Vinyl stumbled up the stairs, the sound of her breathless laughter carrying to the top of the apartment building. It had been a wonderful night. She had gotten the club moving tonight; her new mixes were quite obviously a hit. Neon Lights had no chance. She hadn't stuck around, but she was certain that the club was booing him, maybe even rioting and throwing him bodily onto the street.

“Heh. Suck it Neon!” She shouted, her voice echoing up the stairwell. “You can kiss my flank after tonight! Nopony likes the records that you play.”

Chuckling at her own joke, she continued to move her alcohol fueled body up the stairs to her fourth floor apartment. She grabbed the railing and swung herself dramatically, attempting a spin to land on her rear legs. As she landed, her hooves slipped and she flung forward, her muzzle taking the brunt of the impact.

“Ow.” Vinyl groaned into the floor. “Elevator. Right. Take the elevator next time. Bucking...ow.”

She pulled herself to her hooves as she rubbed at her nose with one hoof. Her horn lit up with its trademark glow, seizing the doorknob and opening into a silent apartment.

“Bons, you shoulda seen me tonight! It was....oh.” The living room was empty. She magicked the door closed behind her as she pushed open Bon-Bon’s bedroom door. “Bons, you shoulda seen me tonight! It was...oh.”

Her eyes fell on an empty bed. It was even made, as if Bon-Bon hadn’t even slept in it. Vinyl made some mental calculations; her set had ended at eleven and it had taken her half an hour to get home. Bon-Bon was usually up late, either calculating inventory or doing the books for her business.

“Huh. Guess I’m alone.”

Celestia, her muzzle ached. She rubbed it again, feeling slick wetness against her hoof. She looked at it, seeing the red blood clinging to her hoof, making it glisten in the light of the apartment.

“Elevator. Right.” She said again, making her way to the bathroom. As she ran her hoof under the sink, she tried to think where Bon-Bon had gone. Bon-Bon was never up much past midnight. It was like she hadn’t even been home. There were none of her usual papers stacked around, half organized as she tried to calculate expenses.

Wiping her hoof on a towel, she made her way back to the living room. There wasn’t even a note left on the table. She rubbed her still aching muzzle, feeling her hoof grow wet again. Looking down at her hoof, she saw blood again.

“Right. Face. Buck it all...” She muttered.

“Personally, I enjoy the look.”

Vinyl jumped at the voice, but didn’t turn around. That voice. Soft, sweet, dripping with class. She knew what she’d see when she turned around. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard that she could feel it in her hooves, and hear it in her ears. Slowly, she turned.

She looked exactly as Vinyl remembered her. That gentle smile, the beautiful lavender eyes. The mare giggled, and as she did brought a hoof up to cover her mouth in that motion that made Vinyl’s heart twist.

“Octavia.”

“Miss Vinyl Scratch. Delighted to see you again.”

Vinyl nodded, but didn’t move. She couldn’t. No matter how hard she willed her hooves to move, they stayed rooted to the spot.

“Where’s Bons?”

“Your roommate?” Octavia laughed again. “You sent her away, do you not remember? You wanted us to have...privacy.”

Octavia slid off of the couch and walked towards Vinyl, her eyes locked on hers.

“And she left. Think about that, Vinyl. You have been with so many mares and stallions before, and yet I was the one you wanted privacy with. Bon-Bon left because she had never believed that you would be able to actually form an attachment with a pony.”

The remark stung, and Vinyl opened her mouth to respond, but Octavia leaned in close. It wasn’t a kiss. Octavia dragged her tongue across her muzzle, pressing hard to coax the blood out of her coat.

“I was not judging you, Vinyl Scratch. I do not care how many other ponies you have been with. I only want...” She paused as she licked her again, a soft, gentle lick this time. “Well. I think you know what I want.”

Vinyl knew. Blood. Octavia needed blood. Vinyl knew that she should have felt frightened, she should have bolted from the room, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. She looked into Octavia’s eyes. As the seconds ticked by, she nodded and tilted her head to the side, exposing the side of her neck.

There was a hint of a grin from Octavia, revealing long white fangs as she moved in, letting Vinyl feel the sharp points teasing against her, digging under her coat to slide against her skin. Vinyl closed her eyes, a shiver running up her spine as she felt them against her throat.

“Yes. Exactly what I want from you. What I wanted from you when I met you. All that I will ever want from you.”

Then she bit down.

Vinyl jerked awake with a grunt, an empty bottle of Bacolti falling from the hoofrest of the couch, landing on the carpet with a dull thunk. She looked around quickly, getting her bearings, before she let her chin rest once more on the hoofrest. The room was dark; the windows were closed and the curtains were drawn. The only light in the room was a streak of light from the open window in Bon-Bon’s bedroom, which had been growing shorter as the day progressed.

Vinyl stared at the line of light without really seeing it. Her mind was too focused on her dream. She tried to hold on to the details as they slowly faded from her mind. Octavia. Why her? What made Octavia so special?

“I’m not supposed to be like this.” She muttered. “Get outta my head, Octy.”

Vinyl knew that she was a different pony now, somehow. The Vinyl Scratch that had existed pre-Octavia had been a wild pony, the kind who would buck a pony if they caught her fancy, the kind who stayed up at all hours of the night and drank alcohol by the pitcher, the kind who laughed as she moved around the DJ booth.

Post-Octavia Vinyl Scratch was something else. Suddenly, the thought of taking a pony home felt impersonal, somehow. Vinyl wracked her brain, trying to figure out why she was so fixated on one pony. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, Vinyl knew next to nothing about her. Octavia was one big question mark. A mystery.

Don’t look for me.

Octavia had left her. Abandoned her after using her for...Vinyl shuddered as the memories of that night came back. Of the sudden, surprising pain that had snapped her out of her aroused stupor, and of how mind-numbingly pleasant the act had become. Of how she was certain that she was about to die. Yet, Octavia hadn’t finished her off.

I felt what was between us, Vinyl Scratch. And for ruining that, I apologize.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Octy,” Vinyl muttered into the couch. “You didn’t even stick around long enough to see that.”

It had been bad enough when Bon-Bon had found her. The bandages on her neck, the uncontrollable sobbing that had lasted for hours. She had thrown herself into Bon-Bon’s forelegs and cried even harder. There had been no awkward questions, thank Celestia, but she could feel Bon-Bon’s eyes on her every time they were in the same room. If Vinyl was quick enough, she could catch her looking at the bandages.

Vinyl had cried harder than she ever had before that night. She understood how much of a hypocrite it made her. All of the one night stands, all of the ponies who had come back asking for something more serious. Vinyl had always laughed it off, brushed them aside. And now, it was her turn to feel rejected and abandoned.

Vinyl reached under the couch and pulled up the second bottle. Her hoof slipped on the cap; she rubbed it across the back of the couch to wipe off the sweat. The heat in the living room was something that couldn’t be defeated by the only open window in the entire apartment, and even with most of the curtains drawn, summer held its grip. She tried to ignore the dull throb as her sweat stung the pair of wounds on her neck.

She failed. Growling, she grabbed the bandages with her magic, pulling hard until the gauze tore. She balled them up before chucking them the length of the apartment, letting them bump harmlessly against the wall and fall down behind a speaker.

Vinyl cursed her tolerance as she took a swig from the bottle. She’d gone through the first bottle in a few hours, and she was barely even buzzed. It was her own fault. Her time in university had been punctuated by all-night benders in lieu of studying, and The Club’s ‘free booze for DJs’ policy was one that Vinyl took advantage of every chance she got. As a result, the amount of alcohol needed to successfully gain the ‘drunk’ status effect was nothing short of ridiculous.

But Celestia be damned, she was gonna try.

“Dammit, this isn’t me!” She shouted to the empty apartment, leaping to her hooves. She gripped the bottle, put it to her lips and drank until the burning in her throat became too much to bear. She slammed the half full bottle on the table, before throwing her head back and letting out a laugh.

“This. This is me!” She laughed again. She didn’t know what she was laughing at, but it felt good. She needed to be cheerful. Happily, she made her way to the front door of the apartment.

It opened before she got there, Bon-Bon peering cautiously inside. “Everything alright in here? I haven't heard you laugh that hard since your turntables caught fire...”

“Bons!” Vinyl ran over to her and threw both forelegs around her, pulling her tightly into a hug. Bon-Bon blinked up at her, sitting down suddenly in the threshold.

“I’m off to find a random pony to buck until I can’t move! Isn’t that great?” Vinyl didn’t even wait for a reaction. She skipped out the door, pulling her sunglasses down over her eyes as she jumped down a flight of stairs.

“I’m happy!”

==========

“I’m drunk.” Vinyl groaned into the bar top.

Vinyl had tried being energetic. She had charged headlong into the first bar she had seen with lust burning in her eyes, ready to grab the first pony who showed interest in her and give them a choice; buck her here, or buck her at home.

It was then that she realized that she had never really been in a bar on a monday before. The place was nearly empty, with only two ponies in the bar. The first was the bartender; an extraordinarily polite brown earth pony with a black mane who introduced himself as Bottlecap. The second was a white furred, brown maned unicorn sitting at the far end of the bar, scribbling on a scroll and muttering to himself a lot. Even in this heat, he was wearing a scarf wrapped around his neck.

Her fire sputtered and died. Bottlecap looked far too serious to take advantage of an opportunity like her, and the unicorn seemed far too wrapped up in his scroll to pay attention even if Princess Luna herself had asked to her chambers.

So she had ordered a drink. She’d sat down at the bar, looked Bottlecap right in the eye and told him to surprise her with something strong. Bottlecap had risen to the challenge. So she had ordered more. Until finally...

“I’m drunk.” She said again, lifting herself to a more upright position as she savored the feeling of the room spinning.

“One more.” Vinyl slammed the empty glass down on the bar with slightly more force than needed as she looked Bottlecap right in the eye. She was ready to make him eat a bottle if he so much as started to utter the words ‘you look like you’ve had enough’. Thankfully, he didn’t bat an eye as he grabbed a hoofful of bottles and poured a delightful mixture of clear alcohol into the glass.

Vinyl slumped back down, her chin on the bar as she considered the slowly filling glass. “Oh ‘Badcolt.’ Where would I be without you?”

Vinyl hadn’t asked what was in The Badcolt. All she knew was that it looked impressive, tasted better, and could knock her on her flank after drink number four. A mixture of various intoxicating substances and colored a very lovely dark purple that reminded her of her sunglasses.

The bartender set the new drink down in front of her. He had once again added a straw. Heaving a dramatic sigh, she flicked the straw aside into a pile of five similarly discarded straws. Vinyl wondered if he was doing this on purpose to irritate her, or if it was some kind of ingrained habit. She lifted it a hoof, contemplating its color in the dim light before ending its existence in the span of four gulps.

“Another.”

“Ma’am, If you start talking to the drink again, I’ll need to cut you off.”

“Hey. Hey.” Vinyl pointed a hoof at him. “Shut it.”

This sort of bar was not Vinyl’s usual fare. It didn’t have a DJ booth, just a simple jukebox in the corner. It didn’t even have a dance floor. It was the sort of bar where a pony would come to drink and nothing else. Exactly the kind of place that she needed. Well, not when she had come in. But now, she needed it. She was drunk. Finally.

Badcolt number seven was placed in front of her. She stirred it with the straw as she looked down into the glass. “I really need this right now.”

“I’m not here to judge. But if you need to get something off your chest, I can be here to listen.” He said, popping the cap of a bottle and sliding it down to the stallion at the end of the bar, before mixing another Badcolt. He leaned against the bar, taking a drink of it as he watched Vinyl stir hers.

Vinyl gave a short laugh. “Like I’m gonna talk about this to a bartender. Mix the drinks, pal.”

Vinyl let out a satisfied sigh. She stared at the glass. It seemed a bit fuzzy. Vinyl gave a giggle. It had been a very long time since she had managed to feel this drunk. She considered the drink. “You...You find a nice pony. And you invite them home for a little private time. And you’re actually feeling stuff for this pony. You like this pony, really like this pony.”

She looked up at Bottlecap, who nodded. “I really, really, really like this pony.”

“I’m getting that, yeah.” He took another drink from his own Badcolt. Vinyl noticed with a bit of satisfaction that he wasn’t using the straw.

“An-an-an then!” She muttered, pausing to take a drink. She took a deep breath. “Then she sucks the blood outta you and ditches ya! Just leaves ya on the damn floor as she walks away. Damned vampire what she was! She got into my head with her creepy vampire magic an’ I can’t stop thinking bout her!”

Did I really just tell him that? How drunk am I?

Vinyl shut her mouth as the unicorn at the end of the bar raised his hoof. Bottlecap reached under the bar for another bottle. Bottlecap didn’t seem to notice anything....amiss. Vinyl stared at her drink. Half full. She was approaching her limits. It was rare that she ever approached them, but she knew she had them. She could always tell when she was reaching that point by her inability to keep her mouth shut.

“Ma’am, I think I can say we’ve all been there.” Bottlecap gave her an encouraging sort of smile. Vinyl gave an inward sigh of relief. “So what’s the real issue? You mad because you got used, or you mad because you’re still hung up on her?”

Vinyl rested her cheek on her hoof, considering. “She didn’t stay. She said she ruined it all...an’ then didn’t stick around to know that I...well...I didn’t understand exactly. But I wanted to.”

Bottlecap swept the remains of her drink and his own empty glass away, putting them in one of the sinks behind the bar. “I’ve been runnin’ this bar for a few years now. The one thing all the ponies who come in here to drink away their relationship problems have in common? They never took the simple option.”

“Which is?”

“Find her and tell her this yourself.” Bottlecap shrugged as he rinsed out the glasses.

“She...she told....” Vinyl hesitated as Octavia’s last words came to mind again. “She told me not to look for her.”

Bottlecap looked up from the sink, watching her with a knowing smirk on his face. “Ma’am, somehow I don’t think that’d stop you.”

Vinyl gave a laugh. “I think...maybe. We’ll see. So, do I leave a tip for the advice, or what?”

Bottlecap slapped a piece of paper and a quill on the bar. “Just sign.”

“What’s this?”

“You came in here without any saddlebags. Started running a tab for you as soon as you came in.”

“Right. Bits.” She leaned over the bar, levitating the quill as she signed her name.

“By the way ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking...what happened to your neck?”

Vinyl dropped the quill, looking up at him. “My..My what?”

“Your neck. You got marks on it.”

Vinyl’s heart pounded as she remembered throwing the bandages across the living room. The bite marks. Octavia’s bite marks. On display for the world to see. She had been so determined to be cheerful that she had forgotten to cover the damned bite marks!

“Just...”

Don’t tell the truth, don’t tell the truth, don’t tell the truth....

Vinyl looked around, her eyes settling on the scarf that the unicorn was wearing.

She forced the words out of her mouth. “No! Thing!”

Bottlecap blinked. The unicorn’s scarf began to glow, unraveling itself as Vinyl grabbed it and pulled it off of the pony, throwing it around her own neck and pulling it tight.

“...The buck?”

“Put it on my tab!” Vinyl said as she bolted for the door, adrenaline allowing her a mercifully straight line into the heated air of the streets of Manehatten. What if Bottlecap hadn’t noticed? What would Bon-Bon have thought? Her coat was white. She was surprised that Bottlecap hadn’t noticed sooner; the red marks were so obvious.

Vinyl let her alcohol fueled panic carry her from the bar, until the sudden burst of drunken activity got the best of her, and she felt herself go down in a tangled mess of limbs. She let out a groan, pulling herself into a heap against the cold stone of a building. She looked down at the scarf. Blocks of black and red.

“Oh. Wonderful. Very subtle.” Vinyl sighed. “Now I’m a thief. I mugged a pony for his scarf.”

Vinyl turned her gaze to the sky, Luna’s moon beginning its slow crawl across the sky.

“Thanks a lot, Octy.”

==========

Vinyl had chosen the elevator this time. Stairs were a challenge for her even while buzzed. Now, her drunken state had turned itself into a truly unpleasant spinning sensation that rendered stairs impossible for the time being. She had spent a full minute contemplating them, before remembering some of the non-Octavia related aspects of her dream. And so, elevator it was.

Vinyl pulled her newly acquired scarf tighter around her throat. Bon-Bon would be there. And she didn’t want any awkward questions being asked. Not just yet. As the elevator crawled upwards, Vinyl considered her position.

“The one thing all the ponies who come in here to drink away their relationship problems have in common? They never took the simple option.”

“Which is?”

“Find her and tell her this yourself.”

“C’mon, Vinyl, think. Solve this mystery.”

Vinyl thought about how interesting the ceiling of the elevator was. The way it was spinning had an interesting kaleidoscopic effect. A ding pulled her out of her thoughts, the doors of the elevator sliding open with the squeaky groan of a lazy maintenance staff. Pulling herself up from the floor, she made her way down towards the apartment door.

“Find Octavia. You can do it, Vinyl. Find her. Think.”

Vinyl thought about how much she’d be regretting this the next morning.

Vinyl threw herself bodily against the door, resting the side of her face against the wood. Her hoof fumbled against the door knob until it gained traction, twisting and letting her body weight throw the door open, stumbling to the floor for the fourth, perhaps fifth, time that night.

Bon-Bon lowered her papers as she stared at her. “Have a good time?”

“It was alright.” Vinyl giggled.

Bon-Bon eyed the door, leaning forward to peek out into the hallway. Letting out a sigh, she moved from the couch and reached down to heave Vinyl up from the floor.

“I can smell the alcohol on you. How much did you drink?”

“The bar? Possibly.” Vinyl gave a shrug that almost caused Bon-Bon to drop her.

Vinyl couldn’t smell the alcohol, probably because she was the one soaked in its aroma. She gave a sniff anyway. She smelled something...sweet. She took another sniff. Vinyl wrapped her hooves around Bon-Bon, pressing her muzzle into her mane and taking another sniff.

She smelled like perfume, and candy, and something...else.

“...Really, Vinyl?” Bon-Bon sighed. “You’re sniffing me? You’re seriously doing this.”

Something smelled good.

“I’m trying to get you in bed here.” Bon-Bon groaned as she heaved the pair of them across the floor. “A little effort on your part would be...nnngh!...appreciated.”

Something that was making her hungry.

Held so close to Bon-Bon like this, she could hear her heartbeat. More than that. The rush of blood through her body. Bon-Bon’s blood. A never ending waterfall-like sound as each heartbeat shoved blood through each and every artery and vein...

“Um...Vinyl?”

Vinyl could feel them, long and sharp in her mouth as if they had always been there. She couldn’t resist. She didn’t want to. She didn’t think about it any more. A level was pulled, and her body acted on its own accord, driven by instinct.

She opened wide and drove her new fangs down into Bon-Bon’s neck, ignoring Bon-Bon’s sudden scream of pain as a rush of delightful crimson flowed into her mouth. Vinyl swallowed it and sucked more out, her body shivering as the blood satisfied a craving hidden deep in her mind.

Vinyl’s stomach heaved as she jolted awake. The room was still spinning, but the nausea she felt wasn’t entirely from the alcohol. She clamped a hoof over her mouth, looking around before she spotted it on her nightstand.

Vinyl grabbed it and pulled it close and with a sudden heave, let loose a torrent of alcohol laced vomit into the bucket. She panted, holding the bucket with both hooves before she leaned down into it with another heave.

Once her stomach had halted its assault, she flicked on the lamp on her nightstand and stared down into the bucket. Vinyl gave a relieved sigh, setting it carefully next to the lamp. Not a single trace of red.

“This brings back memories...” Bon-Bon said tiredly as she trotted into the room, stepping over the accumulated clutter on Vinyl’s floor, a glass of water in her hoof. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to drag you into bed.”

Vinyl didn’t even try her magic. She reached out and took the water, taking a mouthful and rinsing with it, before leaning over and spitting into the bucket. Then she took a cautious drink, setting it on the nightstand.

“Whahappen?” Vinyl lay down against her pillow, closing her eyes to block out the ceiling that had turned into a form of poster laced spin art.

“No clue. You passed out as soon as you opened the door. I really don’t even want to know how much you drank tonight. I haven't seen you like this since university.” Bon-Bon grabbed the bucket, carrying it at leg’s length as she headed for the door. “Your new scarf is on the doorknob. Try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah...sure.” Vinyl turned over on her side to face away from the door, her mind reeling with things that she had never considered.

Vampires. She had been bitten by a vampire. And everypony knew that you turned into one after being bit. Right? Suddenly everything seemed a bit more frightening. She closed her eyes tighter, trying to block everything out.

Octavia had even said that she needed to leave before the sun came out. What did sunlight do to vampires? Vinyl had always heard that it burned them, but it had been mostly daylight when she walked to the bar, and she hadn’t felt a burn.

Or did it take time? Vinyl forced her thoughts through the alcohol, trying to figure out how long she’d have. A week? A month? Would she feel it coming on?

Your new scarf is on the doorknob.

Bon-Bon had taken off her scarf. She had to have seen the bite marks; with how brightly they stood out, there was no way she could have missed them. The thought hung over Vinyl’s head. Bon-Bon hadn’t asked her yet, but she would in the morning.

Vinyl’s momentary panic was tempered under the alcohol still buzzing through her body, and she let it take her. She let her body relax, forcing every thought out of her mind as she absorbed the warmth of her blanket. She let herself drift to sleep. Before she finally sank into dreams, however, she heard Octavia’s voice echo through her head; a snippet of conversation from the mysterious mare.

One of the perks that comes with being the first chair cellist of the Royal Canterlot Symphony.

Author's Note

Been sitting on this for a few days. I got tired of tinkering around with it, so here it is.

A big thanks to everyone who looked over this and gave me feedback: Mavinator5, Cola_Bubble_Gum, Midnight Herald, and Fictional Critic.