The Last Minute

"No.”

“Why?”

“It sounds stupid.”

  Vinyl scanned Octavia's face, looking for a sign of humor, but the cellist was like the side of a cliff. "Don't be so close-minded, Tavi, I'm a musician, you're a musician, it works!"

Octavia looked like she was going to pat Vinyl on her silly little head. "No, Vinyl, you see, that may be true, but our genres don't exactly... coincide, do they?"

 "Opposites attract."

 Octavia squinted to the sun, rumpling her mane with a hoof. "Yes, but I just don't know. It seems like a bad idea. You don't think anypony might get the wrong idea?"

It stung Vinyl to think of what she meant. "What, that we're a couple or something?" She said it jokingly, like it didn't matter, and it hurt.

Octavia shrugged gently. "I suppose I'm not ready for that, or at least I'm not ready for the town to know. We discussed this, Vinyl."

It was true; they had. "Friends" was a fine word, "friends with benefits" was, to her, the ugliest word in the dictionary.

 "We'd only be performing together, though." Vinyl reasoned.

Octavia shrugged again. "It seems like a thing that couples would do. I can't be the only one who thinks that, either."

Vinyl sighed and looked to her hooves. She lifted the flier one last time, grinning a tiny grin. "But... it's cool..."

The cellist chuckled, but didn't reply. Vinyl dropped the topic and didn't mention it again, and while it didn't mean too much to her and she could brush it under her mental rug, she'd be lying if she said it didn't burn just a little.

Octavia inhaled. She leaned back, propping herself up on two hooves.

The high noon sunlight played over her  face, its almost liquid warmth seeping through her closed eyelids, and all she could see was the comfortable orange glow. A light, serene breeze whispered sweet messages into her ear, and the grass around her played a quiet tune. With every breath, the fresh scent of dew-kissed greenery and solid, vital earth filled her lungs and spirit, and the gray mare welcomed her calm environment, a crystal-clear bay of sanity in a tumultuous ocean of stress. Her own little bubble of perfection.

"Damn, my flank is itchy!"

That, Octavia noted, was the sound of a bubble bursting.

Without turning her head, she opened one eye only a sliver, her focus swiveling to her peripherals, although she wasn't sure she wanted to see.

Her manner-forsaken companion skitched around on the grass beside her, adjusting and readjusting her position, scooting like a puppy with fleas, or a filly with an ant hotel in her trousers. Octavia took this as a chance to ask the question she didn't really want the answer to.

"Vinyl, what, on Celestia's fine ball of earth, are you doing, pray tell?"

The white mare scrunched her face up, tucking her tail beneath her as makeshift padding. "I'm sitting on a freakin' bed of nettles, that's what. They're like," she examined a spot on her hoof; a blank spot, as far as Octavia could see. "Embedded in my flesh."

The cellist sighed, her head flopping down in exasperation. "Fine... let's leave then."

At that, Vinyl's eyes shot wide, She raised her hooves, and, for the umpteenth time, adjusted her position. "No, no way, I picked the last place we went. This is good. The park is beautiful. Let's stay."

"Really?" Octavia's cocked eyebrow grazed the heavens.

"Yeah, really." She broke into a small smile; forced, but the gesture it stood for was ever the more sincere because of it. "I'm enjoying myself.”

She straightened her back and gave a grimacing grin, and the cellist smiled. A hundred shades of uncouth and brash, the complete antipode to herself, that was her “girlfriend.” Vinyl was weird and silly and would probably prove to be a disaster at a social event if Octavia ever fell hard enough off her rocker to take her to one, but despite the electric mane she belligerently refused to comb and a childish devil-may-care attitude, she adored her to bits.

Maybe it even made Octavia adore her more.

She turned her head back forward and slide her eyes closed again, but bliss didn’t swoop back down over her as expected. Her pitch black mane absorbed the sunlight and burned on her head, and for a moment the cellist made to push off her hair like an annoying hat. “Ehhh...” Octavia groaned as she lowered her hoof from her head, pausing to wipe a bead of sweat from her brow and feeling a little foolish. “It’s nice out here, but does it feel a little hot to you, Vinyl?”

The DJ sat stock-still. “Hot, no, I’m enjoying myself.” She answered resolutely like a stubborn filly, though the trail of sweat down the side of her head was plain as the sweltering midday sun that caused it.

“Well,” Octavia chuckled, shielding her eyes with one hoof and wrinkling her snout as she looked up to the sky, as if trying to read the sun like a clock. “You won’t have to “enjoy” it much longer, I daresay I’ve got a concert in an hour.”

A look reminiscent of a dolphin getting thrown a fish washed over Vinyl’s face, and she eagerly brushed back her mane. “Thank god!” She exclaimed, before seeing Octavia’s skeptically amused expression and dropping her glee like a hot potato, replacing it instead with a somewhat deject frown. “I mean, aww.”

Octavia laughed frostily. “Jig’s up, Vinyl. Don’t worry, I know that this isn’t quite your scene.” She scooted her classic leather pouch close to her side and swiftly unbuttoned it, peeking inside before turning back to talk to Vinyl as she blindly felt around inside it. “You know what they say though.”

Vinyl shrugged blotted at her brow again, sorely tempted to put on her sunglasses. No, she mentally berated herself, those are for sets. “Eat your vegetables?”

Octavia looked up at Vinyl as she withdrew her signature bow tie from her bag and pushed her hair back to fumble with the clasp. “No, not--what? No, opposites attract.”

Vinyl smiled, but she wasn’t sure how real it was. The phrase didn’t seem quite as true anymore.

The bow tie just would not clasp; the cellist glumly remembered that she’d skimped on lunch, her hooves were trembling just a little, but enough to render her incapable of fastening the stupid tie. “Vinyl, put that magic to work, would you?”

A flash of light blue magic was all it took to save the cellist a headache; the clip snapped into place instantly. Vinyl ran a hoof through Octavia’s hair to help comb it back into place down her back, and absently remarked, “You know, Tavi, if you’d let me use my magic to help you get everything ready more often, you wouldn’t need this whole hour.”

Octavia put on a half-smile and cocked a brow, turning just enough to see Vinyl’s expression from her peripheral vision. “What are you suggesting, Scratch?”

The DJ waggled her eyebrows.

Octavia laughed a turned back. Vinyl looked the tiniest bit disappointed, but resumed her combing. “Besides, no one should need a whole hour to get ready.”

“That’s what you think.”

Vinyl opened her mouth to fire some clever retort, but was left gaping and blank-minded as Octavia finished up, tousling her mane one last time and leaving it to hang au naturale: long, black as night, perfectly framing her face, and indescribably beautiful. What would surely have been biting and witty got caught in her throat as Vinyl’s sentence tapered out pathetically. “Well, that’s...what I think.”

The cellist blinked and shrugged it off. “I should go.” She stood and slung her bag over her back. The worn old thing stretched in protest, and Vinyl gave it to anyone to guess why she still kept it. “I still have to pick up my cello.”

“Way to be prepared, Tavi.”

Octavia looked at her derisively. “Well, I wasn’t going to lug it to the park, was I?”

"Pffft, I dunno your life." Octavia thumped her with a hoof, a little hard for a playful hit. "Owwwkay, I deserved that."

The grey mare nodded seriously before breaking into a grin and making to leave. "I'll see you later?"

Vinyl sighed almost imperceptibly. "Count on it."

.o.O.o.

"Canceled?" The word sort of fell from her lips like a breath, sliding out and disappating in the air before she realised her tongue formed it. The dazed veil that hung over her mind lifted as the fog was replaced by incredulity, then anger. She tapped on the locked glass doors that kept her out of the fancy foyer of the seemingly empty concert hall. "How can it possibly be canceled?"

The janitor stood his push broom straight up and leaned on it, shrugging. "Wish I knew, doll. Heh, sumthing or other with the riggin's er the lights, that's what I overhear, dunno, can't trust errthing these old ears overhear." He chewed the toothpick in his mouth and shrugged again, to the huge dismay of the cellist on the other side of the glass pane doors.

Seeing her face fall, the janitor continued, blubbering out whatever he knew. "They says, at least that's what I overhear, they says all yer money'll be refunded fer the tickets you bought, so don'tchu worry that pretty little head 'bout it now."

Octavia flattened herself against the cold glass door, rattling it slightly. "I'm not a guest, I'm the lead celliiiist!" She wailed into the glass, feeling as though she were going to slide down it like an egg in a pan.

The janitor shook his head, chewing on his pick and straightening his flat-top hat by the brim. "That's a real shame, doll." He picked up his broom against and continued pushing it along the already impeccably clean floor.

Octavia groaned in defeat, silently asking her deities why in the world the only personnel around just had to be the one that knew the least. Octavia felt she'd have better luck squeezing a drop of blood from a turnip than information from him.

Suddenly, right on cue, the click of the ticket-booth door sounded as the ticketmaster stepped in and swung it shut behind him. He stooped to grab something from the floor, then turned around to leave again.

Octavia was missing her chance. "Hey! Hey, hey wait!" She dropped back on all four hooves and clumsily ran to the window, skidding to a stop in front of it and tapping on the glass frantically. The stallion turned around, surprised and a little annoyed. "Can I help you, miss?"

"Yes, thank you, yes you can. You see, I was supposed to play here tonight, you see that's me there--" She tapped on the flier bearing her name that was stuck to the glass. "--and apparently it's been canceled, though I've received no word of it, and there's no one around and your janitor doesn't know what the hay he's talking about!" She said her piece breathlessly, the part of her brain that reminded her of how mad she sounded drowned out by her frustration.

"Yes miss, that's right, tonight's production has been canceled."

"Well, I know that, don't I, as evidenced by the fact that instead of being in there, playing, I'm out here talking to you!" She punctuated the last few words with heavy emphasis and a jab at the glass for each.

The ticketmaster looked unfazed, even bored. Octavia resisted the urge to punch through the glass and throttle him. He smacked his lips before he spoke. "We'll refund you for your patience miss, and we hope that you enjoy your 20% discount upon your next visit."

He slid a coupon through the slot at the bottom of the glass. Octavia stared.

After a moment, she took the coupon and smiled slowly. "Thank you, I will. And please accept my commentary as a paying customer." As she said it, Octavia stared unblinkingly into the ticket stallion's eyes, smiling as she slowly ripped the coupon down the middle with more relish than she had ever used in her life. "You have a wonderful evening."

She turned, grabbed her cello case, and left in a stride.

.o.O.o.

Walking around felt weird.

Octavia wasn’t used to not having a plan. She, in her own eyes and the eyes of everyone who knew her, had always been a rigidly-prepared kind of mare. Not having a fallback net was so uncharacteristic of her.

And yet, all that propensity to plan in her still yielded to the same result; she was alone, at night, walking around with nothing to do.

A breeze swept by, and Octavia shivered and instinctively made to grab at her cello case, to steady it. Her hooves groped empty air, and she was harshly reminded of how naked she felt without it with her. But, desperate unplanned times called for desperate unplanned measures, and she had to stuff her case in a large bush a while back, hoping it wouldn’t mind. Wandering was one thing; wandering and lugging an enormous cello around was entirely another.

She had considered going home to drop off her case and leave again, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble to go all the way there and back. Then again, she’d also thought about simply staying home, propping her hooves up and watching telly, or maybe getting cozy with a bottle of wine and her electric blanket, but the thought scared her. Octavia didn’t like spending more time than she needed to at home by herself. It felt lonely.

And so, her cello was in a shrub, and she was walking aimlessly.

     As she went, Octavia mulled over her options. Her mind wandered as she did.

     How could they just up and cancel her show? For all that was holy, it was her show, did no one respect her anymore? Maybe it wasn't her person, maybe it was her music.

     Octavia nodded resolutely and with furrowed brows to no one as the thought crossed her mind. Yes, that was it; no one respected music anymore. Tastes that once wrapped around beautiful, real melodies like the ones that flowed from her cello were drifting elsewhere, to loud, obtrusive computerized beats and screeches that sounded like an army of robots going through an electric can opener.

     Like Vinyl's music.

     Even in her head, Octavia still winced a little bit to say it. She didn't really share Vinyl's tastes. It wasn't that she didn't respect it, probably, but it really, really wasn't her refined cup of tea.

     And to mix the two together? Her classical, and Vinyl's digital constipation. Ha! Oil and water. Octavia shook her head and snickered to herself.

     The cellist continued walking, unaware of her passing surroundings as she thought. Of course, she could do the competition with Vinyl because that would be the right thing, the supportive thing to do. Vinyl and her did have a relationship, however classified, after all, and certainly in some paragraph or subsection that entailed that they should stand by each other in whatever they do.

     Octavia sighed. A knot of unwanted morality and feeling tightened in her stomach, and she felt a pool of guilt well up in her chest. She should have accepted to be Vinyl's partner, but was it worth ousting themselves to the town as a couple? A drop of fear mixed into her guilt, creating an uncomfortable emotional cocktail. Octavia felt dizzy.

     It wasn't like a social commander like Vinyl wouldn't be able to find another partner, but she shouldn't have to. Even though the right thing to do was plain as day in the cellist's mind, she knew herself well enough to say that she was not ready for whatever sort of commitment partnering up with Vinyl might thrust her into.

     "Ugghh, why does this have to be so difficult?" Octavia demanded aloud, slightly stomping her front hooves.

     The previously unnoticed stallion on the other side of the cobblestone road paused, and Octavia glanced over, her furious blush almost invisible under the dim street lanterns.

     The stallion blinked. Octavia blinked. It felt awkward.

     "Everything alright?" He called.

No. She forced a smile, hoping he could see. "Yes, t-thank you."

     She could barely make out his smile and nod. He continued on, across the road and in the opposite direction, and so did she.

     The cellist made it three steps. "No." She turned around, no longer bothering to conceal her sadness. "No, I'm really not alright. Everything is not alright."

     Quite unexpectedly to her, a voice answered back from down the road, light and playful but concerned. "You didn't seem like you were."

     Octavia huffed a sad chuckle. "Well, you're right." She said quietly. She laughed aloud a little. "I'm a mess."

     There came no reply. Octavia sure did it now, acting like a madmare, wandering the streets at night and lamenting her problems to polite strangers. Octavia three hours ago wouldn't even spare a disapproving look to Octavia now.

     She was about to drift on, when again, a voice answered her. "Would you like some company?"

     It was her turn to be silent. Then, she did something crazy. "Yes, yes I would."

     "Be right there. Don't go away."

     Octavia stood where she was. Before she even had time to question her decision, she heard the sound of hooves over paving coming to her. The lighting washed out his color, and it was far too dim to make out a cutie mark, but from what she could tell, he was quite handsome.

He smiled. Her heart fluttered. It felt strange, and guilty.

"Umm, hello, anyone in there?" He chuckled, looking at her face like he was trying to look through a peephole. Octavia realised she'd been staring, and her cheeks grew hot. Thank Celestia for dim streetlights.

"Oh, y-yes, sorry, I was..." Oh yes, he was good-looking. "...distracted."

The stallion laughed breathily and looked up and all around him, at the deserted street and sleeping buildings. "Hah, well, this has been sufficiently awkward, doubt we can go much farther down that road, so what the hell." He looked back to Octavia, who grinned slightly. "Why's everything not alright with you, gorgeous?"

Octavia would look disdainfully down at gender-abusing pet names at any other moment, but for a strange reason she didn't even begin to try to understand, it seemed alright now. Charming, even.

She sighed and smiled softly, shrugging and looking down to the ground. "It's complicated." It was the most generic, department store answer she had ever given.

"Sounds like it's going to take some time." The stallion commented. "Walk and talk? Which way're you going--?"

"Octavia," she filled in. "And all downhill, I guess."

He raised his brows and grinned, and it took the cellist a moment to get what he was asking.

"You meant literally. Oh, uh, this way." She turned her head down the road, her eyes widening in the horror of her faux-pas the moment he couldn't see her expression. She started walking, and he followed next to her.

"So, what's on your mind, Octavia?" The stallion asked, before adding. "Beautiful name, by the way."

Oh yes, he was definitely putting the moves on her; of this, she was sure. She didn't really mind.

"It's a problem with, er," Even though in the recesses of her mind, Octavia knew this stallion was a complete stranger with no personal investment in the matter and it was unlikely she'd ever see him again, it was difficult to say what was on her mind. She hesitated between every word. "-someone."

The stallion was quiet for a moment, and the grey mare turned to look, expecting to see a look of exasperation on his face; she knew she sounded like quite the high maintenance mare. Surprisingly, he took a deep lungful of air and nodded, like he understood.

"When someone's on your mind..." Octavia laughed quietly and shook her head. "...y-you know?" She added awkwardly; colloquial was not a good color on her.

The handsome stallion chuckled in response. "Yeah." His mouth moved soundlessly as he wavered between closing his mouth or continuing, and Octavia could see that he needed a bit more prying.

"You look the same as I did a few minutes ago," Octavia commented playfully, but gently, "Girl problems?"

The stallion nodded. "Yeah, there's a girl," he smiled to himself and raised his brows, reveling in the image of a mare only he knew. "And she's not so much a problem as she is a real handful."

Oh, my friend, I know what you mean. "How long have the two of you been together, if I may ask?"

Like a veil unrolled and dropped over a window, the brief look of glee in his eyes was shrouded and taken over by a look of melancholy. "We're not. There's something... in between us. Keeping us apart."

Oh, Octavia knew, she most certainly did. Whether it was her problem with Vinyl, or whatever problem this stallion had with this mare, they were both paddling up the same river.

"It just feels like--" The sentence froze in his throat, and Octavia wasn't sure if he was deliberating his words or trying to swallow them back down. "It just feels like I can't get past something, and that something is keeping me from just asking her out and getting it over with."

Octavia nodded halfway. Her problem was different, sure, but it didn't stop her from knowing what the lamenting stallion meant. He continued, just as vague as before. "It's like we're too different. Like I'm not the one she wants. It's like I'm not--"

"--right for her." Octavia finished, the breathless words laden with a sadness and truth that pounded right through her ribcage to her heart. The stallion fell quiet, and Octavia turned to look at him, something sparking in the back of her eyes. Resolve.

"I know. I really know what you mean, I swear I do." She spoke, her voice trembling almost undetectably. Words poured out of her like a raging river, pooling in her chest. "When someone is so different from you, and it seems that never, ever in this universe should the two of you be together, it seems almost ludicrous, a-and nothing in your sanity can explain how it even ended up this way--" she grew more breathless with every passing sentence, her revelation coming from a place inside her the cellist had forgotten even existed. "And you hate those things they do, those stupid, silly things, but somehow... but somehow you never want to let them go."

She gasped at the end of her sentence, like she'd just finished a puzzle, or better yet, solved the riddle of the universe. The fire in her eyes kindled to a flame, and then to an inferno as Octavia lifted her head, meeting the stallion's gaze. "Listen, don't worry about what's separating the two of you. Care only about the things that bring you together, that make you want to be around her." She was hardly speaking to him anymore, but rather to herself. "And do whatever it takes to get her, and keep her."

The stallion at first looked surprised at the previously-somber mare's outpouring, but his expression changed when the words took nesting in his mind. Something that mirrored Octavia's vigor sparked inside him, and he felt every nerve in his body come alive with a fervor. "You're right. I will. I'll do it!"

Octavia laughed, the reservation of her old self going out the window as she threw her hooves around him, pulling him in for an embrace as if they were two old friends reuniting after years apart instead of two strangers meeting by chance on an empty, dark street. He joined in her laughter, a chorus of emphatic glee carrying down the way for anyone to hear as the two adult ponies lit up like fillies.

The stallion drew back and let out a huge exhale, smiling. "Thank you, Octavia." He began, "I didn't know how much I needed this."

She returned the sentiment. "Me either. I just-- thank you." As soon as she said it, the stallion turned and took off in a stride down the cobblestoned road, the sound of his hooves on stone only matched by Octavia calling after him, "Where are you going?"

"I have someone to find!" He echoed back, and she understood, and grinned to herself.

With one last look around her through completely different eyes, Octavia turned, walking back slowly down in the direction from which she came. The blackness didn't seem quite so lonely anymore, her walking not so aimless.

She breathed. The night was still young. The stars were still bright, the moon was still up, her cello was somewhere safe, and she too had someone to find, because for some reason, somehow, opposites attract.

.o.O.o.

Vinyl ducked under her table, fidgeting with the salad of cables in the back that her muscles hated to reach. She grunted as she took a lunge and miraculously grabbed the biggest one in her teeth, pulling it to her. "Come here." She growled between clamped jaws.

As she began to wiggle back out, a tap on the closed nightclub door startled her, causing her to jump and, to her delight, hit her head on the underside of the table. As she grumbled, the tap came again. And again. And again, growing faster and more insistent. Insistently annoying.

Vinyl abandoned her table, pushing off her sunglasses and tossing them aside. She strode to the door, mentally assuring the pony aside that they would get a wallop when she got there. "I'm coming, damn it, relax!"

The tapping didn't cease until she unlocked and swung open the heavy door, coming eye-to-eye with a familiar face, who looked at her breathless and with a furious flush.

"Flash? What--I thought this was your night off?"

He caught his breath and grinned huge, wider than she had ever seen. "Vinyl," he began, voice a bit hoarse. "Let me in. I've got to tell you something."