Chapters Love Brings Out Who You Are
Vinyl Scratch, one of the most well-known DJs in Ponyville, was busy. Every day, she would be thinking of and writing list after list of songs she thought of playing for her upcoming gigs. She would occasionally have full weeks of gigs and while that did tire her out, she didn't care, it was her favorite occupation. While writing down her track lists, she would also think about the day she argued and got into a fight with Octavia after she came home so drunk that she paid no attention at all to Octavia. They have had many fights before, but what made this one extreme, was that she broke Octavia's cello after she accidentally knocked over Vinyl's picture frame of her and Octavia. Even though she knew she was drunk, the alcohol she drank made her not think properly and she would get angrier and angrier as the fights progressed. When Octavia saw Vinyl smash her cello, she decided she has had enough and she packed her stuff, ran out the door, and slammed it shut.
"Vinyl, I thought you coming home drunk was enough, but the fact that you broke my most prized possession just ended it for us. I'm done with your nonsense!" Octavia yelled internally.
"What the buck is that girl's problem," Vinyl asked herself. She decided to go straight to sleep as she made her night tiring and terrible.
It was very late at night, around 01:00am, and Octavia knew she couldn't dare go back, so she walked around, thinking of where she should stay. She had friends, but didn't feel like disturbing them while they were asleep.
Octavia has decided to find an apartment to stay at so she had somewhere to call a home. There was an apartment complex, Ponyville Ridge, which wasn't too expensive, but wasn't too cheap either, around 250 bits.
"Not too fancy, but it might work," Octavia considers. She walks into the front lobby, talks with the clerk about possible options for renting, and she gets an apartment, floor 12, room 12B. She opens the door to a basic, but nice apartment with a large window view overlooking Ponyville. She settles in, and from what has happened that night has made her very tired, so she brushes her teeth, puts on her PJs and goes to bed.
It's 07:45 in the morning and Vinyl wakes to the sun shining in her face.
"Ugh, why can't the sun have a snooze button," complaining to herself. She closes the blinds and turn around to her messy room, containing Octavia's cello. Her hangover comes back to her and she runs toward the bathroom, letting out whatever was in her stomach. After about 5 minutes, reality comes back as well and slaps her awake.
"Octavia?! Octavia?!! ," hoping for a response. Ten seconds later with nothing but absolute silence, she breaks down eyes red, tears sliding down her cheek with her face in her hooves.
"What have I done? What the buck have I done?! " Considering her hangover is still giving her a huge headache, she grabs some migraine pills and some water and swallows them down her throat.
Around an hour later, Octavia wakes up to a beautiful sunrise.
"Wow, I never thought the view was this nice from up here!" She gets out of bed to prepare for her job, which was to help compose pieces for her orchestra with her cello but because Vinyl broke it, she is doing piano as a second choice. After she gets dressed, she decides to go downstairs to get a quick breakfast, considering she did wake up an hour early, and her job was only a 10-minute walk from the hotel. When she finishes her breakfast, she goes back to her apartment, grabs her purse, and heads off for work.
After Vinyl takes the medicine for her hangover, she continues attempting to write her list of songs for her gigs, but it starts proving to be a challenge as she can't get her mind off of what happened the previous night and the girl she knows who she loves, Octavia. That name stayed in her head in the form of big letters all day, and it kept her from doing what she had to do. She immediately decides to try and make things right, even though it may be a challenge as Octavia may not be able to forgive Vinyl that easily because of Vinyl's actions.
After hours of working, now 17:00 in the evening, Octavia is finished with her work and now on her way back to her apartment. On her way she gets a text message from Vinyl, but it shows up as "unknown number" on her phone, asking if they can talk. She simply ignores it, deletes it, and continues forward to apartment. As she settles in to watch some TV, her stomach growls as she didn't have much with her lunch break, only a sandwich and potato chips. There is a pizzeria about 20 minutes away, but she decides to call for delivery as she is tired from her average workday. About 45 minutes later, there are knocks on the door. The pizza arrives and she hands the delivery boy the bits for the pizza and tip.
"At least this pizza is worth it, Vinyl would typically burn it."
At this point, Vinyl Scratch is desperate. She's tried leaving texts, but she decides that the best way to apologize to Octavia is to tell her personally. She gets back to work, finishing the song lists quickly, then starts writing down what she wants to say to Octavia for when they do meet up again. The problem is, Vinyl doesn't know where Octavia is, so she goes to Octavia's current workplace and sees one of Octavia's workmates, who Vinyl has known for a while. The worker is Neon Lights, who Vinyl and Octavia have known for a long time. She asks Neon where Octavia is staying, telling him that she needs to talk to her about something very important and Neon wants to make sure he's doing the right thing.
"Vinyl, are you sure this is important, because Octavia is still furious at you from what you've done?"
"Yes, I need to make things right with her, I love her, and I need to admit to her I made a bad decision."
Neon, still doubtful, tells her of Octavia's location, then Vinyl thanks Neon and instantly speeds toward the apartment complex.
Vinyl runs through the front doors and asks of which apartment Octavia is staying.
"12th floor, room B."
She immediately goes towards the elevators and rapidly presses the 12 key on the wall. During the ride up, Vinyl finalizes and rehearses of what she wants to say in her head, while completely nervous about forgetting what she's going to say to Octavia. The door opens, and Octavia's room is toward the right. Breathing quietly for a second, she knocks on Octavia's door. Octavia opens the door and her eyes grow wide in stun and amazement.
"Vinyl?"
"Octavia, can we please talk?"
Love Brings Out Who You Are
“Vinyl?”
“Octavia, can we please talk?”
Octavia sighs, “What is there to talk about? You hurt me both physically and mentally.”
Vinyl, starts to tear up, “I know, Octavia, I know.”
Octavia lets Vinyl enter her apartment. Vinyl looks around, interested by the look and set up of the apartment, including the large window view of Ponyville.
“Nice place, Octavia.”
“Thanks. It’s not much, but at least I have somewhere to stay.”
Vinyl smells and sees the pizza Octavia ordered.
“I see you ordered pizza.”
“Yup, I couldn’t decide so I went with something simple. Help yourself to a slice, if you want.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I came because I wanted to talk to you about what’s been happening between us.”
Vinyl and Octavia sit down on the couch in front of the large window. After sitting down, Octavia looks at Vinyl with a curious, but disappointed look on her face.
Vinyl starts to cry a little, but tries to hide it, even though it is quite difficult, “Octavia, I know my behavior has been horrible, I know I have yelled at you because I have been coming home drunk, and I know that I broke your cello, and I want to say I’m sorry and hope we can at least be friends, if you’re not above that.”
Octavia sighs, “Vinyl, I’m glad that you decided to come talk to me and apologize. It’s not that easy though, you have hurt my feelings so many times, and you made it ten times worse when you broke my cello. Why? Why do you come home so drunk, to where you get mad? To where you smash stuff?”
Vinyl, with tears now sliding down her face, “Octavia, I don’t know! I drink because I’ve been getting way less gigs, and I’m starting to be barely able to keep the house! I’m at a point now to where I may have to sell some of my gear just to make some money! Just to keep myself fed! I’ve been drinking so I could avoid all the stress that’s been hammering me for a while! I don’t what else to do, DJ’ing is what I’m known for, it’s what I love to do, but if I can’t keep my gear just to stay with the bills, I don’t know what else I’m going to be able to do!” Now she’s really crying, her face cherry red with many tears sliding down her face.
Octavia, now starting to cry herself, “Vinyl, why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped you. I could’ve split some of the money I made from my concerts with you. Why did you have to drink, knowing it wasn’t going to help you? Do you even realize that your constant drinking is splitting us up even further, every sip of alcohol, making it worse? Do you not care about us? Do you not care about me? What is it, Vinyl?! Tell me, please! Why do you do this to me, to yourself, to both of us?!”
Vinyl, speechless, “I-I-I-I-I don’t know what to say, Octavia! I guess it’s just been easier to drink my stress away rather than actually saying anything! And even if I wasn’t drinking, I still wouldn’t know how to say it to you!”
Octavia, with her eyes widened, “Vinyl, remember, you can tell me anything that’s been bugging you, whether it was your job stressing you out, or you felt like drinking because of it! All of that could’ve been avoided if you had just told me that you were stressed! I care so much about you, more than I care about anything else!” With nothing else to say, Octavia buries her head in her hooves, sobbing.
Vinyl, with nothing else to say as well, goes to her jacket she left on one of Octavia’s chairs and pulls out of small bottle of alcohol she kept in her pocket for a couple of days. Octavia brings her head out of her hooves and sees Vinyl open the bottle of alcohol, which infuriates her, causing her to whack the bottle out of Vinyl’s hands.
“Vinyl, just what the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
Vinyl now ashamed, “Something that’s kept the stress from me, but now thanks to you, I have to go buy more!”
Octavia has really had enough. She cares too much about Vinyl to even think about her having another drop of alcohol, and so she knocks Vinyl to the ground. “You are NOT going to buy anymore alcohol! Period!”
Vinyl stutters, “B-B-B-B-But…”
Octavia wasn’t having any excuses, “no buts, and no excuses, none of that crap! You are not drinking anymore from this day forward! I don’t care if you’re stressed. If you feel the need to drink again, call me. I’ll be there for you. I’ll help you fight the urge to drink, even though it may be quite difficult, but the result I’m looking for is you avoiding alcohol by any means necessary. But, before we do anything else, let’s go to bed, we’re both tired and I can tell you really need sleep. However, I’m going to ask that you sleep with me so that I can be sure you won’t try and drink behind my back.
Vinyl is feeling a little more confident now that she has someone helping her through her rough times of life, especially when it’s Octavia, the one pony she loves and believes in the most.
“Octavia?”
“Yes, Vinyl?”
“Thank you, for being there for me, for helping me at times like this.”
“You’re welcome, Vinyl, I can’t stand to watch you hurt yourself like this, so that’s why I do this.”
Vinyl pulls Octavia into a tight embrace, Octavia hugging back.
Just when they were about to go to bed, Octavia feels the need to do one last thing: make sure Vinyl isn’t hiding any bottles of alcohol. She goes to Vinyl’s jacket and feels 2 bottles in one of her pockets. She immediately unzips the pockets, takes the bottles out, and as she begins to dump them into the sink, Vinyl stops her with a hoof on the shoulder.
“Octavia, I think I should be the one to do it.”
Octavia nods and hands the bottles over to Vinyl, still watching her, making sure she doesn’t try to sip another drop, instead, she dumps the bottles into the sink and while doing so, she says something that makes Octavia smile: “buck you, beer!”
After a crazy night, which included Vinyl giving up her drinking, she and Octavia can sleep a little more easily. They shut off the lights and go peacefully to sleep, in each other’s arms.
Love Brings Out Who You Are
It is now the crack of dawn. The beautiful yellow, red, and orange sun is rising over the town of Ponyville, everypony is waking up from the peaceful sleeps to the amazing light shining through their windows of their homes, including Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, whom both adored waking up to the sun. Although, this morning was better for Vinyl, as she made the choice to stop drinking, which then led to her having peaceful mornings where she could get out of bed feeling refreshed, instead of having massive hangovers where she would feel like total crap.
08:00 in the morning, Octavia opens her eyes to the one mare she cares about more than anyone else in the world.
Octavia quietly whispers to Vinyl, “Hi, Ms. Pretty Scratch.”
She then tries to slowly get out of bed without waking up Vinyl, but Vinyl stops her.
Vinyl asks, “Please don’t walk away, I miss this.”
Octavia slightly blushing, “But I must get ready for…actually, sure, I do have extra time since we did wake up earlier.”
And so, Octavia jumps back into bed and proceeds to snuggle with Vinyl.
45 minutes later, the alarm clock goes off, signaling Octavia has to get ready for work.
Vinyl, now disappointed, “damn, I was liking that too.”
Octavia, now saddened, “Would you like me to take the day off?”
Vinyl shakes her head, “Octavia, don’t let me stop you from doing what’s important. Besides, wait, do you have weekends off?”
Octavia nods.
*SQUEE*
Octavia’s cheeks now crimson red, “Vinyl, you are very cute, and that’s what I like about you. But, there are things we still need to discuss, but we’ll do that when I come back home. In the meantime, I think you should visit a behavioral therapist to help with your drinking. I know you promised me you would stop, but I want to make sure you get professional help with this as drinking is a very hard habit to break.”
With that said, Octavia finished preparing to get breakfast downstairs then walk to work. As Octavia is leaving, she waves to Vinyl then closes the door behind her.
With Octavia gone, Vinyl gets out and makes the bed, as well as throwing out the alcohol bottles. As she is preparing to leave Octavia’s place, her cell phone rings, but little does she know, it will be a big breath of relief for her.
*BUZZ BUZZ*
*BUZZ BUZZ*
Vinyl answers, “Yo, this is Vinyl.”
A familiar voice comes through, “Hey, Vinyl, it’s Neon. You are going to be BUSY this week, 2 weddings and 4 gigs at clubs. First club is at 19:00 tonight.”
Vinyl stunned, “Wow, it’s mostly clubs, but at 2 weddings in a week? Well, that’s good. I’m going to be saving up so I can buy Octavia a new cello.”
Neon nods, “Yes. That’s the right thing to do. You will make her the happiest mare in Ponyville. Alright, I’m going to let you go so that you can prepare for your busy weeks. Good luck, Vinyl!”
Vinyl, now smiling a little, “Thank you, I’m going to definitely need it.”
She walks out of Octavia’s apartment and goes back to her house to get breakfast. On her way back home, she decides she wants to clean her house, first thing being to dispose of all the alcohol she has kept. Walking through the door, she sees bottles on the counter, immediately empties them and recycles the glass bottles.
As she throws the bottles out, she says to herself, “bucking beer! I should’ve seen this coming, but I was too stubborn to stop myself! No worry, this mind poison will be over! Octavia is going to be happy that I did this, and the smile on her face makes me feel even better.”
After spending some time cleaning the mind-poison and a lot of the other junk, Vinyl grabs her gear and prepares for DJ’ing at her first scheduled club.
17:00 in the afternoon, and Octavia has just left work. While on her way home, she decides to call Vinyl, asking if she is coming by again.
Vinyl is unable to answer due to her set starting. Octavia tries to call twice, but realizes that Vinyl is busy with her sets, so she moves on.
As the week progresses, Vinyl continues with her sets and gigs, and has not been drinking any alcohol. Instead, she’s drinking more water than anything else as she needs her mind focused for her sets. Octavia is dealing with normal life, working and coming home.
A week later, that day has come. Vinyl has made enough money to surprise Octavia with a new cello.
Now she is on her way to Octavia’s apartment with the Cello, but ends up running into Neon on his way to check on Octavia.
Vinyl waves, “Hey, Neon!”
Neon waves back, “What’s up, Vinyl? I see you have the new cello.”
Vinyl replies, “Yes. Now I have an idea as to how I surprise her. I need you to stand at the other end of the hallway with the cello and once I’m ready, I’ll come and grab it. Can you please do that?’
Neon nods, “Yes, I can Vinyl, considering that this will be one of the best things you have done for her.”
Vinyl and Neon go into the elevator with the cello and Vinyl presses the “12” button on the wall to the floor of Octavia’s apartment. As soon as they reach the 12th, floor, Neon goes down another hallway with the cello while Vinyl goes to Octavia’s apartment.
*Knock, knock, knock*
The door locks click and the door opens.
Vinyl greets, “Hey, Octavia!”
Octavia questions, “Hey, Vinyl! Where have you been this past week?”
Vinyl responds, “Oh, man, have I been busy. I had a bunch of gigs and two weddings throughout the week.”
Octavia, stunned, “Wow, you WERE busy. Anyway, what brings you here?”
Vinyl, trying not to make the surprise obvious, “I have a surprise for you, but stand there, I’m coming right back.”
Octavia nods, then Vinyl goes to the other hall where Neon with the cello is and she signals him to hand over the cello.
Neon whispers, “Good luck, this will be great. She will love this.”
Vinyl nods and proceeds down the hall to Octavia’s apartment where she is standing.
Octavia sees the cello, and her heart starts beating quickly while she is frozen in place.
Her face turns crimson red while starting to tear up, “Vinyl, are you serious? You got that for me?”
Vinyl nods with a big smile on her face, “Yes, Octavia. I wanted to make up for smashing your cello. Luckily I was able to save up and…Oof!”
Octavia immediately hugs Vinyl while sobbing tears of joy into her chest, “Vinyl, this is AWESOME! THANK YOU!”
Vinyl, trying not to cry herself, you’re very welcome, Octavia. I knew this would make your day.”
Octavia, still crying, “Yes, you have made my day. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Vinyl is clearly blushing now, with her face turning crimson red, looks at Neon, who is smiling right back at the heartwarming scene at the end of the hall.
Octavia then looks up at Vinyl, “Vinyl, I have a surprise for you, too.”
Vinyl, now curious, “Really, well than, what could it…mmm?”
Octavia’s lips make contact with Vinyl and time around them stops. Vinyl, instead of standing surprises, decides to kiss right back and not let go for several minutes.
After what seemed like forever, they both let go, gasping for air.
Vinyl stands there, motionless, “Octavia...”
Octavia, smiling back, “I love you, Vinyl. Because you have done a lot for me throughout the week, I have two things to ask you. First, do you want to be my special marefriend?”
Vinyl, before letting Octavia finish, “YES! I will!”
Octavia, with her face still red, “Ok, and would you be happy if I moved back with you? We can start over and let the past be with the wind.”
Vinyl nods, “I…I…I, would love that! I want you back, you mean everything to me.”
Octavia, still smiling, “Ok, then I’m coming back! And, you mean everything to me as well, honey.”
Neon looks at Vinyl one last time, winks to her, then leaves the apartment complex.
The two embrace each other in the most romantic hug, happily crying onto each other’s shoulders. They are back together.