A conversation starter.
Question: What is the one thing you could possibly be doing at two in the morning with a significant other?
Answer: ROUND 1 FIGHT!!!
After a particularly passive aggressive series of caring/venom laced words shared between the two mares, Vinyl had lane down in bed facing away from Octavia. They would be sleeping on their own normally, especially when they were arguing, but Vinyl had been suffering from a series of bad dreams. Bad dreams aren't something a grown pony would normally let drive them from their bed, but when you're a unicorn with a feather mattress, tossing and turning gets a little more problematic. Octavia didn't want her to do the same to any of the other furniture in the house, so being a light sleeper, she offered her bed to Vinyl. If she would start turning Octavia would wake up and she could nudge her "gently" awake. Vinyl remembered thinking that it'd be interesting to see how it'd be to sleep with a mare in a platonic sense, but as she pulled the covers over herself, she thought that it wasn't worth the trouble.
"If you get up during the night to use the restroom, try not to offend anyone on your way."
Octavia's words had come out more bitter then her morning coffee. One last jab before giving it a rest, a more mature way of puffing out her cheeks and telling Vinyl she was still mad, but with the same effect. Vinyl rolled her eyes one last time before closing them to sleep. Vinyl played over the events that lead to this moment in her head, it was a rainy day like usual and Lyra, like usual forgot the pegasi had scheduled a rain storm.
"Thanks for waving me down Tavi", the wet aquamarine mare continued, as she began to dry off. "I was supposed to meet BonBon at her
house after I picked up the cake...it was going to be a surprise."
"Well it certainly surprised someone." Vinyl said, teasing the drowned rat dressed as her green pony friend. Vinyl Scratch wasn't known for...well... speaking at all, in fact Lyra almost looked surprised.
Muffling an embarrassed giggle into the towel that Octavia had given her to dry off, Lyra remembered the package that she had tied to her underside to keep from the rain. It was a light blue box, the kind you would see bakeries use in take out orders, and it looked worse for wear. "THE CAKE!" She squeaked through the grimace that fell over her face as she reluctantly peeled open the lid. A sigh of relief came to the mare before she began to read aloud. "Happy birthday BonBon, Love, Lyra. It's still in one piece, thank goodness." Lyra carefully placed the lid back onto the box and sat it safely aside.
"Poor dear, dry off and have a seat, the storm is scheduled to end soon. You'll be able to get to your love before long." A coy slant rolled off Octavia's words, as she reassured Lyra by placing a hoof on her shoulder.
"Thanks Octavia, I really apprecia-" Lyra paused as she realized the implications of her words. "Oh...OH! Nononono, we aren't...I mean... I love BonBon, BonBon is NOT my love!" Lyra giggled awkwardly as she gently moved Octavia's hoof away. "Me and Bons are just really close, like you guys."
Vinyl saw an opening to tease her friend a bit more, and she wasn't about to pass it up. "Now Octavia, you shouldn't assume things. They just have casual sex from time to time, Just like us."
"Yeah, yeah just seeeeeWHAT!" Lyra exclaimed.
Just like Vinyl who was known for not being the most vocal pony, Lyra was known to overreact to certain things. This became glaringly obvious as Lyra's ears folded back, nose scrunched up, and her eyes widened. This was a trait of Lyra's that Vinyl knew Octavia found hilarious. Vinyl smiled as she saw Octavia bite her lip to stifle a laugh.
Lyra's expression turned from that of shock to embarrassment. "I guess you do live together huh...makes sense that you guys are a thing." Lyra ended her statement by awkwardly chuckling along.
Octavia cleared her throat. "Oh no we aren't an item, like you said, we're just close. Like you and BonBon." She continued, shooting Vinyl a playful look. "We just have similar tastes in certain things."
"Yeah, I mean honestly could you see you and me together Octi?" Vinyl said chuckling at the thought. Octavia rolled her eyes and looked back towards Lyra with a smirk.
Lyra's face scrunched with a huff, she didn't appreciate being wet and teased, few ponies did in this context. "I don't see what's so absurd about it! You guys go everywhere and do everything together, all the while barely needing to say a word to each other. Octavia even order's for you when we go to lunch!" This gave Octavia reason to pause.
Vinyl lying in bed began to realize where she started to make her mistakes. Lyra had a point, Octavia could pick up on what Vinyl felt without a single word being spoken by her more often then not, something most couples themselves couldn't do. No reason to assume that they were together mind you, but one could still say the two lesbians that lived together, and could hold an entire conversation without even a word between them, were more then friends without being labeled crazy.
"Don't be crazy." Vinyl scoffed. "Me and Tavi wouldn't go out in a thousand years."
"Heh, okay Vinyl, that's enough." Octavia's comment was met with a sideways grin from the white unicorn, and she returned it with a disproving glare.
"See you just did it there, that's something me and BonBon could never do!" Lyra said trying to prove her point.
"Come on Lyra, I mean...you know me, I'm...well me, and Octavia is Octavia." Vinyl always thought that just being where they were was enough for the both of them. They were friends, good friends, the best even. That's all they really needed, but thinking in hindsight... did she and Octavia really know each other as well as Lyra thought? One thing was for sure however, for as many times as they understood one another, this was not one of them.
"No Vinyl...why don't you explain it to her, tell her what's so DAMNED wrong with me that you think the thought of my being your marefriend to be such an insane concept! " Octavia snipped.
Vinyl and Lyra where shocked. They've had seen Octavia angry before but this was different, like something dark and bitter...well...bit her. Yes, it'd be safe to say, if upset lesbian horses where a rash that last comment was one hell of a bug bite. Not an eloquent description but what Octavia was saying wouldn't be describable as eloquent. Blunt and spiteful yes, but not eloquent...
"Well? Go ahead, tell her what is so insane about me that repeals all mares in a 10 mile radius. Tell her why I can't even get the girl that's been underneath me for the past week. Tell her what you won't tell me!" Octavia spoke softly, almost as if she felt that yelling would just waste her energy.
Vinyl didn't know what to say, let alone Lyra, who was left nothing short of shaken. Silence hung over the mares and left nothing to do but ignore each others gaze. A full minute passed before Lyra decided that it would be better for everyone's relationship if she was no longer there, she'd probably prefer to be imprisoned in the moon at that point. Her eyes darted around the room looking for an excuse to leave, and when she could find none they moved from Octavia to Vinyl, which to Lyra's dismay managed to get both of there attentions.
"WELP THANKS FOR HAVING ME OVER! I HAVE TO GO SEE A GUY ABOUT A HORSE NOW!" Lyra wasn't very good at being put on the spot...She almost dashed from the place that she was in at the middle of the living room to the front door, throwing it open. A loud crack of thunder reminded her why she was there in the first place.
Octavia sighed. "Take an umbrella, they're in the stand by the door...and don't forget your cake." At this point Octavia sounded nothing short of defeated.
"Thank you!...I'm so sorry." Lyra quickly said before using her magic to levitate the cake to her side and covering it with the umbrella. Before Octavia could reassure her that none of this was her fault she was gone into the storm. Octavia hoped that she would have a better night with the pony that she felt the closest with, then the one she had seen coming for herself. With that in mind she turned to confront Vinyl.
"I don't want to fight." Octavia finally said after another few sets of long awkward moments of silence. "It wouldn't do any good, I know all you do when things like this happen is go silent. It's fine Vinyl, you don't need to say anything. It's just... " Octavia sighed deeply, rubbing her temple with a hoof before continued. "When you're like this do you even hear me? Does it even matter what I say?"
Vinyl had been sitting there listening. She did not speak, and no emotion showed on her face. When Vinyl got like this, nothing could make her communicate with anyone. No one who knew Vinyl ever knew why, but when she was like this it wasn't a matter of not being vocal. It was as if she just hit a mute button on the world. For the rest of the day the storm continued. It wasn't unheard of for storms to go on longer, or be worse then scheduled. On occasion squalls from the Everfree forest would mix in with the Ponyville rain clouds, it'd had always been safer to let storms like this one work out themselves. A few tipped over stalls beats a broken wing any day of the week after all, despite what the ponies working those stalls might say.
Octavia thought out loud as she sat watching the storm. "I hope Lyra made it okay." This was the only thing said in the household until the two mares had bedded down for the night.
Vinyl laid there tired of her own thoughts, she wondered how many more times Octavia would put up with her little defense mechanism before she'd give up on her all together. In hindsight it wasn't to hard to see why Octavia was mad. She knew that she had felt invalidated, and as close as Octavia was to Vinyl, Vinyl would always push her away or go silent. Octavia deserved to at least know where she stood in Vinyl's life. She knew this, but she also knew she could never dig deep enough to break whatever wall was keeping her from opening up. The words Octavia had said echoed in her mind "Does it even matter what I say?" It was the last thing Vinyl thought of before drifting to sleep.
Vinyl sat at a table by herself in a big room full of her friends. Everyone was laughing and having fun, a pony singing accompanied the scene while a pink mare stood out to her.
She called out to the pink mare. "HEY PINKIE! Cool party huh?" The mare didn't react, she simply went on with her conversation. "YO PINKIE PIE, come on Pinks I know you can hear me I'm right over here!" The mare began to walk away, and the rest of Vinyl's friends followed. Dread began to flow through every fiber of her being as she tried again and again to call her friends. She almost screamed their names, but they could not hear her. Vinyl finally realized that the silence had yet again creeped into her mind. What was during the day, a way to keep the world from getting to her, was at night the thing that tormented her. A darkness born of her own heart that would rip her friends away. The same monster that would visit her nightmares since she was a filly, the one that she realized now had been haunting her dreams. The silhouettes of her friends faded into an abyss like darkness, a darkness that had replaced the otherwise cheery room. Only the pony singing had remained. Vinyl looked towards the sound of the singing pony, a small familiar filly stood upon a stage, singing her heart out. It was her from a younger time. And like always, it appeared a void with arms that fed off Vinyl's insecurities. A monster made by her own mind, one that even Princess Luna herself could not stop. Princess Luna would visit her dreams regularly, as she did for everyone who had recurring nightmares, this time however Luna did not come. The Silence reached out to the filly. Vinyl Screamed, but no noise escaped her body. In a muted horror she watched the filly disappear into the void's arms, and just as quickly as the Silence swallowed the filly whole, sounds rang out into the darkness. The sounds of children laughing and echos of her friends disapproving of her.
"You could have saved us, if you just said something! ANYTHING!" Screeched Pinkie Pie's voice. "Don't you care about us? WHAT ARE WE TO YOU?!" BonBon's voice spoke up from the cacophony. Vinyl sat there for a moment, listening to the sounds of the beast. Vinyl began to feel herself falling, her body plummeted into a void from which she truly believed she could not escape. She frantically thought back to when this beast had plagued her childhood dreams. She could not recall what made the monster stop. She couldn't remember what had made it quit hunting her for the past week, and the times she was saved by the princess even eluded her mind. All the things she thought about had eventually just been another voice to fall silent in her mind. All there was left was the creeping quiet, that had always followed her inability to help herself. She had given in and fallen, certain that this time the void would make sure she would never speak again. And just like that, out of the void itself...someone caught her.
"You finally stopped squirming huh? There there, it's going to be alright." The voice cut through the darkness and quickly Vinyl found herself back in Octavia's bed. Octavia had pulled her close, Vinyl looked up to see along her face and forelegs were scratched from her horn. Tears brimmed her eyes, she couldn't take it anymore, something NEEDED to be said. She pushed her face into Octavia's chest, She muffled a scream into Octavia. "I CAN'T DO IT!" She screamed over and over "I CAN'T, I CAN'T I CAN'T!"
"VINYL CALM DOWN!" Octavia pleaded with her, "It was just a dream!"
Vinyl's head shot up to meet Octavia's worried gaze. "I can't lose you! You mean to much to me! I think about you giving up on me like ALL the others and it kills me!" Vinyl choked out her words through her tears.
"I am not going anywhere! Look, see... I am still right here." Octavia said, desperate to calm Vinyl down. Vinyl buried her head again into Octavia's chest.
"I can't let you get close, just to watch you leave, I'm not strong enough to do that on my own!" Vinyl muffled her words into Octavia's now tear drenched chest.
"You aren't alone Vinyl, I will always be there for you!" She replied.
"Octavia I love you too much to watch you give up on me, I'll say anything you want me to, just promise you won't ever leave me!" She confided.
"Nothing you can ever say or do will ever make me leave you behind Vinyl, I already love you too much to give you up." Octavia continued, "All this time I thought you knew, there isn't anything in the world that could make me leave you!" Vinyl moved back from Octavia to look her in the eye again, to apologize and tell her that she should have been the one to have said those same words so long ago. "No! Vinyl, everything that you needed to say has been said." Octavia pulled her back into the embrace. "There isn't a word known that could put it any clearer! You don't have to say anything anymore!" She exclaimed trying desperately to reassure her that her words carried weight. The two mares lay there in the fallout of emotions reaching their boiling points, crying together, repeating apologies and reassuring words to one another. It seemed like hours before they both finally calmed down.
"Hey Octavia...I guess we are that thing Lyra said now huh..." Vinyl said finally sure that her words found purchase in Octavia's ears.
Octavia laughed and simple said. "Ohhh just shut up and snuggle."
With that the two mares drifted soundly to sleep in each others embrace.
Author's Note
It's kind of funny how this fic was meant to touch on how your own self consciousness can make you feel like shutting people or things out is a good idea, until they come back to bite you, because that's exactly what happened with this fic. I had written this almost a year or so ago to completion and never posted it, then a friend who had helped with writing practically rubbed me writing this in my face, or at lest that's how it felt... I am a person who always had trouble with reading and writing, and more then likely always will. I let that legitimately get to me and never posted this. To the person who helped me start writing...twice over now, thank you, and I am sorry. I hope anyone reading out there could find some form of entertainment out of this story, even if it's just to laugh at how cheesy you think it is or something like that. I've learned my lesson; even if you think it's done poorly doesn't mean you should stop yourself from having fun, and posting your silly little ship stories.
