“You did what in the coffee shop?”

Octavia laughed at Vinyl’s surprise - but there was this hint of boastful confidence which is always there when you share your shenanigans with friends, when you somehow want to present yourself in a better light, so you adjust your story to the listener’s tastes. Octavia had concluded that splashing coffee at someone’s face was a bit too hardcore for Vinyl - and, frankly, for herself; besides, she hadn’t really done that, right? So, in her story, she’d just splashed coffee on the counter. Which she, indeed, had done. Or hadn’t. If the rewind worked that way… The woman rubbed her temples, feeling a surge of panic rush through her. No, all this time-rewinding wasn’t good for OCD. Nothing was good for it, but this wasn’t good at all. With a practised movement of her toes, Octavia pressed them against the cold floor of Vinyl’s kitchen and quickly spoke through the mantras. The wormlike, nagging thoughts whispered in her head, then yelled - and were gone, gone to the back of her mind.

“Well, since I can rewind…” Octavia tossed her hair to the side, feeling a little better - and also feeling that such unbearable heat warranted a shorter, more fitting haircut.

“Your bad thoughts acting up again?” Vinyl asked compassionately from her seat to the side of the table. For a moment, the spinner made a motion as if to touch her old friend, but the hand withdrew before it could go forth. “Did I trigger them?”

“No… No, you didn’t.” Octavia sighed and reached for the lemonade. “How did you know I was-”

“The toes.” Vinyl pointed at Octavia’s bare feet with an expression just barely short of reverence. “When you are having your thoughts, your toes are all… messed up.” The spinner winced, taking up her own glass of lemonade. “Sorry. I just… remember.”

“That’s all right.” Octavia did feel better after the precious coldness of the drink. “If you remember, then you remember it used to be worse. I couldn’t talk or do anything. Now it’s better. I just feel awful inside.” The cellist smiled weakly. “Let’s not talk about it. I just forgot to take my morning pills.” Not that they help all that much, she mumbled innerly.

On Vinyl’s face immediately appeared a wide, playful grin, the grin Octavia was used to in music school, but which she had forgotten during all these years that had been separating her friend and her. Now, though, it seemed that all those years had been non-existent, blank, void, a nullity. It seemed that she had just suddenly seen her friend in her new spikes-and-piercing attire, and thought that this was good. “Let’s just drop by your place and grab your pills. Then,” she pointed her finger somewhere at Octavia’s chest, “we’ll hang out like we should have done years ago. If this ain’t fate, I don’t know what it is.”

“Coincidence?” Octavia suggested, getting up from the table, feeling her (Vinyl’s) T-shirt already getting sweaty, her (Vinyl’s) jeans getting warm and uncomfortable, and why the hell did she and Vinyl share a size? Maybe it is fate, after all. Destiny.

“Coincidences don’t happen,” Vinyl said sagely, putting the rest of the lemonade into the fridge, and throwing off her slippers. “Everything’s inevitable. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened.” The spinner motioned for the cellist to follow her into the spacious living room - and the only room of her weird studio penthouse flat - the kind of flat so popular in Manehattan.

“If you’re trying to quote Interstate 60,” Octavia said pointedly, immediately taking up the spot in front of the barely-open window, “you are failing.” There was no breeze of relief coming from the outside, no air conditioning. Why doesn’t Vinyl have air conditioning? For that matter, why don’t I?

“I watched it in Italian.” Vinyl opened up a drawer, taking out a pair of socks. “I only have white socks. Hope you don’t mind.”

Octavia raised her brow, diverting her attention from the window. “Racist,” she said with a deep smile. It felt good, talking to Vinyl after all this time… It seemed as if neither of them had changed. Well, her disorder had gotten milder, and Vinyl had totally changed the way she looked, but they were still friends, exchanging playful punches and jokes, right? Right?

“Well,” Vinyl retorted, tossing the socks to the raven-haired woman, who barely caught them, “black socks would make you run faster, I understand…” The DJ grinned, which, Octavia knew from experience, meant that there was a bad joke incoming. “But white ones just work so much better.”

Octavia groaned and shook her head with a chuckle she just couldn’t conceal. “Vinyl, you are incorrigible.” She followed the blue-haired woman out of the flat, watching her friend mess with the keys. “And the funny part is that you don’t even know what ‘incorrigible’ means.”

“Okay.” Vinyl decided to skip the part where her vocabulary was being questioned and placed the keys inside her pocket. “Uhm. I’m not a very good driver, but I’m taking the keys just in case,” she warned her friend with a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of her head in a cartoonish gesture. “Well, if we crash, you can always rewind, right?”

“Yeah.” Octavia sighed. “I guess. But then we’ll just crash again.” Walking by Vinyl’s side down the corridor to the elevators, she explained, “I can only rewind time about five minutes back.”

Vinyl pressed the button. “So... You can rewind five minutes back, then five minutes more, then-”

“No.” Octavia shook her head. “First, I can rewind circa five minutes.” She paused as the lift came. “About five minutes, for you simpleton.” The cellist stepped into the elevator, followed by the disk-spinner. “And then, it’s about five minutes back from my initial rewind. It’s hard to explain. Usually, it’s not even five minutes. It’s one or two actions back. It’s easier to estimate this in actions, not minutes.”

“So…” Vinyl pondered as the lift slowly, very slowly descended from the thirty-sixth floor. “Can you, like, choose? Or control your rewinds?”

“I think I’m learning.” Octavia felt glad that there were no other people in the elevator so that her explanations would not sound crazy. Because they already sound crazy. “I can stop my rewinds just before an action happened. But if that action is, I mean, was, say, twenty minutes ago, then no cigar. I can’t rewind that.” Octavia sighed and rubbed her eyelids. “As I’ve said, it’s complicated.”

“You didn’t exactly say that.” Vinyl chuckled as the lift passed down through floor twenty-three.

“Oh, what are you? A walking recording device?” Octavia took a step towards her friend, closing the already minimal distance between the two of them. “If so, lemme press the button.” With that, she began tickling her friend in a foolish, childish motion that had been long forgotten, but that was so desirable. Vinyl started giggling. “Is it here?” Vinyl pretended to protect her cheeks from the tickles. “Or is it there?” The tickling lowered to the spinner’s chin while the lift descended past level fifteen.

Octavia’s long, slender fingers, the fingers of a cellist, made their way to Vinyl’s neck. Vinyl yelped and, wide-eyed, fearful, slapped Octavia’s hand away, dropping to the floor and cowering in the corner. Octavia gasped, trying to reach for her friend. “Vinyl, what’s-”

“Don’t. Ever. Touch. My. Throat.” Vinyl growled fearfully, trembling in the corner of the elevator like a rat who’d been pushed into that corner by a carnivorous beast. Her rare eyes depicted both horror and a terrified readiness to kill in self-defence.

Octavia paused as the lift clicked open with a ding, unsure what to do. You’ve got the power! Devil Octavia reminded her from the shoulder. Octavia didn’t find anything better than to let the blue fire in her hand grow redder and redder-

“You didn’t exactly say that.”

Octavia tried to manage a smile, then exhaled and rubbed her eyelids. “Vinyl, I must confess something. I have just rewound time.” There wasn’t a sign of guilt in her voice, just a tone of confiding in her friend.

“What?” Vinyl looked around briefly, then narrowed her eyes. “Are we in danger?”

“No, not exactly.” Octavia tried to gesticulate, but, as soon as she lifted her hand, she realised how hectic and uneasy that would be in such a cramped environment. “We started messing around, I touched your throat accidentally, and-”

Immediately, Vinyl’s hands sprung up to her throat, covering it, shielding it from ought and all, protecting it from Octavia the Violator. “Why would you touch my throat?!” the spinner said very seriously, her hands still protecting the neck.

Octavia took a step aside, as if to prove she wasn’t going to touch anything that belonged to the spinner. “Vinyl, I… What’s wrong with touching your- Did…” The cellist gulped as dark, shadowy thoughts landed within her mind. “Did someone-”

“I won’t answer that,” Vinyl replied with sternness that made Octavia shiver with unease. “No matter how many times you rewind, that is something that’s mine to keep. Just…” Vinyl sighed and rubbed her eyelids, shaking her head. “Just never touch my neck, that’s all. Oh, and one more thing.” She opened her eyes. “From now on, if you rewind and it includes me, you tell me. Deal?” She extended her hand.

“Deal.” Octavia shook the offered hand and tried a friendly smile. You cannot mean that, the little devil on her shoulder prompted. Octavia told that little devil to go fuck herself. With a stick.

“Let’s drop by my Mom’s boutique,” Vinyl suggested and grinned, catching Octavia’s surprised look. “Yes, her business is booming, and she’s moved from Canterlot to Manehattan. But first, we should get your pills. Then, let’s grab one of them delicious milkshakes.”

***

“You know,” Vinyl remarked as the pair made their way through the scorching heat of the city streets, “Any other time I would look at all this extra ice-cream in the shake and say, hell yeah!, but now, I want a drink, not ice-cream, you know?”

Octavia shrugged, feeling the heat on her shoulders, her T-shirt wet from sweat and pressing into her back. “Why are making our way back to your place instead of going to the underground station?”

“Because,” Vinyl replied, throwing the remains of the badly-made milkshake into a trash can, “I feel uneasy in the underground. The feeling of being trapped there, with no air, in that huge concrete sarcophagus…” The usually defiant woman shivered visibly, for a moment becoming a scared girl, not like earlier when she was defending her neck, but just a young, shy girl that Octavia remembered so well.

“So we’re catching a taxi?” Octavia suggested, trying to sound as normal as possible, without unnecessary enquiries into Vinyl’s past. She wanted this to feel, and be, like they had never separated. Like there was no weight of time on their shoulders. Like they could still play, innocently, like children, in this brave new world, forever.

“I was thinking something more along the lines of me driving us to Mom’s boutique.” Vinyl rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, making Octavia giggle at the cuteness of the gesture. “I mean, I’m hella bad at driving, but you gotta give this old DJ a chance, right?” With that, she poked Octavia’s side playfully.

“Oh, you’re not old!” Octavia replied without thinking. “You’re a young beauty, and you know it!”

“Oh, am I now?” Vinyl almost stopped, smiling at her friend. “I guess you are lucky to have me, right?” Once Octavia stopped, her mouth wide open, the spinner laughed. “Oh, I totally got you there! Don’t worry, I don’t drag old friends into bed with me…” Vinyl licked her lips. “Unless they ask for it.”

Octavia’s immediate reaction was to throw her hand up, but Vinyl noticed it immediately and rushed to her side, making Octavia forcefully put her hand down. “Don’t even think about rewinding time because of every joke,” the spinner said very sternly. “It is a wild, untamed power - who knows what it does to your body and mind?”

“My mind is already pretty fucked up.” Octavia sighed and shook her head, feeling like a cliche character in a cliche film. “And I can’t even confide in my therapist about my power. He’ll just think I escalated way into schizophrenia.”

Suddenly, Octavia felt Vinyl’s hands grabbing her hands, and, if not for the dampness, the feeling was an entirely pleasant one. “Look at me, Tavi.” Octavia lifted her eyes. “You can confide in me. We will be always be together now, you and me, you get it? It’s fate.” Octavia nodded, noticing the seriousness she hadn’t been expecting from her DJ friend. “You saved me, and you tied us together. We’ll be together, the two of us. Always.”

Octavia took a few seconds to process that, then endorphins marched in a straight line right into her brain. “Always. We found each other once again, and I am not letting either of us go this time.” In return, she moved in closer to the woman, freeing her hands and, in turn, taking Vinyl’s hands in her sweaty palms.

“Neither am I.” Vinyl smiled. “Oh, Octavia?” she asked grinning as she cast a glance at the gesture Octavia had just committed. “Let’s get one thing straight.”

Octavia blinked. “Huh?”

Vinyl grinned widely and whispered audibly: “I’m not.” With that, she freed her hands from Octavia’s grasp and walked into the heat, laughing, leaving the cellist blushing and speechless.

Octavia didn’t even rewind.

***

“Why drive a sports car when you’re just gonna go sixty kilometers per hour?” Octavia lamented after Vinyl (with severe difficulty) parked her car at the underground parking lot.

“Because,” Vinyl said, freeing herself from the seatbelt, “that’s the car Dad bought me. And I am having troubles driving manual. And all sports cars are manual.”

Octavia froze for a second before following her friend outside, into the climate-conditioned warmness of the parking that was so pleasant and long-awaited after the heat of the outside. “You Dad…” Octavia gulped. “I remember, I mean, he-”

“He left,” Vinyl replied simply, heading for the exit. “Both Mom and I got mad at him, but, several years later we kinda, what?, reunited? No, that’s a bad word.” Vinyl chuckled. “Started to tolerate each other? He buys me presents anyway,” she concluded, walking out to face the embrace of the scorching heat.

“But…” Octavia pondered for a moment, then followed suit. “You two, I mean, the things he-”

“The things he did to me are in the past,” Vinyl said sternly, putting on her ridiculous shades. Immediately, she glanced at the cellist, who shielded her eyes from the light. “Here. My extra shades. Catch.”

Octavia tried to catch the sunglasses, but they fell on the asphalt, the glass (plastic? Octavia mused) cracking. “Damn,” the cellist swore. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, raising her hand, “I can fix this.” The little blue fire grew redder and redder…

“My extra shades. Catch.”

Octavia took a swift step in, grabbing Vinyl’s hand and taking the sunglasses from her with a smile. “You don’t want to break these.” At Vinyl’s curious expression, she explained, “You just broke your extra shades by throwing them, and I did a rewind.”

Vinyl stood there in place, sweating, then laughed. “You know, I probably should reprimand you for using your powers like that - and yes, I do know that word…” Once more, Octavia felt Vinyl’s hand in hers. “But I think it’s hella cool that you have super-powers, Octavian the Terrible. I mean, you could go and make out with someone, and then just rewind and…”

“Is this a secret dream of yours?” Octavia chuckled back, not even trying to free her hand, following her best friend through the city centre. “Because I can organise that.”

“Oh~” Vinyl cooed soothingly, “No, thanks, I make out with a lot of people at parties anyway. But for you, Shy-via, that’s a chance. I wonder if you made out with me already and rewound time, just to try it out.”

“You did not just call me that!” Octavia giggled, freeing her hand finally as the two women stopped in front of a two-storey building, very wide, grinning with reddish bricks. “And I would tell you if I did that,” she put an end to the uneasy line of questioning. Come on, we’re friends, it’s friendly banter, she assured herself. We’ve always been like this, and even time couldn’t change it. Devil Octavia’s perked up: Then again, you’ve always been the one to blush and say, “Vincenza! That’s distasteful!”

“Who’s my little Vincenza making out with again?” came a voice from a woman smoking next to the building, in a fashionable outfit, which covered her late-forties very well, a peculiar pink ribbon woven into her white-dyed hair, shades resembling Vinyl’s (and now, Octavia’s), her cigarette in the cigarette holder. “Ah, if this isn’t Octavia Philarmonica!”

“Hello, Margaret!” Octavia exclaimed warmly, feeling gleeful at seeing this woman, who’d been a simple tailor back when she and Vincenza were kids, and now had, apparently, struck it rich. “So glad to see you.”

“Glad to see you too, Octavia, after all these years.” There was no underlying tone to Margaret’s words: no shaming, no disappointment, no indication that she, Octavia, should have gotten in touch. Just plain welcoming. “So…” The mother’s grin matched the daughter’s perfectly. “You are now making out with Vincenza?”

“Moooom!” Vinyl lamented with a groan, while Octavia blushed and wondered whether she should rewind right now. “First, it’s Tavi we’re talking about, and second, it’s Vinyl, remember? Not Vincenza.”

“Of course, Vincenza,” Margaret soothed the rebellious woman.

“It’s Tavi we’re talking about?” Octavia asked, turning to her best friend and taking off the shades. “So you are basically saying you would never kiss me? That I am not good enough for you?” Why are you even asking this? Angel Octavia wondered from her shoulder.

“It, uh…” For a moment, it seemed to Octavia that Vinyl blushed for a split-second, but then she attributed that to the heat. “It just means we’re very good friends, that I would never compare you to the one-night stands I usually have after parties.”

“Thank you for informing me about your one-night stands, sweetie.” Margaret threw away the cigarette into the trash can, holder and all. “Stupid laws, won’t let me smoke in my own boutique.” At once, smoke trailed out of the trash can, and fire could be smelt. “Oh, for-” Margaret groaned. “Should’ve put it out, wait here, I’ll-”

“Don’t worry, I have a better solution.” Octavia smiled and lifted up her hand…

“Thank you for informing me about your one-night stands, sweetie.” Margaret prepared to throw the cigarette away before Octavia extended her hand.

“Can I take a little puff?” she enquired politely, taking up the cigarette holder and pressing it to her lips, feeling intense strawberry lipstick. Good plan, Octavia. Marvellous plan.

“So you picked up smoking too?” Margaret sighed, watching Octavia extinguish the cigarette properly before throwing it into the trash can. “Bad habit. All right, you two. I have a lot on my plate, and I still have to eat it all. Been nice meeting you, Octavia.”

“Likewise, Margaret.” Octavia smiled warmly at the older woman. Then, she glanced at Vinyl, who had a quite surprised look on her face. “Shall we?”

Vinyl nodded and kissed her mother goodbye. Immediately upon Margaret’s retreat into the building, she took Octavia by the shoulder just as the cellist had turned away. “Do you smoke now?”

“Now,” Octavia clarified with a smile on her lips, “I am helping your mother not to throw the lit cigarette into the trash can and burn the garbage. It happened, and I rewound,” she explained.

“Well.” Vinyl licked her lips, which seemed to be cracking from the heat. “You are full of surprises, Octavia.”

“That, I am.” The cellist took out a handkerchief to wipe off her face, but, upon taking a look at Vinyl’s forehead, she giggled and wiped sweat off her friend’s face instead, making Vinyl sneeze for some reason. “Vinyl, you are unbearably cute when you sneeze.”

“I am not cute!” Vinyl protested rather childishly, wiping off her nose. “I am a cool, hip, trendy DJ.”

“Nobody uses the word ‘hip’ anymore.”

The two women proceeded up the road that seemed to be burning them even through the shoes, through the air that was visible because of the heat.

“I do.” Vinyl took a deep breath. “It’s awful. I’ve never seen such heat before. It’s a bloody anomaly.”

“What does the internet say?” Octavia took the already drenched kerchief and wiped sweat off her brow. Eww, Angel Octavia chided. Kinky, Devil Octavia countered.

“That there is no reason for this heat to persist - or exist in the first place.” Vinyl sighed and smiled wearily at her friend. “Listen, Tavi. It’s very cool that we finally met again, and I know I should offer you an evening out, but maybe we’ll just hit my place and share stories?” she suggested with an un-Vinyl-ish expression on her face - an expression reserved for Vincenza Staccato. “Catch up, so to speak?”

“Sure thing, Vinyl.” Octavia couldn’t hide the warmth in her voice if she tried. “But tomorrow, you owe me a night on the club.”

“Never took you for a club person, Club-tavia.” Vinyl yawned, huffing from the ever-rising temperature.

“Well, as I’ve said…” Octavia smiled, battling the heat innerly. “I am full of surprises.”

***

“My Dad was… all right, I guess.” Vinyl stared at the ceiling, then sighed and picked up the pack of cigarettes next to the bed. “Talks to me a lot about Yugoslavia, how they had this National Spirit, I mean, he doesn’t care much about modern Balkans apart from Montenegro, no opinion on Kosovo, just sad that Montenegro got hit during the Kosovo bombings aaand I’m rambling.” She took a drag and released the smoke, watching it curl up in the air before dissipating beneath the ceiling. “I mean, an Orthodox Italian from Montenegro, that’s an interesting blend.”

Octavia remained silent, knowing that Vinyl needed to speak out, albeit unrelated to the problems she’d had. But she just needed to be heard, and she, Octavia, was there for her.

“Not all Orthodox people are conservative,” Vinyl assured Octavia - even though it seemed to the cellist that the spinner was mostly assuring herself. “I once slept with an Orthodox girl. Very nice, going to become a neurosurgeon. You think Orthodox people are, well, all against gays?”

“I think,” Octavia said thoughtfully, “that we live in a weird country. Look, we have countries like Austria and Montenegro and Canada - and then we have Equestria. What a weird name for a country, don’t you think?” She paused, as if analysing the situation. “And Manehattan looks like a rip-off of Manhattan anyway.”

“Yeah.” Vinyl shrugged. “But oh what can you do. Oh.” She smiled. “I also slept with this one guy - a Montenegrin, by the way,” Vinyl clarified, taking a deep drag on her cigarette. “Named Perun, like that old god of thunder. His experience…” She sighed dreamily. “A doctor, speaks six foreign languages, drives a Harley, been to the war, worked for Doctors Without Borders, been to twenty-seven countries, has acquaintances in each…” She offered Octavia the cigarette.

Hesitantly, the cellist took up the cigarette. No, don’t! Angel Octavia protested. Devil Octavia shrugged: Come on, you’ve tried that before and didn’t get addicted. “So, what does he do now?” she wondered, taking a small puff. “Also, you said you weren’t straight. Why sleep with a guy?”

“Because this guy was worth it,” Vinyl replied, rolling over to face her friend on the bed. “Makes me bi, I guess? Now he’s growing marijuana. Legally. For medical purposes,” she clarified immediately, seeing surprise in Octavia’s eyes. “Curing ADHD, Leg Distress Syndrome and what-not.” Seeing the light in the cellist’s eyes, she sighed and shook her head, taking the cigarette away from Octavia. “No, not OCD. He says that is something you need to go through yourself. Realise your inner self or something.”

“Hmm. I wonder if this is the time you give me a joint and we make out?” Octavia suggested jokingly, just to avoid the issue altogether. “I could rewind so we wouldn’t get high at all.”

“Octavia, you are weird,” Vinyl announced after a pause. “You used to be weird, granted, but now you are an official weirdo.” She grinned, extinguishing the cigarette. “I like it. But no. I don’t do drugs. Any kind of drugs.”

“Neither do I.” Octavia rolled over as well and faced Vinyl on the bed. “I was joking.”

“If you want to make out with me,” Vinyl said, “you only have to ask. In fact…” She grinned deviously. “I dare you to kiss me. On the lips.”

“What.” Octavia blinked, while Angel Octavia repeated the gesture from her shoulder.

“Do you really want me to double dare you?”

Without thinking any further, Octavia leant in and planted a kiss on Vinyl’s lips. She couldn’t explore, though, for the spinner immediately withdrew with a surprised expression on her face. “Wow, Hardcore-via. Didn’t expect that.”

Octavia grinned, feeling the power surge through her, the terrible realisation of being able to do anything she wanted. “You wouldn’t expect this.” The fire grew redder and redder…

“Do you really want me to double dare you?”

This time Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s head, making sure that her hand was at the back of the spinner’s head and not on her neck, and locked their lips in a long, yet tongue-less kiss. “Mmm.” She licked her lips and smiled at the shocked DJ. “The second time’s definitely better.”

“Woah.” Vinyl blinked in lack of understanding. “You… Wait. You actually rewound time just to… You’ve become pretty hardcore, you know that, Tavi?”

“Oh yes.” Octavia attempted to toss her hair, which turned out weird as she lay on the bed. “You even called me Hardcore-via when I kissed you for the first time.”

“Well, I dared you anyway.” Vinyl sighed and placed her head on Octavia’s chest, making the cellist blush - which she found strange, considering the action she had just committed. “You know, my Dad talks a lot about Orthodoxy and going to Church. Says the Church is being portrayed in the media faultily. I don’t know, really. I mean… It’s just that, covering my head and crossing the proper way and-”

“Uh, Vinyl?” Octavia stroked Vinyl’s forehead lightly. “We’ve just kissed. Twice. You’re not gonna say anything about that?”

“Well, it was a friendly kiss, not a make-out session,” Vinyl mused. “Oh wait.” She raised her head, pecking Octavia on the lips. “Nohomo.”

Octavia laughed, feeling at once gleeful and liberated. She was with a friend, a friend with whom she felt safe, and sound, and with whom her OCD was just a little better, a friend who was with her, and with whom she, Octavia, wanted to be. “All right. Will you mind if we just fall asleep like this?”

Vinyl smiled. “Was counting on this.”