Vinyl Scratch tries to forestall her rapidly approaching doom.
Vinyl Scratch has been feeling more than a little under the weather recently. After a close brush with death however she decides that something about her life has to change, one way or another.
Vinyl woke up five minutes before ten in the morning. She knew it was exactly five minutes before ten because she had counted out 360 seconds before she opened her eyes and looked at the clock. The fact that she saw the clock at exactly ten on the dot was a small miracle. Well, smaller than a miracle. She would go with coincidence but, it felt like giving too much importance to such a small event. Happenstance? Too highbrow. Chance felt too descriptive. “Twist of fate” made her feel like puking. By the time she narrowed down the choices to ‘fluke’, ‘universal whim’, and ‘a fucking coinkidink’, it was eleven fifteen.
She decided to get off the couch, so she took a half-turn to the left and fell two feet to the floor in a bellyflop. Two weeks ago that fall had shocked her brain so much she would jolt up with a short bout of cursing. Unfortunately daily use of the trick had dulled her enough that the throbbing of her stomach was just a new alarm to ignore. She did a mental checklist of her body to pass the time. Her mouth was dry, but that was to be expected. She had stopped drinking after six so she wouldn’t piss the couch anymore. You can only flip over a cushion once and getting her couch dry-cleaned had been so much trouble that she decided it was simpler to just go thirsty. Her body felt weak and listless, which was a little weird since she had made sure to force down a big lunch yesterday, but it wasn’t anything worth getting worked up about. By this point she doubted she was going to get up anyway so it all worked out. Her eyes were… open. But her vision was blurry and all she could see from her position on the floor was the tiles of the kitchen. Focusing on them wasn't worth the hassle so she shut them.
She was sad that her tumble didn't put her in a position to see her personal turntable and mixer, as well as the myriad of other equipment she used for her music, across the room. It would have been a shitty vantage point but she might have been able to make out a table leg or something. That might have been worth keeping her eyes open for. But she guessed that that was just how the white mare landed. On her stomach looking at linoleum. Unfortunate.
She thought back to yesterday, one of her most productive days in weeks, when she sat in front of her table, her computer screen flickering next to her, and stared at it. She was completely unable to do anything of course, even after setting a record on her table to spin. She just sat there. And stared. It was soul-crushing, the completely lack of inspiration even while listening to her favorite tune play on repeat over and over and over. The electronic music she had tried to produce while gazing at her laptop's screen was no better. Even when she started putting together a piece (not yesterday, yesterday she had started to sob before she made it that far) it was just a bunch of synthesized instruments playing. It was noise. Not even good noise, the kind you could scream with and dance to. It was just… trash. It filled her with such self-disgust, that inability to do what made her Vinyl Scratch that she usually just started crying. Yesterday she had surprised herself with how quickly she had ran to the bathroom and thrown herself in the tub to cry. The album hadn't even finished its first play-through before she broke down.
She had eventually managed to turn it into a mild positive by turning the faucet on and taking her first bath in a week. Well a soak, technically, but she had knocked some soap into the basin during her rush so she smelled at least a little better. Her sister had always said to look on the bright side of everything. She may have been a complete and utter failure at her only true joy in life, but hey, she was also clean...ish.
She cracked an eye open and looked at the clock. It was eleven twenty-five.
At this point she decided that the day was more or less over and she might as well try and get some sleep. She could always try to not be such a miserable piece of shit tomorrow.
While she was waiting to slip into unconsciousness she decided that she might as well do something productive with the only part of her body that was willing to do any work today. So she thought. Or rather, she thought about thinking for a while and what would be a quicker way to stop it than waiting for her body’s natural processes to do the job. The only ideas she could come up with were lobotomizing herself or dying. She wasn't exactly sure how a lobotomy worked and she was pretty sure she didn’t have an icepick in the kitchen, so that left death. Certainly appealing, if a bit more permanent than she preferred. There would be that awful business of standing up, walking to the kitchen, getting a knife, and stabbing herself in the stomach. Ugh, the stabbing would probably be the worst part. Magic took more energy than she liked nowadays, and summoning enough force to penetrate her body would probably give her a migraine for the entire day. Then she realized that her death would head off that particular downside of her whole suicide plan pretty quickly. So that was nice.
She could also go for slitting her throat. She was pretty sure that her neck would be easier to penetrate than her belly, and it had the added bonus of killing her quicker if she could manage to nick her jugular. All in all it was shaping up to be a pretty good plan. The inconvenience of the initial ‘get up and stab yourself’ part would probably be made up for by the lack of stupid fucking thoughts buzzing around her head while she waited for her body to stop forcing her to be conscious. But then she tried to move her legs underneath her to implement her plan and gave up. Standing up would be entirely too hard. She’d try tomorrow. Or maybe she’d just try to swallow her tongue. After failing to choke to death on her own tongue Vinyl realized she probably needed help. It wasn't a surprising notion, or even a realization to be honest. She supposed she had always known deep down ever since this funk of hers got started she was pretty much fucked as far as keeping herself going was concerned. Or anything else really. She figured the only reason she hadn't been thrown out of her apartment yet was the fact that she had automated paying her bills years ago. The last two months had more or less been her way of slowing down her date with the reaper. She guessed she had just finally hit the proverbial wall.
Dying was proving hard and her head was feeling sort of foggy, like she might be slipping into sleep soon. She knew that if she fell asleep she would just wake up in a couple of hours with a crick in her neck painful enough to finally get her up. Then she would do some menial chores in order to keep herself alive, and after staring for hours at her tables she would flop onto the couch again and pass out crying. Then the next time she ended up in this situation she might actually summon up enough energy to make it to the kitchen. If she didn't do something now she figured she wouldn't last out the week.
Vinyl ended up tasting iron at a small café a few minutes from her apartment. The shock of almost shearing her tongue off had been enough to shake her out of her weariness and get her out the door before she really realized what she was doing. From there she had stumbled down the stairwell of her apartment building until she was on the street. Her body automatically started walking to Bushwhackers café on Gorgonzola Boulevard. She had walked there hundreds of times before, and she had no doubt that she could have made it there in her sleep. As it was she walked with her eyes lowered to the ground to try and avoid the glare of the sun in her eyes.
She listened to her hooves clop on the cobblestones and tried to think of something to say once she got there. She had managed to string together the rough framework of her apology to start off with between bemoaning her injured tongue and hoping that she was too late to meet the pony that was waiting for her. It would be for the best she told herself. She would get to the café and after seeing no one she would go back home, take a nice long bath and be ready to come tomorrow looking her best. In fact, it was probably already one o’ clock and she stuck to schedule better than any other pony Vinyl knew. By one she would have paid her check and be off in the city hobnobbing and whatever with the high society.
She glanced up just to make sure she wouldn’t bump into anypony when she turned around to go back to her apartment. The pony she was on her way to meet was sitting at their table under the awning of the café, drinking iced tea with a slight look of annoyance. Vinyl briefly considered just continuing to walk, avoiding what would probably be the worst conversation with her best friend she would ever have. But then she made eye-contact with the gray pony and understood that if she kept walking her chances of being thrown into a lake with cement hooves would skyrocket. So she bit the bullet and sat down across from Octavia.
Her tongue throbbed again. Damn, she needed some ice.
---
Octavia sipped her iced tea out of a straw and stared at her best friend, a neutral expression on her face. When she had first seen the unicorn walking down the street she had at thought it was just somepony with a passing resemblence. A blue mane and a white coat certainly wasn’t the rarest combination, and living in Canterlot meant meeting a look-alike of someone as relatively well-known as Vinyl was not impossible. But then she made eye-contact and the recognition on the unicorns face blew any doubt away. This was the friend she hadn’t seen in more than two months finally showing up for what used to be their daily lunch ritual.
After the recognition in Vinyl’s eyes of course came the fear, but a slight narrowing of her own eyes stopped any thoughts Vinyl may have had of running away. So reluctantly Vinyl approached her table and took a seat, avoiding looking directly into her eyes.
Examining her long departed friend Octavia found that Vinyl resembled a bum much more than usual. She also wasn’t starting the conversation like she usually would. Her mane was overgrown and actually messy, rather than the usual fake messy she opted for; her coat was dearly in need of trim with bits of dust and debris stuck in it, and her eyes were bloodshot and, even stranger, able to be seen. The fact that she had forgotten her ever-present shades when she left her home that morning was the most shocking thing about her. Octavia had enough hooves to count how many times she had seen Vinyl without some form of glasses on, and most of them had involved Vinyl getting hit in the face.
While she took in her companions bedraggled state Vinyl opened her mouth to try and say something. Another glare cowed her back into submission though. Sipping her iced tea Octavia wondered just what had put the great Vinyl Scratch in such a state. The mare she knew was fearless, confident, and almost depressingly bad at reading social cues. Normally her glares were brushed past with a hearty chuckle and bad sexual innuendo.
She wasn’t sure what was wrong with Vinyl but it was obviously important and it was her duty as a friend to help her, regardless of how pissed off she was at having been stood up for two months. However she was also acutely aware that her last glare had now made it impossible for Vinyl to start the conversation. As per usual, she silently cursed her over-aggression towards her friends.
She had no real idea of how to be comforting to Vinyl about her unknown problem. Asking how she was doing was stupid, as she was obviously doing terribly. Not only that but Vinyl hated being offered help so offering some was a no-go as well. She could have asked where she had been for the last few months but she wasn’t sure she could ask the question without spitting a pint of venom at Vinyl at the same time.
The silence lengthened from frosty to awkward as Octavia considered and then rejected conversation starters. Finally she just said the first thing that came to mind.
“You look abysmal.” Shit.
Vinyl winced at her statement and Octavia almost winced with her. Her voice came out harsh and judgmental when she had been trying to go for caring. She should have just gotten up and put a comforting hoof on Vinyl’s shoulder or something. A non-verbal way to express comfort rather than speak and fuck it up like always.
“Heh. Yeah I guess I do.” Vinyl tried to force a smile on her face as she finally met Octavia’s eyes.
They both stared at one another again, Vinyl’s smile melting off her face as the new silence stretched, ice broken in perhaps the worst way possible.
Fuck it, might as well forge on through. “So where have you been for the last two months?”
“Uh, well,” She coughed into her hoof and tried to plaster on the fake smile again. “I’ve been having, uh, problems.”
“Obviously.” Dammit, could she sound bitchier?
A faker chuckle came from Vinyl as she continued. “Well, I’ve been in my apartment mostly, you know, working on music and stuff for my next album. You know how it is when you get into the zone while composing, can’t be stopping my rhythm for anything, right?
“Well, so I’ve been cooped up there for a while and just, you know, musicing? Been setting up some mad beats and got sort of carried away for, uh, a few months, I guess. Really sort of got, um… ”
Octavia could feel her glare intensifying against her will as Vinyl trailed off. She took another sip of her tea and wondered how best to approach the bullshit sandwich she had just been served. She decided directly was the best.
“I’m going to do you a favor and pretend that you didn’t just try and lie to me, and instead did something embarrassing like burp. Now I’m going to ask again: Where have you been?”
Vinyl looked everywhere but at Octavia before finally answering in a scratchy, unused voice.
“Um, well, I wasn’t exactly lying about being in my apartment for the last couple of months. I have been there mostly.”
Octavia stared into Vinyl’s eyes, which were quite content with avoiding her own.
“I mean I haven’t been there the entire time. I had to go out shopping coupla times. But I bought stuff to last, ya know, like oats. So I haven’t actually been out of the there for the last, uh, month or so, maybe?”
Octavia stared at Vinyl.
“And I’ve been doing stuff, ya know. Maybe not exactly working on the album like I said. I mean, I tried to but I didn’t exactly get a lot of work done, heh. Mostly just household chores and stuff... I finally cleaned my bedroom like you suggested but I think the mattress might’ve been a home to a colony of rats or something. There was a lot of squeaking when I laid down on it anyway, so I threw it out. My window.”
Octavia stared.
Vinyl went quiet for a moment before taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.
“I thought about killing myself this morning.”
She closed her eyes and looked as if she was bracing herself, like she was expecting Octavia to reach out over the table and start shaking her with indignation at the knowledge of her friend having suicidal thoughts.
Octavia mulled over Vinyl’s confession for about a moment, debating how to deal with this admission.
“So,” she finally asked calmly, “Why didn’t you?”
Vinyl opened one of her eyes. “What?”
Octavia leaned forward onto the table, supporting her head with her hooves. “I asked why you didn’t kill yourself.”
Vinyl uncoiled and tried to smirk a little. “Well, you know, cause it’s bad. I can’t very well deprive the Equestria of me and my sweet beats, can I?”
“Vinyl, I thought we had already covered lies.”
Vinyl deflated and her eyes went straight towards the ground before mumbling something under her breath.
Octavia let out an exasperated sigh. “Speak up, I am not going to bite your head off.”
“…I felt like getting up to grab a knife was too much work.”
With Vinyl slouching on her chair like a sack of potatoes Octavia knew that she wasn’t going to get much more out of her. She sighed and straightened up closing her own eyes and thinking about what to say. Octavia wasn’t a stranger to being suicidal. When she was younger she had entertained the odd suicide fantasy. The therapist her parents had sent her to was a hack as far as she was concerned, content in prescribing medicine and then throwing her out of his office. She had fought her way through her depression alone, confronting her problems, fears, and inadequacies head on and fighting through them.
Except… she had also met Vinyl around the same time; a young idealistic filly on her own in the big city looking for her fame and fortune. She had stuck to Octavia like glue for years before Octavia had even consciously entertained the thought of calling her and the other kids they had hung out with 'friends'. When she thought about it Vinyl was probably the first real friend Octavia had ever made. She never told Vinyl about her problems but she could clearly remember times in her own darker episodes where Vinyl had ‘just happened’ to be around and had stayed by her side against her own wishes. The DJ had frequently went out of her way to be available and helpful when Octavia was at her bitchiest and lashed out against her. Vinyl always just let it go and stuck by her, and Octavia could admit that if Vinyl hadn’t she might not have even been alive right now.
Octavia’s best friend was in a similar place she had been, and sometimes still returned to. It was her duty to help her however she could, and to stick by Vinyl’s side like she had stuck by hers. She could finally pay Vinyl back for everything Octavia had felt she owed the unicorn for years, and show through action what she couldn’t always put into words.
Unfortunately she had no idea what to say.
Even after her own experiences and knowing that there wasn’t some magical sentence or speech she could say to fix her friend she still wished there was. All she could think of was that she was failing a friend the one time Vinyl clearly needed her and she hated how that made her feel.
“Octy… please help me.” She heard Vinyl finally whisper.
She had known Vinyl for almost eight years. In that time she had learned that the one thing the pony across from her hated more than anything else was other ponies trying to help her. Even if she needed it she would only let it happen begrudgingly and seemed to resent it, at least until her short attention span was distracted by something else. The fact that she had dragged herself out of her depressive funk and came to her so desperately spoke deeply to just how bad Vinyl felt her situation was and how much she needed aid.
Octavia knew then that she would do absolutely everything in her power to help Vinyl Scratch. As far as she was concerned, that was all there was to it.
Octavia took a final sip of her tea and let out a sigh of satisfaction. Then she began.
“So, essentially, the only reason you did not kill yourself because you were too tired.”
Vinyl glanced up and nodded.
“This was also obviously not the first expression of ennui you have been feeling in recent months.”
Vinyl cocked an eyebrow. “What’s ennui?”
“It basically means really tired.” Octavia sighed.
“Oh. Yeah I guess”
“You have been feeling useless, put out and can’t even summon the energy to eat on some days. The lethar- tiredness has been more or less constant and contributing to your misery while you lie in bed all day and wish you were better than you clearly are.”
“Yup. Well, except for the bed part. I sleep on the couch now.”
“Of course. Well I expect our best course of action is to decide where you are going to go from here. You could always go back to your apartment and wallow in your self-hatred for a while before you finally expire from malnutrition or dehydration. Perhaps you could go to a therapist and have her stuff you to the gills with every prescription drug she thinks she can con you into buy. Or I suppose you could trade your self-hatred for self-pity and waddle along in your life alienating your friends and accidentally destroying everything you hold dear.”
“Um... all those options all sound kinda pretty shitty Octy.”
“They are all undoubtedly shitty Vinyl. However, they are your only options. So choose, Scratch.”
Vinyl considered something for a moment before she spoke.
“Can I choose D? None of the above?”
Octavia felt a corner of her mouth move up a fraction of an inch. That sounded a bit more like her best friend.
With an exaggerated sigh she continued. “Well if you insist on being difficult then I suppose we will have to find another solution to your conundrum. I suggest that tomorrow, after my recital tonight, I will come by your apartment and we will begin cohabiting until such a time that I deem you are ready to take care of yourself and won’t expire the next time a mood such as this one overtakes you. We will spend out time together trying to nurture you back in to best Vinyl Scratch you can be. After all, ‘DJ PON3’ can’t be seen by her fans like this, can she? Does that grab you as a more amiable resolution?”
“A bit, yeah.” Vinyl mumbled.
“I’m glad we could reach a satisfactory conclusion then. Until then we are going to sit here at this table, talk like friends, and I will watch you eat an entire daisy sandwich because, frankly, you look like a strong wind could blow you over.”
“…Okay.”
Octavia looked at her best friend, and how defeated and broken she sounded, even after her earlier flash of vitality. She felt, not pity, but a deep sense of obligation and responsibility. She had always felt that without her Vinyl would be like a filly without their mother, lost and liable to break anything expensive she saw. But now she felt, not like a mother, but like a true friend, ready and willing to stick by another friend during their time of trouble. Then she frowned as she considered what she had to ask next.
“Listen Vinyl, I want you to look me in the eyes and answer honestly.”
Vinyl looked up tentatively.
Octavia took a deep breath and asked a question she wished that someone had asked her on her darkest days. “Do you actually want to die? Do you feel that your life is actually so miserable that you cannot stand it anymore? Did you come here out of concern for yourself or did you do it because you thought I and the others would be sad if you died and you didn’t want to hurt m- us? ”
Vinyl closed her eyes and seemed to think about the question for a moment. When she opened them her voice was stronger. “I don’t wanna die. Not yet.”
Octavia relaxed at the unicorns answer. “Well then, now that that’s settled I suppose we should order your lunch, shouldn’t we.” She turned to look for the waitress.
Vinyl lowered her gaze for a second, before a confused look came upon her face. “If I had said I did want to die what would you have done Octy?”
For once Octavia was the one who avoided eye-contact.
“I… most likely would have taken you back to my house to talk. Tried to get you a therapist that wasn’t a hack. Help you as much as I could, perhaps resort to anti-depressants as a last resort. In the end though, if all that wasn’t enough and you were still in pain…”
Octavia closed her eyes and sighed before staring unwaveringly at Vinyl.
“I would have helped you... to the best of my ability. With whatever you thought was best. Let us leave it at that.”
“…Okay.”
The silence between them began to stretch again as Octavia finally caught sight of the waitress, out of uniform, rushing out of the restaurant and weaving between the tables outside. Octavia raised a hoof to her mouth and gave a polite cough, causing the orange earth pony’s ears to instantly swivel to the sound like a trained dog.
Changing her direction the mare approached the table, though she kept bouncing on her hooves, anxious to be on her way. “I’m really sorry Miss Octavia, but I can't serve you for the rest of your lunch. My mom just called the restaurant and you know how she is. If I don’t go right now she might start burning things.” Then the mare noticed the white unicorn trying to shrink into her seat. “Oh, Vinyl, you came back! That’s great! Miss Octavia has been up a tree with worry since you stopped coming to lunch.”
Vinyl gave a weak wave to their regular waitress, looking slightly embarrassed at having been seen in her current state. Octavia gave a small smile as she answered “Well I do hope that your mother feels better soon Chatty. Tell her hello for me and I’ll hopefully see you tomorrow.”
“Oh don’t worry, you will. Have a good lunch! Your replacement server should be out soon.”
Chatty gave Octavia and Vinyl a bright smile before hurrying on her way. Once she was gone Octavia’s smile melted off of her face as she turned back to Vinyl. “She is the dumbest mare I have ever met.” She muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Vinyl to hear.
“She’s also the only one willing to serve us here anymore. You don’t always have to insult ponies who aren’t scared of you. She probably just wants to be your friend. Besides, that smile of yours wasn’t completely fake, was it?” Vinyl had a bad habit of showing sudden insight into Octavia’s actions that always surprised her, even after experiencing them so many times. If Octavia was a lesser pony she might have pouted. As it was she just changed the subject.
“Ugh. Regardless, if you were so depressed this morning what got you out of… I suppose your couch?”
“I bit my tongue really hard. Tried to shock my brain to get moving, you know. I guess it worked ‘cause I was out the door and headed here before I knew it. Even forgot to put my shades on like an idiot. Tongue still really hurts though. I think I can taste the blood and it’s throbbing like crazy.”
Octavia gave a theatric sigh and leaned forward, “Open your mouth you big foal. Let me see your ‘booboo.’”
Vinyl leaned over the table and let her tongue roll out of her mouth as Octavia got a closer look at it.
“You didn’t even break the skin. You have perhaps three teeth marks.” Octavia said as she leaned back again, nose wrinkled.
“Ya tangue isthn’t sthkin, ith’s a musthcle.” Vinyl lisped.
Octavia narrowed her eyes again. “Vinyl, shut up.” Vinyl giggled as she retreated back to her seat.
---
Nutty Taste, blue hair impeccably brushed and green coat recently groomed, bounded up to his very first table of the day, happier than anypony had a right to be in a service job. He levitated a pitcher of fresh made tea next to here that was sweating in the afternoon sun. He approached the pair of mares, one a gray earth pony and the other a thin white unicorn, put on his best smile and poured the tea into the gray ones glass.
“Hello ma’am, my name is Nutty Taste and I just came by to refill your iced tea. Your waitress had an emergency and had to leave unfortunately. I'm happy to be able to serve you in her place though! It truly is a beautiful day to eat outside don’t you think?”
The earth pony turned her gaze away from the unicorn to affix on the young waiter, who beamed back at her with beatific smile.
“You are new, are you not?” She asked.
Nutty’s smile increased by a few inches “Why yes ma’am, I am! I just started today and this is my first real job, actually. And may I just say it is my complete and utter pleasure to serve you and your lady friend today. Is there anything else you would like, or do you want the check?”
The earth pony’s expressionless face slid into a scowl, though the Nutty didn’t notice at first, so glad to be having his first rapport with a customer.
“I’ll have some Everclear. She’ll have some ice water and a daisy sandwich.”
“I’m not sure if I’m familiar with that brand of tea ma’am. But I’m sure if you tell us the provider we’ll be able to get some by your next visit!” He said cheerfully, not consciously noticing the gray pony begin to glare.
“It’s not tea. It’s alcohol.”
“Ahem, well I do apologize ma’am but this restaurant doesn’t actually serve alcohol.” He said, slightly confused. “However we do have a fine selection of fruit juices that I’m sure-“
The gray pony’s eye narrowed. “I know this establishment doesn’t serve alcohol. I happen to come him quite regularly and have partaken in the entire menu at one time or another. However, at the moment I am not feeling parched for something sweet, or creamy, or fruity. I would much prefer something that burns. Understand?”
“Oh dear,” the waiter was starting to regret his decision to take this as his first table of the day. But as his mother used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, the customer was always right, right? “Well, I can certainly ask the kitchen if they have any but-“
“The kitchen won’t have any. However, there is a small convenience store two blocks over that carries the brand I’m asking for. I’m sure that you could take a quick jaunt over there and pick up a bottle for me before coming back and getting my friend her lunch.”
“Um ma’am, I don’t think…”
“Nutty, I am afraid that I have to insist. As a patron of this fine restaurant I believe you have a duty to make me as happy as possible, correct? Well what would make me happy right now is a bottle of alcohol with an astonishingly high proof.”
The customer was always right, but he was pretty sure that skipping out on work to get a bottle of alcohol on his first day was an offense that could get him fired, even if a customer did ask for it. He could go ask his supervisor what to do but running to her after his very first table wouldn’t leave a very good impression of his competence. Besides running errands wasn’t part of his job! He had dignity after all! It was time to get tough!
“Listen ma’am, now I’m sure that after you leave you, uh, you can…” He trailed off as the gray mare glowered and drew his own gaze into their purple embrace. His bluster seemed to evaporate as quickly as it came as she kept eye contact, not even blinking, while his own eyes began to water. For some reason though closing them seemed like a very bad idea.
She was staring at him much harder than he was comfortable with and he could feel himself start to sweat under the collar of his uniform. He managed to break the stare to glance at her unicorn companion, thinking he might have better luck with the scary pony’s friend but the white pony just gave him a small smile and shrugged apologetically.
“Don’t look at her child, look at me.” The gray one stated, startling waiter into resuming the horrid eye-contact. Her gaze seem to make it impossible to look away again and her purple eyes seemed to drill into his brain the longer he held them. He tried to rally himself. The customer may always be right but…
“Go.” The gray pony said interrupting his thoughts. Then a small, malicious smile crept onto her face. “After all, the customer is always right, are they not?”
“Uh I-I’ll be r-right back ma’am, I mean Miss, Madam, Sir.” He stuttered as he slowly started to back away from the possibly mind reading earth pony. As soon as he was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to reach him as soon as he turned his back he started to run, pitcher of ice tea still in his levitation's grasp shaking and spilling down the road.
---
“That was kind of mean, wasn’t it Octy?”
“Breaking the new ones in early is for the best. Otherwise they keep acting… chipper.” She spat the last word like a curse. She kept the scowl that had reasserted on her face as soon as the waiter had left for a moment before sighing and rolling her eyes. “Fine, I will talk to the manager and make sure he isn’t punished for leaving. I’ll even reimburse them for the bottle. Satisfied?”
“A bit, yeah.” Vinyl chuckled.
A silence came over them again, but unlike the first one this one was calm and welcoming. It was the silence of two friends just enjoying each other’s company. Octavia had finished her iced tea again when the waiter came jogging up to their table, levitating a bottle of clear liquid along with the tea pitcher, now filled with only ice.
“Here you go madam!” He huffed out, placing the bottle carefully on the table before staggering away as quickly as possible back into the interior of the restaurant.
She examined the bottle the waiter had dropped on the table, giving a small scoff of distaste at him having brought a weaker version of the spirit. Octavia opened and then took the bottle by the neck in her mouth. She poured a mouthful of it into her empty tea glass before moving it over to Vinyl’s side of the table with a hoof.
“Take a nip of this and swish it around in your mouth. Then spit.”
“Huh?”
“Your mouth smells like something died in it. Take a swig of Everclear and it’ll wipe out at least some of the villages of bacteria that must be in mouth right now.”
Vinyl picked up the glass with her magic, slightly flinching at the exertion. “But then won’t my breath just smell like I’m drunk?”
“Smelling drunk is better than smelling dead. I’d buy enough to make you bathe in it if I had brought anymore bits.”
Vinyl took a swig and grimaced as she swirled the burning concoction around in her mouth. She spit it onto the grass a few seconds later, gagging.
“Holy shit, it feels like my mouth is on fire.”
“Good. Maybe that will teach you not to neglect basic hygiene, no matter how depressed you get.” Octavia said, swallowing her own mouthful of the alcohol straight from the bottle. “You’re like a foal sometimes, I swear.”
“Heh, maybe. But you still love me, right Octy?” She smiled genuinely even though her eyes were tearing up.
Octavia sighed and rolled her eyes again. “Unfortunately, yes.”
After Vinyl’s Sandwich had arrived and Octavia had watched her eat every bit of it, Octavia had gone to the counter to pay for lunch and promised to meet Vinyl tomorrow at 12 sharp. She put in no uncertain terms that if Vinyl wasn’t in her apartment when she came by, then she would be tracked down and some rather unpleasant acts would be performed on her person. Vinyl watched Octavia walk back to her loft on the other side of the city before realizing she had nothing to do. Or, rather, nothing she was willing to do. A few minutes of standing outside the veranda, being given strange looks by patrons, convinced her to start moving. She had nowhere to go, but after finally getting out of her apartment returning was… unappealing.
Vinyl felt uncomfortable as she walked. She had eaten more in one sitting then she usually got through in a day, but she hadn’t even felt hungry until she had started eating. She supposed she just hadn’t noticed how little she ate lately, her portions shrinking too gradually for her to notice. Even as bloated as she felt though she could feel more strength inside her than she had in ages. Was it psychological, talking to someone that wasn’t herself giving her clarity, or was it just the food making her feel so much sturdier? Either way, she doubted it would last very long. Eventually the lethargy would return, coiling around her like a snake, leaving her trapped on the ground wherever she fell.
Wandering aimlessly she squinted as the afternoon sun shone into her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been outside in the daytime without her shades. The streets seemed to have a weird unnatural tint to it, which she supposed was just a natural occurrence after wearing her purple shades for so long. Still, it was strange how different the world looked. It definitely wasn’t an improvement.
Ponies passed her on the street, going about their days. They all had somewhere to go, something to do, someone to be. A weak flare of jealousy went through her, but it disappeared just as fast. There wasn’t a point to it, and she couldn’t summon up any strength behind the emotion. Part of her wanted to be jealous, to hate the random people that passed her as she walked. It was back, she could tell. Less than an hour ago she had felt like the pony she remembered being, or at least a fraction of her. But it was slipping away. Back to being the fondly remembered past she couldn’t reach anymore.
Bumping into another pony jolted her out of her daydream, but with a mumbled apology and she was on her way again. She was slipping into a fugue state or something. Cycling through her own thoughts, circling down the drain until the only thing left was herself. And she couldn’t deal with herself. Not yet. So she stopped thinking.
Listening to the background noise of the City, letting her body fall into a natural rhythm, Vinyl’s mind shut down. She had never really understood what her father saw in the walks he had taken every evening, but if his had felt anything like this she could finally understand why he took them so often. She had walked with him sometimes when she was a kid, but had never felt anything other than boredom. Now though things started to filter away, fading into the background like they didn’t exist. As long as she didn’t think she also didn’t have to feel, or not feel, or anything. She could just be… nothing for a while.
It felt faintly like music used to make her feel. Nowhere near as good, but a faint reminder. Composing music used to make her feel calm when she was stressed, pumped her up when she was mopey, and made her feel happy when she was sad. She had always enjoyed the work, building a song from the ground up. Taking a beat or a rhythm that was stuck in her head and propagating it beyond its humble origins. Finding roadblocks or things that didn’t work and doggedly chipping away at the problem until the perfect solution appeared on the horizon. Refining the score from a rough piece of coal into a diamond. Sharpening her skills and learning something new every day. Even more than the playing live or seeing ponies dance to her tunes, she loved the act of making.
Now it was just gone. She couldn’t honestly say what it was, but the one thing she was certain of was that she didn’t have it anymore. She wasn’t sure if she had lost the skill, or if her muse had decided to go and off herself before she did (I like this sentence for some reason). Maybe she was just dried up creatively? Maybe she was just a fucking failure of an artist, giving up and making excuses. She couldn’t make anything anymore because that was who the new Vinyl Scratch was. A pony who cried in bathtubs and went crawling to her friend to bother her with stupid, shitty, bullshit, fucking problems. If she just accepted that it would be easier and she could finally just stop trying and getting hurt. She could be the brand new shit Vinyl, self-pity included. She could move out of the city and go home or just be a hermit and, and…
If she didn’t have her music, her cutie mark, her, her existence, then what good was she? She was just a pony shaped waste of space. An empty dump, useless and embarrassing. She stopped in the middle of the road.
The apathy had slid away to reveal the fears.
And the fears slid away to reveal the hate.
She had slipped up again. Gone from the almost bliss of nothing to the reality of her life. She bit her tongue and kept walking. She noticed buildings getting smaller and squatter, alleys turning from cramped slits between buildings into small streets of their own. The cobblestones had turned into dirt roads beneath her hooves and Vinyl realized that she had walked into one of the lower neighborhoods of Canterlot. And not just any neighborhood but her neighborhood. Or, DJ PON3’s neighborhood at least. Her hooves had led her here automatically, tracing the routes she had walked religiously a few years before. She could already see the warehouse where the DJ had been born.
The drab stone building sat abandoned, graffiti lining its walls. No one was around and the fence encircling it had a rusted sign claiming it was scheduled for demolition soon. Of course it had been scheduled for demolition ‘soon’ for ten years. Thick chains surrounded the fence posts barring the gates. Vinyl looked at the old heavy lock and risked a small headache to use her magic to enter the four digit number code. Fiddling with the thing with her hooves almost never worked anyway. A quick yank that came with a sharp stab of pain in her temple and the tumbler came loose, the lock and chain hanging loosely.
The first time Vinyl had snuck into the warehouse she had run around the fence five times, trying to observe every angle and imagining the wildest parties and raves, with her leading them like a goddess of sound and feeling. Finally she had a found a rusted portion of the fence at the back and a few bucks later she had a hole big enough to wriggle through, if only barely. Back then, as she had explored the warehouse she never saw an abandoned building. She saw the future, ponies dancing and shaking in ecstasy, the lights strobing and the air alive with the sound of music.
DJ PON3 had made that happen, turned a stupid kids’ dream into actual tangible reality. She had spent weeks cleaning it up and piecing together a show, spending some of her precious savings on a cheap generator to put in the back to power her second-hand and makeshift equipment. Plastering posters all over the city, printing up a thousand for the first batch and roping her friends into passing them out. Ignoring attempts to temper her expectations, lower her goals to the ‘believable’, laughing and joking and telling them to just watch her.
For her very first show exactly nine ponies had showed up. By her next one it had shrunk to five. But it didn’t bother her, even when Octavia sarcastically commented on it, or when Lyra had tried to tiptoe around the issue out of perceived awkwardness. It was less important than the fact that she had been there and played, even if almost no one was there to listen.
Careful not to step on the occasional abandoned beer bottle she picked her way across the overgrown weeds and discarded trash. Up close the dilapidated nature of the place was easy to see. Honestly from the outside it was wonder the unpainted, rough building hadn’t collapsed already and saved the city the effort of demolishing it. She went to the big sliding doors in front of the warehouse, braced herself, and heaved. The wheels gave a loud squeak but rolled almost effortlessly, so smooth she stumbled to the ground when the expected resistance failed to appear. Picking herself up she noted that at least the place hadn’t been abandoned abandoned once she had stopped coming. She didn’t really know how she felt about it, it having a life of its own once she has left. Pride would be the obvious emotion, that something she had made had survived her. It was a legacy of sorts, not the only one she could admit but maybe the most important. But it was darker than that, deeper. Another stab of emotion, hate again, against whichever pony had oiled the hinges. Had kept the party going once she had stopped. Had taken what she had thrown away. And then it faded again.
The warehouse had been jury-rigged over the years as more and more ponies had come through. Ponies had certain standards when it came to which dive they would hang out at, and working lights and decent airflow were the bare minimums. A surprisingly diverse clientele had eventually trickled in over the years though there were ebbs and flows, times when it was popular to be seen at DJ PON3’s shows and times when it was social suicide. Then it was retro and they were back, cheering like always.
She looked around at the empty room. The afternoon light filtered in from the boards that had fallen off the windows, illuminating the large floor of the warehouse. There was a pretty good generator in the back and she knew where the breakers to turn the lights on were at. At maximum capacity maybe a few hundred ponies could fit inside, though they would feel packed like canned food. She had never really experienced it before though. She was always on the stage.
She took in the view, the place that had once been the Queendom of DJ PON3 and the true home of Vinyl Scratch. She tried to imagine the parties she had seen, had controlled. But all she saw when she closed her eyes was darkness, and when she opened them the only thing there was a room, dwarfing her in its vast emptiness and daring her to fill it when it knew she couldn’t.
The rafters were probably the most dangerous section of the building, rickety and rusty, almost begging to fall down as soon you stepped on them. She had spent mornings up there exhausted and sore and happy, looking at the trash littering the empty room that she would have to pick up before she went home. She went to the far side of the room and began climbing the stairs, watching as the golden light filtered through the holes in it and let her see the dust float around.
Reaching the middle of the rafters she looked out over her former kingdom and saw it like it really was. An old abandoned building that she had, for a while, made into what she always saw it as. Her own starry-eyed dream had become reality because she was too stupid to realize it was impossible. Now, having played out her fantasy countless nights, it seemed even more dreamlike than before.
She laid down on the metal grille, not worrying about the rust that was sure to stain her coat and rolled over. She looked at the dilapidated ceiling and concluded that she was, in the end, just a shadow of her former self. God, it sounded so fucking cliché when she thought about it. Her life wasn’t a trashy novel. Except it was true and it apparently was. She could remember being confident, being completely undefeatable. She could remember what it was like, but for the life of her she couldn’t feel it. It was like trying to swim with no hooves, wriggling and drowning and getting nowhere.
The more she tried to get the old her back the angrier she got. Why the hell was this so hard? She just wanted to sink into a fantasy, not for long but for long enough. To be the good her again instead of the shitty knock-off. But no, she was stuck. In every way possible.
It took a while for Vinyl to notice the small bumps and curses coming from below her. In her stupor, neither near sleep nor fully conscious, she had dimly recognized that they were a thing that was happening but didn’t think too hard about them. At least until she recognized the voice from one particularly frantic pejorative.
She flipped her body around and looked through the gaps in the walkway. A blue pony with a spiky black mane and a black vest was cursing up a storm as he looked at a keyboard that had fallen off a speaker and onto the stage floor. Picking it up in his light blue magic he examined it for any flaws before placing back on his turntable carefully. He muttered as hopped off the wooden stage and left the warehouse again.
So, her little brother was the one still using the warehouse. In a weird way that calmed her. It wasn’t some stranger taking her place, but someone she knew and trusted. Someone who knew and trusted her. Someone who might let her back in one day.
Neon, loops of wires around his body, carefully set up a stand and placed a brown case on it. With more care than he showed for most of his equipment he opened the case showing the silver console inside. After a cursory check of it he flipped the case closed again and shedding the wires wrapped around himself he left the warehouse.
Vinyl stood up and walked down the stairs, eyes never leaving the case.
---
Neon Lights, carrying a second speaker on his back and his headphones in his magic field, took a second to notice the pony standing behind his turntable, idly flicking switches and messing with his settings. A surge of anger went through him at seeing a stranger touch his stuff. He always got touchy when people started messing with things that were his. Maybe it came from having a bunch of brothers and sisters with no sense of personal space, maybe he was just naturally selfish, but watching somepony use his things was one of the easiest ways to get under his skin. The unicorn at his new(ish) silver PX900 turntables was about to get a hoof to the face if they didn’t step off.
“Hey!” He rushed up the stairs to the stage, dropping the speaker on the ground with a crash. He would have cringed if some bum wasn’t getting their grubby hooves all over his stuff.
The white pony looked up at his proclamation. “Oh bro, hey. I was just checking out your new table. Bit too fancy for my tastes, but I guess anything would be fancy compared to the old wreck you had.”
Neon froze, dropping his headphones. She was thinner since he had seen her last seen her half a year ago, and was wearing an expression he had never seen on her before. He had seen her stand over turntables thousands of times, and had seen expressions ranging from frustration to ecstasy to hate. But for the first time she looked miserable. Her eyes were lidded and she looked exhausted to her core. She was smiling but it looked like it was painted on, a parody of a real smile. “Damn, I swear they just keep making them shinier and brighter. Like chrome on your gear will make your music better.” Her hoof absentmindedly roamed the board, feeling the resistance of the knobs and sliders. The lights intensified and faded with her movements. “Bet you after every disc jockey has one of these light up things they’ll start making retro brown or puke green ones so you’ll ‘stand out’. Never got why these things needed so much flash, it’s not like the audience is gonna see much of it. Weird.”
If he had closed his eyes right then he could have pretended everything was back to normal. Vinyl musing on some weird anecdote while preparing for a set while he helped her, hanging on every word that she said to fill the quiet. Scrambling around, worried he was messing something up while she smoothly told him it was okay and fixed his mistakes effortlessly. Watching her go through the motions of pre-production like a fish swam, so natural it was effortless.
But his eyes were open. In more ways than he liked.
“Vinyl, your face…” He felt so uncomfortable he couldn’t finish the thought.
“My face? Oh, you must mean my shades. Yeah, I, uh, broke ‘em earlier. Tripped and smashed them. It’s so weird to be without ‘em, you know. Guess I must have been squinting or something?” Vinyl gave an exaggerated grimace, red eyes squeezed to slits and one corner of her mouth pulled way below the other, before returning to the ghost of a grin. “Like that right? Guess I’m more bummed about it then I thought. Forget that though, dude. What’s been up with you?”
“Nothing?” he answered, bewildered. “Just, um, preparing for a show later tonight.” “Well, duh. Here, let me grab some tables for your gear.” Vinyl hopped off the stage, walking towards the old wooden tables in the far corner.
Neon stared after her as she walked away from the stage. Then he realized how stupid he must have looked following her with his eyes, mouth wide open. He picked up the headphones again tossing them into a nearby pile of wires and hurried towards the speaker he had left on floor below. He grabbed it in his magic, carefully levitating it and cursing himself for his haste. It was already barely reliable and if it fried now he would be screwed as far as getting even music at the back of the warehouse. He set it down gently on the stage and added checking if it was still useable to his mental checklist.
“So how you been, kid?” Vinyl asked as she rolled one of the tables up the ramp behind the stage with her head.
“Fine.” His voice sounded high and whiny, even to himself. Vinyl didn’t seem to notice. “Good, good. Your family doing alright? Wishing Star’s applying to the University soon, right?”
“She started the second semester a week ago.” He hated how harsh his voice was, how accusatory it sounded.
“What?” Genuine surprise tinted her voice. “Huh, yeah. I guess it has been a while. My mind has been wandering a lot lately, guess I lost track of time.”
“Most people lose track of time in hours, not months.” Spite dripped from every word and he had an urge to bite his tongue.
“Well most people ain’t Vinyl Scratch. I always do it bigger than everypony else, don’t I bro?”
He grit his teeth rather than answering and turned back towards the speaker. The damn thing had been on the fritz last time and even though the repair pony had sworn he had fixed the short Neon wasn’t about to let a stupid minor problem like a shitty speaker crash his show. He had a toolbox on in one of the piles on the stage. Maybe he should crack it open to make sure the fall didn’t fuck it up more. Neon trotted over to it, teeth grinding, Vinyl blabbing in the background.
“Saw Octavia earlier. She said she had a gig tonight too and-“
Neon grunted. “I know. Saw her last week.”
“Really? Sucks when jobs overlap, don’t it. You always end up missing something.” Vinyl lightly skipped over his brusqueness of his tone. “Then again it may be a blessing in this case. Sitting still for a couple of hours always feels like torture, even if it’s Tavi playing.”
Vinyl was the same as always. Upbeat and interested, running her mouth off about any topic that happened to cross her mind. She had already finished moving the tables and began untangling the load of wires and cords he needed to plug in, though with her teeth and hooves instead of her magic. He thought about asking but he wasn’t sure if he could keep his mouth shut if he started actually talking. So he listened, against his will, as Vinyl kept filling the silence with him chiming in with a harsh grunt or comment lightly tinged with nastiness that he regretted as soon as he said. She didn’t notice of course but that just made it worse.
Finally they finished the basic setup and Neon, unfortunately, had to add something to the conversation.
“I have get the other speakers from the wagon.” He said, interrupting her spiel on finding decent wind instrument samples. He didn’t even try and hide the snarl in his voice anymore.
“Hmm? Uh, I’ll be happy to help but my magic ain’t exactly so hot right now. Don’t know if I can do any heavy lifting.”
“What’s wrong with your horn?” Neon asked.
“Nothing major, just some headaches and stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
“What?” His voice was tinged with… worry? “If you’re having problems casting magic then you should get checked out as soon as possible. Could be an indicator of head injuries, or tumors or something.”
“Pff, I ain’t lucky enough for a tumor.”
“The hell Vinyl, this is serious!”
She looked him in the eye and gave a small grin. “Bro, chill, I was joking. It’s just stress headaches. It happens to unicorns all the time. Hell, I remember you bitching about your horn conking out on you back when you were barely out of puberty. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Neon took a deep breath. Then he took another. Stewing in his own anger was stupid, and Vinyl was clearly not as healthy as she was trying to pretend. Whatever Vinyl had done, or didn’t do, they were friends. Practically family. If she needed help it was better if he just confronted her with the issue. “Look, Vinyl, is this about those reviews of your last album?”
“Is what about the reviews?”
“Your-,” Your gauntness, your fake smiles, your need to act like everything is okay when it clearly isn’t. “Being gone for the past few months.”
Vinyl raised one of her of her eyebrows before chuckling. “What? No, dude, you know I don’t care what those snobs think. Only a few of them know enough about the genre to even judge my shit fairly. Besides the fans seemed to like it just fine, and their opinion is way more important than some old geezer that can’t listen to my music without gagging.”
“They were right you know. It wasn’t you at your best.” It slipped out, on purpose, but he still regretted it.
Vinyl didn’t exactly freeze but she did slow down. She moved to his console and started playing with it again. She didn’t answer and it was his turn to fill the void.
“It wasn’t sloppy, exactly.” He didn’t know what he was talking about. “I mean, I don’t think it was as polished as usual, at least.” She was the one who taught him what it meant to care about the final product, to obsess over a few imperfect seconds for a day until it was perfect. “It just didn’t have the, the soul you used to put in.” An understatement. “It wasn’t bad…” And a lie to end.
Vinyl was quiet for a moment. “Well if my biggest fan says it then it must be true.” The statement didn’t hold a hint of sarcasm. It had no malice, no bite. It was resigned. She wasn’t surprised.
“I just…” This was wrong. “You put out too many albums maybe, burnt yourself out. You were practically a machine.”
“It’s cool man, you don’t have to spare my feelings. I’ve been shoving my work down your throat since you were a tyke. If you think it’s bad then you’re probably right.” She turned her head and gave him a big grin. “Guess I’ll just have to better next time, huh little brother?” His breathing got heavier and his jaw tightened until it hurt. “Don’t call me that.”
“Call you what?” She asked confused.
He narrowed his eyes. “You know I was jealous of you for a long time. Still am, I guess.”
“Jealous of what? What are you talking about?”
“Dammit Vinyl, you are better than me.” Neon snapped. “I used to think that maybe it was just experience, or, I don’t know, me making excuses for why I wasn’t getting big yet but it’s not. You are just better than me at making music. You’re fucking gifted, you have the skill, the patience, and the determination to fucking, fucking revolutionize music probably. But you know what? Your last album was shit.”
He turned around so he couldn’t see her. It was easier. He didn’t stop; he couldn’t.
“An- and you know why it was shit? Because you didn’t care about it. You just, you just gave up. The first song maybe was alright. Not good, but fine. But the more I listened to it the more I felt sick. Because it was a disappointment. I wanted to like it, but I couldn’t.” That was enough. He didn’t need to say more.
“You sounded like an amateur. By the end if someone had told me they replaced DJ PON3’s new album with some wannabe trying to ride off her fame I would have been relieved. Because you, the pony I looked to my whole life, could not have produced shit like that.”
“…You’re right, bro. I fucked up and-“
And the last straw fell. He interrupted her with a dangerous voice. “Vinyl. You remember what you told me before I did the concert in Hooves Garden?”
He could hear her shuffling around behind him, but he was steadfast in staring at the blank wall. If he saw what he was doing to her he would never finish.
“I was whining like I always do and finally you put a hoof around my shoulder and you said, and I quote, ‘Bro, listen. I know how you’re feeling. You are scared, you think you’re going to fail. But listen, and I need you to trust me on this. You are going to do just fine. And you know why? ‘Cause you have me on your side and you will always have me on your side. Now I admit, playing in front of a crowd as big as the ones in Hooves Garden might be the tiniest bit daunting if you were taking on this alone. There may have been a point zero zero zero fuckload a zeroes chance that you would slip up during the show. But you got me, and I’m going to be there the entire time. I’ll help you set up and I’ll be there for you.” He snorted. His voice was mocking. “A big sister is there for their little brother, right?”
She had stopped moving behind him. He grabbed his tools and ripped the back of the speaker open fiddling around with the wires for a minute. When he continued his voice sounded calm.
“You didn’t fucking come Vinyl. I needed you and you bailed on me and everyone. I went to your apartment for weeks after that, banging on your door. I checked every hospital in the city looking for you. After all, if you skipped out on the most important concert of my career you would have had a good fucking reason right? You must have gotten mugged or hit by a runaway cart or at the very least had a pretty bad stomachache, right? You, of all people, my big sister, wouldn’t fucking leave me alone on the most important day of my life. You wouldn’t betray me like that.”
He sighed. The anger was gone and he just felt empty now. Deflated. The pain was still there but the rage that had made him start blurting things out was finished. He wasn’t done though.
“In case you were wondering, I fucked it up. Not bad, I guess. A bit rushed, a few of my illusions slipped. Could have been a lot worse. In fact I doubt it would have gone any better even if you had showed up. I mean hell, it’s not like I was the headliner, who gives a fuck, right?”
Neon was mildly surprised at how much venom he could put in his voice without raising it. “You certainly don’t.”
Neon grabbed the shades on his face with his magic and slid them off. He walked up to Vinyl, her face showing how he felt, and slid them on her.
“Here. Sun’s bright out and I know it hurts your eyes. Let’s just get the speakers.”
He walked to the entrance of the warehouse. Before he stepped out he turned and said. “I don’t hate you. You’re still family to me, I guess. I just…” Neon looked for words he didn’t have for a moment before sighing. “Forget it. Let’s just get the speakers.”
Ponies trickled in after the sun set and Neon put them to work immediately. Vinyl recognized most of them, acquaintances and other ponies deep into the scene. A big grey pony she knew called Rocks had come with some tables and coolers and was setting up a makeshift bar in the back, while others set up lights and fans to help with Neon’s performance.
The generator was running, a quiet thrumming that told her Neon must have upgraded it. She wasn’t sure why. Sure, the old one was fourth hoof, give or take a few hooves, and it occasionally made weird clunking sounds when it was turned on, but it still worked fine. She had tried to compose a set around the intermittent grinds and clatters it threw out once, but it was so random she had eventually given up. Cranking the music up past sane levels and covering the thing in heavy blankets had been her solution on those nights, even after she had the money to replace it. The thing had crapped out on her before a show once, but that had led to an improvised live concert lit by glowsticks so it wasn’t like the night had been ruined or anything. Sometimes Neon’s need to be on the cutting edge of hardware mystified her.
The amount of ponies in the warehouse had increased as Vinyl loitered around the stage, unsure of what to do. There wasn’t any more stage work to do and the ponies setting up equipment near the walls didn’t need any help. Neon occasionally called orders to his helpers while the early guests milled around and Rock’s bar was already running at a decent clip as he served ponies who were trying to get tipsy before the party started. Vinyl stood in place, trying not to look as out of place as she felt. She could leave, but… she also couldn’t.
Neon probably would have been happy to see her leave . He’d be able to pretend she hadn’t barged back in on his life. But she wanted to hear his show. Even if he didn’t want her there she had to hear his music again. Every time she told her legs to walk out of the door and back to her apartment she stopped herself before she took a step. She was going to be here, whether she wanted to or not.
She stole another glance at Neon who was examining one of the show accessories lining the edges of the room. He was laughing at a joke told by one of the workers. If it was forced she couldn’t tell. After she and Neon had brought in the speakers they had worked in silence until his helpers had come in letting Neon had open up again – to them at least. Some of them had tried to start up some conversations with her, asking how she had been and why she had been gone so long. She deflected the questions with short, rude responses and eventually they left her alone. She just watched them work, talk, and laugh like it was the easiest thing in the world, no effort required.
Out of place in what had once been her second home, idling next to the stage and watching the warehouse fill and the evening light fade, she waited for the show to start. Ponies jostled her as they filled up the available space in the warehouse. A lot of them were trying to get closer to the stage and standing stock still made it impossible to ride the burgeoning crowd. She finally moved, letting herself get pushed and bumped away. She didn’t have to see Neon to listen to his set.
It was easier to walk through the crowd once she had gotten a few yards away from the stage) The middle of the crowd was still rather loose, though it would probably fill up as the night went on. She kept her head down and in the dark of the room not many ponies could recognize her. It was probably unnecessary as Neon was about to start his performance and she hadn’t met a pony alive that could ignore her little br- Neon when he was in full swing. Pretty soon they wouldn’t care even if they did recognize her, if they cared about a washed up DJ in the first place.
Her new shades felt weird on her face. The bridge pinched her nose a bit, the tint was darker, and the frames thicker than her purple ones. Still, it was better than having nothing between her eyes and the outside world. Unfortunately wearing shades in the crowd was a lot different than wearing them on stage. On stage the lights illuminating her would have made them a necessity. In the crowd the shades made the shadows even darker, blurring faces and bodies together and making her stumble around ponies who came out of nowhere
Shouts came from behind her as the ponies who were here for the music finally got their wish. Neon must have stepped up on stage. She wondered if he had an extra pair of sunglasses to help with the glare she knew he must be seeing, or if he had asked some of his technicians to turn the stage lights down to compensate. Vinyl didn’t turn around to check. Neon’s show voice, smooth and confident welcomed the partygoers.
“Evening freaks and geeks! It’s another boring Friday night, and even though you have jobs and school and piles of work waiting for you to get home you fine ponies have decided to blow it off for a night of fun, excitement, and let’s face it, copious drinking.” The ponies at Rock’s bar gave a small cheer. “Now before I turn on the music and you can forget I exist while you dance with the gentlestallion or mare next to you, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to think about that project you have to present Monday.” A low groan came from the crowd. “I know, I know, but I promise I’m going somewhere with this. Now I want you to think about all the work that you still have to do this weekend. All that studying, and filing, and responsibility, and discipline, and all that crap. I want you to hold all that in your head. You got it?” The crowd was a lot quieter now, everyone listening to what he had to say. “Now repeat after me: fuck it.” He paused. “What, no one feels like humoring me? Come on, it’ll make you feel better, I promise. Now, say it with me: fuck it.” A few scattered voices echoed him. “Now come on, party ponies, I’m starting to get worried.” A low beat began to reverberate throughout the warehouse. “I thought we were on the same page. Don’t you get it? All that shit you have to deal with tomorrow, it doesn’t really matter. All its doing is holding you back. The future ain’t here yet and worrying about it is never going to help. So, say it with me. Fuck it!” More voices answered his call. “You know whose problem tomorrow is? Not yours! It’s some sadsacks’ that either went home and stewed in their own worthlessness all night or had the best time of their life last night after they said?” “Fuck it!” The crowd yelled. “Now in my humble opinion if your mind isn’t one thousand damn percent into having the best night of your life tonight you’re the first guy, and you are late for stewing in your self-disgust In your room. But if you’re the second guy it might be time to say?” “Fuck it!” The crowd screamed. “Fuck yeah! Yesterday’s just a memory and tomorrow doesn’t exist. Feel the moment! Nothing matters outside these walls and the only ponies you need to care about are the ones standing next to you. Now what do we think about tomorrow morning, ponies?” “Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!” the crowd chanted loud enough to hurt Vinyl’s ears. “Hell yeah, that’s what I like to hear!”
A ripple went through the crowd as ponies in the middle and back, those here to hang out, drink, and do copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, were infected with the hardcore fans’ excitement, turning their attention to the stage. Part of being a DJ was being the center of a party, a figurehead, but not too distracting. Keep ponies in a certain mood and let them be themselves, unfiltered, for a few hours. Make sure they enjoyed themselves
His low beats continued to rumble throughout the warehouse. It wasn’t something you heard so much as felt. Ponies milled around the shadowed room, grinning with excitement. Those were the ones who had seen Neon’s show before, the ones who were keeping the chant going. The apprehension to see what he would play was palpable on their faces, while the few who Vinyl could peg as newbies were confused at how riled up they had gotten so quickly. Well, they’d join the first group soon enough.
Neon let the excitement build up for a few moments, subtly altering the undertones until they were practically a tune of their own. Once it peaked he would satisfy them. He liked buildup in his music, probably too much. It was easy to misjudge just how much of teasing audiences could stand before the payoff and changing it on the fly would be audibly awkward no matter how smooth a transition he managed. Making a mistake this early in the night would cast a shadow on everything else and stick out in the crowd’s memory of the night.
Vinyl saw the air around her began to warp and colors deepen in the air above her in time to the low music. Neon was deep in concentration on the stage, though she had seen him perform enough to know he wouldn’t show it. He was a show-stallion, first and foremost. His focus was on the audience, how they reacted and moved, what they liked and disliked. He would try and tailor his show to it, changing the tone and illusions depending on what they wanted. Usually they wanted something to party to of course, but on the rare occasion the crowds mood was more somber or wanted something different or experimental he was ready to segue into a new song. She tuned out the sounds of talking and breathing near her and began to focus on the first notes he played.
He started off restrained, nothing amazing yet. She had seen him play live dozens of times, though she was usually on the stage with him or behind it. At this point the glow on his horn was probably light enough that it couldn’t be seen with the stages glow behind him and he would be concentrating more on general effects and preparing himself for the harder jobs he would have to do later. Flashes of green and sunlight began to appear in her vision, no doubt helped along by the various colored spotlights placed on the balconies and below.
As the fans they had set up before the show started to blow softly she closed her eyes and focused on the sounds, visuals being unnecessary. She listened to the low thumps of the bass, the light percussion instruments he layered in, lightly at first but growing in intensity quickly as the bass grew louder and more insistent. Woodwinds slipped in almost unnoticed, contributing to the discordant feel of the heavy bass against such high and breathy instruments.
It sounded light, airy in the beginning, bass notwithstanding. Electronic sounds came next, subtly creeping their way into the melody, overtaking, no, eating the other instruments. Consuming their melodies and taking them for their own. It was a piece that felt organic and alive, changing as it grew older and more experienced. It reminded her of traveling, and the soft breeze that blew around her from the fans encircling the room helped support it.
It wasn’t perfect. Part of her felt like cringing over some of the harsher notes he had decided to add, and the track was honestly more experimental and interesting than good to dance to. It was, unfortunately, a track that was made to take all your attention, to be distracting, not savored. A song made for a concert, not a party, where the music was supposed to fade into the background and just enhance the audience’s own experience. She suspected that most of the care he had put in was going over most of the crowd’s heads, though she didn’t open her eyes to confirm. It was still early. Maybe he was just introducing himself to the audience through his music.
Neon’s biggest weakness and his biggest strength were the same. He was in love with ideas and concepts, and too often it led to him to ignoring the practical side of things. At his best he could make things Vinyl never could have imagined, experiences that went beyond just music and basic crowd hyping. But it hobbled him because he was never satisfied with truly refining and testing his ideas. He was too easily distracted by the next frontier he wanted to cross. He had gotten better as he learned more about music, but he unconsciously slipped back into old habits from time to time, especially when he didn't have her or anyone else around to reign him in a bit.
The song faintly reminded Vinyl of his early tracks. They had showed promise but were ruined by their own over-ambition, Neon trying to stuff too much into the song until it was just a mishmash of ideas with no real coherence. He had grown out of it quickly once she had pointed it out to him, but she had been soft in her feedback and his eagerness made him ignore the underlying point. She had never felt like he wasn't listening to her; she had held his rapt attention with every word she said. But he never really seemed to understand it. He would rush off as soon as she had pointed out the flaws and fix them, as close to how she would have done it as he could. Vinyl used to worry that being too harsh would kill his creativity so she had slacked off on criticism, trying to speak in the most general terms about things he could do differently or might want to try. She thought that he had to find his own voice.
The brass and woodwinds gave a final gasp, sounding out clear over the synthetic sounds that had taken over the song before disappearing, and Vinyl felt her heart clench as she recognized the chords. They were from one of her own songs, an early track of hers that she had been faintly embarrassed by for years. He used percussion instruments rather than the heavily modified synth tracks of the original but it was still recognizable. The song he was playing wasn't a remix, so the progression was probably just put in as a homage to her. A little nod hidden inside a greater whole, easily missed by ponies who weren't intimately familiar with the original.
The music became more stable, simpler. Something ponies could dance to and hum whenever they remembered the night. He would keep it up for a while until he felt the audience needed a change or he wanted to talk to them again. She listened for a few more moments, but the interesting parts were probably done.
She could hear it just fine. Maybe even critique it a little. But that was all. She had needed a new song to listen to, something she hadn't heard a million times before and dissected in her mind. She had to see if anything came to her, any melody she thought she could do better, a feeling she thought she could convey easier, a flicker of inspiration, anything. Nothing came. It was just music. Vinyl thought that she had already felt the depths of her frustration while she was staring at blank computer screens in her apartment. The way her stomach rolled made her miss her old misery.
When she opened her eyes she could see pinpricks of light surrounded by almost pitch blackness. Blinking a few time she realized it wasn't her eyes but Neon’s illusion. Stars, she guessed. Most of them were orbiting in the roof of the warehouse with a few floating in front of her face lazily. Out of reach but close enough that that you could fool yourself into thinking maybe if you could reach out you could touch one. A few ponies around her were trying just that, idly swiping while they danced.
Logically she knew that breeze would be the last thing she would feel if she was actually traveling through space, but they made her feel as if she was moving even with all four hooves planted firmly on the ground. Neon always made good experiences, and a big part of her never stopped being amazed at what he could do while mixing.
She let the crowds take her away again, their movements more subtle the farther into the back of the warehouse it led her. The rear was sparsely populated, at least when compared to the mass of ponies Vinyl had just came from. There was walking room and the music was low enough that yelling wasn't necessary to talk to the pony next to you.
The speaker behind the temporary bar was vibrating slightly with the sound. It couldn't seem to decide whether or not it wanted to crap out completely and force its owner to shell out for a new one or work just well enough that he thought it would make it through another set. It seemed to settle for a slight static undertone and randomly dropping the beat every few minutes.
A few wooden stools were set up in front of the table Rocks had set up earlier. There was a steady stream of ponies walking ordering drinks but only one was actually sitting at the bar. He was talking animatedly to the bartender, spilling some of his drink with every gesture of his hooves.
A lamp on the bar gave the bartender enough light to see by as they deftly flicked the tumbler, magic touching it only for a moment. It wasn’t Rock, like she expected. The shape was too small to ever be mistaken for that hulk of a pony. She was on the small side, wearing a fedora at a jauntily tipped angle and a loose tie around her neck.
The music lulled as Vinyl slumped onto a stool and Neon’s voice rang over it. “–Minty, is that you? I have a dentist appointment tomorrow that I was going to skip! Guess I don’t have to call in to cancel, huh?” A mare’s scream answered him and the music ramped back up. Vinyl’s head fell to the oak bar. She was going to get as drunk as possible and then stumble home. The pain of a hangover would at least distract her from remembering tonight.
“Here you go, Vine.”
She felt something bump into her head. She lifted her head but the bartender was already at the other end of the bar serving more customers. Taking the shot glass in her teeth she knocked the shot back, the alcohol barely touching her tongue. The glass clattered back to the table, and Vinyl dropped her head again.
“Hey, Vine, this guy says that they had a party on the mountain so loud a castle guard came to shut it down. How cool is that?”
“Well, he lived next door, so I don’t think it was in any official capacity but-“
“Yeah, yeah, shut up. Vine, I’m crashing at your place for a few days while I do some business in the city. Did you know that hotels share information about their guests with each other? Completely unfair.”
Vinyl looked out of the corner of her eye at the pony talking to her. The unicorn was multitasking, serving shots, mixing drinks, and taking money with her magic, all while watching her.
“Anyway, Hip says him and some friends are leaving early to go hit the town.”
“We are?” The yellow stallion asked confused. “Yeah, you are. Go get them, we’ll meet you outside when Rock gets back to running his own darn bar.” The mare turned back to Vinyl. “Figured we‘d join them. Be like the old days, except without Flick being a buzzkill.”
Vinyl raised her head and lifted Neon’s shades over her horn and squinted. A striped fedora was pulled snugly over her head over a horn, hiding her bi-chromed hair under its brim and her teal coat was tinted by the light-show above their heads, but it was clearly Lyra talking at her, a small grin on her face. Vinyl remembered that Lyra’s grins always promised a bad idea somewhere in that teal and white head.
The last time Vinyl had seen Lyra was… at least a year ago, right? She hadn't changed much. She still looked the same as the day she had moved out of their apartment. Her mane-cut was better but still short and functional. She had filled out a bit, and finally had grew into her longer than average horn. It lit up and Lyra took a deep swallow from a metal flask as she waited for Vinyl to say something.
“Why are you wearing a tie?” Vinyl asked. Not the best question for a long lost friend, but she was surprised she
“Huh?” She turned her head to glance back at her body. “The heck happened to my vest? And my pants? Weird.” When she turned back her grin had widened into a smug smirk. Those had always foretold a round of vain self-congratulations. “Forget it, I’ll buy new ones. I’m wearing a tie because I’m a business professional. A mare who has, in- shut the heck up, you’ll get your darn beer- a few short-years become the humble owner of vast amounts of property in and around the Canterlot Mountain-Windy Valley area. Had a few deals I needed to be in person for, and the statute of limitations for, well, a lot of things came up back in September. Decided I might take a tour of my hometown, catch up with some friends, blah, blah, you get it. ”
“Wait, you said you’re crashing at my place? How long are you here?”
“Who knows, couple days, couple of weeks? I’m playing it by ear. Hey, dude.” She pointed a hoof at the stallion who still sat in his stool. “I said get your buddies. I want to be at the next party in half an hour at the latest.”
“Uh, okay?” He got off his stool and wandered off into the crowd.
“We’ll grab Neon and be out in five minutes, come on.” Lyra put her front hooves on the bar and prepared to hop over.
“Wait, I thought you were handling the bar for Rocks?”
Lyra froze. “Oh yeah.” She glanced at the customers still waiting for their drinks. “Hey kid, you’re the bartender now.” She flipped her fedora off her head, revealing a short-cut mane, and onto the head of a gangly looking colt who was trying to slip by unnoticed to the bar. “If you rip Rocks off he’ll probably break your legs.” She vaulted over the bar.
“Neon’s kind of doing a set right now. Maybe we can take a rain check or…”
“Ugh, fine. Neon would probably moan all night if we dragged him away from his show anyway. I’ll catch up with him later. Just you and me then.”
“Uh, I kinda just wanted to stay here and drink Lyra. I’m really not-”
Lyra levitated a full bottle onto the bar before grabbing Vinyl’s shoulders and pulling her face towards her. “You can drink on the way. This city has forgot who Lyra Heartstrings is. We need to remind it!”
Lyra’s smile was all-teeth and the slightest bit too wide. Vinyl remembered that that was the worst one Lyra had.
