The entire group started oohing and aahing over the sickly sweet memory, with Rainbow Dash doing her best to look tough with a giant red blush on her face. Rarity, on the other hand, was eating up the attention, deliberately hanging off her wife’s foreleg like a springtime mare.
Twilight, on the other hand, was studying her notes scrupulously, before realizing a pattern in their behaviors. Underlining a few sections and cross-referencing one page to another, the royal student looked up as she reached a eureka.
“I get it. You two don’t show affection around your friends!”
At this, both halves of the vow were affronted.
“Disaffectionate? Moi?! How dare you accuse me of such! I’ll have you know I have all the love and care in the world for your girls.”
“Yeah, egghead, we’re not heartless! Maybe if you read some chick fics instead of dusty boring tomes, you wouldn’t be so jealous!”
“Jealous?!” Twilight yelped. “I’m not jealous! Of anypony! I…” She gave a long-suffering sigh and steadied herself. “What I meant to say is the reason I, personally, never picked up on it is because you keep your romance away from us. As a whole.”
At that, Rarity and Rainbow Dash calmed down and looked at each other.
“Do we really…?”
“I mean, I guess I can kinda see it…”
“Ah’ve noticed that too. Y’all do a good job of keepin’ your business to your business,” Applejack nodded, “Not that it’s a problem! Everypony’s entitled to a lil’ privacy. Ah mean, imagine if ah talked about my apples and my work all day long!”
The crowd went silent. Rarity sipped her tea. Twilight subconsciously wrote ellipses at the corners of her notes.
“…Shucks, guess it’s somethin’ I gotta work on, myself.”
“After a certain point, we just never felt the need to be all ooey-gooey in public.” Rainbow shrugged. “Or, at least, I never did. I think I make up for it plenty when we’re on dates and stuff.”
“When we began courting, I did feel the need to publicize our relationship,” Rarity admitted, “but I’m long past that now. And, as Applejack said, a healthy work-life balance is essential. Although, in this case, a healthy love-friendship balance?”
“Though, maybe we should be a bit more public. Would have saved a lot of trouble with, uh…”
“Me?” Spike raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. It’d been a while since he was here, Twilight had almost forgotten. As it stood, he was halfway through a piece of apple pie. “Yeah. I get it. I figured out after that whole Diamond Dog thing.”
Spike happily snacked on a gem, one of the many that Rarity gave him after she was done with Sapphire Shores’ order. A big, shiny, one-hoof-long teardrop-cut emerald, which he was holding like an ice-cream cone and licking away at, also like an ice-cream cone.
A bucketload of gems, saving Rarity from evil, and some one-on-one time with the prettiest pony ever? Spike couldn’t believe his luck this week! Practically floating on his claws, the baby dragon knocked on her door three times, eager to see his crush once more.
“Hey, Rarity! I’m here like you asked!”
“Just a moment, darling! Need to make sure this still… fits…”
“Oh, are you doing some dresswork?” Spike asked, now imagining her laboring seamlessly over some seams. “I can help you if you’d like!
“Not quite, dear, just… ah, hello.” The door opened. “Feel free to come in, I’d like to discuss something with you.”
Spike’s eyes went up her beautifully long front legs, to her perfect smile, and her eyelashes, and the ring on her horn – wait.
His heart dropped.
“You’re engaged?!” He yowled, loud enough for everypony on the block to stop and stare. Rarity groaned and facehoofed before pulling him into Carousel Boutique, leaving behind pieces of shattered heart in his wake. At least, metaphorically.
“Who is it?! Big Macintosh? Dr. Horse? Doctor Justdoctor? There’s no way any mac or doctor or mac-doc-horse or whatever is good enough for you. Call off the wedding. Please?” Spike rattled off, before his emerald is pressed against his lips, silencing him.
“There’s no wedding to call off, Spike. It already happened. I’m married.”
Spike’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he fainted. Onto a well-placed couch that Rarity levitated in from out of nowhere, thankfully.
…
A few minutes later, Spike woke up to the smell of fertilizer. Startled, he gagged and hacked and coughed, trying to get whatever it was out of his face.
“Smelling basalt. Guess they work on both griffons and dragons.” Rainbow Dash hummed, setting down a harmless-looking grey rock onto a counter.
“Are you alright, Spike? You almost took quite the tumble.” Rarity asked, running a hoof down his spines like he liked it.
“Oh, Rarity, I had the most terrible nightmare…” He groaned, rubbing the bleariness out of his eyes. “You had a ring on, and you said you were married to Doctor Macinhorse and would live happily ever after and laughed in my face…”
“Well, you’re about twenty-five percent correct I’m certain I didn’t laugh in your face, and I’m not married to Doctor Macinhorse.”
“Wait,” Rainbow Dash scratched her head, “You’re not gonna live happily ever after?”
“That remains to be seen, my love,” Rarity snarked, eliciting a raspberry from the pegasus.
At that point, Spike opened his eyes back up, and the golden ring on her horn was still there. Now that he was closer, he saw it in further detail: a prismatic diamond that shined like a rainbow at the right angle, cut in the shape of her cutie mark. And Rainbow Dash… had the same ring on her tail.
His heart sank.
“I… I thought…”
“That I was single? I’m sorry. I thought it was obvious that I wasn’t, and when I saw you liked me, I strung you on not wanting to break your precious heart.”
“You knew?” Spike asked, a bit of betrayal sinking into him.
“You’re very forward, dear. I just… didn’t know how to tell you without hurting you. Like this.”
“We had a talk, and figured it’d be best to get it out of the way before it got worse.” Rainbow Dash, his supposed rival-in-love-except-she-already-won, said awkwardly. ”Like ripping off a bandage.”
Spike picked up a pillow from the couch and buried his face in it, groaning. His feelings were like a clumpy, gross pile of mane and coat hair, swirling around in the muck at the bottom of a bathtub that Twilight never bothered to clean. Or, uh, any other pony, since Twilight was growling at him like an angry manticore while he told this story.
The point was his feelings were everywhere! It was almost as bad as when Discord showed up. He felt embarrassed, he felt stupid, he felt angry, all at once, at the same time. He could barely listen when Rainbow Dash was talking.
“We figured it’d be best to do it after how you were acting with the fishing rod. Making kissy faces and daydreaming about my wife groveling at your feet is not cool, my guy. It was cute at first, but I was crazy worried when she went missing, and there you were…!”
“Rainbow Dash.” Rarity harrumphed, shutting the pegasus up. Spike was a little thankful for that, just a little.
“What she’s trying to say is that we saw the signs, and we decided. We’re sorry. Genuinely, for what it’s worth. I should have told you right after the Summer Sun Celebration – nothing was stopping me. And that’s my fault. If there’s anything we can do to make you feel better, please let us know.”
“…Yeah.” Rainbow Dash finally sighed, looking down. “Sorry, little dude. It’s on us.”
Spike finally took his face off the couch pillow and sniffled. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t. He was a big boy dragon now. He leveled an angry look at Rainbow Dash and pointed a finger at her like he was casting the craziest spell ever.
“You!” He growled. It came from deep in his chest, like he was breathing fire. “You’ll take care of Rarity, right? Forever until the end of time? Make her happy? Because if you make her cry once, I’ll… turn into a giant dragon and hunt you down, fastest pegasus or not!”
Rainbow Dash paled, holding up two hooves in surrender.
“Geez, the overprotective talk hits different when it isn’t Hondo,” Rainbow said under her breath, before steeling herself, “Of course. That’s totally obvious! Element of Loyalty, helloooo? Don’t worry, Spike, I’ve got this.”
It occurred, just then, that Hondo was the name of Rarity’s dad. Here Spike was, vying for her undying affection, and he didn’t even know what her father’s name was. That proved… weirdly anchoring, in a way.
“Okay.” Spike deflated, picking up his emerald. “Well, it was great while it lasted. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Rarity: and for practicing smooches with your wife while you were watching, Rainbow Dash.”
“If there’s anything at all…” Rarity begun, before Spike got off the couch.
“Maybe some alone time for a week. And more gems. And ice cream. I have a feeling I’ll be going through my emergency pint real soon.”
“Well, alright,” Rarity hesitated. “Please, let us know if you’d like to talk any time. We’re still your friends, and we’ll always be here for you.”
Spike worked up a smile and walked out the door.
“And that’s the story of my first heartbreak.” Spike said, sighing. “Oh well. Sorry for bringing down the mood, guys, I…”
Whatever he was going to say was stopped by a sudden four-mare, one-dragon group hug. A blush worked its way onto his face and he squirmed helplessly.
“I can’t believe that’s why you were so sad that whole week!” Twilight gasped, the first pony to fully hug him in the embrace-a-thon. “And I even got annoyed at you for eating all the ice cream. Spike…”
“Hey, it’s nothing. I’m over it! Really.” Spike chuckled, before spotting who was missing from the hug. Rarity and Rainbow Dash did their best to avoid eye contact, even shifting away from each other.
Aw, heck. He didn’t wanna leave anyone out.
Spike cleared his throat. “I mean, if we’re gonna group hug, it’s gotta be the whole group, right?”
Eventually, the married couple joined their friends, and it was one big pile of warmth.