• Published 26th Dec 2016
  • 6,298 Views, 163 Comments

The Secrets We Keep - BlazzingInferno



Spike and Rarity each have their secrets. Sharing them might be the best decision they've ever made.

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Secrets Kept

Spike’s stomach rumbled as he walked, thankfully not with the same ferocity as before. In the hour since they left Ember’s palace, he and Rarity had crested hills and crossed valleys with little more than the sound of their own footsteps to accompany them. Normally she would be doing the talking during trips like these, simply because he’d be too out of breath. She never packed light, and thanks to him she never had to worry about how heavy ten suitcases could be.

Not until today, at least, the day when she’d barely spoken to him, and never with the newfound familiarity and openness he'd come to cherish. He glanced over at her again, just as he'd been doing since they left. Sweat rolled down her neck as she trudged forward, her steps strained and slow under the weight of the luggage piled on her back. Her short, gasping breaths were more than he could take, especially when his backpack was so light.

“Are you sure I can’t carry something? I’ve got two free hands, right here.” he held them out for emphasis.

Rarity grunted. “That… won’t be… necessary. I can… manage… my bags… myself.”

“I know you’ve got it, but I can still help. I like helping, remember?”

Her head whipped from side to side. “No. I’ll do it… mys—aah!”

Her mountain of luggage suffered a minor avalanche. Two bags slid off the top and clattered to the ground at Spike’s feet. He scooped them up in his hands just as her magic started to tug on them. “It’s fine, Rarity. I’ll get these two.”

She turned and glared at him, her sweat-soaked mane flat and tangled. “I said I’d do it myself!”

Spike let go of the bags, stunned. “What’d I say? I-I just wanted to help.”

“Well I wish you’d stop! I told you before… I don’t need a king, I don’t need a knight, and I certainly don’t need a servant!”

“But—”

“And please stop your incessant fawning over me; it’s been insufferable ever since you and Ember woke me up this morning!”

A new kind of fire rose through Spike. He turned away with his arms crossed. “Fine, but I’m just trying to be your friend! Friends help each other! That’s what I was doing for Ember, and that's what I've been doing for you ever since we met, not just today! Did you just start noticing? Some friend you turned out to—”

“Well perhaps you should stop helping me altogether!”

Spike froze. His anger vanished like a snuffed flame. Losing Rarity’s friendship didn’t burn like a spicy pepper, it was just the opposite: he felt empty inside, like he’d lost whatever his scales were supposed to keep in.

Rarity’s luggage toppled to the ground as she rushed to his side, her voice remorseful. “Spike, that… that came out much harsher than I—”

He batted her hoof away before it could touch him. “Let’s just go home… Let’s get back to Ponyville and then and I’ll… I’ll leave you alone. I won't bother you anymore, since that's what you want.”

He marched over to the fallen suitcases and started piling them on his shoulders. “But until we get home, I’m carrying this stuff! I’m sick of watching you work harder than you need to for no good reason!”

Rarity didn’t protest, not even as Spike piled the last of her bags on his back.

“Now let’s go catch the train,” he muttered.

---

Nothing felt real anymore. Even as Spike lay in his sleeping bag for one extra night, there was a surreal disconnect between his heart and his head. He knew Rarity telling him no was supposed to hurt. He knew the mean things they’d said to each other, especially on the heels of so much blissful openness, were supposed to be devastating. He knew he was supposed to be in emotional agony, and yet he wasn’t. Instead he just felt cold, no matter how tightly he wrapped himself up in his sleeping bag. She really had torn his heart out.

Rain pattered against the tent. The purple wall of fabric next to him vibrated subtly under the rainfall, and violently when the wind gusted. The one thing it didn’t do was relent. Spike was dry, and under normal circumstances might have even considered himself comfortable. If he’d set up his sleeping bag outside when the sun began to set, when they were still hours away from the train station thanks to their journey’s late start, he’d be soaking wet and chilled to the bone. Instead he’d marched through the tent door as soon as Rarity set it up, muttering about the storm clouds overhead. She hadn’t argued, at least in word. If she’d done something more subtle, like frowning or rolling her eyes, he’d missed it. He hadn’t bothered to look at her since he’d commandeered her luggage.

He’d have to look at her eventually, though. Hints of sunlight filtered through the tent walls; night was over, regardless of if he’d slept. Soon enough she’d emerge from the private recesses of the tent’s bedroom and start packing up the essentials she’d gotten out for the night. That process could take hours in favorable weather; how long would it take in the pouring rain?

Spike threw off his blanket and stood. There wasn’t any point in waiting. Even if she didn’t want his help, even if she never did again, he could take care of some basic things like packing up his sleeping bag and getting breakfast ready. Whenever Rarity was ready to go, he would be too. The sooner this whole trip was behind them the better.

He stepped around the tent’s dim interior, amazed by the decor he hadn’t taken notice of the previous evening. Nothing short of magic could’ve made a camping tent this grandiose. How many tents had a foyer and second story balcony? However many there were in the world, none of them could’ve possibly been decorated as artfully as this one. In place of actual furniture, the tent walls were covered in appliqué pictures that turned an already lavish camping experience into a trip through a mansion. The wall closest to him depicted an overstuffed sofa and a set of arched windows, all of which looked just as good as everything else Rarity’s hooves touched. It was no wonder she’d turned him down; his accomplishments and aspirations could never measure up to hers. All he could’ve ever done was slow her down.

“I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Spike jumped and barely stifled a scream, even though the only pony that he could possibly wake was already seated less than five feet behind him. Rarity stared at the rain through the open tent door, her mane drenched and her front hooves drowning in an inch-deep puddle. Tears splashed into the standing water as she cried softly.

“N-no, I… I was already up,” he said.

Rarity sniffled a few times, and Spike couldn’t help wondering if she was as freezing cold as she looked. “May I tell you something, Spikey?”

He touched his claws together. The numbness that’d gotten him through the night was fading. Rarity sat before him, hunched over a puddle of tears and rainwater, and all he could think of was self-preservation. What would she say next? Wasn’t taking his heart enough? He took a small step backward.

“Please?”

The quiver in her voice broke him. She hadn’t stolen his heart, after all; he’d given it to her a long time ago.

He stepped forward, slowly at first, and sat next to her in the puddle. “What is it?”

She continued to face the storm, even as raindrops mixed freely with her still-flowing tears. “It rained like this the first night I spent in my shop. On the eve of what was supposed to be my triumphant march into fashion and independence, it poured all night. That’s how I discovered that the roof leaked… not just in one room… everywhere. I ran around, setting down pots, pans, buckets, vases, and anything else I could find to spare my merchandise and new flooring. And then… then I retreated to a small storage closet under the stairs, the one spot in the whole building that wasn’t wet, and cried until morning. The enormity of the decision I’d made to open my own business, to set out on my own with nopony to assist me… I still felt so strongly that I’d made the right decision, but everything it meant came crashing down on me all at once… There were so many seemingly insurmountable tasks ahead of me, so much to do, so much to plan, so much that I knew I hadn’t even thought of… all on my own.”

At last Spike saw the Rarity he knew again, the one he loved. If only she loved him too. If only she didn’t look as devastated as he felt.

“As the days wore on… As I pulled myself together and began to decorate… I wallpapered over the storage closet’s door and haven’t set hoof in it since. Nopony else knows it exists.”

“Why are you telling me?” Spike whispered. “Why after… everything?”

Rarity blinked away more tears. “Because I’ve had an answer for you for longer than I care to admit, and everything it means… and everything it doesn’t… I’m being torn apart from the inside out! From the second you asked me, I knew that if I dared consider you as more than a friend for a single moment I might not be able to stop… and then, in the midst of all the chaos we’ve faced… I realized I already had. Seeing you help Ember come into her own, and offering that same steadying hoof to you reminded me again and again of my own rough start, and what I would’ve given to have you with me every step of the way. There’s no one else I’d rather have beside me, then or now.”

Spike’s mouth hung open. His heart thundered in his chest: alive, unbroken, but still freshly wounded. “You mean…”

She sank down and buried her face in her hooves. “But I’m so frightened! The mere prospect of beginning a courtship, let alone one with such a wonderful friend as you… It runs counter to all my plans, my dreams, my vision for the future… and walking away from my feelings feels just as terrible! I'm so sorry for the horrible things I said… for angrily pushing you away even as part of me yearned for the opposite.”

Spike knew he was crying, too. Happy or sad, he couldn’t help it. Worst of all was what he had to say next. “You d-don’t have to give me an answer. I-I know you said you would, but… I meant it when I said I wanted you to be happy. A-and if I can’t do that, if I’m just in your way… I want you to be happy, even… even if it’s not with me.”

Rarity raised her head and faced him, utterly devoid of makeup or hair product but still the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. “That, Spike, is exactly why my answer is yes. Yes, of course I want us to be more than we were, more than we are now… If you'll still have me.”

He smiled through his own tears, which weren’t stopping. “Of course I will! But your dreams… your career…”

“I’m not giving either up, but I swear upon all things fashionable that I will adjust business trips, spring lines, and haute couture itself to make room for you, for us. I wouldn’t dare ask more than that of you: no matter if your dream is to be Twilight’s assistant or to climb the tallest mountains of Equestria, I will stand by and support you just as you’ve always supported me in whatever way I can.”

Spike looked down at his own hands. Very slowly, he raised them up and wrapped them around Rarity’s shoulders. Her head leaned against his, her cheek brushing his ear, and her breath rolling down his back.

“You feel so cold.” he whispered.

She nodded, an assent all the more intimate for his being able to feel it. “As do you… I-I’m more terrified than cold, really… excited too, but also terrified…”

“I’m… not sure how to fix that… but if you’re cold, I could get us a blanket and… maybe we could talk some more, just like this?”

“I’d love to… perhaps over breakfast? I’m afraid we don’t have much in the way of supplies—”

He nodded back. “I’ll cook.”

“And I’ll help.”