Vinyl's Birthday Special

"Vinyl!" Octavia called out toward the bedroom. "Are you awake yet? It's getting late."

"I am now," came Vinyl's muffled reply after a second. The sound of rustling fabric drifted in from the bedroom, follow by a heavy thump and a groan. Vinyl came walking out into the kitchen a few seconds later, ears flat and rubbing a hoof over her rump. To call her mane a mess would have been a severe understatement, even by Vinyl's lax standards. "Morning, Tavi."

"Morning, Scratch," Octavia said with a quick kiss to the unicorn's lips. "You fall on your bum again?"

"You know me so well." Vinyl's signature sunglasses were nowhere in sight, and she took a moment to yawn before asking, "What's for breakfast?"

"Well," Octavia started, "I was just going to have some cereal, actually. You're welcome to join me, though."

Vinyl shrugged, taking a seat at one side of their dining table. Octavia sat down across from her, placing a cereal box on the table. Tavi poured in some of the little white and brown flakes, following up by filling in the cracks with milk.

Vinyl poured herself a bowl as well, albeit she poured the milk in first, then spooned up the flakes and stuffed them into her mouth. Her ears perked up as she crunched the cereal, and she grabbed the box. "Aw, sweet!" she proclaimed, spewing a little of her breakfast out as she spoke, "you got the frosted kind!"

"Mmmhmm," Octavia hummed in reply through her own mouthful of food.

Vinyl put the box down, happily spooning up some more. "Frosted Wood Chips are best Wood Chips."

"I prefer Maple, myself, but the frosted ones are fine, too." Octavia stirred the spoon around in her bowl for a second. "So, what did you want to do today?"

Vinyl just shrugged, mumbling through her cereal, "I dunno. Probably work on that trance song about mermares. I need to get some samples of ocean sounds, though."

"Anywhere special you want to go? There's that new club over on 85th that just opened."

"Ehh, maybe." Vinyl chewed her breakfast for a second before asking, "Why, did you want to go somewhere?"

Octavia shrugged. "Not if you don't. I just thought you might want to do something special."

Vinyl squinted for a second, but then her eyes shot wide. "Oh, crap, did I forget our anniversary again?"

Octavia just rolled her eyes. "No, but you forgot your own birthday, apparently."

Vinyl raised one eyebrow. "Today is my birthday?" She turned, checking the calendar as it hung on the wall. "It is," she stated, turning back around. "Huh... Wow, I'm a moron. Actually, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather just chill here. Lay around and just relax, you know? Maybe use that fireplace we never use."

Octavia stared across the table, her hoof-clutched spoon hovering above the bowl of cereal. "Really?"

"My family had a big fireplace back when I was a filly. It's a nostalgia thing, you know?"

Tavi stirred her cereal a little, muttering, "You know I'm not the nostalgic type, Scratch."

Vinyl put her own spoon down. "Back when I was a filly in Ponyville, before I moved here to Canterlot, our family had this big fireplace in the living room. I use to lay in front of it during the winter, and stuff. I kinda miss that, you know?"

"How sweet," Octavia cooed with a blank expression. "Did you get your cherry popped in front of a warm fire, Vinyl Scratch?"

"Nah, it was in the back of a carriage."

"How romantic."

"It kinda was, actually. The guy had this little boombox set up to play this easy-listening crap. He was a sweet guy." She plucked up her spoon again, adding, "I mean, he was a loser, but he tried hard."

"Sounds lovely," Octavia deadpanned.

Vinyl popped one brow up again and smiled crookedly. "You jealous, Tavi?"

Now it was Octavia's turn to put down her spoon, giving the unicorn a deep frown.

"Heh, uh, yeah, right, nevermind," Vinyl muttered, her ears flattening and her smile dying as she looked down into her bowl.

Tavi returned to her cereal, asking after a moment of silence, "So, you just want to spend the night in? That's fine with me. I haven't used the fireplace here since before we met."

"Yeah, that'd be cool."

The rest of their breakfast was spent in relative silence, the only noises being the gentle clinking of their spoons and Vinyl's slurping as she sucked in her cereal. It was a few minutes before Octavia stood up, taking her empty bowl with her as she trotted for the sink.

"I have a few things I need to do before tonight," Octavia said, rinsing out her bowl. "I have a couple of surprises for you."

"Yeah, I figured you would," Vinyl responded, walking up behind Octavia with her own bowl. "You still haven't gotten revenge for what I gave you on your last birthday."

Octavia giggled softly. "No, I haven't just yet. But don't you worry"—Tavi paused to boop her lover on the nose—"we'll get to that later tonight."

"Oh ho," Vinyl said with a smirk, "I can't wait." Vinyl hopped up, putting her forelegs against Octavia's back and nipping at her neck.

"My, you really can't wait, can you?" Tavi said with a slight blush. She swatted the unicorn's flank with her tail, stepping sideways and out from under her girlfriend. "Save it for tonight, love."

Vinyl groaned, dumping her cereal bowl into the sink. "You really gonna make me wait?"

Octavia trotted off to the entry room, passing by the staircase as she went. "I have a few things I need to pick up before tonight, Scratch. I'll be back by five, okay?"

"Sure," Vinyl said absent-mindedly, her eyes glued to Tavi's shapely backside as it sashayed away, her dark tail swishing from side to side. One of Vinyl's ears gave a little twitch. "I'll be in my studio."

The unicorn trotted off without another word, and Octavia headed out through the front door.

The front door to the shared apartment creaked open a few hours later, and a gray muzzle slowly slid inside. A pair of mulberry eyes glanced about the entry room in silence. With nopony else in sight, Octavia pushed the door open fully and walked through, a black duffle bag hanging from her mouth. She gently swung the door shut behind her before creeping up the stairs. She repeated her furtive routine at the door to the master bedroom before slipping through.

Tavi came back down the stairs after a few minutes, slinking across the carpet and down the hall toward Vinyl's studio. She stopped short of the door, leaning forward and bringing an ear to it. No sound came through, and she tapped the door handle with a hoof. Finding it unlocked, she gingerly cracked the door open to look inside, yet there was no Vinyl to be found within the room.

Octavia stepped back into the hallway, her brow furrowed. Her hooves brought her back to the entryway to find the sitting room door slightly ajar. She prodded it open softly, letting warm light spill out into the entryway, and poked her head through. The curtains were drawn, with barely any sunlight coming through. The light came from the fireplace, which was playing host to a small pile of burning logs, spreading shifting shadows across the dull blue carpet. There was Vinyl, lying sideways on the pale blue sofa and snoring quietly. Octavia smiled, slipping in through the doorway.

Vinyl's sunglasses were still missing from her fuzzy face, and her mane looked as though she'd only made the simplest attempts at hoof-combing it. The unicorn only stirred when Octavia bent down and planted a little kiss against the side of her muzzle. One of Vinyl's eyes slid open as she squirmed ever so slightly. Her legs stretched out across the cushions, and she muttered, "Hey, Tavi. You get the stuff you wanted?"

Octavia nodded once. "I did. Mind if I join?" Her girlfriend patted a hoof against the sofa in response, and Octavia climbed up beside her. She settled in against the back of the couch, her ribs pressed to Vinyl's spine, and draped a foreleg over the unicorn's barrel. "You know, I never took you for the type to do, well, this sort of thing."

Vinyl moved a little bit, propping her head up on a curled foreleg. "Like I said: it's a nostalgia thing. I haven't done it in years, but I used to do it a lot as a filly." A little smile crept across her lips. "I remember this one time back in Ponyville when I almost burned the house down."

"Sounds fairly typical."

"It was a Saturday. I remember because I had no school that day. You ever wake up and you just don't want to do anything? Like, 'Screw the rest of the world, I'm being lazy today'?"

"I did, yes, but my family always had other plans." Octavia paused to run the edge of a hoof through Vinyl's mane. "Go on."

"Well, this was one of those days. I must've laid in bed for three hours, just daydreaming and stuff. I only finally got outta bed to take a leak, 'cause I didn't wanna soak my sheets."

"Was that something you did often, soaking your sheets?"

Vinyl gave her girlfriend a little jab with her elbow before continuing, "So I finally get up and stuff, and I find that there's, like, nopony else in the house. So, I'm like, 'Awesome. I have the whole house to myself.' So I start making hot chocolate in the coffee maker, drag my pillow and blankets into the living room, and get a fire going. So I just, like, lay there on the floor with hot chocolate and a box of cookies, watching the fire."

"Sounds lovely," Tavi said, adjusting her position behind Vinyl.

"Yeah, until I got totally bored. I was lying there, thinking about how my chocolate drink tasted better hot, because it got cold, and I thought, 'Hey, if my drink is better hot, maybe my cookies will be better hot.'"

"You put your cookies in the fire, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that was later. First, I put my cookies in the coffee pot."

Octavia propped her body up with one foreleg to ask, "What?"

Vinyl awkwardly shrugged against the sofa cushions. "It heated up my hot chocolate, so I figured it would heat up my cookies."

"Did it?"

"Yeah, it worked. I had a really hard time getting them out, though, 'cause my magic sorta sucked back then. I must've burned my leg, like, four times."

"You kept trying?"

The unicorn barely glanced at Octavia to reply, "I wanted my cookies back." Vinyl turned back to the fire as Octavia settled back in behind her. "So anyway, I eventually got mad, gave up, and just knocked the pot onto the floor with a broom. So then I got covered in scalding hot chocolate and glass—"

"You..." Octavia cut in, squinting with a furrowed brow at the mantle, "you made... you put hot chocolate in with the cookies? What, were you trying to boil them?"

"Nah, the hot chocolate was still in there from earlier. I already had the broom right there, so I just swept all the junk into the fireplace to get rid of it. After soaking up the hot chocolate with a towel first, of course."

"Of course," Octavia deadpanned. "You weren't worried about your parents finding a bunch of cookies and broken glass in the fireplace?"

"I didn't think of it until later. So I'm trying to dry the chocolate goo out of my coat when it hits me: fire is hot, and there's no awkward little hole I have to reach through to get 'em." Vinyl gestured with a hoof toward the fireplace, adding, "Plus, theres that coal clamp tongs thingy right there. No-risk reward. So I pull my cookies out of the fire with the tongs—"

"Those were on the floor!"

Vinyl held up a hoof, waving in the air. "I know, I know, but I also knew that heat kills germs, and that fire is really hot."

"Oh, sweet Celestia," Octavia groaned, her free hoof meeting her face.

"It totally burned off all the hair and lint, too. Well, mostly."

Tavi drew in a slow breath and let out a quick one. "So you ate the cookies. Then what?"

"They were really weird. Like, the outside was scorched and tasted burned, but the inside was still soaked with the hot chocolate. It was cool and different, so I thought I'd discovered some cool new product. I started making plans to market fire-scorched, hot chocolate-infused cookies." Vinyl paused for a few seconds, scratching at her nose with a hoof. "And that's about the time that my blanket got too close to the fire and burst into flames."

"I was wondering when that would happen." Tavi nuzzled down into Vinyl's mane, lazily mumbling through the hair, "Too bad you didn't have any hot chocolate to put it out with."

"That's exactly what I thought, yeah. What hit me hardest, though, was the irony. Like, you always see ponies beating fires out with blankets, but it was the blanket that was on fire, now. I thought about jamming towels into the guest toilet to flood the living room and put the fire out, but I didn't wanna shove my hooves down in the toilet to do it."

"Yes, because that's the only downside to that plan."

Vinyl chuckled briefly. "Yeah, I was a stupid filly. I actually just beat the fire out with the chocolate-soaked towel from earlier."

"And that's right when your parents came home, right?"

"Nope. They didn't get back for hours. Gave me plenty of time to hide everything. I sucked at hiding it, though, especially the torched blanket, so they found out anyway. After that, my parents put one of those metal grate things in front of the fireplace, so I couldn't stick stuff in there."

"You always did have a habit of sticking things where they don't belong."

Vinyl twisted around, locking eyes with her girlfriend. "I could say the same about you, babe," she whispered just before pressing her lips to Octavia's. Both sets of eyes fell shut as they kissed, and for a few seconds, all was quiet. Then Vinyl pulled away with wide eyes. "Oh crap, that's not what my present is, is it?"

Tavi had to bring a hoof to her mouth to stifle her giggle before shaking her head. "No, don't worry. Your butt is safe... for now." She slid her free hoof around, digging the edge into Vinyl's scalp and scratching at a spot just behind her ear. "Though, speaking of your present, are you ready for it? Or would you like to spend a little more time here?"

Vinyl Scratch's eyes wandered away from those of her lover's, her gaze drifting across the ceiling before landing on the fireplace again. She sighed quietly, responding, "A little more, yeah."

Octavia nuzzled her muzzle into the side of Vinyl's neck, and the two fell into silence. The only sound was that of the flames curling up from the wood in the little brick alcove across from the sofa, the logs occasionally popping and cracking as they blackened in the heat. It wasn't too long before both mares drifted off into a light, dreamless sleep, each wrapped around the other.