Chandelier

by Petrichord

Rating: mature
Tags: Feather Bangs, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Sad, Other, Romance, Suicide / Self Harm, Sex, Narcotics
Length: 3716

The only thing better than being a visionary is taking enough drugs to forget you are a visionary.

Starstreak can see the future like none other. It's not magic, not a secret gift - It's just his talent, his keen eye for detail and special filter of fashion that constantly keeps his work avant-garde.

But there's one pony who transcends that avant-garde aesthetic, and that's his muse. Beautiful, charming, a walking archetype as eternal as a sculpture and as uncapturable as a dream.

And Starstreak can see a future for them as clearly as he can see the future of fashion. And his muse's future doesn't involve him, and Starstreak's future involves nothing at all.

It's the sort of thing that causes avant-garde artists to drown themselves in drugs and embrace insanity.

Rated "Highly Recommended" by Present Perfect.

An entry into Jake the Army Guy's Horse Words Extravaganza contest. Character under the "Other" Tag is Starstreak from S7E9's "Honest Apple."

My profound thanks to Flashgen for his help and Sia Furler for keeping me awake at 2:30 in the morning while the story germinated in my fallow brain.

Published 2017-07-01 03:20:07 UTC
Last updated 2017-07-01 03:20:07 UTC

Avenir Vu

I’m not sure if Avenir Vu is a term, but I’m going to make it one if it isn’t one.

See, Déjà Vu - that’s the term for when something happens and you feel like it happened in your past. And that feeling can change how you act, if you think what happened in the past lead to a good or a bad thing that you should or should not do. Past blurring into the present, right? Or if you really buy that what you thought happened really happened, then it’s the present (in the past) affecting the future (in the present.)

But Avenir Vu - that would be when the present blurs into the future. It’s when you think that what’s going to happen now is going to happen to something later. And it can change how you act, if you think what happens in the future is a good or bad thing you should or should not do. Call it anticipation, call it imagination, call it non-existent. But I know what that feels like, to have the ‘then’ become the ‘now’ in reverse. I can feel it as surely as I could feel my cutie mark sprout, all those years ago.

And if it seems like I’m thinking too much about time, that’s because it’s my job. Technically, setting fashion trends for the future is my job, but designing the future is my job in that job. I see the future, set standards for the future, make the future happen. Everypony makes the future happen, but I’m the only pony who really gets that. Me. I see it, so i make it in a way that other ponies don’t make it.

Or maybe I’m seeing time like this because these pills are fantastic. I haven’t been seeing time this clearly in weeks, maybe months, and if it’s muddling my present thoughts then I don’t really care. You get your mystics from distant lands who talk about opening your third eye with meditation, but I crossed over the third eye hours ago. And a pill after opening my sixth eye, I started growing eyes all over my body. I’m a carpet of eyes, an animate statue of optical brilliance, and it just struck me that this would totally work in the future and I need to write this down—

“You’re up,” says the bouncer.

Oh. The bouncer. Right. See, I want to tell him that he needs to give me a pencil and paper so I can write him down, but he’d give me that look. The look that doesn’t get me into the nightclub I’ve been standing in line for at least two minutes, and the look that threatens to call security if I don’t move my butt in one direction or another in the next fifteen seconds. Tweaking in public is fine. Tweaking visibly enough that people outside the club start making remarks isn’t fine. Tweaking hard enough that the cops start to notice and before I know it I’m getting my pretty little face on a mug shot? Very much not fine.

But, see, the last two don’t happen because I could see them happening, and I made sure they didn’t happen. Setting the future. Déjà Vu in the present. Avenir Vu.

I barely even notice my hooves moving as they carry me into the club. I’m still thinking about how Avenir Vu could be an amazing name. If Starstreak wasn’t already an amazing name, Avenir Vu could totally be my name. Maybe it will be, in the future. I can’t tell. I can’t see that future, and I don’t particularly care about seeing it at the moment. My brain’s too busy seeing everything with a mane full of dozens of blinking eyes, each tracing futures for every dancing gait and laughing face around me.

Not worth seeing: The beautiful ingenue with the mane like a lilac tree. Two hours from now she’s going to be vomiting into a toilet before dragging herself to a mirror and using the darkened spittle from the corner of her mouth to invent the world’s first bathroom selfie. That giggling, underage blue-maned foal she’s with is going to discover a couple of hours from dawn that his fake ID can’t stop his parents from wondering where he is. The double-chinned colt with more pork in his barrel than a senator’s policies, he’s three syringes away from realizing what the limitations of his physical and literal heart actually are, just before it gives out on him. Incidentally, the bouncer’s going to barely break a sweat as he drags the colt’s corpse to a back alley a few blocks down, lest it tarnish the club’s reputation. This is precisely why you don’t mess with the bouncer, and it’s not hard to see the future of anypony who tries.

But I’m not here to hit on the bouncer. I’ve got Honey Buns for that.

Speaking of which, where is he? I mean, I know I didn’t have a time and place picked out for him, but this is the sort of thing an artist knows. Place, time, purpose. My place is here, my time is with the future and my future is

I don’t talk about that

But Honey Buns, he’s an artist, too. Even if he doesn’t know it. He’s got the body of a model, curves in the right places and a mane so perfect I couldn’t recreate it if I tried as hard as I could. Mellifluous voice. Extra mellifluous when I’m ramming my cock up his ass, when the two of us are singing a carnal duet of love and escapism and the future and here and now.

Maybe Honey Buns is here after all. Maybe I’m just not thinking. Maybe I can’t think, maybe the last pill made the eyes grow from my body by sucking the juice from my brains. I’ve got to remember if he said anything.

So I focus on the music. The beat is loud, oppressive, heavy - but it’s not fast, not the sort of club music that fillies listen to while drinking their rainbow-colored cocktails. It’s a beautiful B-flat minor, the kind where every beat hits with the energy of lightning and the percussion of thunder, raining undiluted audio onto me until I’m drenched in pleasure.

And here, I can let the music drown everything else out. I can close my eyes and the club disappears, the other colts and mares and stallions and honey buns and all of that disappears, until all that’s left is the music and my thoughts.

My thoughts. Mine.

I’m Starstreak.

Good, that’s a thought to get started on. Everything gets easier after the first time.

I’m Starstreak. I’m a fashion designer. I design the future. I’m currently on I don’t know how many drugs, and that’s making it a little hard to think, but I think I can still get a grasp on what’s going on right now.

I’m in this club. I forgot where it is in Canterlot. I forgot what its name is. I only remembered the address of where I needed to go, because it was written down by Honey Buns.

Whose name isn’t Honey Buns.

I’ll remember the real name later. He said he was going to meet me here, at...at I think about now, an hour before midnight, at the bar on the second floor. Closest to the back exit, near the restrooms, in case something comes up. In case two somethings come up.

Which means that I need to take the stairs. I’ll need to take the stares, too. I know I’m tweaking, everypony knows that I’m tweaking, it’s obvious and I’m totally not having a little paranoia fit right now. I know that I can see the stares of everypony else with the eyes all over my coat.

I don’t really have eyes on my mane.

I think.

I open my eyes and scratch the back of my neck. Nopony’s watching. Up goes my hoof, into the back of my mane, pulling out a small packet of pills. I forgot their names. I forgot what the colors stood for. I don’t care. One goes out of the packet, in my mouth, on my tongue, to the back of my throat, swallowed. It’s gone.

I stick the packet back in my mane and wait

And

Wow

Time for the grand entrance. Time to make my way up the stairs with just enough energy that i don’t attract stares. Take stairs, ignore stares. Stares. Stairs.

Thoughts getting muddled again. I don’t care. That’s the point.

Then I’m on the second floor, and I think a few ponies recognize me as I stroll up to the bar. I was on the cover of...some magazine, or another?...and apparently I was a rising star, according to the magazine. They said that I was a visionary. They said I could see the future. They said I was making the future happen.

I’m Starstreak. Starstreak the fashion designer. This is what I do. I see the future, make the future happen. Or maybe I just predict it. Or maybe I’m hallucinating. I don’t care.

I think I don’t care. I’m honestly not sure whether or not I care. Maybe I do care in the end.

Maybe this will be one of those nights where I wake up in the morning and have a half-dozen ideas buzzing around in my head, and I sketch out the concepts with a pencil, and then I have enough projects to work on for I don’t even know how long, until I’m setting fashion trends and getting brand names and becoming the darling of the fashion world.

Or maybe it will be one of those nights where I wake up, lying in a puddle of vomit and grain alcohol, unable to figure out what time of day it is or what day it is or where I am or what happened after the third pill.

But at least I know what I need right here, right now. I lean across the bar, wait until the bartender notices me, and ask for a drink. Something silly and fruity and pink, with whipped cream and sprinkles and a little straw. Then I crane my neck to the left and look down the bar, trying to catch a glimpse of…

What’s his name again?

It isn’t Honey Buns, but I guess that name will have to do for now.

And then I see him, one of those silly, fruity pink drinks in his hoof, sipping it and passing off discomfort as indifference. I’m pretty sure everypony around him can tell that he’s not really indifferent to the atmosphere. I’m pretty sure he’s doing this for himself more than anypony else.

Two can play that game. I slide the drink down in his direction and saunter over. The genuine surprise in his eyes as the two glasses clink is proof positive of his insecurity.

“Hey, Honey Buns.”

The embarrassed little smile the colt greets me with is utterly adorable. I wonder how much I can get away with teasing him before he starts to hate it, because the smile and the blush are absolutely worth testing the limits of our relationship.

“Ah...you don’t have to call me that, Darlin’. You can just call me Feather Bangs.”

Feather Bangs. Took me long enough. I should cut down on the pills next time. Of course, “should” isn’t the same thing as “will,” and I think we both know it. But short of sewing it onto a jacket, I’m not sure how to remember that, much less follow it.

Still, sewing names on the jackets as self-advertisement would totally be retro-futuristic. Right designs, right angularity and refraction and colour, and it could totally be a masterpiece in the making. Maybe I should carve it into my coat.

“Starstreak? Everythin’ okay, dear?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I give my head a little shake to emphasize the point. “Thinking about art again. You know how it is.”

“Of course. You’ve got quite the mind for beautiful things.” I can see Feather Bangs’ body tense up a little, as if he’s afraid to say the wrong thing. Why is he afraid? Does he think I’m going to tweak out on him?

“It’s hard for me to not think about beautiful things when you’re around, honey...bangs. You could be anypony’s muse, you know?”

“Aw, shucks.” Feather Bangs blushes darker. It’s the exact right words for him, and the exact wrong words for me. He could be anypony’s muse. He could inspire a statue, a painting, a musical masterpiece. I want him to inspire the magic of creation in me. But it’s hard to be inspired by him when I know he could inspire anypony, everypony.

That isn’t the future, and it makes me wonder if it isn’t my future, either.

“Don’t let me trip you up, Feather. Go ahead and finish your drinks, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of anything else, Starstreak.” Feather Bangs wraps his perfect lips around the straw of his first cocktail and drinks. It won’t be hard for me to remember that I want those lips around my cock tonight, at least once.

But I’m not sure I see that as his future. He’s the sort of pony with a gift for romance, not lust. He’s another washed-up bit of flotsam, looking for love in every crack and hole, finding nothing but loose change and half-honest sentiments. And yet, he’s here with me, in this little corner of insanity and hedonism, artiste to artiste.

I’m not sure if that’s what I love about him, but I can think of worse reasons.

“I brought you a gift,” I interrupt as he finishes his first drink and reaches for the second.

Feather Bangs pauses, hoof still clutched around the cool stem of the glass. “Darlin’...”

“Just the one, dear.” It’ll be more than just the one, of course. One will turn into two, into three, possibly into four. Even in the dim light of the club, he seems untouchably beautiful. Pills have a way of eroding that. Pills have a way of making the most prudent ponies discard their mountains of sensibilities like so much chaff, and they’ll certainly help make him very, very touchable.

Feather Bangs pauses as i reach for the back of my mane, pull out the packet, count out a single pill and place it right in the crook of his hoof as it cradles the cocktail glass. I can feel his body tense, briefly, as the warmth of my hoof clashes with the chill of the glass. Or maybe it’s tensing because he doesn’t like the idea of this, at least not until after the first pill kicks in.

How many times do I have to remind him that he’s not going to be a junkie? He’s too pure for that. If his body didn’t prevent it from sticking, I know his mind almost certainly would. He’s the sort of Adoneighse that can freely dabble in the basest corners of life without ever worrying about being corrupted by them. His art is pure.

Maybe that’s why I love him, if I love him after all. I can think of worse reasons.

“It’s okay, dear.” I reassure him, trying to soften the timidness in his eyes. “It’s just a little bit, okay? I want to dance, and I want to dance with you, but I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around all the other ponies. I just want us to have fun, okay?”

“I don’t know-”

“Sweetie, you deserve to have fun, more than anypony else. You’re so beautiful when you’re happy, and I want the world to feel that beauty, too. And they can only have that when you’re getting the happiness you deserve. Trust me.” My hoof slides next to his, and I can’t tell whether or not my hoof did that on its own. I know there’s another part of my body I can’t control, and it’s probably for the best if we get on the dance floor before my urge to cut loose is supplanted by our party closer.

But to my relief, he believes that. The pill goes in his mouth, on his tongue, to the back of his throat, swallowed. It’s gone. Watching his pupils dilate is an immense relief, like watching the rising tide. Maybe this is what I love about him. If I love him.

I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything but this. I can see everypony’s future but his, and that’s beautiful and tragic at the same time.

“Come on, dear.” I tug gently at his hoof. “Let’s go dance.”

**********************************

I have no idea how many hours have passed, and I don’t care.

He doesn’t care either. Honey Buns...Feather Bangs?...took the last of my pills three songs ago, and he’s all but deliriously romantic. Even miles beyond sobriety, he’s not an animal; he’s perpetually a neonate with the drugs, always full of the rush and the passion, never consumed by desire or greed. It’s why he’s murmuring sweet things into my ear as I drag him off towards the bathroom. It’s why his intentions aren’t perfectly aligned with mine.

We’re on different wavelengths. His future is not my future. I know this, he knows this, everypony in the club knows this, every single eye on my mane and coat knows this. He’ll be one of those types who grows famous for his genuine sweetheartedness, marry, divorce, withdraw into himself, then bloom a decade later with a charity to some noble cause that inspires the world to give a little more freely to those in need. He’s out of place here, being dragged gently over to the bathroom, humming a ballad softly under his breath.

Bright Lights. Tile Floor. I must have pushed open the bathroom door sometime, somewhere. It doesn’t matter. Nearest stall. Unoccupied. His purity, my passion. New wave. Beautiful. Fundamental artistry.

I barely have time to shut the door before he’s in front of me, lips parted, bobbing up and down my shaft like a professional. Maybe he is a professional. I can’t remember the first time we met; can’t remember how, can’t remember why, can’t remember how it came to this. How we came to this. How we ended up happy together, sort of, lost in drugs and sex and emotional excess.

Doesn’t matter. He’s taken me into his throat, and I can feel my balls churning. He’s not an animal, but I am. And in the morning, I’ll wake up and he’ll have inspired me to something beautiful. I’ll see the present as the future, I’ll make the vision happen, I’ll bring it to everypony else. A prophetic animal.

He moans. I’m close. He can tell. His hoof wraps around, between my legs-

I lose it.

His eyes bulge as I unload. He tries not to gag, tries not to pull back, but can’t entirely manage it. I forgive him for that; he’s not an animal, not raw, not base. He doesn’t have to be perfect to understand how to do this, to understand how his love mingles with my lust. Or maybe it’s my love with his lust. I can’t see that part of his life. I can’t see him.

As he turns around and hikes his tail, I wonder if I maybe do love him after all. In my own way. I can’t get over him, at any rate, and I’m not sure my idolization really is just obsession. Maybe I want to stay with him, to treasure moments like these, to turn this feeling into something more than this feeling.

But my musings lay in my mind and my body runs on autopilot as I mount him. He’s warm, always warm. He’s tight, always tight. Virginal, like always. I don’t know how much longer he’ll feel like this. I don’t know how much longer we’ll feel like this, wrapped together, warmth to warmth against the cool tile of the floor and the empty echoing of the bathroom walls. He’s whispering my name, and I’m whispering his name back, and I don’t know how much longer we’ll be like this either.

So I try to savor it. I try to savor squeezing in and out of him, cupping his balls, gasping as he clenches, moaning in cadence with his groans, tantric throes not unlike ballet with a song.

It’s the second time I unload that I can feel him give in. His body buckles, then sags, droops to the floor. Mounting him turns into laying on top of him, cradling him, gently stroking his mane as his eyelids close and his body curls ever so slightly. And I can’t remember how long we stay like this, either, body to body, sweat kissing sweat, whole at last for a few minutes more.

And then I disentangle myself, open the door, stagger to a mirror. Two bathroom sinks to my left, there’s dark spittle smeared all over a mirror in a rough approximation of a self-portrait. And in this mirror, there’s me. Mane askew. Coat slick, almost shining in the restroom lights. Eyes staring into the mirror, trying to look at myself.

But even as everything changes, nothing’s changed at all.

Because in the mirror, I’m still looking out the window near the top floor of a nice manehattan apartment. Alone in my studio, trapped with my creations, chained to the expectations of a new design that was last heard from months ago, tied to contractors cutting our partnerships one by one as they see me as a deadweight. In the future, my visions of the future are gone. I can’t see myself as anything other than one who’s already seen himself, and in himself found out there’s nothing more to see.

Maybe I’m seeing that right now. Either I’m seeing that, or I’m seeing the drugs that make everything seem surreal and which gives my insight at least a little substance.

Or I see him. Feather Bangs. Honey Bun.

I see that he’s in his own future, and I see that he’s not in mine.

And I see that in my future, I open the window, close my eyes and step out the windowsill.