//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Lose Yourself 
// by QuestionLovesAnswer 
//------------------------------//

Loose Yourself (Part 1)

It was late at night, far later than Spike usually stayed up. On an average night he would have been asleep hours ago, but tonight sleep just wouldn’t come. He was all of 17 years old, and he was already feeling like his life was stuck in a rut. He laughed mirthlessly to himself. Life? What life? He’d spent all of his years helping Twilight with whatever needed to get done, and for the most part, getting no thanks for it. As far as he could tell, it looked like that was how things were going to stay. He had no life outside of Ponyville, and yet he didn’t even really have a place in his adopted hometown. He was the only dragon for miles and miles around, and even though he’d lived here for almost 11 years now, he still drew strange looks on the street. In Spike’s opinion, being one-of-a-kind was overrated.

Everyone else’s lives were going just peachy. Rainbow Dash and Applejack had hooked up a couple of years ago (he still had no idea why nopony had seen that one coming) and Dash had just been accepted into the Wonderbolts a few weeks back. Rarity was, as always, raking in the bits from her now world-famous fashion line. Pinkie Pie was doing similarly well, her new cupcake recipes had gotten popular enough that there was talk of starting a franchise. And it might have taken a ridiculous amount of coaxing and prodding to get them to work up the courage to do so, but Fluttershy and Big Macintosh had started seeing each other about a year ago, and had finally gotten married several months back. Last that Spike had heard, Fluttershy was pregnant with twins. Funny how much ponies could grow up in what felt like no time at all. Hell, even Twilight had finally found a significant other, although Spike didn’t think much of him. He was a dorky little stallion who she’d met at college who lapsed into some strange foreign language whenever he got frustrated, but Twilight seemed to have gone head over hooves for him.

Yeah, everyone was doing just bucking great. Meanwhile, Spike kept laboring on as Twilight’s assistant, while she ignored him more and more in favor of that unmemorable excuse for a stallion. Rarity had brushed him off every time he tried to even speak to her, to the point where he had finally given up on ever having a chance with the prim, fashionable unicorn. The rest of Twilight’s friends were all too busy with their own lives to even talk to him. Only Sweetie Belle paid any attention to him these days, why, he had no idea.

With a smoky sigh, Spike decided that tonight was not going to be a night for sleep. As he looked out of the library window at the beautiful full moon hanging in the night sky, he was suddenly seized with the uncontrollable desire to just get the hell out of there. Quietly, so as to not wake Twilight, Spike gathered up his Discman and a couple of his favorite CDs, crept across the library to the door and let himself out. The cool late-autumn air greeted him like an old friend as he stepped outside and quietly shut the door behind himself.

Spike sat down on the doorstep and put on his headphones, then picked out a CD and put it in the Discman. These CD’s were the only real solace that he had lately. Sweetie Belle had picked them up when she had accompanied Rarity to Manehattan for a business trip, and had given them to him as a present for his last birthday. It was almost funny, she was the only one who had even remembered that it was his birthday. The CD’s were full of some strange kind of music called “rap”, the likes of which he’d never heard in Ponyville or Canterlot. But the bleak and angry lyrics struck a chord with how depressed and resentful he’d been feeling these past few months.

Of course, it went without saying that Twilight didn’t like them. Spike could still remember her disapproving voice when she first found out, could still hear her asking “How can you listen to such obscene music Spike? What do you see in it?” with an infuriating look of confusion and worry on her face. But by now, he just didn’t care. If she was only going to notice him when he did something she didn’t like, then why should he listen to her? As the CD started to play and lyrics telling of violence and anger began to echo through his mind, Spike stood up and began to walk.

Ponyville at 3 AM was more like a ghost town than anything else. The streets, so full of ponies chatting with their friends and vendors hawking their wares during the day, were absolutely barren and silent. Spike didn’t mind. In the past few months, he’d slowly begun to hate being around others. Every time ponies stared at him, only to quickly look away when they saw that he’d noticed, every time somepony whispered a comment behind his back about how strange he’d been acting, Spike wanted to just turn on them and scream. He had no idea how he would have managed to stand all this bullshit without the music.

With a little bit of surprise, Spike noticed that he’d walked all the way across town to the lake just outside of Sweet Apple Acres. After a minute though, he just shrugged and walked down to the beach. He had no intention of going back to the library any time soon, so he might as well just sit here for a while. As he sat down in the sand by the edge of the water, Spike took off his headphones and gazed up at the moon. He wondered to himself if this was how Princess Luna had felt when she was banished up there; absolutely and totally alone, angry and resentful, despairing for where her life seemed to be headed.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh, Spike?”

The sudden voice almost made Spike jump out of his scales, he had been so caught up in his thoughts that he’d been oblivious to the outside world.

“Sweetie Belle? What are you doing out here? It’s gotta be almost four in the morning! Won’t Rarity worry if she finds out you’re out here by yourself?”

The young mare just laughed quietly at his question.

“Rarity? She’s too busy with conference calls and designing the latest fashions to notice something unimportant like her little sister sneaking out at night. Don’t worry about me.”

Spike couldn’t help but wonder why he’d never noticed how lovely her voice was before now.

“So, what are you up to out here, Spike?”

For a moment, Spike was silent. He didn’t want to dump all of his problems on her, she didn’t need to hear about how much he hated his life, how sick he was of everything and everyone. But suddenly, he found himself pouring it all out. Every bit of frustration, all the anger and loneliness, every last ounce of resentment and depression that he’d been bottling up, all of it came rushing out in a flood of words. He tried to make himself shut up, but after holding it in for so long, there was no stopping it. After about five minutes, he started to run out of things to say, and eventually just lapsed into silence.

“I’m sorry for putting all of that on you, Sweetie Belle”, he said quietly with shame in his voice.

“Don’t worry about it, Spike. Everyone needs to let it out now and then.”

She almost gave him a heart attack for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. He hadn’t noticed her sit down right next to him while he was ranting. He could smell her from here, a tantalizing mixture of lilac and something else that he couldn’t identify. And suddenly, Spike found himself listening as she poured out her soul to him. She told him how lonely she had been since her friends had gotten their cutie marks and moved on with their own lives. She told him about the growing silence between her and her older sister, now that Rarity was making it big in the fashion world. She told him about the endless crowd of would-be boyfriends that would not leave her alone, and the rumors that the other mares had been spreading about her behind her back. She told him that she’d had a crush on him for as long as she could remember.

Without even being conscious of what he was doing, Spike had put his arm around her shoulder as she let out all of her demons. For a terrible moment, he wondered if he had gone too far, but suddenly she turned to him and clung to him fiercely. She was silent, but he could feel her tears on his chest, feel her shaking as she quietly wept. For what felt like hours, Spike and Sweetie Belle sat there on the shore, holding each other close. And then she let go of him and slowly rose to her hooves.

“Spike?...”

Her voice was cracked from her recent sobbing, but it still sounded beautiful to Spike.

“Yes, Sweetie Belle?”

“Thank you. I think I should be heading home now, it’s almost daylight.”

To his surprise, Spike noticed that she was right. The sky to the east was already changing from deep blue to a warm pink color. Sighing, he stood up.

“Will you be alright, walking home by yourself? I could come with you if you want…”

She smiled at him then, a warm smile full of gratitude, and stepped closer to him.

“I think I’ll be fine. And thanks again, Spike…for everything.”

For a moment, she just stood there, her face less than a foot from his. And then, slowly, inexorably, she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. If their embrace on the beach had seemed to last for hours, then this one kiss seemed to last for weeks. Finally she stepped back, gave him one more of those warm-as-the-sun smiles, and then turned and headed for home. For a few minutes Spike stood rooted to the spot like a statue. His face was on fire, his heart was pounding and his chest was heaving like he had just run a marathon. When he had finally cooled off enough to move, he picked up his Discman and CD’s and began walking back to the library. Although he didn’t realize it until he was standing in front of the library’s entrance, for the first time in months he felt happy. As he was about to open the door, he paused and smiled to himself.

“Thank you too, Sweetie Belle.”