A tragic accident and some well meant mistakes leaves Vinyl Scratch alone and afraid. Octavia meant the world to her, and Vinyl must sort through her memories and her feelings to find the right way to get the mare of her dreams back in her hooves.
Vinyl Scratch is not a thoughtful pony by nature. Rather, she is boisterous, obnoxious, and rude. In the past couple months of her and Octavia's relationship, Vinyl's manners have doubled, and her smiles have increased tenfold. And then, in one moment, almost faster than the blink of an eye, it all comes crashing down around her head. Vinyl is reduced to a sniveling, drinking mess, and she decides that now is the time to do something about it.
My first story on the site! Yeah, I know, you have all probably read something like this note many-a-time... so leave some thoughts, criticism and advice, and I'll try to get the rest of this up as fast as I can!
(OctyScratch ship, pretty basic, but with a touch of flair that makes the distinction. Enjoy!)
Vinyl Scratch sat on the end of her bed, appraising the bruises and scratches that permeated her otherwise flawless alabaster body. Prodding here and there, she quickly discovered that she had no major injuries to attend to. None on the outside that is. Despite the damage to her front legs and chest, the real damage was inside. Her heart was broken. Not two days ago the mare of her dreams had smashed, cracked and destroyed her from the inside. And it was all Vinyl’s fault. She had acted rashly, without thinking, only with the idea that she was protecting her. She couldn’t have been farther from the truth. She had seen the look in her marefriend's eyes, the pain, the pleading, and overshadowing everything, the anger. Pure unadulterated rage had spilled out of those eyes, soon followed by that of her hooves and mouth.
I hate you.
Vinyl began to shake, her pent-up emotions slowly leaking out of her until the dam broke and she put her head in her hooves and began to sob. Long, heartbroken crying echoed around the room, taunting her, berating her for her mistakes.
Stupid... Thoughtless... Disgusting...
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, her position never changing, tears collecting on the carpet. Eventually, she resigned, crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She curled up into a ball, sniffling, trying to make up for the vest emptiness of a bed made for two.
***
“Hurry up Vinyl!” Octavia called from the doorstep, verging on impatience.
The mare in question rounded the corner with a sense of rising doom. This was it. She was done for.
“If you don’t stop stalling I’m going to have us stay longer.”
Oh Celestia no.
“Please Octy, anywhere but there. I’ll take us out to dinner some place! We’ll take a long walk in the park! I’ll go to one of your boring recitals!” Vinyl pleaded.
“For the last time, no. I’ve had this dinner with my parents planned for weeks, and you’re not getting out of it because you are pretending to be sick, or you have a last minute performance to go to,” The grey mare shot back. “and my recitals are not boring!”
A stroke of brilliance shot through Vinyl. “Oh! Performances! That reminds me! I have to tune my soundboard! You go on ahead though, I’ll catch up.” She said as she turned and began to walk away into the relative safely of the living room.
“Oh no you don’t!”
Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s tail in her teeth and dragged the unwilling unicorn through the doorway and out into the street.
“NOOOOOO!”
***
The strobing lights and heavy bass that resounded through the club made no impact whatsoever on the DJ at the bar counter. To her left lay a score of empty shot glasses, and to her right stood a concerned bartender. He had been keeping an eye on the pony ever since she had sat down on that stool. She hadn't gotten up in four hours. He assessed the situation quickly and began to bear down upon the drunken mare.
“Ma’am, I think it’s time for you to go home. The club closes in a couple of minutes, and I don’t think that it’s safe for you to have anything else to drink tonight.”
Vinyl glared up at him through crooked shades, wobbling a bit on her cushion. She threw back another drink just to annoy the barpony, paid for her indulgences, and stumbled to her feet.
“I don’t see why you care, as long as I keep tossing bits your way.” She slurred.
The brown earth pony frowned. “I care because it’s my job. Everyone that gets drunk in here is my responsibility, at least until they leave the doors. And in your state, you probably wouldn't even be able to get to the exit without passing out. I’m calling you a cab.”
“I can manage myself for a couple of blocks you... you... jerk.” Vinyl immediately pivoted, took four mistimed steps forward and promptly fell over, proving the bartenders point.
He sighed, called over a bouncer, and instructed him to get Vinyl outside, and to wait for her cab. He grunted, and cast a disapproving glance down at the unicorn, who was now trying her best to rub her face deeper into the tiles. The bouncer pulled Vinyl to her feet, dropping her tinted glasses to the floor, and proceeded to carry her over to the exit. Vinyl giggled and thrashed, enjoying the trouble that the pony was having with her. He muttered something about 'not having enough time' and 'I don't get paid enough' before pushing through the doors and setting her down, one hoof on her back to make sure she didn't keel over again. Despite this, Vinyl swayed, but stayed on her hooves long enough to watch as the cab driver pulled up along the sidewalk, shared a knowing look with the bouncer, and helped the inebriated pony stagger into the back seat.
Half an hour and an uncomfortable cab ride later, Vinyl found herself trying, with varying amounts of success to climb the stairs to her apartment. After struggling with the door handle, and collapsing inwards through the entryway, she lay there on the threshold, and absentmindedly closed the door with one free hoof.
This isn’t so bad. I’m doing just fine without her.
She knew that she was lying to herself, but with the haze of hard cider burning its way through her veins and consciousness, it was hard to care. The unicorn stumbled her way to her feet, and through her home, ending up in the kitchen. A mountain of unwashed dishes, used Chinese food and pizza boxes greeted her with open arms. Sitting down at the table, she softly lay her head down on the rough, grainy surface, and let out a less than dignified sigh.
"I'm just going to rest my eyes for a sec, m'kay?" she whispered to the empty room.
As it turns out, a kitchen table is not a bad substitute for a bed when one is drunk and exhausted. To the untrained eye, Vinyl would appear miserable, snoring and twitching in her sleep, slowly spreading the growing pool of saliva over the tabletop.
But for the first time in a week, she was happy. Happy because she was with Octavia, reliving their first date, and not in the waking world, where she would surely have a hangover and a giant mess to clean up. She could indulge in a couple more hours of sweet, sweet amethyst eyed beauty. And that’s exactly what she was going to do. Even if it was only in her dreams.
***
Vinyl practically skipped through the lavish entrance of the restaurant, pausing only to hold the door for her newfound marefriend.
“Why thank you good pony!” Octavia giggled as she passed into the warmth and light of the building.
“Oh not a problem ma’am, just doing my civiled duty.” Vinyl replied cheekily, mimicking her date’s tone and accent. The effect was somewhat ruined by the stifled laughter threatening to emerge from her muzzle.
“I think you mean ‘civic’ duty Vinyl, and I think that it’s best to leave the smooth talking up to me tonight, seeing how you practically butchered your attempt earlier.” Octavia reminded her not so subtly. She flashed her unicorn a coy smile to make up for it though, and the simple action left Vinyl speechless.
The mirth dropped from Vinyl’s demeanour, replaced by embarrassment at the memory of her not-so graceful endeavour to ask out the cellist, and a hot flush.
“Hey now, it’s not my fault that I was born without the ‘gift of gab’ your highness.” She retorted. “And besides, it worked, didn’t it?”
“Only because I find blushing, stammering DJ’s adorable. Now come. Let’s find a booth.”
Vinyl saluted. “Aye aye cap’m! Onwards, to glory!” she declared, trooping past Octavia, who watched her saunter along, following those snowy legs, allowing her eyes to wander…
NO. A lady must not lose composure like that. What would her mother say?
Laughable. Octavia knew exactly what her mother would say. Something along the lines of ‘a woman’s privacy’ or ‘uncouthness such as this…’ blah blah blah. Keeping her gaze on more appropriate things, she weaved through tables in Vinyl’s wake.
Finding an adequate spot, Vinyl pulled out Octavia’s chair before seating herself in her own, and pulling out a menu. It had always confused her why they bothered printing the menus in French, when the vast majority of Manehattan spoke English.
Scanning down the unintelligible list for something that she could make out, she noticed that even though her date had her menu out as well, the laminated paper was not what was holding the mare’s attention. Gorgeous violet irises peered over the top of the forgotten menu, studying every aspect of the DJ. From the glint off of her glasses, to the jagged, unevenness of her two toned hair, to her snout which was wrinkled in a cute fashion trying to decipher the foreign language. Octavia didn’t realize that behind Vinyl’s shades, her garnet eyes were locked on her own. This became apparent when a cocky smile split Vinyl’s face, and the menu was slapped sharply down on the oaken table, drawing some looks from nearby patrons, and a dark blush from the cellist.
“See anything you like?” Vinyl asked, a little too innocently. “Whatever it is, I sure hope it’s affordable. The prices here are nuts!” she continued, greatly enjoying the muttered excuses and explanations coming from across the table.
Vinyl grinned, and turned back to the menu, leaving Octavia to her thoughts. Shortly afterwards, following a prolonged silence between the two mares, Vinyl gave up and resigned to simply play ‘eenie meenie minie moe’ with her food choices.
“Eenie meenie minie… this one!” she concluded, and bought her hoof down on ‘Laitue al la Diable’.
“Are you sure Vinyl?” Octavia asked uncertainly. When prompted by a nod of the DJ’s head she rolled her eyes and quipped, “Alright. But we’d better ask for a second pitcher of water.”
Vinyl glanced down at her choice once again, and suddenly didn’t feel so exuberant about her decision. “Umm… why?”
Octavia giggled.
"Oh don’t worry. You’ll see.”
Eeyup. Definitely not sure anymore.
But by that time it was too little too late. The waitress, a petite yellow Pegasus mare in an elegant uniform approached, and jotted down both of their orders, Octavia’s simple salad, and Vinyl’s apparently super-secret dish.
“I’m going to regret this aren’t I?” she said as she watched wide eyed as their server placed another hefty jug of ice water down at their table.
“You maybe,” Octavia laughed, seeing the expression of terror on her date’s face. “But I’m certainly going to enjoy the show.”
She and the waitress shared a knowing smile before the latter departed to fill their orders.
While they waited for their food, the two musicians idly chatted, telling each other stories of when they were fillies, (Vinyl was going to regret some of them later) their musical careers, and genre interests.
“You mean you’ve never heard of DeadHor5?” the unicorn interrupted, turning some heads at adjacent tables for the umpteenth time that night. “Geez, you really haven’t lived yet then!” she chided.
“Just because I don’t listen to this ‘Dubstep’ does not imply that I am an inanimate object. And besides, you probably don’t listen to orchestras, so we’re even.”
Vinyl’s witty reply of “Of course I listen to orchestras! When I want to fall asleep in five minutes.” Was disrupted by the arrival of their long awaited food. All of Vinyl’s fantasies about it, and what it could possibly be were brought up short at the sight of her plate. Her stomach dropped. It was an eye appealing layer of lettuce perforated by jalapeño and ghost peppers, drizzled in what could only be a chipotle mayonnaise dressing.
It looked beautiful, but it couldn’t muffle the rising feeling of uneasiness that Vinyl felt. She had never done well with spicy foods, the most she could handle being the hot nachos that she and her friends had devoured at a party some years ago. This meant trouble.
But because she didn’t spend all those bits for nothing, (and because she didn’t want Octavia to think of her as a wimp) she wrapped her fork in a white telekinetic haze and dipped it into the greens.
Octavia looked on, amused by her marefriend’s plight, her own food untouched before her. She goaded the unicorn with her eyes to hurry it up already. Vinyl gulped, and relocated the bite into her open mouth.
This isn’t so ba- HOLY BUCK!
Her glass of water was empty within seconds. Setting down the cup and spluttering, she glared over at Octavia, who was doing her very best not to roll in her chair laughing. Unfortunately for Vinyl, she wasn’t doing a very good job.
“P-priceless!” Octavia gasped, glee now spilling from her mouth and echoing back around the room. “Positively priceless!”
It was hard to stay mad at the cellist. Damn her and her attractive laugh.
“Okay, I definitely wasn’t ready for that.” The DJ summed up. Just to show the gorgeous grey mare that she was in fact brave enough, she took another bite. This time only half of the water was drained from the glass. Octavia mock applauded in approval and finally sobered up enough to start grazing on her own food.
The rest of the dinner went on without any extra-ordinary interactions, dragons or a certain God of Chaos. Vinyl could feel herself quivering with excitement (both in her dream and out) as the date drew to a close, her favorite part of the night approaching. The grand finale, the piece de résistance.
She had committed this moment to memory. First, Octavia would finish her salad, then look up to find Vinyl staring at her. She would smile, then scoot closer, so close that they were almost touching. Vinyl would lean in first, closely followed by the cellist, and finally they would give themselves over to the primal urges of the- huh?
When her lips met nothing but air, Vinyl cracked one eye open in confusion. This wasn’t what she remembered. What she saw nearly froze her blood. Octavia was staring at her, in the same disbelieving fashion as when- no, she didn’t want to think about that. The script that followed, was all too familiar to her. Word for word, the grey mare repeated her speech, each sentence ripping through Vinyl for the second time in her life.
“V-Vinyl? Why?” tears started to cut tracks in her face as they escaped from underneath her closing eyelids. Vinyl tried to say something, but Octavia just scrunched her eyelids tighter together and kept talking, as if Vinyl wasn’t even there, as if she didn’t exist.
“W-why did you stop me? I… I could have s-saved him... I could have been there for him, I could have-”
Vinyl reeled backwards. No, this couldn’t happen again. Oh no please no.
“OCTAVIA!” Vinyl yelled, desperate to stop this before it went down the same road as before. The rest of the ponies in the restaurant went about everything like this was a normal occurrence, chatting, dining, laughing, and not giving the pair a second glance. “LISTEN TO YOURSELF, LISTEN TO ME!” she pleaded. But the love of her life just carried on, as if not interrupted at all.
Rain began to pound on the windows. That didn’t make any sense! It was supposed to be a warm night! Vinyl was supposed to walk Octavia back to her house, and kiss her goodnight under the porch light! She was-
“But you stopped me!” Octavia practically screamed. “You were selfish like you always were! You were thoughtless to anyone but yourself! You’re disgusting!”
Vinyl felt her own tears flowing freely now. She knew what was coming next, and she couldn’t hear it again. Please, not again. Frantically, she reached over and grabbed Octavia’s wrist.
Immediately, the scenery changed. They were on the sidewalk outside of Octavia’s parent’s house, rain beating mercilessly down on her neck, and wind whipping their surroundings into submission. The cellist wrenched her hoof away from Vinyl’s. Octavia slowly backed away, the fear and tears replaced by an expression of animal fury.
“I hate you.”
It was barely loud enough to be heard over the escalating wind, but it reached Vinyl’s ears loud and clear. Her heart broke. Again. She stood stock still, her anguish spilling out of her in ragged gasps as she watched Octavia step off of the sidewalk and onto the road, still facing her, the look of rage still plastered onto her face. The look was out of place, it didn’t belong on the mare. And yet there it was taking residence. Vinyl’s vision tunnelled, and all she could see was Octavia, still backing onto the asphalt.
She didn’t notice the telltale screaming of wheels until the last second. She didn’t get the strangled cry of warning out of her numb lips in time. She could only watch as the carriage, the one that was meant for Octavia’s father, close the distance between itself and the oblivious mare.
Taunting whispers came in from all sides, growing in volume, and getting faster and faster as Vinyl watched, unable to move.
“IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIHATEYOUIHA-”
“OCTAVIA!”
***
Vinyl whipped her head up from her puddle of drool with a scream, the cellist’s name bursting from her mouth and into the air. Her chair tipped a little too far back, and fell with a resounding crash to the floor. Vinyl scrambled to her hooves and barely made it to the bathroom before the bile came up.
Coughing and retching, she heaved over the toilet until she had purged all of the alcohol from her system. She then lay on her side, clutching her chest, and sobbing.
“Octavia… I’m sorry… Octavia…”
All of her energy was gone. She simply lay on the ceramic until she felt sure that she could stand up. Getting shakily to her hooves once more, Vinyl hazarded a glance at her reflection. A dirty, sagging mess of a pony stared back, the bags under her eyes prevalent, her lifeless hair drooping around her ragged face.
She glared at her bloodshot eyes, and reached for her glasses. With a shock, and a groan, she realized that they were missing. She almost broke down and started to cry again, before catching herself. She knew where they would probably be, but she was in no state to go there alone.
She tidied herself up a bit, and after looking herself over to make sure she was at least halfway presentable, she headed out of the apartment.
The town square was a bustling, cheerful crowd of ponies, all getting their weekend shopping done before the work hours rolled in. If anypony had looked around them at their fellow consumers, a few of them may have noticed the walking mess that was Vinyl Scratch.
Of course, nopony actually did, and so the DJ marched through town almost without a second glance. Vinyl only slowed her pace when the colourful sign emerged from the crowds and surrounding buildings.
Bonbon’s Confectionary
Heaving a sigh of relief, she made her way through the jostling throngs of ponies, and raised her hoof to the back door. Vinyl hesitated. What was she going to say? She could envision it now.
“Hey Bonbon! Just stopped by to tell you that I probably screwed up me and Octy’s relationship for good, and I need you to bail me out!” Yeah, that would go over well.
Vinyl inhaled through her nose slowly, gathering courage. Finally, she brought her hoof down on the door, and held her breath. Seventeen long seconds later, (Not that Vinyl was counting) a mint green unicorn answered the door, her face a mask of confusion. When she saw Vinyl, it broke instead into a grin.
“Hey Vinyl!”
“Oh, uh… hey Lyra.”
Vinyl hadn’t accounted for meeting the lyrist here. She had already queued up her speech for Bonbon, which included a number of pleas, and a monologue. As Lyra brought her inside, she was already working her brain overtime, trying to revise it to appeal to the unicorn instead.
Once inside the living room, Lyra turned on Vinyl, now completely serious.
“This is about…” she took a breath. “This is about you and Octavia isn’t it?”
Vinyl’s heart sunk. Apparently word gets around. The shame radiating off of her was enough that she was surprised Lyra wasn’t affected. She nodded her head.
Lyra sighed, exasperated. “I thought so. Honestly Vinyl, you act like I’m going to hit you or something.”
Vinyl’s mouth dropped. Someone that was willing to listen? Who was verging on sympathy? That was new to her. “You’re… you’re not mad?”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m mad you idiot! You almost ruined your one chance at true love! I’m not just going to sit by and berate you on what you could have done while she slips away! What kind of friend would I be?”
Vinyl’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, though no sound came out.
“Don’t worry, that’s rhetorical. And take a seat for Celestia’s sake Vinyl!”
Vinyl plopped down onto a sofa, still in shock. Had she really thought that her own friends would alienate her?
Lyra sat down opposite her, and adopted a sort of psychiatrist stance. It quickly loosened up when she realized that Vinyl was uncharacteristically quiet.
“So, uh… I’m not really sure where to go with this.” Lyra admits, hanging her head. “The best I can probably do is to just listen to what you have to say. A shoulder to lean on right?”
Vinyl nodded glumly. “I guess so. I really only came here to talk to someone about this anyway. I’m… kind of a mess right now, and I don’t know what to do. And… and… I’m scared Lyra. I’m scared that my best won’t be enough.” Tears begin to fall down Vinyl’s face, and she holds her head in her hooves. “I-I hurt her, I really did. I thought I was helping her, I p-promise, but I’m really afraid that even if I go to her with my all, if I go and apologize, she’s going to turn me away. I can’t h-handle her looking at me like that again Lyra. L-like she doesn’t even know me, like she never l-loved me…”
Lyra listened, not saying a word as her friend poured out her heart and soul in front of her. Her fears, her insecurities, her weaknesses.
“And I can’t handle that again. I’ve been t-trying to convince myself that I can do this without her, but I can’t. I can’t keep going on like this, hiding in m-my apartment, going out and smiling… I-I can’t even smile anymore Lyra. I don’t know how, and when I try, I just feel like I’m putting on a grimace.”
“I can’t keep going on like this, I can’t. But it’ll just get worse if she hurts me again. If-if she tells me she hates me all over again. I’m avoiding it. I keep putting it off, w-when I should have just gone to her on the n-next day. I-I should have done something immediately instead of waiting for two bucking weeks… Even now, I’m just sitting here telling you about it, when I should be over at her rehearsal right now with flowers. I should be, but I’m not. Because I’m scared. Because even if she takes me back, she’ll never look at me the same way. Because I know I’ll never be good enough for her.”
Lyra got up off her chair and sat down next to Vinyl, putting her hooves around her.
“Because I’m selfish.” Vinyl continues, paraphrasing Octavia’s offences. “I’m thoughtless. I’m disgusting.” She finishes in a whimper.
Lyra hugged her tighter. “No, Vinyl, no you’re not. You’re just a pony. And everypony makes mistakes. It doesn’t matter how perfect you are, you will make mistakes. Big mistakes. And Octavia’s smart enough to realize that. And if she isn’t, she’s not worth your time.”
Vinyl continued to sob, all her energy gone. She just sat there, in Lyra’s embrace, not wanting to move. Lyra kept consoling her, lowering her voice.
“When Bon and I first started dating, I screwed up. Big time. I never could find the time for her. I just went about my business, assuming that my relationship was steady. But it wasn’t. The few times I saw Bon, we were arguing. One night, I came home drunk. Really drunk. We had a big row over some things, and I said some hurtful stuff. When I woke up the next morning in an empty bed, I knew I was in trouble.
Vinyl listened to the story in a daze. “What did you do?”
“I looked for her all over town, and couldn’t find a trace of her anywhere. I went back to our shop, and arranged all of her favorite candies in a box. I went, and I bought some flowers and a card. I put them on the front counter, but it didn’t seem like enough. So I took one of her favorite pictures of us, placed it in the card, and wrote on the back-”
“You are my sweet tooth.” Lyra whipped around to see Bonbon standing in the doorway, reciting the contents of her apology like she had known it forever. “You are my sweet heart and the hope and love pumping through my veins. You brighten up the darkest days, and to your time I was a waste. But everypony makes mistakes.”
“Oh, umm… Hi Bon!” Was Lyra’s frantic response.
But Bonbon wasn’t finished. “And then,” she says, taking the seat next to Lyra and poking her. “This little ruffian cut out a cardboard heart, ripped it in half, and taped the pieces on the inside of the card with a Band-Aid.”
“Dear Celestia that’s corny.” Vinyl choked.
“Yes, yes it was very corny.” Bonbon laughed, seeing the look of devastation on Lyra’s face. “That’s how I knew it was sincere. ‘Cause Lyra doesn’t do corny. Ever.”
“And for good reason.” The unicorn in question mumbled.
Vinyl smiled. A genuine smile for the first time in weeks. Lyra still looked shell-shocked. “How long were you…?”
“Pretty much the whole thing. The store is dead right now, so I figured I’d check on you. Make sure you weren’t eating my upholstery again. I have to say, this was a lot more satisfying.”
Lyra’s face went red. “That was one time! I thought you were going to let it go!”
Bonbon giggled, and kissed the tip of Lyra’s nose affectionately. The two seemed to have forgotten that they were in the same room as a very heartbroken mare. Vinyl didn’t mind though. It gave her something to think about.
“This box of chocolates… you mentioned it before.” Vinyl said distractedly, startling the ponies next to her. “You turned it into a product… the-”
“Handy Dandy Confession Pack?” Bonbon guessed, rewarded by a nod. “Yup. It’s almost sad how many of those things we sell.”
That was a surprise. Ponies screwed up often then? As bad as she had? Huh. Vinyl’s thoughts were interrupted by Bonbon casually adding, “Y’know, when Octavia and I were in college together, the only thing she seemed to eat were pecans. Pecans in salads, pecans in sandwiches, pecans in chocolates…” she dragged out the last word and looked at Vinyl pointedly.
Vinyl deadpanned. “You… you don’t happen to have a pecan themed ‘Handy Dandy Confession Pack’ do you?”
***
Before Vinyl left, she asked Lyra if she could come with her to the Club she had lost her glasses at, and have a couple drinks. All it had taken was some ‘pretty please?’s and a big bout of puppy dog eyes to make Bonbon roll her eyes and approve with an irritated huff.
Lugging her ‘Apology in a box’ up the stairs to her apartment proved to be difficult. Vinyl didn’t want to do anything to damage it in the slightest way. When she stepped through her door, box first, she almost trod on the letters. She placed her package on the table in the kitchen, making sure to put it down away from any dishes or puddles of drool. Then she trotted back to the entry hall, and picked up the letters after closing the door.
The first envelope was plain white. Boring. Thought Vinyl as she flipped the bottom one up to the top. Her heart stopped. She almost dropped the letter.
Stamped onto the front of the envelope, was the Philharmonica crest. With shaking hooves, she opened it, dropping the wrapping to the carpet.
Ms. Vinyl Scratch.
You have been requested to attend the funeral procession of Mr. Gregory Philharmonica, on the twenty first of March at 3:00 PM in the Canterlot Gardens. Please note that this is a black tie event.
Sincerely, Mrs. Lyrena Philharmonica.
Vinyl stared at the invitation for a couple of minutes, reading and rereading the letter uncomprehendingly. She left the empty envelope where she dropped it, and stumbled her way to the living room still gaping down at the summons in shock. She collapsed onto her couch.
Finally, she was able to rip her eyes away from it, and set it face down on the coffee table. She then turned her attention to the blank envelope.
“Okay,” Vinyl breathed, collecting her thoughts once more. “This one can’t be any worse than-” she cut herself off at the first sentence on the letter.
“You have got to be bucking kidding me.”
Dear Vinyl,
Hey, it’s Frederick. If you have something planned for tonight, cancel it. Meet me at SugarCube Corner at seven tonight. I’m not taking ‘No’ for an answer. Be there by eight at the latest, or I’m coming knocking.
In your best interests, Frederick.
P.S. Yes it’s about Octavia.
Vinyl flopped back on the couch speechless. It looked like her glasses, and hanging out with Lyra would have to wait. She took the two letters into the kitchen, placing them beside her Handy Dandy Confession Pack. She cast a glance over to the calendar leaning up beside the phone.
It was a good thing that her system was pretty much shocked out, because otherwise, she would have shot straight up and hit the roof. As it was, she let out a little yelp and scurried out the door in record time.
The calendar showed the eighteenth, still three days until the funeral. The clock beside it however, displayed 7:10 in glowing orange numbers.
Vinyl was going to be late. For a very, very important date.
Frederick checked his watch, and again wondered why he had bothered to show up on time. He was dealing with Vinyl here after all, and in his months of knowing her, she had never once shown up on time. He sighed and looked indifferently at his lukewarm cup of coffee.
Fashionably late was one thing. Obscenely late was another. Half an hour past the agreed time was strange, even for the absent-minded DJ. Frederick was thinking about just forgetting about the whole thing, and going back to Octavia’s flat. He would have already, but his threat to seek out the DJ, and the thought of spending more time in a darkened room with a very miserable cellist for another couple hours kept him in the relative safety of Sugarcube Corner.
Relative being the key word here. An exuberant pink blur shot in front of him, almost spilling his coffee, and interrupting his thoughts. He would have been surprised, but the same thing had already happened a number of times in the past thirty minutes. Frederick managed a smile, even though his heart really wasn’t in it.
“Hey Pinkie.”
“Hiya Freddy!” came the giggled response from the seat next to him. “Vinyl not showed up yet?”
Frederick fought the urge to say, “Yeah actually she has! She’s just invisible!” but stopped himself. The thought of an unseeable pony would probably send Pinkie into hysterics about how she would throw Vinyl a party for achieving invisibility. Instead he settled for, “No, not yet. But I’m expecting her within the next ten minutes.” Which was his default response for the last two occurrences.
“Oh, again? Well, Vinyl sure seems to like those ten minuteses! Can I getcha another coffee?”
Frederick regarded his half-finished drink. “No thanks Pinkie, I’m fine. Too much caffeine and I won’t be able to sleep tonight.” Like he was going to get a wink of sleep anyways. He hadn’t for the last two days, he was practically running on the bitter drink.
“Ok I guess. Oooh, but then we could do a sleep over, only with no sleep, and invite everypony in town, and I’d have lots of coffee for everypony, and then we could tell scary stories, and play hide and seek, and stay up allllll night and-”
Pinkie stopped in the middle of her sentence, eye twitching. Frederick snapped out of a daze he had been in for the majority of the conversation and stared at her. Suddenly she shot up, flashed him a smile and a, “Sheeee’s here!” and bounced away humming an unidentifiable tune.
Frederick had just enough time to regain his composure and close his gaping mouth before Vinyl came skidding around the corner. She looked frantically around for a second, noticed him sitting at the window, and started towards him, trying on a brave face.
Frederick raised his eyebrows at her, but made no comment on her tardiness. As soon as she plopped down in the seat across from him, the confident look collapsed, and her forehead hit the table with a muffled thunk, sending a ripple through his coffee.
“Ahmfofgrued”
Frederick sighed. “Did you come here to talk to me, or the table Vinyl?”
She lifted her head a little. “I am so screwed.” She stated, before plunking her face back down onto the wooden tabletop.
Frederick had the urge to dump his coffee out on Vinyl’s head. “Straighten up and look at me for Celestia’s sake, or I’m going back to Octavia’s.” he threatened.
That got her attention. She shot up, hope and confusion flashing across her features. “You’ve been to Octavia’s?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course. I practically haven’t been outside in days, and I don’t think she’s seen the sun in weeks.”
Vinyl looked shocked for a second, before she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, groaning. “Oh buck me… Why am I such a dumbass?”
Fredrick took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “Do you want me to write you a list? I don’t think I have that much paper.” He said sarcastically. “And no more of that self-blaming nonsense. I’ve dealt with that enough.”
Vinyl looked at him with the most defeated expression he had seen to date. “There’s no one to blame but myself. I screwed up. Royally. And now Octy hates me.”
“She has made it very clear that she hates herself far more than she hates you, or anyone else right now. Take it from somepony who has spent the last couple hours in a room full of Kleenex and memorabilia.”
This seemed to surprise Vinyl. “Wha? Seriously?”
“Yes,” he answered airily, “And she doesn’t leave except for rehearsals. Even when she shows up, she plays like a drunkard, hits about three right notes, and then leaves. We haven’t done a concert in a month.”
Frederick took another gulp of coffee while Vinyl muddled that over. He’d got the message through finally. Vinyl knew that Octavia would never skip a rehearsal, and most certainly would never miss any notes while she was in the right mind.
A flash of pink outside the window disappearing under an inconspicuous cardboard box caught his eye, and a foreboding feeling sunk over the pianist.
“Damn.” She said eventually, dawning on the realization. “She blames herself?”
“Exactly.” Frederick said, managing to take his mind off of the impending doom of the situation if Pinkie entered. “You both have been sitting at home, drinking yourselves into a stupor, each thinking that you’ll never get back together because the other one hates you-”
“You let her drink?” Vinyl exclaimed, cutting him off. “You know she can’t hold her liquor!”
“She’s only been drinking a little,” he said defensively, adding, “Not like you’ve probably been doing.”
Vinyl made a sour face, but stopped her attack. Pressing his advantage, he pulled out a slip of paper. “While we’re still kind of on the topic of concerts and rehearsals, here’s a ticket for our next one. We’re playing before Mr. Philharmonica’s funeral, which you have been invited to I’m sure.” He gave her the ticket, and held up a hoof to silence Vinyl, who had opened her mouth in protest. “On top of that, I want you to show up at all of our rehearsals from now until then, no exceptions.”
“But-”
“No exceptions! We have them scheduled at four o’clock every day at the hall for a week starting tomorrow, and the funeral falls on the third one. Now come on, we’re leaving.” Frederick said, eager to get out of Pinkie’s blast radius, throwing some bits on the table to cover the coffee.
“What?” Vinyl spluttered, flabbergasted. “Where are you going?”
“We,” Frederick corrected adamantly, “Are going to Octavia’s, and yes, you have to come.”
Vinyl closed her mouth, her next question having been answered before it was voiced. Frederick crossed over to the door irritably, wanting to leave before being interrupted by a certain unconventional earth pony, and held the door for her expectantly. After a moment of indecision, she followed him, and as she left the store, her expression was one of resigned dread.
Frederick took one careful stride out of the café, and looked around. Seeing neither head nor tail of the party pony, he placed his hoof down, and was immediately covered in confetti and pastries following a loud BANG.
Wiping cake out of his eyes and grumbling, he looked up and saw the party cannon perched precariously on the roof, pointing straight down. How Pinkie got it up there in the first place, he had no idea, and he wasn’t about to ask.
Frederick glanced over at Vinyl, and saw that she hadn’t exactly eluded the blast either, although she had avoided being stuck knee deep in a giant upside down cake. A ghost of a smile flickered across her downcast face as she watched streamers twist down and land everywhere, tangling in her hair.
Frederick rolled his eyes and dislodged himself from his chocolate prison, shaking like a dog to remove any excess party favours still wedged in his icing covered fur. “Come on.”
He sighed, starting down the road again, ignoring the muffled giggles coming from the box on the sidewalk, and the amused smile of the DJ following in his wake.
Vinyl’s sense of foreboding doom skirted around the edges of her thoughts as she walked beside Frederick past the dwindling crowds spilling throughout the town. Doubts of the pianist’s plan whispered in her ears, and fear of encountering the pony that she had been avoiding for weeks started to break down the walls of her confidence.
The effect of these however, was slightly put down by the amusing sight of a very disgruntled, very tired pony picking bits of cake out of his mane, and peeling colourful streamers off of his fur.
Vinyl couldn’t help but feel a little better when Frederick dug a hoof into his dishevelled mane-do, and pulled from within it a party horn, which promptly unrolled and blew in his face automatically.
He grumbled and threw the party favour onto the concrete, squishing it beneath his hoof as he walked over it. It gave a last half-hearted whistle before flopping down dramatically, and unrolling limply. Pinkie sure knew how to make a racket.
Regardless, Vinyl was still very aware of her unkempt appearance, her foggy mind, and most of all, her lack of tinted glasses. Everywhere she looked, the colours seemed too bright, and the setting sun glinting orange off the new, thin blanket of snow, was blinding.
One day. She couldn’t even go one day without her stupid shades. Vinyl kept trying to turn away when ponies passed them, or covering her face when passersby shot the musicians looks. She had had enough experience with ponies making comments about her red eyes, none of them good. The ones that stood out the most in her mind were freak, vampire, and terminator.
Vinyl scowled at the bench they were passing with barely supressed fury. The only pony who had ever complimented her on her eyes was Octavia, who would now probably try to claw them out as soon as Vinyl walked over the threshold of her flat.
“Can I ask you a question Vinyl?”
Vinyl squinted her eyelids shut, trying to force the memory back to whatever recess it had come from. It was useless. Octavia’s words hammered through her consciousness, beating her self-confidence into submission.
“Sure. Wait, umm… what about?”
“Why do you even wear those glasses?”
“…”
“It just seems a shame Vinyl. You hide those eyes away from everypony, they don’t even know what they’re missing!”
“I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
*sigh* “I know you don’t think so, but they’re beautiful. They’re one of the many things that makes you… well, you. And I love them. Your scarlet eyes…”
“Vinyl?”
The unicorn jumped at the sudden question, as her and Octavia’s conversation from long ago dissipated with a taunt.
Frederick looked concerned. “Are you okay? You kind of stopped walking, and just stood there and- wait, are you crying?”
Vinyl sniffled, and cast her gaze to the powdering of snow, quickly turning into wet slush under the warmth of her hooves. White on white. She hardly noticed when her vision started clouding up, teardrops pockmarking the tracked snowfall below.
She felt a sturdy hoof around her shoulders start to pull her forwards, and she stumbled after it, crumpling onto the directed bench, all dignity forgotten.
Vinyl buried her head in her hooves and cried, silent tears leaving chilled tracks down her cheeks, any words of thank you lost in the knot that was now her throat.
She sat there for a while, Octavia’s praises ringing in her ears, mocking her for her stupidity. Lyra was right. The only mare who actually understood her for who she was and still loved her was slipping through her hooves. Because Vinyl had been thoughtless to anything but Octavia’s immediate safety. Thoughtless to her feelings.
Vinyl stopped snivelling. Moving her hooves a little to the side, she could see past them, gazing at the snow. A thought occurred to her. Octavia really was the only one who saw her for who she was. Really the only pony who had ever truly loved her.
Dropping her hooves into her lap and straightening up, she realized that she could never let Octavia get away. Vinyl needed her. And right now, Octavia needed Vinyl.
Ignoring Frederick’s surprised exclamation, Vinyl jumped up, and started walking determinedly in the direction of Octavia’s home. She couldn’t sit here crying like a filly, while Octavia was in a room all by herself, needing somepony to help her.
And what better pony to help her, thought Vinyl, than the one who understands her. After all, that realization went both ways.
***
If knocking on Bonbon’s door earlier had been tough, knocking on Octavia’s was torture. Again and again, Vinyl raised her hoof to the door, only to think of one more flaw in her plan, and bring it back down again. Her previous confidence had all but deserted her.
It didn’t help that Frederick was standing impatiently behind her, tapping his hoof and letting out a disappointed sigh every time Vinyl’s courage failed her.
Vinyl closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She had to think about helping Octavia, about healing her, about holding her, about-
Knock knock knock.
Vinyl’s eyes shot open, and seeing that both her front hooves were rooted to the ground, cast a shocked look over her shoulder at Frederick. He was retracting his hoof from over her shoulder, and was wearing an expression that could only be characterized as smug.
Vinyl closed her eyes and counted, five seconds, waiting for the creak of the door, and the inevitable explosion. Ten seconds… twenty seconds…
Vinyl stopped counting around two minutes. Squinting her eyes open, she beheld the stagnant door with a hopeful glare. She shrugged at Frederick, who looked just as confused, and a little exasperated.
The DJ felt her confidence returning. She cleared her throat, and knocked again, this time adding a, “Tavi?” immediately, she bit her lip. Was she still allowed to call her that? Would the cellist be offended? She quickly corrected herself.
“Octavia? It’s Vinyl. I just, um, wanted to talk for a bit. If you’re there, could you please open the door?” she gulped and continued. “I know I was stupid, and you have every right to yell at me, or hit me, or… or hate me. But please could you answer me? Please give me something to work with. Anything.” She pleaded, whispering the last word miserably.
When she waited in front of the door for another couple minutes without a response, Vinyl started to get irritated. What she did was almost inexcusable! She deserved to get yelled at! Why was Octavia giving her the silent treatment? Well it would be hard for Octavia to ignore her when she was right in front of her.
Vinyl reached underneath the doormat and velcroed open a small section on its underside with her magic. Retrieving the spare key, she ignored Frederick’s protests and slid the key into the lock.
Huh.
As soon as she had inserted the key, she noticed something was wrong. Without turning it, Vinyl withdrew the key, and placed an apprehensive hoof on the handle. She rotated it, and the latch clicked open. It had been unlocked the whole time.
Grumbling, Vinyl returned the key to its hiding place, and swung the door open, half expecting Octavia to be on the other side. Instead, she gazed upon a dusty entrance hall, illuminated only by the stream of light from the open doorway, and the slits from the drawn shades.
She took a step inside, and smelled the unmistakable musk of alcohol and stale air. She stopped short, turning on the light. Frederick mumbled confusedly, “But it was locked…” behind her, shutting the door.
A stifling silence fell over the flat. Vinyl strained her ears, struggling against the quiet, picking out the occasional creak of floorboards underneath her hooves as she moved around the house she knew so well.
She made her way through the vacant rooms with a rising sense of unease. Shouldn’t she be hearing sobs, huffing, yells, something besides her own shaky breathing and Frederick moving around in the kitchen?
She entered the living room, taking in the small pile of tissues that carpeted the floor adjacent to the couch concernedly. Giving the sofa a wide berth, Vinyl padded over to the mantle, where previously pictures of Octavia’s family and Vinyl stood. With a sinking feeling of dread, she noticed that the pictures containing herself were gone, leaving impressions in the dust that had settled over the mantle
Tears at the back of her eyes, Vinyl bolted out of the room, stirring the layer of Kleenex in her wake and almost running flat into the bedroom door.
Vinyl froze. How many times had she and Octavia stumbled giggling through this door, only to flop down lazily onto the bed? How many times had she woken up in this room, contentedly watching sunbeams drift overtop the form of the sleeping cellist? She didn’t feel like counting.
Tentatively, she surrounded the doorknob in a white haze, and twisted, opening the door just a fraction.
“Octavia?”
When she received no reply, she swung the door open, letting it crash against the wall unintentionally. The sound shattered the silence like glass.
“O-Octavia...?”
The words tore their way out of Vinyl’s strangled throat with a sob as she looked into the room. Drawn by the crash of the door, Frederick came running from inside the living room with a frantic yelp.
“Are you okay? What’s going- Holy Celestia.”
They stood in the doorway, basking in the dancing candlelight, looking into the darkened room at the form of the cellist splayed out on top of the bed. Her charcoal mane fanned out over the pillow, creating a halo that vividly contrasted the white of the pillowcase, framing her slack face gaping up at the slowly revolving fan.
The flickering candles on the dresser swayed, buffetted by the air being blown about the room. They sent dark, reaching shadows over the grey mare's features, reflecting fleetingly off of a small bottle in her outstretched hoof.
"Tavi?"
Vinyl barely even noticed Frederick whimpering quietly beside her. Blank, numb shock settled over her thoughts, filling her mind with the image of Octavia lying across her bed, unmoving. She took quavering steps into the room until she was standing overtop of the cellist's inert form.
Tears burned thier way out of her eyes and slid down her face, dripping off of her chin and dotting the grey fur beneath. Vinyl reached out and gently shook her marefriend's shoulder.
"Octy... you... I... don't..."
Obviously Octavia was tired from the whole ordeal, and that was why she was sleeping. But then, why couldn't she wake up?
"Octavia." Vinyl whispered a little louder, her voice cracking. "Please... w-... up."
Vinyl shook her harder, and the cellist's head lolled limply on her shoulders, now barely visible through her tears. The bottle in her hoof rolled off of the bed and burst open on the ground, sending brightly coloured pills scattering over the floor.
"OCTAVIA!" Vinyl screamed suddenly, collapsing into sobs over the grey mare. "No! NONONONO please Octy p-please... don't leave... not like this... I'M SORRY! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, n-no. Don't go... come-come back... come back..."
Vinyl reached over, and pulled Octavia's hoof into both of her own, clasping it to her chest. "You can't! No, NO, y-you wouldn't... YOU WOULDN'T TAVI! Just-just w-wake up... talk to me, yell at me, HIT ME! JUST WAKE UP!" Vinyl shook her head violently, flinging hot tears everywhere, gasping and sobbing.
"I'LL DO ANYTHING! Just don't be gone... d-don't leave me here Tavi... Please... please... please..." she felt a pair of hooves wrap around her waist and begin to pull her away from the bed. She fought and kicked, holding onto Octavia's hoof like it was a lifeline.
"DON'T TAKE HER! YOU CAN'T TAKE HER AWAY, SHE'S MINE!" Vinyl shrieked, writhing in Frederick's grip. "I'M HERS, SHES MINE! I-I'm hers, she n-needs me-me..."
Vinyl went limp, releasing Octavia's hoof and curling into a ball on the carpet. "S-she ne-eds me... I need h-her... I... h-help... can help..."
Curled on the floor, Vinyl caught a glimpse of paper sticking out from under the bedpost. With a trembling hoof, she reached out and grabbed it, rolling over and sitting up to look at it properly.
Vinyl's lip trembled. Silent tears ran down her face in abandon, landing on the picture and blurring the colours, leaving unsightly splotches on the photo.
"Are you going to open your present or not?"
"Aww, Octy, you really didn't have to get me anything... but I'm not gonna say 'No' to a perfectly good gift!"
"Umm... I guess you could look at it that way..."
"..."
"..."
"Is this lingerie?"
"Mm-hmm..."
"..."
"..."
"Octy..."
"Yes Vinyl?"
"Why are we not in the bed yet?"
*Giggle*
Staring at the picture, Vinyl vaguely remembered it falling away from the packaging as she freed the clothing from the paper, twisting downwards and resting underneath the bed. A faint blush played across her muzzle as she remembered her excuse for losing the picture in the first place.
"Well we were a little busy..."
She almost smiled at the thought, before realizing. I'll never have that again. Gritting her teeth, Vinyl shakily got to her hooves, holding the picture in the soft glow of her magic. She stumbled to the door-frame, looking back one more time at Octavia. She really could have been asleep.
Frederick followed silently as the DJ wove her way back through the house to the front door. Vinyl's chest hurt, the aching throbbing pain of heartbreak and loss. Fresh tears cut their way through previous trails in her fur as Vinyl opened the door and stepped outside.
The vibrant glow of the setting sun painted the cul-de-sac deep shades of orange, reflecting painfully off of the snow. Vinyl looked at the picture held aloft in a white haze, the sun's rays glowing through the damp areas on the paper like star-points.
Vinyl sat down on the front step of Octavia's house and cried. Cried for her loss, her stupidity, and most of all for her cellist. She couldn't look at the picture, she couldn't think about her love.
For the longest time, she couldn't do anything. And it wasn't until long after the sun had set that the exhaustion and the tears dragged her eyelids shut.
***
The EMT's found her there in the morning, a gutted, heartbroken mare curled up on the stairs, clutching her photo to her chest like it was a newborn filly, whimpering and crying out in her sleep. Vinyl lay there, woken by Celestia's rising sun, and the clattering of a stretcher with a single occupant being pushed down the steps.
She rose, hours after the frantic ambulance ponies had given up trying to help her and left her there, while they escorted the cellist to the hospital. Frederick was gone as well, though Vinyl didn't know, or particularly care where to. She made her way through the house again, entering the bedroom and sitting down on the crumpled sheets.
Her eyes landed on the pills scattered on the carpet. No thoughts passed through her tired, broken mind as she picked them up slowly, one by one, and swallowed them until the floor was spotless.
Vinyl Scratch lay down on the bed, relaxed, and breathing in the faint smell of lilacs that seemed to accompany Octavia wherever she went. She placed her picture on the dresser beside the burnt out stubs of the candle-wicks, then lay back, sinking into the sheets.
She stared up at the revolving fan, eyelids drooping once more. She heard a giggle, the pure, familiar, untainted laugh of a mare in love, before she closed her eyes, and joined the blackness.
