Vinyl and Octavia Get Incredibly Drunk
Vinyl Scratch stumbled up the path to the front door of her house. It was early in the morning, and all that Vinyl wanted to do right now was crash into bed and sleep for a week. With no bed available, she instead opted to crash into the door, and slide down to the veranda. Right now, Vinyl had a very nice feeling in her head – everything felt distant from her, and whenever she would try to focus on something, it would subtly move away. Or maybe she was slowly tilting her head without realising what she was doing. Whatever the case was, Vinyl was drunk.
“Wow,” she breathed to herself, looking up into the night sky, “those stars are so… starry. I bet nopony realises how far away they really are. They’re like… so far!” After a minute or so of staring at the stars, Vinyl picked herself up, ready to make a proper attempt at getting inside. As she did, she took notice of the doormat she had been sitting on.
“Heh. Welcome. That’s so like Octavia to buy something like that! She’s super welcoming!” she said out loud. Vinyl used her innate unicorn magic to levitate her keys out of the saddlebag she was wearing, and after a few failed attempts, managed to fit the correct key into the lock and open the door. Silently, Vinyl congratulated herself on this small feat.
Dumping her saddlebag onto a table as quietly as she could in her current state, Vinyl headed up the corridor and opened the door to her room. “Goodnight, Equestria!” she said out loud as she levitated her glasses onto a small bedside table. She took a step or two forwards, and then allowed her body to collapse on top of the bed, offering no resistance to the effects of gravity.
“Hmm…? Vinyl? Is that you?” a voice sleepily asked from the bed.
“…Octavia?” Vinyl asked, squinting to try to make out the occupant of the bed. “What are you doing in my bed?”
“Your bed?” Octavia asked, a bit more awake now. “This is my bed. You’re in my room!”
“No I’m n-” Vinyl started, before rolling onto her back and taking a decent look around the room as best she could in the darkness. In one corner was Octavia’s trademark cello, whilst against one wall was a bookshelf with books neatly organised by genre and author. Even the table Vinyl had put her glasses onto had Octavia’s bow tie placed upon it.
“Oh… I guess I was wrong,” Vinyl admitted. “Sorry, Tavi!” she said, reaching out a hoof to ruffle Octavia’s mane, missing the grey Earth pony’s expression of distaste.
“…You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Octavia asked unhappily.
“No!” Vinyl half-shouted, grinning idiotically.
“Yes you are,” Octavia yawned. She closed her eyes and rolled into her pillow, attempting to return to sleep swiftly. “Could you please go to your bed, and do so as quietly as you are able to?” she asked.
Vinyl looked to the door, which seemed much further away than it had been when she had entered the room. It wasn’t like that before, was it? Vinyl wondered. The room must be… growing! she thought in amazement. “…Can’t I sleep in your bed tonight?” Vinyl asked Octavia.
“You most certainly cannot,” Octavia said, attempting to sound stern but failing on account of her tiredness.
“But Taaaaaviiiiiii!” Vinyl whinged, prodding Octavia with a hoof. “Pleeeaaaaseee?”
“No, Vinyl,” Octavia said stubbornly, rolling over to emphasise her desire to sleep. “Please just let me go back to sleep.”
“Fine. Be that way!” Vinyl said, admitting defeat. She got up and slowly made her way out the door, grabbing her glasses on the way.
“If you vomit then I’m not cleaning it up!” Octavia shouted after the unicorn.
==============
The next morning, Vinyl blearily stumbled into the kitchen to find Octavia eating breakfast. Vinyl’s glasses were off, revealing her bloodshot and tired-looking eyes.
“And how are we feeling this morning?” Octavia teased.
“I’ve been worse,” Vinyl replied hoarsely. There were a few minutes of silence as she slowly prepared her own breakfast, pausing to wince from time to time.
“I honestly don’t know how you can get that drunk so often,” Octavia said as Vinyl sat down with her bowl of muesli.
Vinyl shrugged. “The hangover hurts like all buck, but for a good night of fun I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do!”
“Well, it is your choice, so I can’t really stop you,” Octavia admitted. “And provided you don’t burst into my room in the middle of the night again, I have no major qualms with your drinking.”
Vinyl’s chewing slowed as she went over what Octavia said. “…I came into your room last night?”
“Yes. You somehow thought that it was your room, and collapsed on top of my covers. It took quite a bit to get rid of you.”
“Oh. Uh, sorry, Octavia,” Vinyl said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “You know how it is when you’re – well, when you’re that drunk.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t,” Octavia replied. She had finished eating by now, and was sipping from a mug of tea. “I’ve never been drunk, nor do I plan on it.”
“Fine by me,” Vinyl replied respectfully. “It’s not like it’s the healthiest habit, and – hey, wait a minute!”
“What is it?”
“You promised me on the train back from the Amarezon Jungle that you’d come out drinking with me at least once!” Vinyl reminded Octavia. “That was six months ago, and nothing’s come of it!”
Octavia went over the memory in her head, wincing a little. She’d hoped that Vinyl had forgotten about that.
“Well? I’m right, aren’t I?” Vinyl insisted.
“Yes, Vinyl, but the thing is, I only agreed to go out drinking with you to get you to stop insisting on it,” Octavia revealed. “I didn’t have any intention on fulfilling that promise.”
Upon hearing this revelation, Vinyl pouted. “But Taaaaaviiiiiii! It’ll be fuuuuuuuuun!”
“Stop that,” Octavia snapped. “You know that I hate when you call me ‘Tavi’ – which was something else you were doing whilst drunk which annoyed me, by the way. Why are you making such a big deal out of this, anyway? Not five minutes ago you said that you had no problem with me refusing to drink alcohol.”
“’Cos you made me a promise, and I intend to see you fulfil it,” Vinyl said, grinning. “And besides, it’ll be fun! I’d like to see what you’re like when you let your mane down.” A moment later, Vinyl found herself blushing for reasons she couldn’t quite explain.
Octavia sighed. “If I were to agree to this – hypothetically speaking, of course – would you be content with me only drinking small amounts of alcohol?”
“Sure!” Vinyl said. She could see that she was starting to gain an edge in this discussion, and took advantage of it. “It’s more about going out and having fun than anything else, really.”
A thought occurred to Octavia. “So if I were to come out – again, speaking only hypothetically – would I be able to choose the place we went drinking to?”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan!” Vinyl said, not questioning why Octavia was suddenly fine with the idea of going out drinking. “Name the time and place, and we’ll go out there! I’ll show you a night to remember!”
“Brilliant,” Octavia said, smiling. “I shall tell you the moment I find a place that sounds interesting!” She drank the remainder of her tea, put her dishes into the sink, and then left the room, off to go practice the cello. Vinyl stayed in the room to finish her breakfast.
Is there some way that Octavia can twist this to her advantage? Vinyl wondered for a moment, before shaking the thought off. Nah, she must just be agreeing to get her promise out of the way. There’s no way that we won’t end up having fun!
==============
One week later
“…and so then I said to him, ‘Actually, this is a cello, not a double bass. Are you sure you’re a musical expert?’” Octavia said. She was speaking to a sophisticated Earth pony wearing a top hat and monocle. Both were sitting on soft couches.
The Earth pony nodded in response. “Quite an appropriate response, I would think.”
“Yes, I thought so too. His response to that was to stammer that he had made the mistake due to – oh, hello, Vinyl,” Octavia said as her unicorn friend came over. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“No!” Vinyl replied bluntly. “I thought you were taking us out somewhere where we would be drinking!”
“Well, I can’t speak for you, but I am certainly drinking,” Octavia said, tapping a nearby half-full wine glass to emphasise her point. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No!” Vinyl argued. “I mean, yes, but… I meant drinking in a real place!”
Octavia raised an eyebrow. “This is a real place.”
“This is a bucking cheese-and-wine tasting festival!” Vinyl shouted a little too loudly. Many of the nearby ponies gave her dirty looks and started muttering amongst themselves. Octavia’s Earth pony friend whom she had been speaking to got up and walked off, tut-tutting under his breath as he did so.
“And what’s wrong with a cheese-and-wine tasting festival?” Octavia asked, taking a sip from her wine glass as she did so. “We’re drinking, as you wanted, and you’re experiencing high society for once! Personally, I find this all quite fun!”
“The problem is that this is reeeaaaalllly boring,” Vinyl said. She collapsed onto the now vacant couch which the Earth pony Octavia had been speaking to had previously occupied. “I mean, there’s nothing here even remotely – ooh, free alcohol!” Vinyl stopped speaking for a moment to levitate a glass full of wine from a nearby waiter. She drank it all in one gulp, then continued speaking. “There’s nothing here even remotely fun!”
“I realise that this isn’t quite that fun for you Vinyl, but please indulge me just this once,” Octavia insisted, finishing off her wine. “If we go out to a bar, then I’ll end up being as bored there as you are now. And it is not as if I am not fulfilling my promise!”
Vinyl sighed and pouted. “But Octaaaaaviiiiaaaaaa!” she whined.
Damn it all to the moon, Vinyl. You know I can’t resist the puppy-dog eyes, Octavia thought as she stared at her unicorn friend. “How about a compromise? If we stay here for another hour or two, then I shall be more than happy to accompany you to whatever bar you wish for us to go to.”
“Yes!” Vinyl said a little too enthusiastically. “That sounds great!” She looked around the room. “Now, where can I get more wine?”
==============
“You – you alright, Octavia?” Vinyl slurred as the two ponies left the hall in which the cheese-and-wine tasting festival had been held. To Vinyl’s disappointment, after her fifth glass of wine the waiters had been barred from serving any more wine to her. Nevertheless, she had still drunk enough that she was somewhat tipsy by now.
“I’m fine, Vinyl – although I do have a funny feeling in my head…” Octavia trailed off. After a moment she realised that she was staring at the same spot on the ground and not doing anything. She shook her head slightly. “Am I drunk?” she asked Vinyl.
In response, Vinyl laughed. “I hope not! You only had – what, three? – glasses of wine. You’re probably just a bit tipsy, Octavia.”
“No, you’re a bit tipsy!” Octavia laughed as the scent of wine from Vinyl’s breath reached her. Regaining her composure, Octavia asked, “So, where are we going now?”
Vinyl shrugged. “I know a really good bar not too far from here. Interested?”
Octavia agreed, and after a good fifteen minutes or so of travel the two ponies had arrived at The Grey Mare, the name of the bar. Inside it was fairly quiet – other than the bartender, there were only a few ponies sitting around at the tables. The Earth pony and unicorn sat down at the bar, ready to order.
“Two vodka sh –whoah! What’s that?” Vinyl asked the bartender as she spotted a large clear bottle behind the bar. Although it seemed to be unopened, it was clearly expensive and rare.
“That?” the bartender asked, pointing a hoof for confirmation. “That’s Moonshine – nopony knows how it’s made, but it’s the most expensive thing we’ve got here. Tastes amazing, from what I’ve heard.”
“Whoah…” Vinyl said, staring at the bottle as if it were some sort of new messiah. For her part, Octavia merely scoffed and rolled her eyes. “How much for a drink from it?” Vinyl asked.
“That’ll be forty bits a shot,” the bartender said simply.
“Forty bits?! You’re kidding me!” Vinyl protested.
The bartender shrugged. “That bottle cost me quite a bit of money. If you knew how much, you’d think that forty bits for a shot is a bargain.”
Vinyl sighed. “Fine. In that case, two vodka shots please, bartender!”
“Really, Vinyl? Vodka?” Octavia asked, cringing a bit.
Vinyl shrugged. “C’mon, Octavia. You said you were happy to go out to a bar, and you’ve gotta have at least one proper drink before the end of the night!”
Octavia sighed. “Fine, although I am not going to get drunk tonight. You hear me, Vinyl?”
“Yeah, it’s all cool,” Vinyl agreed. A moment later, the bartender passed two shot glasses full of vodka to the two mares, and Vinyl paid him. “Bottoms up!” she said cheerfully to Octavia as she levitated the glass into the air.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Octavia sighed, awkwardly holding her glass between her two hooves. A moment later, the two mares drank down their shots in one gulp, as one is supposed to do with shots. What one isn’t supposed to do however, is start coughing and spluttering a moment later, as Octavia found herself doing.
“You right, Octavia?” Vinyl asked, concerned.
“Why does it burn so much?” Octavia managed to choke out. After a bit more coughing she managed to regain her composure. “Celestia’s Mane, how do you manage to drink that and not throw up?”
“The trick is to get it down as fast as possible,” Vinyl explained, “and don’t let the taste stay in your mouth too long. I’ll order us another two shots and show you how.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Octavia protested. “I have already said that I am not going to be getting drunk tonight, and I mean it!”
“Fair enough, you don’t have to have another vodka shot,” Vinyl agreed, grinning. “It’s just, whenever anypony asks how tonight went, I’ll have to tell them that you can’t handle your liquor.”
There was a moment of silence as the two ponies stared at each other. Then Octavia broke it by saying, “Bartender, another two vodka shots, please.”
“That’s my girl!” Vinyl said. “Now, watch what I do when I drink my shot, and you should be fine.”
“Fine – but this is my last shot for the night!” Octavia insisted.
==============
“Let’s- let’s – letstrytequilanext!” Octavia slurred to Vinyl a good half hour later. The two mares were still in the bar, and had steadily been working their way through a range of spirits. After Vinyl had suggested trying one or two more different shots, Octavia had leapt onto the idea, spurred on by the alcohol in her body.
“Tequila? That’s kinda strong, Octy,” Vinyl replied. After a moment of trying to think, a random thought came to her. “Heh. I called you Octy. You’re like an octopus!”
“Nooo!” Octavia protested. “I don’t want to be an octopus!” She grabbed Vinyl with her front hooves. “Say I’m not an octopus, Vinyl!”
“It’s cool, Octavia. You’re not an octopus!” Vinyl said. She was a bit more sober than Octavia, being more used to the effects of alcohol.
“Yeeesssss!” Octavia said, pumping her hooves in happiness. “Now, I think –”
“…Yeah?” Vinyl asked, suddenly entranced by Octavia.
“…I think that I’m going to the little fillies’ room. I’ve been drinking sooooo much!” Octavia got off her seat rather awkwardly and started looking around for the bathroom.
“Heh. You’re so drunk, Tavi,” Vinyl laughed. In response, she got a deathly glare from Octavia.
“I’m not drunk, Vinyl!” she protested a little too loudly. “I said I wasn’t getting drunk tonight, and I’m not. Okay?!” She was leaning into Vinyl by the end of her sentence, and wobbling slightly.
“Okay, Tavi, okay! You’re not drunk!” Vinyl said defensively.
“Good!” Octavia said, walking off in the direction of the bathroom. Along the way, she tripped over and fell to the ground. “I meant to do that!” she shouted as she picked herself up and continued on her way.
“Heh. Good ol’ Octy,” Vinyl said to herself as she watched Octavia drunkenly stumble around. “I knew that taking you out drinking would be a good idea!”
“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted from behind Vinyl, “but can I ask you something?”
Vinyl spun around to find a light yellow stallion with a blue mane standing behind her. He was an Earth pony. “Ayo, what’s up?” she asked, wondering what he wanted.
“Simple question,” he began politely, “my friends and I couldn’t help but notice your stunning beauty, and we were wondering whether you’d care to join us?” He pointed a hoof over to a booth, where two more stallions were watching what was going on. “So, what do you say?”
“…Eh?” Vinyl asked. She had been staring at the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, trying to work out a way to steal one without getting caught by the bartender. She turned her focus to the stallion once more. “Sorry, what did you say?” Vinyl was finding it hard to focus on just one spot of his face – her gaze kept drifting.
He chuckled quietly. “I was just requesting that you –”
“You talk fancy. Just like Tavi,” Vinyl interrupted.
“Who?” he asked, confused. “Actually, never mind. But anyway, would you –”
“Do you know why Tavi’s taking so long?” Vinyl asked, looking around the bar as if expecting Octavia to come out from under a table. “I didn’t think she’d be that long. Can you believe she’s just left me on my own?!”
“Well, if you don’t want to be by yourself, you could come over to me and my friends,” the stallion reminded Vinyl. She gave him a funny look, and then looked between him and his friends several times.
“…You’re not Tavi,” she concluded after a hard think.
“No, I’m not,” the stallion sighed. He was beginning to wonder why he had bothered coming over, since Vinyl was clearly as wasted as was possible. “Who is this Tavi person, anyway? Is he your very special somepony, or –”
“She is – right over there!” Vinyl said, spotting Octavia emerging from the small corridor which led to the bar’s toilets. She got up from her seat and headed over to Octavia, followed hesitantly by the stallion. “Taaaviiii!” Vinyl greeted, as if she hadn’t seen the Earth pony for years. “What’s up?”
Octavia merely stood on the same spot, and stared off into the distance. “I just vomited a lot of stuff, Vinyl…” she said weakly.
“Awesome, Tavi!” Vinyl said, holding out a hoof for Octavia to bump, which Octavia weakly did so. “I told you that tonight’d be fun!”
“So… who is this… Tavi person?” the stallion asked, confused by what he was seeing.
“She’s my PFF!” Vinyl shouted enthusiastically, wrapping two hooves around Octavia happily. “Isn’t that right, Tavi?”
Octavia turned to Vinyl slowly, obviously very drunk by now. “…But you’re my PFF, Vinyl. Not Octavia.”
“You’re Octavia, Tavi,” Vinyl pointed out.
“Yeah but… how can I be my own PFF? That just doesn’t make sense,” Octavia explained.
“…Maybe we’re both your PFFs?” Vinyl suggested after a very hard and nonlinear train of thought.
“That must be it!” Octavia agreed, smiling for the first time since she had left the bathroom.
“So… yeah!” Vinyl said to the stallion, who was watching all of this and feeling very confused.
“…So you two are just friends?” he asked, trying to interpret the situation.
“Yeah – see, it all started when Tavi and I met in the Amarezon Jungle –” Vinyl started. She still had two of her hooves around Octavia.
“No, no – we didn’t meet. We got lost!” Octavia explained.
“Yeah! That was totally it!” Vinyl agreed. “We got lost because I was looking for a flower – but I thought it was gold – because I needed it to –”
“Um, you know what?” the stallion interrupted. “I might just go back to my friends now. You two are very nice ponies, though.” He gave a small wave and walked back over to the booth where his friends were.
“Who was that?” Octavia asked, staring after him.
“I dunno. Seemed kinda boring though,” Vinyl replied.
==============
Although Vinyl and Octavia were both incredibly drunk, they weren’t incredibly stupid, and so rather than returning to shots they instead decided to order a cider each. Rather than returning to the bar, they sat in one of the booths to drink.
“I really like cider,” Octavia said, resting her head on the table to get a closer look at her bottle. It was a good thing that she was so drunk, as she was unwittingly resting her head in a small puddle of spilt beer from a previous occupant of the booth. “It tastes so… cider-y.”
“Yeah, this stuff kicks flank,” Vinyl said, taking a swig from her bottle. Amazingly, she managed to drink it without spilling any on herself, which was quite a feat in her current state. “We should totally, like, break into a cider factory or something. Then we could get all of the cider!”
“Yes!” Octavia agreed enthusiastically. “Now… where’s the nearest cider factory?”
Vinyl shrugged. “…Ponyville?”
“…But I don’t want to go to Ponyville,” Octavia said. “Nothing ever happens in that town. Where can we go instead?”
“Uh… we can go to…” Vinyl looked around the bar for inspiration. “Ah ha! We’ll go to the pool table!”
“The what?” Octavia asked, lifting her head to see what Vinyl was looking at.
“Y’know, pool! Haven’t you ever played before?” Vinyl had gotten up from the booth and was walking over to the pool table now, levitating her cider bottle after her.
“…How is one supposed to play?” Octavia asked, watching as Vinyl grabbed a nearby cue. “I can’t levitate a cue, and it’s not as I can hold one in my hooves.”
Vinyl snorted. “Who gives a buck?” she asked as she drank the rest of her cider. “Just… I dunno, hit the balls with your hoof.” She started levitating the pool balls into a very misshapen triangle shape on the table.
“Like this?” Octavia asked, getting up from the booth and stumbling over to the pool table. She slammed a hoof onto the table, making the balls wobble slightly.
“That’s not how you play pool, Tavi!” Vinyl said, grinning cheerfully. “You’ve got to… y’know, get the balls into the pockets!” She clumsily levitated her cue to the table and very awkwardly hit a ball with it, sending it rolling a few centimetres towards a pocket. “See?”
“Oh… I get it!” Octavia said. This time, rather than raising a hoof upwards, she swung it back before hitting one of the balls as hard as she could in her current state.
“Yeah!” Vinyl complimented as the ball went flying. “Just like –”
SMASH!
Both ponies winced as they looked to the sound of breaking glass. In a million-to-one chance, the bottle of Moonshine which Vinyl had been admiring earlier had been hit by the ball, smashing it to bits. The liquid had already mostly drained out of the bottle, and even from the pool table the two ponies could smell the creamy, alcoholic smell of the drink.
“…Oops,” said Octavia after a moment. The bartender had been out of the room, but he entered as Octavia spoke, and took in the sight of the broken bottle immediately.
“Who the hay did this to my bottle?!” he shouted out, looking torn between anger and sadness.
“Maybe if we don’t say anything,” Vinyl whispered loudly to Octavia, “he won’t –”
“Was it one of you two?” the bartender shouted out to the two ponies. He had retrieved the pool ball from the ruin and placed it on top of the bar. “I knew I should have kept an eye on how much you two drank!” Octavia and Vinyl walked closer to the bar, trying to work out what to do next.
“There is a – a perfectly good explanation for this,” Octavia said, trying to focus on the bartender whilst still keeping her balance. She was only successful in one of these endeavours.
“What are you planning, Tavi?” Vinyl whispered loudly to Octavia. She didn’t seem to realise how loudly she whispered when she was drunk, nor that the bartender could easily hear her.
“Honesty is the best policy, Vinyl!” Octavia replied, trying to be quiet but speaking equally loudly. “I’ll sort this all out, just you watch. You see, my good sir,” she continued to the bartender, “my friend and I here are rather – rather intoxicated in our present state.”
“Tavi! Sssh!”
“And during what was – what was supposed to be a good, friendly game of pool with my friend here – ” Octavia had wrapped a hoof around Vinyl’s neck now “- I accidentally miscalculated my blow, leading to this series of unfortunate events we now find ourselves in. Isn’t that right, Vinyl?” Octavia was speaking slowly, her words slurring into one another.
“Uh…”
“So as you can see, it was a simple mistake, which anypony could have made. Can you forgive me?” Octavia finished off her explanation with a grin which in her mind was mischievous yet charming, as opposed to the idiotic smile that it was.
The bartender had been glaring at her during her entire explanation, and his expression failed to change at all as Octavia finished. “You two are paying for not only the bottle, but the cleaning expenses to clear all of this alcohol up, you hear me?”
“…That wasn’t what I was hoping you’d say,” Octavia replied, frowning. “Normally in novels, when the dashing hero makes an innocent yet clumsy mistake the local simpleton – no offence – merely gives a hearty chuckle and sends them on their way.”
“Yeah? Well if a hearty chuckle is what you’re after, you’d better have a good four hundred bits in those bags of yours,” the bartender growled. “Otherwise the only time you’ll hear me chuckling is when the guard lock you up in the prison for causing a public nuisance!”
“…Oh dear,” Octavia said. Even in her drunken state she knew that neither she nor Vinyl could afford to pay the bartender, even if they pooled all of their remaining money together. “I don’t believe we can afford four hundred bits.”
“Then in that case, you’ll kindly stay here whilst I call the guard to –”
“May I present an alternative solution, mister bartender-stallion?” Vinyl asked, raising a hoof. She wobbled slightly.
“Sure, but it’d better be a good one,” the bartender muttered.
“Simply put, I propose that Octavia and I follow the standard procedure for what to do in these kinda situations,” Vinyl said. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Vinyl wondered where she was getting all of these large words from all of a sudden. Probably a side effect of hanging out with Octavia, Vinyl concluded.
“What’s that, Vinyl?” Octavia asked in confusion.
“Cheese it!”
==============
“…Eighty-seven buckets of oats on the wall! Eighty-seven buckets of oats!” It was incredibly early in the morning, and Vinyl and Octavia were walking home after escaping from the bar. Out of nowhere, Vinyl had suggested that the two sing a song together, and after initially finding nothing to agree on singing, they had settled on “Ninety-Nine Buckets of Oats on the Wall.”
“Take one down, turn it around, eighty-six buckets of oats on the wall!” the two mares continued as they walked up the path to the house that they had been sharing for several months now.
“Vinyl… I have something important to tell you,” Octavia suddenly said, interrupting the song.
“What – what is it?” Vinyl asked as she struggled to retrieve her keys from her saddlebag.
“I- I have a really big secret, Vinyl. I’ve been keeping it from you all night!” Octavia had slumped to the ground, and although she was trying to stare at Vinyl seriously, the fact that her gaze was slowly moving away from Vinyl and to an interesting-looking pebble on the ground ruined the effect.
“So tell me, Tavi!” Vinyl growled. She had managed to find the right key for the door, the trouble was just fitting it in the lock accurately.
“I – I’m actually drunk, Vinyl!” Octavia said loudly before bursting into a giggling fit.
“So?” Vinyl asked, too tired to reply properly.
“You remember I said I wouldn’t get drunk? I think I actually did!” Octavia said enthusiastically. “And I know I’ll probably regret this in the morning… but this is fun!” Octavia closed her eyes, evidently exhausted from the events of the night.
“That’s the spirit, Tavi!” Vinyl said, finally managing to fit the key into the lock and opening the door. After looking at Octavia lying on the ground with all of her energy wasted, Vinyl did something she probably wouldn’t have done if she was sober: she used her telekinesis to levitate Octavia onto her back (as heavy as the weight was), and carry her inside.
“I wish we hadn’t had to run away from that bar,” Octavia yawned, oblivious to the unicorn carrying her to her bed. “We’ll probably regret that in the morning…”
“It’s just like that time we had to run away from that tribe of natives in the Amarezon, remember?” Vinyl replied.
“Yeah. That was the first time you called me Octavia, remember?” Octavia said as Vinyl opened the door to her room. She smiled happily, although unfortunately her unicorn friend couldn’t see it. “That was really cute, Vinyl.”
“You’re really cute…Octavia,” Vinyl said impulsively, likewise smiling. She carefully levitated Octavia off her back and into her bed (she had double-checked to make sure that it was the right room).
“So… what did you think of tonight? Did you have fun?” Vinyl asked, levitating Octavia’s covers so that the Earth pony would be more comfortable and sleep better.
“Yes, but… I still don’t believe I will get drunk again anytime soon,” Octavia mumbled, nearly asleep by now. Vinyl smiled at her best friend, even if Octavia’s eyes were closed and she couldn’t see it.
“That’s fine by me, Octavia. Good night.” Vinyl started heading out of the room, when Octavia called after her.
“Vinyl – wait!” Vinyl turned around to see that Octavia had opened her eyes the merest fraction. “I’m – I’m drunk and – and I’m cold,” Octavia said quietly.
“Me too!” Vinyl said, not sure why Octavia was saying this.
“Could you – could you please sleep in my bed tonight, Vinyl?” Octavia asked. “Just this once? I don’t want to spend the night alone and drunk.”
Vinyl barely had to think about it. “Anything for you,” she said, clumsily climbing into bed next to Octavia. For the rest of the night, the two drunken mares slept quietly and peacefully, happy to be in each other’s presence.
==============
Epilogue: The Next Morning
“…Really? I agreed to a second vodka shot?” Octavia asked. She was slowly drinking a glass of water – her fourth that morning. Her mane was messed up, and she had large bags under her eyes.
“Uh-huh,” Vinyl confirmed, taking a sip from a separate glass of water. Although she wasn’t as hung over as Octavia, her head was still pounding enough that she would be taking the day slowly. “How much do you remember after we hit the bar?”
“Those first two vodka shots…” Octavia said slowly, straining to remember, “…You were hugging me at some point… and we played pool?”
“Uh, yeah. That was most of what we did in the bar,” Vinyl said, making a mental note to tell Octavia about the broken bottle of Moonshine sometime later. “Is that all you remember?”
“…We were running at one point from something…” Octavia said slowly, not noticing Vinyl wincing, “and I have a feeling that we were singing at one point. But that’s about it. Other than that, you’ll have to fill me in on the rest of the details of last night.”
“Sure,” Vinyl said, taking another drink of water. “I can, uh, explain about me sleeping in your bed, by the way.”
“Oh, I have no qualm with that at all,” Octavia said, smiling mischievously. She got out of her seat and left the room, presumably to go recover some more.
Alone in the kitchen, Vinyl was left utterly perplexed as to Octavia’s final words. “…I have gotta take Octavia out drinking more often,” she said out loud to herself.
THE END