Just a Thought

by Chinchillax

6) Patience

Twilight gave Spike the choice between doing nothing and working on castle chores.

Spike was surprised to say that he'd prefer the chores. It gave him something to do.

He was the kind of dragon that always needed to be doing something with his claws. They couldn't just be doing nothing. And he worried that any spare minute he devoted to thinking would inevitably lead him to thinking about how much he ought to kill himself.

But at least the chore he gave himself today was his favorite—wander the castle looking for extra crystal growth. Despite all expectations, the castle seemed to want to keep growing. If he gave it a few centuries he was sure the castle would end up engulfing the town. But with careful planning—well, gnawing—the castle's crystals could be kept at bay.

The crystal only grew where it thought it could expand, either by cutting rooms in half, or growing slow stalks of crystal that would someday form more towers. Spike clawed at one line of bumps where the castle was trying to form stalagmites of crystal, bisecting a rather large living room. His right claw broke apart the crystal while his left flattened it out with a chisel. He gnawed on some of the crystal, but it was so sugary he ended up throwing most of it in a basket to eat later.

He was actually grateful there was so much crystal accumulated in the two weeks he was gone. He had the habit of nipping any spare crystal growing so he could have more of the sugary gems. But there was a lot of work today, which led to even more of the tasty gems. He just wished they changed flavors a little bit. As of now they had a kind of grape amethyst mix that was really good the first hour of snacking but got old after that.

Without Spike's help, at the rate the castle grew, it would grow into the size of the castle in Canterlot in a few centuries.

Spike blew fire on the crystal and smoothed it out with the chisel, leaving the floor completely flat.

A few centuries wasn't all that long by dragon standards. If Spike wasn't there, perhaps the castle would grow into a large palace that many could call home. There would be adventurers, dignitaries, the princess herself, and her entourage; it could become a very large castle indeed. Actually... it could have more than guests. Spike wasn't sure how Twilight felt about having a family of her own, but centuries was a very long time for even a princess. Perhaps she'd have a husband... or several dead husbands by that point. And the castle would be full of her children, grandchildren... great-grandchildren and more.

It could literally end up becoming a family tree.

But if it was a family tree... did that mean that Spike was invited? Twilight had practically raised him, so maybe he belonged... but he certainly wasn't biologically related.

Spike shook his head, focusing on smoothing out a particularly bumpy outgrowth of crystal.

In that time hundreds of years from now... would his life be wanted? Would Twilight regret keeping Spike around. He was a dragon. He was destined to be a villain.

But Twilight also threw a wrench in his plans, she cared about him. How much did she care? Would she care if he just died? Would it matter all that much to her?

Of course it would. Twilight has been... well... she wasn't all that kind... she had improved by leaps and bounds from the slapstick physical abuse she used to put him through. But she never wanted him dead.

Spike looked around the room. The crystal growths had been completely smoothed over and his basket of castle gems was considerably fuller.

He meandered around the castle, looking for growths. He found another set in the library. This growth seemed to want to form a crystal chandelier. It was no bigger than the size of Spike's fist, but it was slowly reaching out from the ceiling with a delicate looking crystal pillar. He wandered around it, watching as the light diffused into it, forming a teeny tiny rainbow on the other side of the room.

If he left it alone, what would happen? Would it be beautiful? Or would it just be a hazard? It really could go both ways. It could get bigger and bigger, forming a frozen fractal in the center of the library, emanating serenity for all to see whenever they chanced to look away from their books. Or, it could grow and grow in grotesque ways, eventually growing so big that it would fall from the ceiling, impaling all the ponies who were studying below it.

Or perhaps it was both? A beautiful disaster waiting to happen. The crystal chandelier would grow bigger and more gorgeous, attracting ponies to spend time in this room. However, it would betray them when it inevitably fell, murdering all those that had admired it so. Beautiful and deadly.

Knowing that—what was the best route?

Kill it now just in case it might hurt ponies later? Or let it grow and see what happens?

Should he kill himself now, or wait and see what happens?

The answer was obvious: NOW!

Spike grabbed the ladder that was usually reserved for the books and jammed it in between two solid tables. The result of the table sandwich was a very sturdy ladder that he scampered up to pluck off the chandelier.

Twilight, who must've heard the noise of Spike moving the tables, took that moment to come out of a side study room. "Spike, what are you doing?"

"Woa—oh!" Spike wobbled on the ladder before holding onto it much tighter and glancing down to Twilight below. "I'm getting rid of this growth."

"Aww... you sure? It looks like it would make a pretty chandelier."

Since when did Twilight have any sense of what looked good or not?

"But it could grow too big, and then it might break and kill somepony."

Twilight gave him a look as if she had just taken a bite of a particularly sour lemon. "I don't think the castle would do something like that," said Twilight. "It gave us the map and everything."

Spike reached out to the chandelier in embryo. His claws were just out of reach of it. "Do you really want to risk it though?"

Twilight shrugged. "I don't see why not. It'll look great!"

Spike stopped reaching for the chandelier and looked down at Twilight. He could feel tears start to form in his eyes, but he desperately fought them back. Twilight couldn't see him behave like that.

He quickly skittered down.

"Well...is there any other place in the castle to take care of?" Spike said, trying to mask his quivering voice as exertion from moving the tables back to their normal spots.

Twilight's horn glowed and the tables returned to their usual spots while the ladder navigated its way home. "I think some of the towers grew a little, but you've been working all morning. Do you want to break for lunch?" asked Twilight.

"Umm... maybe later," said Spike as he ran off.

He needed to find a corner to cry in.

---

He rushed towards a bathroom near the entrance of the castle—the one no one ever used. The door made a satisfying clicking noise when as he locked it behind him.

Did Twilight really want him? Did she really, really want him to be around?

If it was a choice between keeping him alive, and letting some other random pony be alive, who would she pick?

No—that's not her decision to make. It was his. And he chose to protect others from himself.

Protect. Protect others. That's all he needed to do.

Shining Armor was good at protecting others, he even got his cutie mark as a shield so he could protect the ones he loved. Spike wanted to protect the ones he loved. But if he got a cutie mark... wouldn't it just be a dead dragon? The best way to protect his friends from the inevitable accidental deaths he might cause was just to die. He just had to die. The best protection from an attack was to make sure that attack never happened in the first place.

He had decided that! He just needed to follow through.

But would his death really save more lives? Twilight could potentially live thousands of years. Would Twilight be distraught enough at Spike's suicide that it would be a thorn in her side all those years? There's some psychological damage that never fully heals.

If he calculated the worth of a pony's life by the length of their lifespan, and assumed Twilight was going to live 10 times the length of a normal pony then that would make Twilight worth ten other ponies (at least—this was Twilight he was talking about).

The distress Twilight may feel from the psychological damage of finding him dead would probably cause about two lifetimes worth of pain over a ten lifetime period... meaning that if Spike managed to accidentally kill only one pony over the course of his long life, then that would even out.

Where was he getting these fake numbers from? Twilight taught him better than this!

No—I'm not that important to her. I'm not. I can't be. She—

He was just a helper. She wouldn't possibly be distraught if he just... died. Would she? It wouldn't cause agony would it?

Spike smacked himself on his snout. She would be distraught. She—they—EVERYONE had JUST spent three days looking for him. Was he losing his memory too? That was yesterday for crying out loud!

He knocked his head against the wall of the bathroom, causing him to wince in pain as his snout hit it at just the wrong angle. He felt a little bit of blood start to come out of his nostrils. Dark drops fell onto the crystal floor, mixing with a few tears. He grabbed some toilet paper and stuffed it up his nose.

The real question in all this—the one he had been trying to answer and had been dancing around in his dark thoughts was this: How could Spike do the most good: by being alive, or by being dead?

He didn't feel qualified to ask that question to himself. Truth be told, he had gotten too used to the idea of dying. It had become very comfortable to think about. He wouldn't need to do chores anymore. He wouldn't have to cause any unnecessary annoyance or discomfort to anyone. He couldn’t cause any problems if he's not there to begin with.

But taking the opposite approach: would being alive solve more problems than not? He was already a helper. But... he didn't help that much.

He wasn't qualified to answer his own questions, he was too much in his own head. He just needed to write down some of these ideas, and maybe he could try to reason out his feelings on all this? No—he couldn't do that. Let's say he did write out how much he wanted to kill himself. That would be something for Twilight to find after the fact.

Okay, he could make the plan to destroy anything that was written. It wouldn't be that hard. He had flames that literally came out of his mouth. He could just turn all his notes about his own suicide to cinders before anyone even noticed.

But what if he accidentally used the wrong flame!? It was trivial to switch between flames for Princess Celestia and regular flames. He had made the mistake on more than one occasion. What if he ended up sending his suicide plans to Celestia? What happened to suicidal ponies? He had heard lots of rumors that they threw them in a dungeon and drugged them with potions until they didn't want to kill themselves anymore. Which really made no sense whatsoever. Anyone in a dungeon would probably want to kill themselves even more. That rumor must not have been true—where had Spike heard it from?

What happened to suicidal ponies? That could possibly explain what might happen to him. How would he even find that out?

Spike breathed in and then breathed out slowly.

Too many unanswerable questions. Too many what-ifs. Too many... too much... thinking.

He was unlikely to accidentally kill anypony today. So that meant he didn't need to think about how he ought to kill himself today. Today's worrying was done... he just... needed to...

He stared at the floor. He hadn't realized he had been pacing back and forth, and some of the blood from his nosebleed earlier had been tracked all over the bathroom floor.

Spike couldn't help but breathe in sharply at all the stains he had tracked, which caused his snout to make a funny sounding whistling noise.

There were cleaning supplies down the hall, but not in the bathroom itself. He propped up one of his legs onto the sink, rinsing off the blood one foot at a time. Then he grabbed some toilet paper and tried to see how much he could get rid of.

He wet down a clump of the paper and tried to wipe down a spot. It came out... but slowly. He'd be stuck there for hours at this point.

He flushed the toilet, getting rid of some of the blood stained toilet paper. All he'd have to do is run to the supply closet down the main hallway and then come back. It would be twenty seconds at most.

Spike swung open the door and rushed down the hallway, not looking back, focused fully on the task at hand. His claws grappled with the handle on the supply closet as he quickly grabbed the crate of cleaning supplies, and then reversed course back to the bathroom.

That was when he heard a quiet gasp coming from the bathroom.

"Oh my," said a voice inside.

Spike quickly knocked on the door. "Umm... sorry, I wasn't exactly finished in there yet."

Fluttershy exited out of the bathroom her hair masking her eyes. "Umm... Spike... are you o—? Oh goodness you have a nosebleed! Goodness!"

Spike was suddenly very aware of the wads of toilet paper stuffed up his nostrils, and that they were probably slightly drenched in blood.

"Yes, I just need to clean up the mess I made. Sorry, lemme in there real quick."

With that, Spike stole into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

He heard a knock on the door.

"What is it!?" he asked.

"Are there any other bathrooms in the castle?" asked Fluttershy through the door.

"What!?" asked Spike, talking a little louder than normal through the door. "There's at least ten bathrooms! Were you waiting for this one!?"

"Umm... yes..."

"For how long!?" asked Spike.

"Umm... a little while. I don't like to interrupt."

Spike didn't know very many swear words, but now would really be the opportune time to use one of them. But the least tame phrase he knew was Sweet Celestia, which really did not fit how he was feeling at that moment. "Is this the only bathroom in the castle you've ever used!?"

"Yes... I find it awkward to ask for the bathroom, so I just... don't."

Spike sighed. "There's another bathroom down the hall and to the left."

"Thank you!" Fluttershy squeaked as she rushed down the hallway.

Spike started cleaning the floor. He felt very uncomfortable using the same cleaning potions with which he had tried to kill himself recently. But it really was the most effective way to clean the floor. It didn’t help that the crystal was so finicky, and required the highest quality potions to let it shine properly.

A few minutes later, the bathroom looked as pristine as it ever had. Spike cleaned off his feet and made sure he was presentable. His nosebleed had clotted enough that he could take out the toilet paper stuffed up his snout.

He got to breathe in and out a few times before there was another knock at the door.

“Umm… Spike?” said Fluttershy

“Yeah, what is it?”

“When you’re done, I’d love to talk with you a little bit about Key.”

Spike’s heart immediately decided it was time to prepare for a sprint across Ponyville, but his brain tried very, very, very hard to avoid that by leaving his feet firmly planted on the ground. Which only ended up making his blood pump so hard to the point that Spike considered shoving more toilet paper back up his snout in case he got another nosebleed.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew how to take care of him.”

Spike took a deep breath, tried not to think too deeply about how much of a liability this bird had become, and opened the door.

Key squawked and landed on Spike’s shoulder as Fluttershy led the way to a side room with some couches.

Spike instinctively felt like he was supposed to offer tea or something, but the kitchen was actually quite far away from this side room, and really, what was the point of anything anymore.

“So, you probably have a lot of questions about phoenixes, Spike. I mean—this is only the second case I’ve ever heard of phoenixes being domesticated.”

Key gave a flat “keer” sound.

“Oh no, don’t worry about that, Key. I just mean that you want to hang around ponies, or dragons, in this case.”

Key chirped back a curt reply.

“Oh, is that so?” said Fluttershy.

Key continued to chirp, going into several long sentences of what must have been a very detailed conversation. Spike could only understand bits and pieces, but whatever it was made him very anxious.

“Well… hmm…” said Fluttershy as Key continued.

Spike safely managed to avoid his eyes widening in fear. He was good actor. A very good actor. He just needed to pretend that he was good at this.

“Did you catch all that?” asked Fluttershy.

Spike’s throat was too dry to respond properly, but he eventually coughed out, “Not exactly.”

“It seems Key thinks you’re in some kind of danger, and as your friend he would like to spend a lot of time with you as you’re going through this.”

Key nodded his head.

Spike felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t exactly been appreciative of Key lately. He was such a hindrance to his plans. But Key was a friend that wanted to keep Spike alive. Perhaps this whole “wanting to die” thing was just temporary? Is that what Key was trying to do, help Spike through this rough patch until the suicidal thoughts went away? But they wouldn’t go away. This wasn’t a phase. The only way to get rid of the suicidal thoughts was to follow through.

“That’s very loyal of you, Key,” said Fluttershy. “I’m glad Spike has a friend like you.”

Spike felt himself grow warm, as if the flames in his stomach wanted to burn him for everything he ever felt. He felt guilty for eventually killing himself. But also felt guilty for those that actually cared about him. Maybe he could just become so mean that no one could possibly want him to be alive? No—for Spike it would be impossible to be that maliciously unkind toward others. He just didn’t have the heart to do it. He supposed he could blame ponies for him being unable to think that way. Other dragons seemed to have no trouble hurting others.

“So, what’s this danger you want to protect Spike from?” asked Fluttershy to Key.

Spike looked at Key, his eyes drooping. He really was at the mercy of this bird. This “friend.” Why had he ever trusted him. How could he have been so stupid?

Key chirped back to Fluttershy.

“Ah, it’s a personal matter. Alright.”

Spike looked up, the connection between his ears and brain unable to fully understand what had just happened. Key gave Spike a knowing look.

“Well, Spike. If you ever need someone to talk to about your personal problems, I… well… I’ve been through a lot myself in my life,” her eyes went distant in that moment, as if a lot of fears had zoomed to her mind and then been banished in a fraction of a second. “You can talk to me, Spike. I help Discord with his issues, so I… well… I’m pretty good at listening.”

Wait—how much had Key let slip to Fluttershy? The way she was talking, she had some idea of… something. But what?

“Does that sound alright?”

“Huh?” said Spike.

“I mean… if you would like to, we can talk sometime. I can even help translate Key’s speech for you. I can just pretend to forget everything afterwards if you need a long conversation with him.”

“I uhh… thanks. But no thanks,” Spike said.

“Are you sure? Well I suppose I could teach you to understand his speech better if you’d like. Would you like that?”

Key gave an enthusiastic nod at this.

What was the point of learning new things if he was going to die soon anyway? Spike tried to shove his thoughts down to give a good response. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good.”

Key cooed excitedly, his eyes slightly squinting as if smiling.

“Sounds like Key would definitely like that! I’m free Monday and Thursday mornings if you want to swing by my cottage with him.”

Key squawked something that sounded like a yes.

“Well, Key sounds ready! I’ll see you on Monday, Spike.”

Fluttershy stood up and was about to leave the room before she turned around. “Oh, before I go…”

Spike’s anxiety flared up, his heart starting to race again.

“Key can take care of himself when it comes to food. But if you have extra ash, burnt wood, or even roasted seeds and nuts, he’d appreciate it.”

Key nodded.

Finally, Fluttershy left the castle.

Spike took all the adrenaline that had been penting up during the whole encounter and used it to scamper up the stairs all the way back to his room, Key following quickly behind him. The second Spike got to his room, he slammed the door and collapsed onto the floor.

It took several minutes of heavy breathing before his heart rate returned to normal.

“Key… how much does Fluttershy know?”

Key only stared at him with a doleful look in his eyes.

“You didn’t tell her everything, but she knows enough to want to help me.”

Key nodded.

Spike said nothing.

Key chirped up, his eyes slightly mournful.

The meaning wasn’t lost on Spike. It was as if he was saying: “I am going help you, and I’ll do my best to keep your secrets...”

Key squawked. “...up until a certain point.”

“Okay, Key,” said Spike, sighing. “I’ll… keep trying to get… better then.”

Key smiled.

Dying was going to be so hard with him around.

Comments

[overdue]

I thought this was going to be about spike feeling like he doesn't belong and his friends don't care about him, but it seems like his friends really do care about him and treat him well, and the only reason he's suicidal is because of his weird delusion about becoming a villain