An annoying beam of light crept through the blinds on Vinyl's window and bucked her in the eyes. She groaned and tried to roll over, but ended up on the floor instead. She groped around for her sunglasses for a moment in the dimly lit room, and rammed them onto her face before stumbling across the slightly rank shag carpeting and out into the apartment proper.
Her roommate, Octavia, sat at the table, a bowl of cereal in front of her. She looked up from her food when Vinyl came in, and nodded to her. "I see you're finally awake."
Vinyl yawned and plopped herself down on the couch across the room. "Somepony needs to tell Celestia about those, um," she paused for a moment as her mind blanked out, "those swirly switchy things."
"Dimmer switches?"
Vinyl clapped her hooves. "Yeah, yeah, those! Exactly."
Something about the room felt off. She glanced around, but nothing seemed to be out of place. She sifted through the fridge, but nothing was missing, as far as she could tell. She began shuffling over to the window, but tripped on something halfway across. That wasn't unusual for her.
She got back up and glanced at the something, but paused. It took her a few moments to realize what she was looking at.
"Octy?"
Octavia looked up. "Yes?"
"The hay is this kid doing in our apartment?"
"Oh, that."
"There's some random kid in our apartment, and you just say it like, 'oh, that?'"
Octavia picked up the foal and put him down by the couch, then looked up at Vinyl. "Well, a friend of mine asked me to babysit for him last night. He's booked for a performance today, and his sitter canceled at the last minute." She glanced over an empty fast food carton lying on the floor, and sighed. "I didn't think it would be that different, considering… certain ponies' hygiene."
Vinyl blinked and yawned again. "Shit. So how long's he staying?"
Octavia scowled, and gestured at the baby. "Watch your language, Vinyl."
Vinyl swiveled on one hoof and bent to look at the kid. "Hay, he's like, what, two months old? He's not gonna remember anything we're saying anyway."
The kid screwed up his face at her for a moment. It imitated her tone as it said, "Shit."
Octavia sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall. "I've got to leave. I've got practice of my own to attend, so would you mind… babysitting?" She cringed at her own words. "Just for an hour, I mean."
Vinyl squinted at the kid sitting on the floor, and thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, sure, I can handle that. I mean, it's just a baby, right? I can do that."
"Thank you, Vinyl."
Vinyl waved a hoof. "Yeah, yeah, now get outta here before I change my mind."
Octavia nodded goodbye and disappeared out the door with her cello case. Vinyl turned to the kid, and thought for a minute. She knew she'd seen kids with like, these little toys or something once. They didn't have anything like that around, but maybe she could figure something out.
Vinyl picked up the empty cereal box off the counter and flopped it down next to the kid. It crawled inside, and she smiled to herself. There. That'd do. She lurched over to the kitchen, pulled a leftover taco out of the fridge and sat down to eat.
She was about halfway through when the foal started wailing.
She pressed her hooves over her ears. She'd been to night clubs with softer tones. "Oh, Celestia, make it stop!"
It didn't stop. In an effort to make it stop, she stumbled over to the foal and scrutinized it as best she knew how from where it sat on the floor. It probably wasn't sleepy, given her luck. It didn't look hurt. She lifted it into the air, the colt still wailing his brains out. Nothing in the diaper either, thank Spinal Tap.
She sat it down, and was about to return to her taco when a thought occurred to her. Maybe it was hungry. But what did babies even eat? She gave it a think. Last time she'd seen one with something in its mouth, it was this weird little circle thing with a bob on the end. She was pretty sure they didn't have anything like that around the apartment, but maybe she could find a replacement.
She crept into her bedroom and shuffled through her drawer for a few moments before she found a spare pair of earplugs buried underneath a pile of random odds and ends. She stuffed them into her ears, and merciful silence washed over her.
Next, she had to figure out what she could do about the kid. Even if the earplugs did stop the noise, she couldn't just leave him like that. It didn't feel right. She pulled out a box of her older records and leafed through them; it always seemed to help her think. Hey, so that's where her Spinal Tap album got to. And the Mareowar too.
When she got to the end of the box, a question came to her: what the hay was a Beethoofen record doing in her record collection?
It took a minute, but an idea began to take shape in her mind. It was a slow process. In her experience, it usually involved a lot of chanting, arcane rituals and annoying Octavia. This time, however, it came to her mostly complete.
She grabbed the Beethoofen album and brought it with her into the living room. The baby was still wailing his mind out, as far as she could see. She approached him and pulled the record out of it's case, comparing it to the kid. It'd probably fit. Maybe.
She offered it to the colt, and he began sucking on part of it, as much as he could given the size of his muzzle. It was probably the most useful the record had ever been for her. She grinned and pumped a hoof in the air. Score one for DJ PON-3. She returned to her taco, and finished it off. She even took her earplugs out.
About as soon as she'd done so, the baby began screaming again.
She frantically stuffed the plugs back into her ears, and shook her head, thinking. She'd fed him, so that couldn't be it. It still didn't look like he'd dirtied his diaper.
Oh, right, maybe he was thirsty. She crept over to the refrigerator and peered inside. A couple bottles of soda, some Marendarin takeout, but they were out of milk. She squinted and groped around the shelves as if something might materialize for her hooves. When nothing did, she backed up and checked the door.
She grabbed the first container she saw that wasn't rancid, water or fast food and returned to the foal. She sat it down in front of him, and he grabbed onto the straw and drained the thing — one of Octy's diet drinks, maybe — in a couple seconds.
He burped. More importantly, he stayed quiet. Vinyl flopped down on the couch and sighed. This babysitting stuff might've had a little more to it than she'd thought. Just a little, though. She'd get the hang of it.
A few minutes later, the door squeaked, and Octavia crept inside, metaphoric venom and literal white paint dripping from her face. She shut the door behind her, and Vinyl looked up. "The hay happened to you?"
"The building manager conveniently forgot to tell us that he was having the place painted this morning." She was about to shuffle into the bathroom when she noticed the foal on the floor, the record, the empty cereal box and drink scattered around it. "Vinyl? What happened?"
She glanced over at the wreckage and the colt sitting in the middle of it, sucking on the record once again, and smiled. "I babysat."
Octavia's eyes bugged out. "Is that my Beethoofen record?"
She shifted. "Umm… maybe?"
