. "How long has it been like this?"

"A few months? I don't really remember too well. I slept through a lot of it at first." A doctors excuse to sleep in all day? Celestia would leave the sun hanging at high noon for a chance at such a thing.

"Spike, you should've come to me. I... I'm your friend, aren't I?" Her tone was familiar. It wasn't wheedling or needling, she wasn't blaming him

She was blaming herself.

Absolutely wonderful. Something else he'd screwed up.

"Of course you're my friend, Sunset. But I knew you'd make other friends, better friends. And my world... Kind of shrank, if that makes sense. When I couldn't get out of bed it was me, Twilight and the doctors. I didn't have the energy to do anything else. Or maybe I didn't... What did you call me?" He wasn't delirious, he wasn't dehydrated at all, so that couldn't be it.

"Spike." Her victorious grin was wiped away in an instant when she took another glance at him. "I heard this world's Twilight call you that."

"Oh man, this is gonna be real fun." He tried to lay the sarcasm down thick. All that he breathed out, however, was resignation.

"Yeah, it is. So which is it? Thorn, or Spike?" Her gaze bored into him with an intensity he couldn't hope to match.

"My name is Spike. Number one assistant to Princess Twilight Sparkle, friend of this world's Twilight Sparkle, cursed pony dragon thing after being swallowed alive by a magical abomination-" But he didn't have to match her intensity.

Not when he had determination in spades to surpass it.

"And time traveler. It's nice to meet you, Sunset Shimmer."

Author's Notes:

One thing I'll never say.
I'm not a hypocrite.