Lose Yourself: Part 6

Lose Yourself (Part 6)

[ Shipping | Angst | Sexual Content ]

Spike couldn't help but feel like he was under a microscope. Not unreasonable, considering how out-of-place he was here. Still, that didn't change the fact that his fight-or-flight response was this close to kicking in. If there was any place in Ponyville that he truly didn't belong, it was here, at Sweetie Belle's college. As he walked through the hallways, he could feel everypony's eyes following him and hear their voices as they whispered at his passing.

"Is that-"

"-heard he and Sweetie Belle are-"

"-nerve of him, coming in here like he's-"

"-buckin' slut, what does she see in him?"

Spike gritted his teeth and kept walking. He would not make a scene in here. It chafed to have to listen to these worthless foals gossiping about him and Sweetie Belle, but if he lost it here, it would probably only make things worse for her. Spike wouldn't even be here in the first place if she hadn't asked him to meet her here after class. He wasn't officially barred from being here, but as the only dragon for Celestia knew how many miles around, Ponyville University wasn't exactly high on his list of places to be.

She said the cafeteria…largest room in the whole bucking place and I can't find it. It figures. After what felt like hours of wandering aimlessly through the seemingly endless hallways, Spike finally managed to find the cafeteria. It probably would have gone faster if he'd asked somepony for directions, but he wasn't taking any chances. Judging by the looks he kept getting, it wouldn't have been such a great idea for him to have drawn any more attention to himself. Spike walked into the cafeteria and took a seat in the corner closest to the door, as far as he could get from the tables. She said her class ends at 5…it's 5:10 right now…where is she?

For the next agonizingly long forty minutes, Spike sat there and twiddled his thumbs, sweating it out under the constant stares of the college ponies. He kept looking around for Sweetie Belle, but he couldn't see her anywhere. Finally, he decided to go check her classroom. She'd told him that if she was late, it was probably because of a project that she needed to talk with her professor about, and that she'd most likely be in her classroom – room 342, if he remembered correctly. With an all-too-familiar feeling of apprehension growing in his chest, Spike stood up and began to navigate his way towards where he thought Sweetie Belle's classroom was.

Ten minutes later, he was pretty sure that he was almost there. Just up these stairs and I should be – wait a minute…what's going on here? From the stairwell up ahead, he could hear voices coming. It sounded like three, maybe four mares laughing - and not in a very nice way - at something…or somepony. And then he made out a fifth voice, one that sounded very familiar too him. But this voice wasn't saying anything, it was…crying? Spike quickened his pace, anxiety gnawing at him. The closer he got, the more distinct the voices became.

"-he just your 'friend'? Or have you taken him to bed with you, too? I'll bet you have, you bucking whore. You make me sick, you freak."

Spike was getting a very bad feeling about this. By now, he was practically running. He heard a dull thudding sound, and the fifth voice cried out in pain. Oh Celestia. Sweetie Belle! The sight that greeted his eyes when he rounded the corner to the stairwell shocked and enraged him at the same time. Sweetie Belle was curled up in the corner of the stairwell, surrounded by four other mares. Her left eye was blackened and swollen shut, her lip was bleeding and she was covered in bruises.

"SWEETIE BELLE!!!"

At the sound of Spike's voice, everypony turned to look right at him. The four mares surrounding Sweetie Belle stared at him in shock, but he couldn't have cared less about that. Now that Sweetie Belle was facing him completely, he could see that somepony had scrawled 'Scale-Sucker' across her face in what looked like permanent marker. For a moment, Spike felt oddly detached from the situation. And then he felt a monstrous rage growing inside of him, so intense that it scared him a little. Wisps of smoke floated out of his nostrils as he turned on the four mares surrounding Sweetie Belle, lightning flashing in his eyes.

"Get the buck out of here now, before I decide to make you sorry for what you just did."

Eyes wide as saucers, the four mares turned tail and fled. Spike barely paid them any attention. His eyes were fixed on Sweetie Belle.  As he drew closer to her, she quickly looked away as if to keep him from seeing what a wreck she was. It broke his heart to see her in so much pain and suffering. Spike knelt down beside Sweetie Belle and gently wrapped his arms around her. The rage that had gripped him less than a minute earlier was gone, washed away by the pain of seeing Sweetie Belle like this. At his touch, she turned and clung to him with frightening tightness. She tried to say something, but she choked on the words before they could come out. He slowly lifted her to her hooves, whispering softly to her.

"Shhh…shhh…it's okay, Sweetie Belle…I'm here now. Come on, let's get you home."

-----

Spike sighed to himself as he turned the key in the lock to his new home. Things had not gone over well with Rarity when Spike had brought Sweetie Belle back home. He could still feel the hoofmark on his face where Rarity had slapped him, could still hear her words echoing inside his head. "If you EVER come near my sister again…"  the rest of it had gone downhill from there. But neither Rarity's hooves nor her words had hurt him nearly as much as when he had seen Sweetie Belle curled up and sobbing in the stairwell at the college. It still ate him up inside when he thought of it. And deep inside, he knew that Rarity was right. It was entirely his fault that this had happened to Sweetie Belle.

The gloomy thoughts followed him into his house like a storm cloud. He smiled bitterly to himself as he looked the place over. Yup, home sweet frickin' home. There were only two rooms in the place; a tiny bathroom and a slightly larger main room. The place was completely empty except for a dirty mattress that Spike had scavenged from a street corner a few days ago and a hot plate, a coffee maker and a space heater that he'd picked up at a thrift store not too long afterwards. It was just a little bit above the level of "dump", but it beat living out in the open at Sweet Apple Acres. And at just ten bits per week, it was definitely in his price range. Spike mentally thanked Twilight yet again for the cash she'd given him, he didn't know what he would have done without it.

Spike groaned as he fell face-first onto the mattress. He just wanted this day to end, dammit. But the more he tried to go to sleep, the more sleep ran away from him. He couldn't get Sweetie Belle out of his head; whenever he closed his eyes, he saw her crying in the stairwell, the words 'Scale-Sucker' written across her face like graffiti. Spike checked his watch: it was already eleven o'clock. He would have killed for a book, or a movie, or anything to take his mind off of the clusterbuck that this day had turned into, but he was just too worn out and depressed to do anything at all.

He was just about ready to start banging his head against the wall in frustration when a soft knock at the door snapped him out of his funk. Who the hay could it be NOW?! With an aggravated sigh, Spike rose from the mattress to go answer the door. When he opened it, he had to fight to keep from jumping back in shock.

"Hey, Spike. Mind if I come in?"

Sweetie Belle still looked pretty beaten, but she seemed a little more stable now than she had earlier on. And thankfully, she'd managed to get that horrible message wiped off of her face.

"Um…sure, come on in…Uh, Sweetie Belle? How did you find out where I live?"

She laughed softly at his question.

"Easy: I just asked Twilight."

Oh, Twilight, of course. Spike mentally smacked his forehead. Thank you sooo much for telling Sweetie Belle that I'm living in this trash heap, Twilight. Really, what would I do without you?

The next half hour passed uneasily for both of them. Spike made himself busy by fixing them some coffee, but after that there was nothing to do other than sit on the mattress and wait for someone to break the silence. Spike was the first one to speak up.

"Is it okay for you to be here? I mean…Rarity seemed like she wasn't kidding about us not seeing each other again."

An expression of bitterness and resentment flashed across Sweetie Belle's face at the mention of her sister's name.

"Buck what Rarity said. And you know what? Buck Rarity. Oh sure, she acted all worried when we were out in public, but you should have been there once we went inside. She was all 'Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am, Sweetie Belle?!' and 'You should have known this would happen, getting involved with the likes of him!' and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It felt like I was right back in that stairwell, Spike. She didn't even ask if I was okay, she just lectured me and then went back to one of her oh-so-important phone calls."

Spike was speechless; He'd known that things had gone sour between Sweetie Belle and her sister, but he'd never thought that Rarity could be so callous. The anger slowly leaked out of Sweetie Belle's expression as she turned to look at him.

"I…I never got the chance to thank you, Spike…so…thanks for what you did back there."

She leaned up against him and rested her head on his shoulder. For the first time since that nightmarish scene at the college, Spike felt a little better. He put his arm around her shoulder smiled.

"You're welcome, Sweetie Belle."

"…Hey, Spike?..."

Sweetie Belle's voice was quiet and a little bit nervous.

"…Would it be okay if I stayed with you tonight? I don't mean to impose, but I just…I just don't want to be alone tonight."

The first thing to register in Spike's mind was shock; first, that Sweetie Belle would want to sleep in a place like this, and second, that she was actually asking him if she could stay the night!! He felt his face heat up as he answered.

"Ummm…If you really want to, Sweetie Belle…I mean…this isn't exactly the nicest place, but if you want to stay, then-"

She put a hoof over his mouth, then smiled at him. Even with a black eye, she still had the most beautiful smile that Spike had ever seen.

"Thanks, Spike. You don't know how much that means to me."

She slowly moved her hoof down from his mouth, then leaned in and replaced it with her lips. For ages, they sat there on a dirty mattress, sharing a passionate kiss in the middle of a barren, ugly room. Finally, Sweetie Belle broke off the kiss and gave him another one of those dazzling smiles.

"What do you say, Spike? You want to take it a little further?"

In answer, Spike pulled her close and gave her a fiery kiss of his own. From there, things progressed like one would naturally expect them to.

It was the best night that either of them had ever had.