//------------------------------// // Avoidance, Fear, and Ice-Cream Headaches // Story: The Clientele of "La Maison Nuit" // by Desavlos //------------------------------// Was it her, or were the club lights particularly bright tonight? 8-B3AT couldn't concentrate. Normally she would sway to the tones from the synthesisers; the desks would be putty in her hooves and the speakers naught but an extension of her voice. Now, she was sweating, and not because of the heat and energy of the club: it was fear. What if she missed a beat, or forgot a chord; the dancers were unlikely to notice but she knew that she would. Even her timing was off, in the depths of her concern a club assistant had stepped up onto the stage and told her that the next DJ was waiting to get on. Muttering a quick apology, she began to wind down the music. The crowd's disappointment seemed less obvious tonight; maybe they had noticed a change, or maybe she just couldn't focus on them as much as normal. Stepping down from the stage, she gave one last wave to meagre applause. A rest at the bar seemed more and more inviting. Octavia glanced about cautiously, then walked slowly out from behind the speakers towards the bar, shades raised. A tap on her shoulder caused her to turn with a yelp, and Fancy Pants looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. "F- Fancy Pants? What're you doing here?" she stammered. The old unicorn recovered quickly and smiled at her. "This is my club, Octavia. I can come here if I want." "W- Well, of course, of course, but you, you don't often do you?" "I must endeavour to make a habit out of it in the future it seems." He looked critically at Octavia. "What, may I ask, are you doing here young mare?" Octavia was always awful at hiding guilt, but she was game for trying. "I'm working, Fancy Pants. I do work here." "Not tonight you don't. I'm sure I told you to go out and find Vinyl tonight. I haven't seen her since last week." "Neither have I, but I wouldn't even know where to start looking!" "You could try her house, did you think of that one?" Octavia looked ashamed. "I-, I didn't want to look." "Why ever not, filly?" When Octavia looked up, Fancy Pants was shocked to see tears in her eyes. He'd never seen her cry before and he couldn't help but want to comfort her. The old stallion steeled himself. You have to let her get it out first old boy. "Because-" Octavia supplied at length. "I might- I might find her." A handful of tears trickled from her nose and splattered onto the club's laminate floor tiles. Fancy Pants knew that he'd heard what he'd come for, and stepped urgently up put a hoof on Octavia's shoulder. He hushed and comforted her as the minutes passed and the business of the club carried on in the background, the two static ponies unheeded. Eventually her sobs subsided and she leant into him silently. The unicorn led her away from the bar without a word and she followed meekly, clinging to his coat like a foal to its mother's dress. Eventually, Fancy Pants lead them through into a back room. The walls had been heavily soundproofed against the noise of the club and various seats and couches surrounded the chamber. A fire burned in a corner fireplace and Fancy Pants let Octavia down gently into a chair beside it, taking the opposite seat. Even in her current state, Octavia noticed two tumblers of whisky on the table between them. He expected this... What does he know? She didn't look Fancy Pants in the eye as she started to talk. She knew he was waiting for her. "I really miss Vinyl, but I can't see her right now." Fancy Pants picked up his whisky, Octavia's had, thus far, remained untouched. "Why's that?" He asked, sipping slowly. "She's my marefriend now, Fancy Pants. I think... I guess that's the problem." "You're unsure where you're standing?" "Yes..." The ponies lapsed into silence temporarily, Fancy Pants sat patiently and sipped his whisky. "I know that the only way to solve this is to talk to her," Octavia began. "but I can't." "You're smart, Octavia. Tell me, what happens if you don't talk to her?" "I never get a marefriend." Fancy Pants frowned, "Possibly true," he conceded. "But not what I was going for." "I know, Fancy Pants, I know. I'll never know if she's with me or not. Then I'll move on and she won't, or she will and I won't, somepony'll be made miserable." "Better." he replied. "That doesn't help me though." Octavia whined. "It just means that every choice is difficult!" Fancy Pants stood, he finished his whisky in one last sip and knelt beside the depressed mare. "Octavia," he began, seriously. "Are you going to drink that whisky?" There was a giggle. It looked like another sob at first, and Fancy Pants wondered if he'd made an error, but it soon resolved itself into a chuckle, then a laugh, and escalated gradually until all of Octavia's tears of misery had been replaced by tears of mirth, albeit grudgingly. She turned to Fancy Pants and for the first time that evening, looked him in the eye. "You know, it's so bucking impossible to be miserable with you around." Octavia swore afterwards that Fancy Pants gave a hoofpump here, but nopony believed her. Either way, a moment later she'd promised him that she'd go to Vinyl's house in the morning and look for her. It was Fancy Pants's gift. Both ponies left the room smiling when they'd come in with a frown. Only his closest friends had known his mirthful side, but they never forgot it. Fancy Pants picked up the second tumbler of whisky and sipped it as Octavia left. She'd keep her promise, of that he was certain. Of course Vinyl had no need to go into the club. She knew that Octavia liked her now, why would she need to see her again to prove that? Vinyl had decided that if she told herself that enough it might become true, which would mean that she wasn't avoiding anypony. That was currently the plan. It wasn't working. Why am I avoiding her? It's not like we've had a fight, we had a kiss for Celestia's sake! That's a good thing! Right? Well? It wasn't the circumstances of her relationship, but the circumstances of its creation that gnawed a guilty crevice into Vinyl's mind. Somewhere in the back of her brain she knew instinctively that a single drunken kiss was no premise for marefriendhood. Now everything felt, well, wrong. "Oh buck up, Vinyl. You wanted this!" Wanted is about right. Replied her thoughts, Vinyl winced. The unicorn tried not thinking about it, she tried thinking about it more. Eventually she resorted to banging her head against the wall. Nothing really helped. This is stupid. She concluded. I'll just call her, she can reassure me. She's good at that. Levitating her phone over with a burst of magic, Vinyl dialled Octavia's number. Suddenly, she remembered who she was calling and looked at the clock. Eleven-AM, hmm, she's probably up by now. Tentatively, she pressed dial, and waited as the phone rang. There was a knock at the door. Vinyl ignored it and waited for Octavia to pick up. *knock, knock, knock*, "Vinyl?" "I'm busy!" She replied. The phone was still ringing, maybe Octavia wasn't there. *knock, knock knock*, "Vinyl?". The unicorn was somewhat past the point of normal mental processing. Had she been in full control of herself, she might have realised who was knocking sooner. She paused, something was telling her that the pony at the door was important... *knock, knock, knock, "Vinyl?". A whir, ratchet and click inside the unicorn's brain accompanied a similar one from the phone in her hoof, which was swiftly dropped to the floor as Vinyl vaulted across her coffee table and landed beside the door, pulling it open with her magic. It revealed a rather surprised and anxious Octavia, plastic bag slung over one shoulder. Vinyl, from her position on the carpet, chuckled. "Come on in." Octavia did so, stopping to pull the unicorn up with a hoof. "What was that all about, Vinyl?" "Oh, I, er, was trying to call you." "Why?" The quiet that followed was vacuum packed full of awkwardness. Octaiva looked at Vinyl in puzzlement as the mare finally stammered a reply. "I- that is we- at least I thought that- er..." The unicorn lapsed back into silence. Octavia could see where this was going, mainly because she'd been looking for it. It was surprising, but it was also a relief. She felt a weight lift from her back as she spoke a summary of the thoughts that had been swirling in her head on her way here. "This's weird right?" Vinyl looked up suddenly. Distress clear on her face. "Yes!" Both ponies began to ramble explanations and apologies at each other, but the more or less identical nature of the two speeches meant that very little explanation was necessary on either side. After several minutes, both mares were out of breath, and felt rather less tense than before. Finally, Vinyl extended a hoof. "Friends?" she offered. Octavia ignored it and grasped Vinyl's neck in a hug. "Of course." The unicorn scrabbled for some purchase on Octavia's arms and eventually prised them off her with a gasp. The DJ blushed. "Oh, uh sorry about that." Vinyl waved her into silence. "What," she wheezed between gasps, "what do we do now?" Octavia smiled, and nodded to the plastic bag on her shoulder. "I brought ice cream. We did both just get dumped." "Hot damn!" Vinyl leapt over the sofa and into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a pair of spoons. She nodded to the TV on the far wall. "You can tell me about how much of a foal your marefriend was!" "Ha!" replied Octavia, "Only if you do too." The pianist nodded and sat down on the couch. Octavia joined her after a moment and extracted a pair of ice cream tubs from the plastic shopping bag by her feet. "Whisky ice cream? They make WHISKY ICE CREAM?" Vinyl yelled. "WHY DIDN'T ANYPONY TELL ME ABOUT THIS SOONER?!" Octavia stifled a giggle and passed a tub to Vinyl, who ripped the lid off and took a bite. "Agh! Cooold!" The giggling mare stood up after a moment and wandered towards the kitchen. "I'll make you some tea, tea's good when you're upset." "I'm not upset!" Vinyl yelled back, cringing at the sudden ice cream headache. "Well you're meant to be," chuckled Octavia. "So tough luck. Besides, it'll help with the headache." The ice cream was good, Vinyl had turned on some medical soap when Octavia returned, which after a brief argument, in which the phrase, 'I brought the ice cream' was raised, was changed to 'Dr Whooves adventures in Space and Time'. Octavia spent most of the first episode attempting to explain various things to her friend, who, by the end, was deliberately getting stuff wrong just to watch the DJ's reaction. Conveniently, the show was on marathon, and by 11PM even Octavia had given up tying to justify some of the Doctor's antics. It was love. Not sappy, romantic, squishy love, but the other kind. The more reliable kind. Octavia loved Fancy Pants, Vinyl loved Beauty Brass, and they loved each other. Vinyl offered to introduce Octavia to Beauty, and after some confusion the fact that she "didn't swing that way" was clarified, to many giggles. No, Octavia pondered, Romance is overrated. This is the best kind of love; it's so much easier to share.