Spin the Bottle
Octavia reached out a hoof for the bottle. Confident that she was doing the right thing, as nopony in the circle objected to it, she spun the bottle, praying with all of her might that it would point directly to her crush. Instead, as it slowed down, the bottle head ended up pointing directly to Vinyl.
“...Oh my,” Octavia said.
Several hours earlier
Loud music erupted from the only house in the street with lights still on. It was quickly approaching ten o’clock at night, yet the occupants showed no sign of turning down their obnoxious music and going to bed. There was a clear and simple reason for this: there was a party going on.
Approaching the house was a grey Earth pony, in her late teens. Although she would have denied it to anypony who asked her, she was accompanied by an older mare with similar coat and mane colours to her - her mother.
“Are you sure that this is the right place, Octavia?” the older mare asked as they got closer to the house. “I thought that you said that there weren’t going to be many ponies here, and that it would be a quiet evening.”
“Mo-ther!” Octavia whinged. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t ask too many questions about this party provided I return at a reasonable time!”
“Yes, that’s true,” Octavia’s mother agreed, “but seeing this house now... I’m not so sure that I wish for you to attend this party.” As if on cue, there was a loud smashing sound from the back of the house, almost as if something were thrown out of a window.
Octavia sighed. “Come now, mother. Anypony causing so much chaos is obviously drunk, and you know quite clearly that I neither drink nor associate with those who do. Not to mention Double Bass is in there, so it is not as if I don’t have somepony to look after me should the worst-case scenario occur.” As her mother opened her mouth so speak, Octavia quickly added “Not that anything bad shall happen. It is a mere high-school party - they happen all of the time, and you never hear anything bad about them, do you?”
“I suppose not,” Octavia’s mother admitted. “Still... you promise that you won’t stay out too late?”
“I assure you that I shall be back home no later than one o’clock,” Octavia said. She started walking up the steps into the house before her mother could change her mind. “Goodbye, mother!” she called out, opening the door and entering the house.
“Have a good night!” Octavia’s mother called out, but Octavia was already out of earshot. Sighing, she started heading back home, praying that Octavia wouldn’t have too wild a night.
“Ah, there you are, Double Bass.” Octavia had to shout to make herself heard over all of the music as she headed over to her friend and fellow musician, who was sitting on a couch looking bored.
“Octavia! ‘Bout time you got here! I’ve been bored out of my brain for ages now!” Double Bass was a pegasus with a white coat and a dark mane a similar colour to Octavia’s. Her cutie mark was her namesake.
“My apologies, but you know how parents are with these sort of things,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes. “And besides, isn’t it somewhat stylish to turn up late to parties?”
“I wouldn’t know. We usually avoid these sort of things, remember?” As Double Bass spoke, Octavia went and sat down on the couch next to her, having to squeeze past a blue-maned unicorn to do so.
“Yes, but there is a reason that I suggested we go to this particular party,” Octavia said slightly more quietly now, looking around to see whether anypony was eavesdropping on her. As she was part of the “unpopular group” alongside Double Bass, it was only natural that nopony was.
Double Bass giggled slightly. “Is it because of -?” she began.
“Ssh!” Although Octavia was trying to act strict with her friend, she was also giggling slightly. “Nopony’s supposed to know that I have a crush on...” She looked around again, and then leaned closer to Double Bass and spoke as quietly as she could whilst still being able to be heard over the music. “...Quarterback.” The two mares giggled once more, remaining unnoticed by all other party guests. The exception was the unicorn whom Octavia had pushed past earlier, who swivelled an ear in their direction.
“So what, you wanted us to come here so that you can... y’know, kiss him? Oh Tavi, you’re so devious,” Double Bass teased.
“Ssh!” Octavia said once more, hitting Double Bass with a hoof slightly. “You know as well as anypony that... well, I haven’t kissed anypony before... and since this is Quarterback’s birthday party after all, I figure that it is worth a shot.”
“So, do you have a plan?” Double Bass asked. Before Octavia could reply, the unicorn from earlier came over.
“Did I hear somepony over here say that they have a crush on Quarterback? Captain of the hoofball team?” she asked. The unicorn looked to be about the same age as Octavia. She had a messy blue mane and a white coat.
Octavia looked around, blushing. She half-expected everypony in the room to look over to her in shock as this unicorn revealed her deepest secret out loud, but as before, they were ignored. “If you must know, yes, I do,” she admitted, looking at the ground as she said so. “But please keep it to yourself.”
“No problem,” the unicorn replied, grinning. She took a swig from a bottle of cider she was levitating before continuing. “After tonight, everypony’s gonna be talking about how I’m the mare who managed to hook up with Quarterback.”
Although she was starting to feel intimidated by this unicorn, Octavia nevertheless boldly replied, “Is that so? And who might you be? I don’t recall seeing you at our school before.”
“Name’s Vinyl Scratch. I’m from a few towns over,” the unicorn replied, going to take another drink only to find that the bottle was empty.
As friendly as ever, Double Bass extended a hoof and said, “Nice to meet you, Vinyl! I’m Double Bass, and this is Octavia!” If Vinyl hadn’t been wearing gigantic purple sunglasses, she would have been met with a blank stare in response.
“Yeah, whatever, fillies,” Vinyl said. She turned around, ready to head back into the crowd of partygoers. “I’d ask you to tell me how it goes tonight... but we already know the answer,” she said, flashing a grin at the musical duo. A moment later, she had blended into the guests and was gone.
Double Bass looked at her Earth pony friend. Rather than looking happy that she was finally going to make a move on her month-long crush, Octavia instead looked defeated. “Oh, Double Bass,” she sighed. “How am I supposed to compete with that? Look at how much more confident than me she is!”
“You’ll do fine!” Double Bass replied optimistically. “You just need to... let your mane down a little! Maybe get a drink or two into you! I’ll bet that’s why Vinyl’s so confident.”
“I’m not so sure,” Octavia replied, starting to worry now. “I made my mother a promise many years ago that I would never touch a drop of alcohol, and I plan to uphold that.” Her gaze sank to the floor as she added, “Maybe coming here was a bad idea.”
Determined to make her friend’s night an enjoyable one, Double Bass lifted Octavia’s chin up. “No it wasn’t! You can’t give up yet! Here - if you just mess up your mane a bit -” Double Bass ruffled Octavia’s mane for a moment “- and take off your bowtie, I’ll bet that Quarterback will be all over you!”
“Well... I suppose that it is worth a try,” Octavia said, smiling slightly as she took off the pink bowtie which hung around her neck. “Could you please hold this for me whilst I go and look for Quarterback?”
“Sure,” Double Bass said, holding out a hoof. “Go out and win that stallion over, Octavia!”
“Thanks. You really are the best friend a mare could have, Double Bass,” Octavia said before squeezing through the crowd in search of her crush.Double Bass sank further into the couch in response, sighing out of boredom.
“Now what should I do?”
The good news was that it only took Octavia a few minutes to find Quarterback. The bad news was that Vinyl was talking to him.
“Oh no,” Octavia muttered to herself. “Why can’t I have this one thing, Celestia? Why am I losing Quarterback to somepony who doesn’t even go to our school?”
Octavia turned around and was going to return to Double Bass when something miraculous and unexpected happened. Although Octavia couldn’t hear what was being said, Quarterback seemed to say something harsh to Vinyl, leading to the unicorn mare walking off in apparent disgust. Octavia’s heart raced as she watched the scene unfold. Now’s my chance!
Octavia walked up to Quarterback, feeling how shaky her hooves had gotten every step of the way. The walk took much less time than she had expected - it seemed like no time before Quarterback was right in front of her.
“He- hello, Quarter-” Octavia stopped and cleared her throat - her voice was oddly high-pitched. “Hello Quarterback,” she said, trying to ignore her heart pounding furiously.
“Uh... hey there!” he replied after a moment of confusion. Quarterback was a red Earth pony (“Just like me!” Octavia thought) with a blonde mane, and a picture of a ball for a cutie mark. “It’s, uh, you...”
It took Octavia a moment to realise that he was trying to recall her name. “Octavia.”
“Uh, yeah! Octavia!” He knows who I am! Octavia thought excitedly. “Are you enjoying the, uh, party?”
You really are quite handsome, Octavia thought, barely listening to Quarterback. Has anypony ever told you that?
“Uh, Octavia?”
“Sorry!” Octavia apologised hastily as she realised that she had completely ignored Quarterback’s question. “I’m doing fine! And yourself?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m doing great,” he answered. In spite of the fact that he had been drinking, his composure was excellent. Another reason to like you, Octavia thought dreamily. It took her a few moments before realising that he was still talking.
“... annoying when they hit on me like that,” Quarterback finished.
“Wait, what?”
“I was saying that I hate when mares hit on me like that unicorn was,” Quarterback explained. “I’ve got nothing against mares, but sometimes I just want to relax and have a few drinks with my mates, y’know?”
“Um... I suppose,” Octavia thought, speaking more to the ground than her crush. His words had snapped her out of her dreamy adoration, and she was starting to see the reality of her situation. Celestia, what was I thinking? How could somepony such as I ever get his attention? He didn’t even know my name until I told him!
“Octavia? You okay?” Quarterback asked, sounding concerned. “You’ve suddenly gone quiet.”
“I-it’s nothing,” Octavia said quickly, lifting her head to face him directly. A tiny part of her brain was saying that his apparent concern for her was a good sign, whilst the majority of her brain was telling the tiny part to shut up. “I should just, um, go. I left one of my friends alone back there, and she’s, uh, probably somewhat bored.”
“No problem!” Quarterback grinned, oblivious to the thoughts going through Octavia’s head. “Nice meeting you, Octavia!”
“Celestia’s mane, what was I thinking?” Octavia asked, collapsing onto the couch next to Double Bass.
“It went that badly, huh?” Double Bass asked, putting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder to comfort her.
“Urgh, I feel like such a foal!” Octavia moaned, hitting herself in the head. “Why... if I had access to a bottle of cider, I would down the entire thing right now!”
“I think I can help with that.” A moment later, Vinyl Scratch crashed onto the couch - meaning she fell on top of Octavia and Double Bass. She was much drunker than she had been before, yet still somehow had enough willpower to levitate a bottle of cider to Octavia. “You can finish it, if you want.”
“Um... thank you, Vinyl,” Octavia said, shrugging and taking the bottle. “What are you doing here?”
“Better question - why are you drinking?” Double Bass asked Octavia, pointing to the bottle in her hoof. “Whatever happened to the promise you made your parents?”
Octavia shrugged once more. “Buck my parents. What they don’t know cannot hurt them.”
“Yeah! That’s my motto!” Vinyl Scratch said, her words muffled by the fact that her face was buried in the couch, right next to Octavia’s leg. She rolled over so that she could see Octavia and Double Bass.
“So... what are you doing here?” Octavia questioned once more.
“I’m pissed off and I need a drinking buddy,” Vinyl explained, her words slurred. “You guys are cool, so let’s hang out!”
Octavia and Double Bass looked at each other and shrugged. In spite of Vinyl’s antagonistic tendencies earlier, she wasn’t really that bad a pony...
Two hours later, Octavia was lying with her head rested against Vinyl’s stomach. The two mares were utterly wasted. Double Bass had refused to drink, and had had to leave a short while ago for her parents to pick her up. (They didn’t trust her flying home in the dark).
“And so, he was all like - ‘Why’d you do that, Vinyl?’ - and then I was all like - ‘Because it’s what I do, motherbucker. I drop basses.’,” Vinyl said. Octavia nodded, as though her story was the greatest thing ever.
“You do! You do drop basses!” she exclaimed. “At least... I think you do...”
“It’s like, totally my thing,” Vinyl explained with a hint of cockiness in her voice. For some reason she was now stroking Octavia’s mane softly with a hoof. Or had she been doing it for a while, and Octavia had just noticed now? Who cares? Octavia found herself thinking. It feels... nice. Vinyl is such a cool mare.
“So anyway, in the end I dumped him, ‘cos he was really annoying like that,” Vinyl continued. “And yeah! Now I’m here! How about you, Tavi? What’ve your exes been like?”
Octavia’s eyes were closed, and she was focusing onto on Vinyl’s nice, soft hoof stroking her mane. It took her a moment to realise that Vinyl had asked her a question. “What have my... what?” she slurred out, confused.
“Your exes, Tavi. What have they been like?” Vinyl stopped stroking Octavia’s mane for a moment to take a quick sip of cider from a nearby bottle. Octavia frowned at this. Can’t she do both at the same time? I can lie against her stomach and drink at the same time.
“They... um... there was this one...” Octavia started, struggling to think. What was the question again? Oh yeah, exes. “I... wait, have I even had an ex?” she asked, getting her thoughts mixed up again.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking,” Vinyl asked, laughing. Octavia liked Vinyl’s laugh; in particular the way her chest would leap up and down and ruffle her mane.
“Oh... well, I...don’t think I’ve had any exes?” Octavia’s sentence started out as a statement, but by the end of it she was asking Vinyl, not completely clear on her past. “Yeah, that’s right, I haven’t,” she suddenly remembered. “That’s why I came here, because... yeah!”
“What the buck are you on about, Tavi?” Vinyl asked, confused now. Octavia frowned again. Why can’t you smile more, Vinyl? You look much better when you’re smiling than when you’re confused.
“Well, I... can you keep a secret?” Octavia asked, whispering so loudly that it defeated the purpose of whispering.
“Totally! I’m like... the mare who keeps secrets!”
“...That should totally be your cutie mark!” Octavia gasped. “A secret!”
“No, no - it should be me keeping a secret,” Vinyl pointed out. Octavia smiled.
“Yeah, that’s like - so true!” she said. Vinyl’s soooo smart!
“So, what is this secret, anyway?”
Struggling, Octavia pulled herself up so that she could whisper into Vinyl’s ear. Although she opened her mouth with the intent of telling Vinyl her secret, she found herself whispering something completely different. “You smell really nice.”
Laughing, Vinyl pushed Octavia away playfully. “I smell like cheap cider, you bucking idiot! So do you! Now what’s your actual secret?”
Out of a combination of intoxication and happiness, Octavia was grinning like a loon. She leaned in to Vinyl and this time said what she had meant to the first time. “I’ve never kissed anypony.”
“What?!”
Octavia nodded wildly. “It’s true! That’s why I came here - I wanted Quarterback to be my first kiss!”
“Who says he can’t be?” Vinyl asked mischievously, grinning all the while.
“...How the hay does that work?” Octavia asked, trying to remember whether unicorns could mind-control ponies.
“I’ll show you a little trick I know,” Vinyl replied. “Hey! Everypony! Get in here!” she called out. By this point in the night, most of the ponies had gone home. In the end there were about fifteen or so ponies in the room, including Vinyl, Octavia, and Quarterback.
“What is it?” somepony asked.
Laughing, Vinyl said, “We should totally play spin the bottle!” Octavia gasped, although everypony assumed that she’d merely been hiccoughing. She had heard of spin the bottle before, and had always been tempted to play it, but hadn’t known where she could go to play it or how to organise it. At least, not until now.
There was nodding and agreement in the crowd, and it only took a few moments for the ponies to arrange themselves into a circle. Vinyl levitated an empty bottle into the centre. “Who’s going first?” she slurred.
There was a moment of hesitation amongst everypony before Quarterback spoke up. “I will,” he said. Vinyl nudged Octavia.
“Now’s your chance!” she said, to which Octavia giggled. If anypony heard Vinyl, they didn’t seem to care.
Quarterback reached out a hoof, and as the name of the game instructed, he spun the bottle. It rotated around the circle... and pointed directly at Octavia. She gasped with excitement, and clumsily stood up, ready to have her first kiss be her first major crush... only to realise that Quarterback was instead kissing a unicorn opposite her.
“What the hay is going on?” she asked angrily as Vinyl pulled her back to the floor. Vinyl pointed a hoof.
“It’s where the head of the bottle is pointing. Not the base,” she explained. She hit Octavia playfully. “You’re such an idiot, Tavi.” Octavia giggled at that. I am quite silly, aren’t I? Vinyl sure thinks so.
Several minutes passed, during which Quarterback continued to make out with the unicorn. Apparently, being hit on wasn’t okay, but playing Spin the Bottle was A-Okay in his book. “What do I do now?” Octavia whispered to Vinyl.
“Just spin the bottle,” Vinyl shrugged. “When it lands on Quarterback, you can totally make out with him!”
Doing as the unicorn instructed, Octavia reached out a hoof for the bottle. Confident that she was doing the right thing, as nopony in the circle objected to it, she spun the bottle, praying with all of her might that it would point directly to her crush. Instead, as it slowed down, the bottle head ended up pointing directly to Vinyl.
“...Oh my,” Octavia said. ...I don’t think I’m into mares, she thought. She turned to Vinyl, not sure what to do in scenarios like this. “So Vinyl, do I spin ag- mmph!”
Octavia was cut off as Vinyl leaned into her and shut her up by covering her lips with her own. Octavia resisted for the briefest of moments before succumbing to the soft feel of Vinyl’s lips, eager to spend as much time in contact as possible. Is this what all kissing feels like? Octavia wondered in the small part of her brain that wasn’t celebrating the moment. It feels... good.
Octavia was sure that somewhere in the background, a lot of ponies in the circle were making noise and saying things to the pair, but she shut down the part of her brain that was aware of them. For her, the only thing in existence at the moment was Vinyl and those amazing lips of hers. Octavia hadn’t even realised it, but she had both of her hooves around Vinyl’s neck.
Finally, after what felt like too short a while to Octavia (but in reality was probably far too long for a single kiss), Vinyl pulled away from her. With that, the rest of the world began to exist again, as Octavia was aware of the group of ponies cheering them on. Octavia felt her cheeks heat up, a sure sign that she was blushing from embarrassment. Finally, once the group realised that Vinyl and Octavia had finished their kissing, they fell silent. All eyes were on the pair.
“...Did we do something wrong?” Octavia asked. Part of her confusion was due to the alcohol still in her system, but the majority of it was due to her trying to think of a way to get Vinyl to resume kissing her.
After a moment or two of nopony answering her, Quarterback shrugged. “Hey, you followed the rules of the game, right? I don’t see anypony here complaining about the result.” He cleared his throat awkwardly before pointing at the bottle. “So, who’s next? Since you’re sitting next to Octavia, that’d be you, right, Vinyl?”
“Not necessarily,” Vinyl answered, grinning cunningly. She stood up, dragging Octavia with her. “If you fillies will excuse me, I have someplace I need to be, and I’m hoping that Octavia will come with me.” She exited the room, followed closely by her new Earth pony friend.
“...Man, what I would give to watch that,” somepony in the room said, breaking the silence.
Once they were outside Quarterback’s house, Vinyl and Octavia had begun to furiously make out once more, to Octavia’s delight, occasionally pausing to breathe. During one of these brief breaks, Octavia realised that they had fallen over during their kissing, and that she was lying on top of Vinyl.
“Tavi, stop,” Vinyl said as Octavia started to move in for some more kissing.
“What is it? Am I doing something wrong?... Should I be using tongue? I’ve never used tongue before; what’s it like?”
“No, Tavi, it’s nothing like that,” Vinyl laughed. Her breath smelled of cider, but right now Octavia thought that it was the most beautiful smell in the world. “It’s probably the alcohol talking right now, but I was just thinking... will you be my very special somepony?”
Octavia barely had to think about it for a moment, spurned on by the alcohol and the fact that her very first kiss had been even better than she thought it would. “Yes! Of course I will, Vinyl!”
“Great,” Vinyl replied, grinning happily. “Now, what were you saying about tongue?”
THE END
Author's Note
I literally got this idea last night, and with nothing else to do today, I figured I'd write it!
This is my first shipfic, I hope I did okay 
