Baking Bread

Chapters

1. Pilot
2. Yellow Submarine
3. Trouble in Paradise

1. Pilot

Octavia Philarmonica closed the door behind her with a heavy sigh, leaning against the wood dumbly, her eyes closed, shapes dancing before her eyelids, her breath heavy, her eyes sore from tears.

“Heey, Tavi!” a familiar voice called out from the living room. “How’s it hanging?”

Taking a deep breath and counting to ten, Octavia shrugged off the cello case and proceeded, past the chaos of Vinyl’s room and the stately cleanness of her humble abode, to the common room, where the white unicorn was lounged on the sofa, two sixpacks of beer adorning the glass table before her. With displeasure, Octavia noticed that two beer cans lay empty and smashed on the pristine (Not so pristine now) carpet.

“Hey, Tavi, why the long face?” Vinyl grinned, her magenta-red eyes shining in the dim light of the chandellier. “Oh, no, I get this: because you’re a-”

“Shut up, Vinyl,” Octavia dropped with a heavy sigh, reaching for the wine cabinet. After a moment of contemplation, the grey mare fished out a bottle of Prench Bordeaux and slammed it onto the table, picking up the glass. “I’m not in the mood.”

“I can see that,” Vinyl observed, scrutinising the cellist with her gaze. “Expensive wine, no comment on my being messy, no disdain for the earthly drink of beer.” Another can opened with a hiss. “What’s wrong?”

“Well.” Octavia poured herself a glass, and, contrary to her usual habit, gulped it whole, pouring another one immediately.

“Wow.” Vinyl frowned. “When you’re drinking wine like gin, you know it’s bad. What the hell happened, Tavi?”

“Long story short,” Octavia replied, finishing off the second glass in the same manner, “I got fired.”

Vinyl gasped. “You? Fired from the orchestra?” A look of severe disbelief crossed the unicorn’s face. “You’re the soloist! They can’t fire you!”

Octavia chuckled darkly, dispensing with the glass in one gulp. “Apparently, they can.”

“Why?” Vinyl wondered, sipping beer from the can. “You were perfect at every concert I attended, and I’m sure you-”

“I didn’t want to fuck the manager,” Octavia replied simply, filling yet another glass, stirring it in her hoof, watching the red liquid dance about within the walls of the vessel.

Vinyl coughed on her drink. “You what?!”

“He tried to seduce me into giving him a blowjob,” Octavia continued, not averting her eyes from the glass. “Which, naturally, I refused.” A small touch crossed the mare’s face. “By giving him a buck to the balls.”

Vinyl winced. “Pretty hardcore.” She sighed, sipping beer. “He should’ve known you’re into mares, not stallions.”

Octavia cough, almost doing a spit-take on her wine. “What? Vinyl!” She eyed her roommate sternly. “I am not into mares! I am straight. As an arrow.” The nerve! The audacity!

“They all say that.” Vinyl smirked casually, emptying the can into her throat audibly.

Octavia chuckled. “Vinyl, even if I were into mares - which I am not - I would never have sex with you.” Even if I were immensely drunk. And high. And on an isolated island with no one but Vinyl for months.

“Damn.” Vinyl crushed the empty can between her hooves, throwing it on the floor. “There goes my lucky ticket.”

Octavia sighed, eyeing the bottle, which, by now, was half-empty. Half-full. Let’s be optimistic here. “And I can’t even sue him. The damn guy’s friends with the royal guards, and the State Attorney, and the judge. If anything, he’ll sue me for assault.” She sighed. “I have no evidence. I have no job. No money to pay my share of the rent.”

“I’ll pay yours,” Vinyl quickly supplied.

“That’s not it, Vinyl.” Octavia sighed deeply, the wine kicking in her brain. “I have nothing. Nothing.”

“Listen, Tavi…” Vinyl sighed, opening another beer. “You’re smart. You’re skilful. You’re a damn fine cellist. You’re gonna find another orchestra.”

“Oh, you make it sound so easy, Vinyl, thank you,” Octavia hissed, filling the glass with trembling hooves. “Without a letter of recommendation, it is impossible to find a place in an orchestra. And guess what?” Octavia turned sharply. “There’s just one orchestra in Manehattan. It’s not like your clubs where you play a gig and get shittons of money in one night and move on to the next one!”

“You make it sound like I’m a millionaire.” Vinyl’s tone took a defensive note, her forehooves crossing as she levitated the beer.

“Please, Vinyl.” Octavia chuckled darkly. “You buy super-expensive equipment, state-of-the-art sound systems, you blow your money away on auctions to buy a gold watch that you don’t even wear or need… Do I need to continue?” Octavia downed the glass. “You make hundreds of thousands of bits, if not millions, just by playing that awful noise of yours that you call music!” The mare slammed down the glass in irritation, the table clinging sadly.

“You really think I’ve made all this cash just spinning disks?!” Vinyl exclaimed irritatedly, leaning in to the grey mare. “You really think I just have to make music and score it rich? Hell no! I work hard as fuck to pay the rent, and buy groceries, and, yes, buy shittons of expensive equipment. But I work double, hell, triple shifts. I work T to T, Octavia.” The DJ glared at the cellist, her gaze softening a little, mixing with fear.

A realisation dawned upon Octavia, who raised her brow and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Vinyl… You… You have a second job.” She took a breath. “A job you never told me about. Because it is…” Illegal? Humiliating? Both? “Are you a stripper?” Octavia demanded, gasping immediately. “A prostitute?”

“Me, a hooker?” Vinyl exclaimed. “Hell no!” The DJ sighed. “Ah well. The cat’s out of the bag now. Might as well spill the beans.” She popped another can. “You see, Tavi, I’m not just going to clubs and spinning disks.” Vinyl fell silent for a moment, as if contemplating whether to give away the information. “I make most of my living…” She bit her lip. “Baking bread.”

“Baking bread,” Octavia repeated dumbly. “You are… baking bread.” She sipped on her wine, eyeing the wild-maned DJ curiously. “Is ‘bread’ some wubspeak for ‘meth’?”

Vinyl laughed, waving her hoof in the air dismissively. “No, I’m serious. I’m a baker. Ponies want bread and I make bread. It’s easy as that.”

Octavia filled her glass to the brim once more, the wine finally succeeding at soothing her tangled thoughts. “So… You run a set of bakeries?” Vinyl shook her head. “A single bakery?” One more shake, accompanied by an indulgent smile from the unicorn. “How do you mean, then?”

“You see, Tavi…” Vinyl began, very carefully, as if unfolding a map before the confused cellist. “There has been a great shortage of bread this year. Wheat has become a valuable commodity, what with many farms going out of business and fields struck by famine. Rye, too, but…” She smiled. “That, I can get around.”

“So, you basically mean… You produce factory-wise amounts of rye bread…” Octavia frowned as Vinyl gave her an eager nod. “And then sell it…” She lowered her voice. “At the black market? Illegally?”

Vinyl scowled, gulping her beer. “I wouldn’t say illegally… Semi-legally. Bread is bread, and it’s no illegal thing.” The unicorn drank eagerly from the can. “However… I do not exactly have a license or pay taxes.”

“So… you have all the revenue to yourself.” Octavia nodded. “Clear profit.” I can appreciate that.

“Well, I do share with the distributors, of course,” Vinyl corrected, “but yeah, it’s pretty much it. Nice cash, nice job. I take little rye and much bits.” The DJ leant back with a successful grin.

“Many,” Octavia corrected automatically, out of habit. “Many bits.” She paused. “Just how many bits are we talking here, by the way?” The cellist shook the empty bottle.

“Thousands, Miss Linguistic Perfection.” Vinyl grinned, levitating her shades up to her. “Dozens of thousands.”

“Annually?” Octavia enquired, trying to keep her voice as uninterested as possible.

“Thirty grand a month,” Vinyl replied simply.

It took a great effort not to sip on her coffee. “Thirty…” Octavia fell silent, counting, estimating. That’s what I make a year! “I want in,” she said suddenly, with fierce determination.

Vinyl raised her brow, her purple shades now adorning her face. “Why?”

“Well, I just lost my job, and no letter of recommendation-” Octavia began, but Vinyl waved her off.

“I mean, why should I let you in?” The grin evaporated from the smug face, Vinyl pressed her chin into her chest, looking at the grey mare through her shades. “Why should I share my profits with you? I manage just fine on my own. I hold a few districts, I have my distributors, I get good cash. Why let you in?”

“Because we’re friends?” Octavia suggested, more than a little hurt.

Vinyl chuckled. “Listen, Tavi, friendship is magic but magic doesn’t bring you money. It’s business. Friends and associates; these go separate ways.”

Octavia glanced at the wall, the gears in her head turning rapidly. “Not if I can increase your profit,” she said, a smile of her own commanding her lips.

“Oh?” Vinyl raised her brow again. “And how precisely do you think you’ll do that?”

“Well, my dear Vinyl,” Octavia continued, emboldened, “if you’ve been paying attention, for the past two years that we’ve been sharing this flat, I am the one doing the cooking, because yours, frankly, is sub-par.” Vinyl snorted. “I can optimise your resources. I’ll use less rye and produce more bread.” Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s beer can and drank from it boldly, the unusual taste biting at her tongue. “And it will be of better quality. Ponies will like it, and, as a result, will turn to our bread as a cheap, yet tasty, substitute for what the very few official bakeries are producing now.”

Vinyl held a long pause. “It’s a risky job, Tavi. You can get prosecuted for not paying taxes and having no license.” She lowered her voice. “It’s not just some farmer selling a few loaves of bread to a customer on his farm. It’s an industry. You can get caught. You can go to prison.”

Octavia smiled, her eyes shining with sadness and determination. “Well, seeing as I have no job, no opportunities, and no possible future, I am ready to accept these risks.”

Vinyl sighed, averting her purple-shaded eyes. “Okay. All right. Sure, why not? We can try it.” She smirked. “After all, I can trust you not to rat out or sabotage the whole operation.”

Octavia all but beamed with joy, and yet raised her brow mentally. She knows the word ‘sabotage’? “You’re right, Vinyl. I am also about to bring the whole operation to a new level. So.” She rubbed her hooves together. “Where do you usually cook?”

Vinyl laughed softly. “What, you think I have some underground bakery?” The surprise on the cellist’s face gave away that she thought just that. “No, my dear Tavi, I bake here. At home.”

“At my flat?” Octavia could not help but marvel.

“Hey, it’s my flat too,” Vinyl said defensively. “It’s easy, and you can always pretend I’m just cooking for the household. I bake, and slip the bread off when you’re at concerts or rehearsals, but seeing as you won’t have any anymo-” The DJ bit her tongue.

Octavia gave the unicorn a small smile. “It’s okay. I’m just… It’s okay. So.” She stood up.

“So.” Vinyl followed her motion.

“What do we do now?” Octavia wondered, seeing her friend and roommate in a new light for many years.

Vinyl grinned, light reflecting in her shades. “We bake.”

BaKING BrEAD

Written by psp7master

An MLP/Breaking Bad crossover

2. Yellow Submarine

“All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the miiiix~” Vinyl sang as she, abiding by the lyrics, took a cup full of rye flour in her telekinetic grip, ready to unload it in the batch.

“What are you doing?” Octavia shrieked, grasping at the cup with her hooves, preventing Vinyl from spilling a drop of the powder.

Vinyl frowned, eyeing her new associate with dismay. “I am baking. You need flour to make bread.” The white mare grinned smugly. “Thought such a good cook as you would know,” she teased, rolling her tongue at the grey mare, who did not seem to have taken the slightest offence at that.

“You do need flour,” Octavia agreed, leaning the glass against the bowl that rested on the kitchen counter, where eggs were awaiting their cue. “But you don’t need a full cup. As I’ve said…” The mare smiled, adding a precise third of the cup to the mix. “Optimising ingredients.”

Vinyl humphed, leaning against the wall, the clock above her face screaming late midnight, the curtains closed, the moonlight peeking into the kitchen curiously through a tiny opening. The fresh air of the street reached her nose through the open window. “Well, Miss Optimal, I don’t see how you are going to make six loaves of bread with so little rye.”

Octavia smirked, darkly, in such a manner that made Vinyl wonder if this was the same Octavia Philarmonica, the timid, refined cellist she’d known for the past two years. But then again, Vinyl concluded, Tavi has always been a little on the strong side. Rough around the edges. “Who said we were making six loaves?”

Vinyl rubbed her forehead with a hoof, massaging the base of her horn. “Tavi, we need to bake at least twelve loaves by tomorrow, and I’ve only made six while you were out practicing so we need six more.”

“We will make ten.” Octavia reached for the cupboard, stepping away from the counter lightly. “Using just a third of the cup.”

Vinyl looked at her friend with unspoken curiosity, watching the cellist rummage through the cupboards diligently. “How will we do that? I am a unicorn and I assure you even magic can’t do that.” Unless you’re some kind of alicorn magic prodigy.

“Magic can’t,” Octavia agreed, fishing out a big packet from one of the drawers. “But corn can.” She threw the packet at Vinyl, who grabbed it with her hooves, reading the label.

“It’s…” Vinyl stared at her flatmate blandly over the packet’s brim. “It’s corn flour.”

“It is.” Octavia nodded. “And we have whole six packets of it left after my celiac uncle came to visit and gave those as a gift from his company.” Octavia’s face twisted in a scowl. “Celestia bless his poor soul.”

“Huh, you don’t seem to like him much,” Vinyl observed. “I thought he was a pretty cool guy. He liked my wubby tunes.” The white face fell into a wide grin.

Octavia sighed. “He sure did. One way or another, we mix in this corn flour with the rye, proportion two to one…” The grey mare, having got hold of the packet, opened it up and shook it, pouring the flour into the bowl in a thick dry grainy streamlet. “And we make more bread for less rye!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

For a moment, Vinyl eyed the grey mare with indulgent contempt, and then proceeded to levitate the bowl. “Now, we throw away the ruined batch and I spank you for wasting precious rye.” The unicorn smirked. “Always wanted to spank that sexy flank of yours~”

“Har har.” Octavia grabbed the bowl roughly. “It will work. My recipe will work.”

“It will,” Vinyl agreed, eyeing the bowl sternly, letting Octavia take hold of it, reluctantly. “But it will taste like corn bread. Corn bread is cheap and is sold everywhere. There’s no money in it. Ponies won’t buy it from me because they can buy it anywhere at a ridiculously cheap price. Besides,” the DJ observed, “ponies don’t buy corn because it tastes like shit. They want wheat. They want rye.”

Octavia smiled disarmingly. “And they will get both.” With a swift motion, the cellist opened the topmost drawer and fished out an open packet of wheat flour. Avoiding Vinyl’s yelp, she took a pinch and threw it into the batch boldly.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vinyl demanded, astonished by such a display of confidence. “Do you know how much wheat is worth nowadays?”

“Yes,” Octavia replied calmly. “And I know that a pinch of flour for ten loaves is an acceptable sacrifice. You cannot make dough without breaking eggs." Following her metaphor, the mare broke the eggs, swiftly adding ingredients to the mix.

“A packet of wheat flour costs five hundred bits,” Vinyl counted seriously. “I sell my bread ten bits per loaf. Just to pay for that packet of wheat, we have to sell fifty loaves.”

“And we will,” Octavia assured her, adding milk. “Also, note that we bought this packet before the so-called ‘crop famine’. Relax, Vinyl. Everypony wins.”

“I doubt that.” Vinyl winced. “Nopony wins if the bread tastes like corn. Which it will.”

“Have you ever thought, Vinyl,” Octavia began in a distant tone, “about how little amounts of something can change the structure of things, the way we see them…” Stir stir stir. ”The way we smell them…” Stir stir stir. “The way we taste them? Just a pinch of salt can ruin a bowl of fine soup. Just a pinch of wheat flour, surprisingly, when mixed right with rye flour, can give your bread a delicious, unforgettable taste, no matter how much corn actually went into it?”

Vinyl waved her hoof. “Bullshit. The bread will taste like corn anyway. You think I didn’t try mixing? It doesn’t work. You can’t be telling me this bread will taste like rye.”

“It won’t,” Octavia agreed, stopping her stirring routine. She glanced up, beaming at Vinyl. “It will taste like wheat.”

“What?!” If there were a drink in Vinyl’s mouth, she would’ve definitely spat it out.

“Did you know that those with celiac disease actually can consume products labelled ‘may contain traces of gluten?’ They can. The key word here is ‘traces’. A tiny amount of wheat flour in cornflakes makes them crunchy and delicious. And…” Octavia smiled, looking towards the window, as if she were piercing the curtains to peer into Manehattan night sky. “If you know the recipe - the right recipe - you can add a small amount of wheat and rye to corn bread and make it taste like wheat. It will look like corn bread, the dark yellow with brown… But it will taste better than the best white bread the bakeries of this city have to offer.” Now Octavia was looking directly at Vinyl, the smile still dancing in the corners of her mouth. “Thanks to my late uncle, Celestia bless his greedy soul, I know the recipe. And I can make this bread. And once your customers have got a taste for it, you can sell it for twenty-five bits a loaf, for we both know how hard it is to just find white - that is, wheat, - bread now.”

Vinyl could not help a grin. “Dammit, Tavi, you’re amazing. Can we make out now?”

Octavia chuckled. “In your dreams, Vinyl. In your dreams.”

“So, this will be like white bread, taste like wheat…” Vinyl could not hide her amazement. “But it will look yellow, like the corn?”

“Pretty much.” Octavia nodded.

“Did your uncle have a name for this recipe?” Vinyl wondered, eyeing the grey mare tinkering with the batch.

“He didn’t,” Octavia admitted. “But when I took it up, and perfected it… For home use, of course - I didn’t know there’d be a shortage of bread…” She chuckled, shaking her head. “Or a black market for selling bread, for that matter… One way or another, I did give it a name.” The cellist smiled. “I’m a composer, after all.”

“What did you call it?” Vinyl wondered.

Octavia smiled, putting the spoon down. “Yellow Submarine.”

BaKING BrEAD

Written by psp7master

An MLP/Breaking Bad crossover

3. Trouble in Paradise

“How did it go?”

Octavia pranced anxiously in the corridor, the whole flat sparkling clean, her adrenaline running high despite the wee hours of the morning. She’d washed all the dishes, cleaned all the floors, brushed clean the oven, and threw out all the rubbish that’d been littering the rooms; and even kissed Vinyl on the cheek ‘for good luck’ when the DJ’d gone to pass on the bread to the distributors… And now Vinyl was standing before her in the doorway, and, judging by the sombre expression on the unicorn’s face, as well the daunting presence of the thick bag in which, she could see, the loaves that were still very much present…

“How do you think it went?” Vinyl grumbled grimly, pushing past the grey mare and knocking the door shut behind her. Darkly amused, Octavia followed the DJ to the living room. “It sucked,” Vinyl concluded, plopping on the sofa and popping open one of the beers.

Octavia lingered in the doorway. “Well… Sometimes, mess-ups do happen… right?” she wondered hopefully, not daring enter the room, her wine-fuelled confidence from yesterday evening evaporating into fine steam.

Vinyl sighed, gulping beer greedily. “First, call them what they are. Fuck-ups. Second…” She sighed again, patting the seat next to her. “Come on, Tavi, take a sit, have a beer.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s ten-thirty, for hellsake.”

Reluctantly, Octavia approached the sofa, placing her rump on the edge. “Vinyl… Is it that bad?”

Vinyl winced sourly. “It’s never happened before. And never will. I guess.”

Octavia frowned. “Come on, Vinyl, what is wrong?” Agitated, she took a beer, revising her rule never to drink before lunch.

“Long story short, I was on my way to pass on the bread,” Vinyl began, “when I got a phone call.” She fell silent, sipping beer glumly.

“And?” Octavia barely whispered, her stomach twisting in knots.

“It was one of my distributors. He couldn’t make it.” Vinyl crushed the can with her hooves. “On the grounds of being arrested.”

Octavia gasped. “You said it was perfectly safe! How did they- How could they prove that-”

Vinyl cut her short. “They didn’t. He came to the police station voluntarily and told those royal assguards that he was part of a huge illegal bread-selling operation.”

“Why would he do that?!” Octavia exclaimed, her mind reeling. “Why would he voluntarily-”

Once again, Vinyl cut her short. “We had a little bad ground between us. Ill will, whatever. Besides, the bastard knows he can get a suspended sentence and still profit from it.”

“How would he ever profit from it?” Octavia wondered, trying to set the pieces of the puzzle straight enough to form a picture. The clock struck quarter to eleven. Time flies.

“By calling me.” Vinyl leant back, closing her eyes. “Here’s how it goes. He goes to the police, he rats out, tells them he’ll give away the manufacturer’s name, then uses his one call to call me.”

“What happens next?” Octavia mused, her mental gears rolling, rolling, rolling about, screaming in agony as she blended wit with creativity, resourcefulness with analysis, to try to come to a solution. Why should I, though? Isn’t it time to get out before it’s too late? She frowned. And do what? Sit on my ass all goddamn day and read books? While that was a good option, and she did have quite a few books to read… That’s fine routine for a couple weeks… but my whole life?

“Now,” Vinyl interrupted, “I go to the police station and ask him how much he wants me to pay him so he keeps his mouth shut. Then he gets his suspended sentence, and I get back to business.” The DJ huffed. “Never happened to me before, but I reckon that’s how it’s gonna play out.”

“Can’t we… just…” Octavia brushed her hoof against the table uneasily. “Take him out of the picture?” she suggested with fake innocence.

“Take him…” Vinyl coughed, her breath torn asunder by the option. “You mean, as in, kill the guy?” Octavia blushed slightly, averting her gaze. “Dammit, Tavi, we are not criminals!” she exclaimed, catching an immediate ‘oh really’ glance from her friend. “Okay, okay, we are kinda criminals. But we are not murderers!” Octavia opened her mouth, as if to protest. “No, Tavi, even if we pay somepony to kill for us, we’re still murderers.”

“It’s not what I wanted to say,” the cellist let out meekly. What I did want to say… “Why go halfway? If we’re still under threat of doing time…” “What I did want to say,” she carried on, instead, “is why he would benefit from it?”

“What do you mean?” Vinyl sharked her hoof against the carpet in irritation. “He gets my money and a suspended sentence. A win-win.”

“Is it?” Octavia let an indulgent smile appear on her muzzle. Chuckling at Vinyl’s bewildered expression, she actually took up a beer and drank greedily. “Thing is,” she said, wiping her lips with a kerchief, “I don’t see how they are going to give him the suspended sentence if he accepts your money. If anything, they will throw him behind bars if he keeps silent. So, let me tell you what’s going to happen.” The beer loosened her tongue as the grey mare leant in, placing her forehoof on Vinyl’s shoulder. “You go there, you promise him money, and the second he gets these shiny bits, he’s ratting you out. That’s what’s going to happen if you go to the police station.”

Vinyl averted her eyes, observing the bookshelf with mild interest. “What should I do, then?”

Octavia smiled, downing a second beer in succession. “You leave it all to me.”

Vinyl raised her brow, watching her cellist friend seriously. “You are telling me you have a plan. As in, an actual plan. You, a refined, uptight classical cellist-” Vinyl raised a hoof. “No, actually, you’re right. I always knew you were a criminal mastermind.” The DJ grinned, meeting the cellist’s lavender eyes with hers. Smugly, Vinyl licked her lips, inching closer to the grey mare. “You know how sexy you are when you’re all evil and genius and cute like that?” she whispered hotly, soft word dripping on Octavia’s ears, her hot breath touching the very skin beneath the grey fur.

With ease, Octavia freed herself from the approaching embrace, getting up from the sofa. “I am fully aware. Now, I need you to do something for me while I sell your bread.”

“While you- okay!” Vinyl beamed at the cellist, her cheeks stretchy under the grin that adorned her face. “Cool! You’re actually gonna-! Great! I’ll call the client and-”

“I’m doing this,” Octavia said pointedly, tapping her hoof against the floor, “instead of you; I am the baker. You are the business mare. I’m doing this because I need you to do something else while I deliver the bread.”

“Damn, Tavi, I just hired you yesterday and you’re ordering me around!” Vinyl exclaimed semi-mockingly.

“You never hired me,” Octavia corrected with a smile. “We are partners. And if success means ordering you around, I will be ordering you around. Now, call the client, tell them what I look like, and give me a location. Just don’t use my name.”

“Sure thing, Tavi…” Vinyl fished out her phone, humming to herself, Wish you’d order me around like that in the bedroom…

“While I’m gone, I need you to get me an attorney’s permit.” Octavia directed her hooves towards the exit.

“What?” Vinyl jumped up from the sofa, dropping the phone. “Do I look like Lord Chancellor to you? I don’t issue attorney permits!”

“But I’m sure you do know somepony who can issue a fake one,” Octavia called out cooingly.

“Listen, Tavi, forging documents is a hard crime, and-” Vinyl galloped up to the mare, putting her hoof on the grey shoulder.

“Vinyl.” Octavia turned round, gently pushing the unicorn away. “Do you want to go to prison? It’s either that, or an attorney permit.” Slowly, pointedly, she peered her gaze into the magenta red of Vinyl’s eyes. “Which one do you choose?”

Vinyl licked her lips nervously, feeling the dryness of skin meet her tongue. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” Octavia smiled, pecking Vinyl on the cheek briefly. “For good luck.” She winked.

“Dammit, Tavi,” Vinyl grumbled to herself under her breath, “if we make it work you owe me a good eating-out…”

“I’ll book a restaurant~” the cellist sing-songed from the corridor.

That’s not what I meant. Vinyl narrowed her eyes. And you know it.

“One more thing,” Octavia called out.

Vinyl sighed, rubbing her closed eyelids with her hoof, feeling the blood pumping in her temples. The clock mocked her with a half eleven. The noises of the busy Manehattan street penetrated her ears, sending tidal waves of dirty decibels through her brain. “Yes, Tavi?”

“I’ll need your shades.” Before Vinyl could protest, the grey mare appeared in the doorway. “Just for this one drop.”

Drop? The corners of her mouth sprang to life, trembling into a wide smile. “The one drop that-”

“Don’t,” Octavia interjected. “Just don’t. Committing such puns in my household is the greatest felony.”

Vinyl smirked. “Didn’t they abrogate the felony/misdemeanour-”

Octavia’s eye twitched. “Vinyl. You may know your history. You may know your law. But you know you don’t want to make me angry.” Or else. The mare took a bold step forth.

Vinyl only lowered her eyelids sensually. “Is this the point where you kiss me and we have angry sex?”

The blow was swift, but utterly painful, unleashing justice as served by the grey hoof of the cellist, who, upon delivering the aforementioned blow, finally allowed herself to smile. “I’ll really need your shades, Vinyl,” she said. “I don’t want anypony to see, or memorise, my eyes. How many ponies do you think have lavender eyes?”

Vinyl smiled softly. “I get your point but…” And you have beautiful lavender eyes… Never hide them from me. ...Not like I do. “These are my special shades, Tavi. Dad bought them for me. I really can’t share these.”

Octavia sighed, but still offered a smile of appreciation. “All right, Vinyl. I guess I’ll just drop by a store on my way and find some shades that’ll suit me.” The mare rubbed her chin. “I’ll need a fedora, though.”

Vinyl let out a barely-suppressed laugh, ready to burst into giggles. “Are you really gonna go out in a fedora? Classy gangster style? Need a tommy gun?” After a short fit of giggles, Vinyl fixed her eyes on the grey mare, who, by that time, had put on a black fedora hat with a pink-ish violet ribbon. “Wow. You actually do have a fedora.” Vinyl blinked. “And you look damn good in it.”

“Thanks. My ex-coltfriend thought so too.” Octavia smirked victoriously.

“Sure, rub it where it hurts,” Vinyl murmured. Better still, rub me in other places…

“Get the permit, Vinyl.” Octavia strolled towards the door. “Leave the rest to me.” With that, she slammed the door shut.

Shaking her head, Vinyl laughed aloud, warm chuckles escaping her throat. With a deep smile, she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. The clock boasted midday. Vinyl smirked. “I wonder how long it’ll take her to realise she left the bread at home.”

BaKING BrEAD

Written by psp7master

An MLP/Breaking Bad crossover