//------------------------------//
// Same Love 
// Story: The Incredibly Musical Life of Octavia Philharmonica & Vinyl Scratch 
// by The Autumn Princess 
//------------------------------//


~Chapter Seven~


~Same Love~


High School. The make it or break it year. The year where one choice could put you at the center table in the lunch room or sitting by the trashcans. The 'best years of your life' that are only really great if you secure a spot with the in-crowd. The years of emotional scarring. The years you find out who you really are.

Vinyl Scratch was starting High School with little expectations. She knew who she was. Everybody knew who she was. She was Vinyl Scratch, the lesbian. Not the aspiring musician. Not the killer DJ. No, she was the lesbian. Her summer had gotten off to a crappy start when she came out to her friends online. The amount of friends she had slowly fell, until her 1,473 turned into a little over fifty. She didn't care, of course, but when the death threats started pouring in, she was a bit annoyed.

Now, she was at school. Canterlot High. Their motto was Love and Tolerate, but the glares she was getting as she walked to 'History of Music Theory' class were more along the lines of Hate and Murder.

Their glares were so dark, so heavy and they were burning enough to melt steel. However, with her headphones plugging her into the world of punk rock, Vinyl kept her shades on and refused to glare back as she slumped into a random seat.

There was an index card on her desk, with the word "DYKE" scribbled on it.

She could've sworn that she felt tears prick at her eyes, but instead, she just tore it in half and let it fall onto the floor.

She didn't need this. Four years of endless teasing over something she couldn't control? People were filing in around her, taking their seats and laughing about something that happened over the summer. Guys were chest bumping and talking loudly about football season. Girls screamed and hugged their friends. Some of them talked about celebrities. Some of them cried that they hadn't seen each other “in like, three whole months!”. Vinyl just sunk lower into her seat. Her old best friend, a sophomore named Neon Lights, sat on the opposite side of the room, refusing to look directly at her.

"Nice to know our ten years of friendship was so important," Vinyl muttered under her breath. 

The bell rang and everyone settled down as the teacher walked in. Vinyl zoned her out instantly. She took out her pen and sketched a music note on her left wrist. It was backwards, but she didn't care. It looked cool. She was even able to ignore the fact that the desks around her were all empty, as though the class had moved their assigned seats just to avoid her.

There was a bang and a girl with long black hair stepped inside, looking out of breath and horrified.

"Is this Music Theory?" She asked, breathing heavily.

"You must be the transfer student, right?" The teacher asked kindly. The girl did have an accent. The newbie nodded and the teacher made a note on her clipboard. "You can sit in any of the seats over there by Miss Scratch."

"And while you're at it, why don't you introduce yourself?"

The girl hesitated, giving a half smile as she twirled a lock of hair around one of her fingers nervously. "Of course," she assured, looking to the class. "Hello everyone, my name's Octavia and I'm from Townsville." An awkward silence happened, and everyone stared at her, only before she lightly blushed in embarrassment, rushing to a seat and sitting right next to Vinyl.

People whispered to themselves as Octavia set her bag down beside her chair. The new girl smiled at Vinyl, who was too shocked to smile back. She returned to doodling on her wrist, trying to think of a response. She didn't want to grow attached. Someone would tell this girl about the lesbian thing after class, and Octavia would have her desk moved too. There was no point in being nice to her.

Still... that kinda didn't prevent Vinyl from staring.

Thankfully, her shades didn't make it noticeable, but the fact she had ridiculously pale skin didn't help the fact she was slightly blushing as she gazed over this Octavia girl.

She was kinda cute, even if she seemed preppy - from her expensive-looking designer formal suit, to the way nothing about her looked flawless at all. And her eyes, they were sparkling more than any other star.

Through the colored lenses of her glasses, Vinyl could make them out as a sort of dark violet.

She was about to smile, until she felt someone behind her shove her hard, causing the punk rocker to fall forward, facedesking - causing the smack of her forehead against the desk to echo through the silent classroom.

"Ow," she muttered under her breath. 

The classroom erupted with laughter.

"Are you alright?" Octavia asked. Before Vinyl could respond, Octavia had turned on Vinyl's tormentor.

"What is the matter with you? Attacking someone unprovoked? What, you think just because you have a letterman jacket, it makes it okay to knock somebody around? A girl no less!"

"Her? She ain't anybody. She's a dyke, ain't ya, Vinyl?"

"I-" Vinyl hesitated, looking to the beautiful girl who was looking at her in concern, checking to see if she was ok. "Y-yeah. I am."

She sniffled, and gently wiped the bit of blood trickling down her lip. 

Great, she had a nose bleed from that asshole.

"Your point?" Octavia shot back. "And I'm not the smartest of young women, but I'm pretty sure that the correct term for the word you're looking for is lesbian."

The jock laughed, and smirked, sitting back in his chair coolly. "Hey, take it easy, hot stuff," he said breezily. "Someone as sick as her ain't worth defending."

Vinyl bit back a growl, running a hand through her hair in frustration. Oh, what she wouldn't give to punch that loser's lights out…

"Sick?" Octavia looked annoyed, yet slightly amused. "But, you shoved her, did you not?"

"Yeah, because she's a dyke."

"So you came into contact with her."

"Uh, yeah. The point?"

"I'm terribly sorry," Octavia said, winking at Vinyl. "But this illness is contracted through contact. I regret to inform you that you have suddenly caught the gay."

The jock rolled his eyes, and scoffed. "Yeah, and you have cooties," he remarked. "I'm not freakin' stupid. So why don't you sit your pretty little self down and ignore it?"

"How could I ignore someone getting bullied for no reason?!" Octavia spat, now fully annoyed.

"What's goin' on back there?!" the teacher called, and suddenly, the entire room was staring at the trio.

However, Octavia was quick to speak up, pointing to the jock. "This young man - or should I say, child has purposely inflicted injured on this poor girl here," she declared, gesturing to Vinyl, who was hanging her head in shame and hiding the blood on her face.

"Shut up," Vinyl hissed to Octavia, but the new girl ignored her.

"I was told that I was moving to one of the best schools in the country. I wasn't aware that the school permitted violence against others."

"Shut up!" Vinyl said again, a little louder. "It's fine, really. It's not that bad. It's just a nose bleed. Just… just ignore it."

Octavia raised an eyebrow, and hesitated, as she gently took a handkerchief from her coat pocket, holding it out to Vinyl. "No one deserves to be bullied, though," she assured.

Maybe it was just the lighting of the classroom, or the light dizziness from her injury, but Vinyl could've sworn she saw Octavia smile right at her.

"I know how you feel," she added, only before sitting back down.

"You? Yeah, right. Regulation hottie, witty, confident… you were probably Queen of your old school, I bet."

"Far from it," Octavia said, a half-smile on her face.

Vinyl was slightly taken aback by the comment, but even more so by the fact that the new girl paid no mind to the issue Vinyl had slipped up and told her she was hot. Any other girl probably would've ignored the comments and chewed her out for her mistake.

"We'll talk after class?" Octavia asked. 

The teacher was passing out textbooks and Vinyl nodded once without hesitation. So far, things were working out.

"Yeah, and you can sit with me at lunch too.... uh, if you want." Vinyl realized that she would most likely be sitting near the trashbins. The music-table wouldn't want her around.

"That sounds lovely." Octavia smiled again. She smiled a lot.

That was another thing Vinyl was going to have to add to her ever-growing list of things she liked about this new girl...

...and she hoped that there would be many more things.


~ x o x o ~


As expected, the rest of the day went as good as someone in Vinyl's shoes could get. Shoved in a few lockers, one or two "KICK ME" signs were taped to her back and some loser had broken her glasses.

So now, the only upside of this day so far was hopefully sitting with Octavia.

She'd seen the new girl in the halls a few times. Octavia had always waved to her as she passed, which made Vinyl's day slightly better, even though Octavia was talking to a couple of the girls Vinyl couldn't stand. During the day, Vinyl heard Sunset Shimmer going on and on about how things were when she was new. Neon Lights was bragging about his internship on some radio show. Flash Sentry, who was hand in hand with Sunset Shimmer, was laughing at some joke Octavia had told.

At this rate, Vinyl was starting to worry that Octavia would prefer their company over her own. When the lunch bell rang, setting Vinyl free from French, she was afraid that she would see Octavia sitting in the throne of the cafeteria. She was more than surprised when she saw Octavia standing by the door of the lunchroom.

"I didn't know where you sat." She said, seeing the look on Vinyl's face. Vinyl blinked twice and smiled.

"I sit… uh..." she looked at the table with her old friends. Flash was sitting on the table, strumming his guitar. One of the girls was singing as he played. Vinyl knew she'd be kicked out if she went and joined them. "Over here," Vinyl led Octavia to an empty table.

They sat down, across from one another and there was an odd silence between the two, only before Vinyl cleared her throat. "So, do you like Canterlot so far?" she asked.

"It's nice," Octavia replied. "Not what I'm quite used to, but I suppose I'll adjust."

"How long have you been here?" Vinyl pondered.

"About a week," the other girl said breezily. "But I've visited before."

"Is Townsville nice?"

"It's small, but I suppose it's alright." Octavia shrugged.

"I can't wait to get out of here. Four more years, and I'll be free to go where I wanna go, and nobody's gonna be around to..." Vinyl trailed off.

"To slam your head into a desk?" Octavia supplied.

"Yeah… that."

She let out a sigh, and looked down, rubbing the bridge between her nose thoughtfully, slightly wincing as a momentary shock of pain shivered down her spine from the earlier incident. Damn jocks.

"Pardon my intrusion, but... has this ever happened to you before?" Octavia asked hesitantly.

"Nah," Vinyl replied. "I kinda came out over the summer - and I've been getting hell for it ever since."

Octavia hesitated, and cocked her head to the side. "Well, for someone who's been bullied for who they are, you say it so easily," she pointed out.

"I don't let things bother me," Vinyl explained. "I try not to, anyway. It's really not that bad." She shrugged, in an almost nonchalant manner. "I mean, it could be worse. It's mostly online and crap."

"You're taking this remarkably well," Octavia said. "There are some people who move schools they're so ashamed of the torment."

"Move schools? Really?"

"I'm surprised you haven't heard about it," the new girl murmured, now suddenly a bit more quiet as she gently reached up and adjusted her bowtie. "It's quite common."

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. "I... guess I need to stay in the loop more," she said simply.

Octavia nodded. "You should," she smiled. "It's good to know what to stand up for, and how to defend yourself."

"You seem to know a lot about those things," the punk rocker muttered, slightly envious of her almost new friend's confidence.

"I always wasn't," the other girl responded. "In fact, I was once just like you - a little freshman, out of the closet, afraid and getting bullied." She elegantly pushed her hair over one shoulder, and smiled. "Now, I easily speak up for myself, and others, if they need help."

"That's nice of you," Vinyl mused, with a smile - only before her expression quickly contorted into confusion. "Wait, did you say-?"

Octavia chuckled, with another nod. "I told you, I know how you feel," she clarified.
"Huh," Vinyl said. "I didn't think you meant that literally,"

"Yes, well, when I first realised it, I didn't want to tell anybody. I was hiding from myself, and it made everything worse when I eventually came out. Now, I make sure I let people know. I figure, if I'm confident, and don't let it get to me, I can rise above it and people will drop the issue."

"That's... actually some really great advice," the punk rocker said slowly.

Octavia smiled her sweet smile again, as she replied, "I'm glad you think so."

Vinyl returned the grin, letting out a relieved sigh. Finally, someone at this school cared - and knew how she felt. She wasn't totally alone, or an outcast or a freak. It wasn't weird to be who she was, it was normal. She had Octavia by her side now. She didn't have to worry about having her face slammed into desks, or being shoved against lockers.

She smiled at her new friend, and the girl returned the smile, her eyes twinkling. They'd only known each other for a day, but Vinyl was sure she'd found someone who would be there for her through anything.

"So," Vinyl said slowly. "How about later, after school, you and me go hang in the music room? If... that's your thing."

What with the pink treble clef pin on her suit, and a golden sheet music pendant necklace, it was only a fair assumption Octavia was into music as well.

"Is that allowed? My old school had strict rules about after school activities."

"We'd just have to look like we're playing instruments. I'm not into the whole instrument thing, but they usually let me take my laptop in and remix. You could..." it occurred to Vinyl that she had no idea if the girl even played an instrument.

"Do they have any cellos, or violins or something?" Octavia asked. Vinyl nodded.

"Think so. You could always ask Flash to borrow his guitar. He's usually there too. I myself play an mean air guitar," she joked.

Octavia giggled, and the laugh couldn't help but make Vinyl smile a sort of smile she hadn't bestowed in quite some time. It was pure, it was true and it made her heart warm.

Maybe this school year wouldn't be so bad after all…


~ la fin ~