Octavia entered the club, and was struck with nostalgic images of her old self going to various gigs of Vinyl’s, much like this. She remembered always feeling so out of place and awkward—and now wondered why she had stubbornly insisted on wearing her bowtie to these things. Now, however, as she adjusted her bowtie, she felt altogether differently as she walked in.

The sleek design of the place, heavy on curves with almost no straight edges in the whole place, was accentuated by the lighting, which was placed low and sporadically. Catching sharply on odd surfaces and sweeping edges of the curved tables, Tavy almost found herself squinting from the glare. The contrasting dark tones of the walls and ceiling, along with the lack of windows, served to make it feel right about time to be grabbing a beverage, regardless of the time it was on the outside. Ponies stood around, sipping colourful drinks and wearing similarly garish smiles, chatting loudly and obviously.

Tavy felt slightly thrown off by it all—but in quite the opposite way that she would have, years back. Rather than feeling she was degrading herself by being seen in a place like this, the slick stylishness of the club seemed perhaps a bit more flashy and up-scale than she was altogether comfortable with. Used to the easy, un-self-conscious shabbiness of the pubs she often played at, Octavia felt a little intimidated here. She wasn’t completely sure she was classy enough for the place.

She was a bit late, and could see Vinyl was already set up, and looked to already have been playing for a while. Similarly illuminated by low-level lighting, Vinyl’s glasses seemed as though they were giving off a light of their own, their brilliance rivaled only by that of the electric blue of her mane as it was lit up to an intensity non-magical lighting couldn’t pull off. Vinyl was just transitioning into a new mix as Tavy found a small table with a rounded booth far in the corner, though still in a place where she could still see the DJ pony.

As she sat, a server approached her table. The mare had a pink and blue mane, with a cream colored coat. Tavy instantly recognized her back from her time in Ponyville, but there was a distinct delay in recalling the mare’s name. Something French and sweet, Tavy thought . . .

“Oh, hello Octavia. I had heard you were back in town,” the mare said.

“Ah, yes, hello . . .” Cherie? Macaroon? Octavia glanced down at the mare’s flank. “. . . Bon Bon!” She looked back up to the mare’s face, which had fallen considerably from the professional amiability it had just had.

“Good to see you again,” Bon Bon said, now looking anything but so. “Do you want anything?”

Just then a few bits of Vinyls mix jumped out at her. “Yeah . . . whiskey.”

A layer of distortion blended into the music, and the melody dropped away as a pulsing bass pulled into it. Ah, Octavia thought, there was that “wub” of which ponies speak. She caught Bon Bon’s attention before the mare left. “And how about you make it a double?”

Vinyl cut out the music for a moment, then brought it back in with a new melody over top of it and a pulsing beat—but one which Tavy felt herself nodding along to. She knew very little about this kind of music—whatever she had known, she had learned from Vinyl Scratch three years ago and then promptly forgotten—but began to realize that that didn’t really matter. The use of repetition and then variation was quite captivating, she had to say, as she listened to segments building up and down. The old Octavia would have found the accessibility of music to cheapen the experience, she thought, though she now could see how ridiculous that was. The point was to enjoy the music, not have it let everypony know how sophisticated you were for listening to it.

She looked up at Vinyl, at the other end of the club and behind her turntables, who was a complete dazzle to see. Tavy wondered just how much clop she had put her friend though in those days—and why in Equestria Vinyl had stuck with her as she had. Bon Bon set Tavy’s drink on the table, snapping her out of her thoughts for a moment. She thanked Bon Bon, but her server just spun and walked away. Tavy was pulled back to the spectacle that was Vinyl Scratch.

She let the music take her back in, as it switched into more of a driving groove and let up on the melody a bit, and Tavy watched Vinyl as she poured herself in what she was doing. Vinyl was switching back between her headphones and listening to the mix as she pushed and pulled from different elements she was tossing in, all the while bobbing her head along to the beat. She really was DJ PON-3 over there, brilliant and far away, entirely different from the altogether ridiculous mare that Vinyl Scratch pretended not to be. Vinyl hadn’t changed a bit from how Tavy had remembered her, with her love for her music causing her to stop trying to be cool and actually be cool, no matter how briefly.

She recalled how Vinyl’s transforming passion for her music always used to throw Tavy off a bit. She saw now, it may have been because she herself had always done quite the opposite—where playing music was when she had been faking it the most. Maybe now, however, she could get a little inkling of what Vinyl felt. Vinyl cut off the music once again, and Octavia’s gaze snapped up to the DJ, as she came in with a different variation a moment later. A blush crept up on Tavy’s face as she watched Vinyl’s hair bouncing and falling around her, nearly as captivating as her smile. Especially when it came to things unrelated to music, Tavy thought.

It was clear she shared Vinyl’s passion in that respect, she realized, her blush deepening. Though it had, once again, been Vinyl who had felt that way first. Tavy felt a sudden falling feeling, like something was dropping out from the pit of her stomach, as her thoughts found themselves once again at the part where she had left Vinyl like she had. What the buck had she been thinking, back then?

As the layers coming into the mix thickened, she scrambled to put back together what exactly had gone through her head to make her do that. Really, it came down to the Royal Conservatory of Music, she figured. She had been preparing to go to that for such a long time. She had been setting herself up to move away from Ponyville, and away from Vinyl . . . it was hard, and she didn’t feel that great about it, but it was what she had decided she wanted. She had wanted to go more than anything.

Then Vinyl kissing her . . . and suddenly she was confused. Going to Canterlot didn’t seem quite so spectacular, anymore. But she had convinced herself that it was too late, and that staying would have just been too easy. Nothing worth it is ever easy, she had heard. She had been pissed that Vinyl had made it so hard for her. She had to go to Canterlot . . .

She slammed her hoof down on the table. How had that ever made any sense at all? She took a large gulp from the glass sitting in front of her. The fiery warmth spreading down seemed to cover everything inside of her except the one certain bit in her stomach that this awfulness was originating from. Perhaps additional benefits were dose-dependant. She took another swig.

The last few notes of the melody trickled through, trailing down, the bass now gone. Octavia tried to shake off the feeling that had dropped down on her, but couldn’t make it budge. Suddenly a dark creeping sensation welled up, and a tingle of panic came at the familiarity of this sudden bitterness. She had thought she had left these feelings back in Canterlot. Being back with Vinyl was what was going to cure them—so why wasn’t it?

The melody trailed down, leading to the final resolving note . . . wait, she thought suddenly, were was it? That was the end? Octavia’s head snapped up. That was an incomplete IV-V cadance! She glanced around, half expecting the ghost of Beethooven to streak towards the stage and strike out the last resolving note. Vinyl had completely left her hanging! A thin smile crept onto Octavia’s face. It was a sort of metaphorical poetic justice, she concluded. Then she took a drink, her forehead creased in frustration as she caught herself teetering back over the edge of a place from which she thought she had escaped.

Octavia finished her drink as Vinyl tore down her kit. Once stored away, the DJ made her way over to the table where Octavia sat. “You . . . didn’t like it?” Vinyl asked as she saw Octavia, though not sounding or looking put out in any way. Or all that surprised.

Octavia realized she was looking rather grim, and tossed on a wide grin. “Oh, no, I actually quite enjoyed it!”

“You don’t have to pretend. It’s cool.” Vinyl pulled on a cocky grin. “I know how awesome I am, and that’s what counts.”

“Believe me Scratch,” Octavia said with a wry look, “the last thing I’d worry about is harming your ego. It’d take a pony far greater than I to accomplish that.” She smiled. “No, really, I enjoyed it. Excellent use of repetition to establish a pattern, then variation to take it off in a different direction. The way you built up the intensity and tension was great, but you also knew when to pull back to keep it fresh.”

“Wow . . . you were listening. And, like, listening,” Vinyl said, obviously trying not to seem too amazed.

“Two and a half years of intense academic music training—I could analyse the musical qualities of the buzzing of that fluorescence-magic light,” Tavy said. “And you are rather a bit more interesting than that, I will say.” She laughed. Vinyl didn’t. “Seriously though, I’ve never not thought that you have an excellent feel for music. It was good!”

“Yeah? Well . . . thanks Tavy,” Vinyl said, trying to brush off the compliment like it was no big deal. But from the light blush creeping up on Vinyl, Tavy could tell her praise meant a bit more to Vinyl than she would let on.

Bon Bon approached the table. “Great set Vinyl Scratch, as usual. Want a drink?”

“Hey Bon Bon, thanks. Yeah, I’ll get the usual.”

“So. You two are together now?” she asked.

“Uh . . . yes. Yes we are,” Vinyl said.

“Huh. Who would have thought.” She walked off.

“Was that . . . sarcasm? I actually can’t tell.” Vinyl turned to Octavia, tilting her head slightly. “Was she being snippy with us? I wouldn’t say that’s unusual for her, but . . . was she like that when you got here?”

“I, Uh . . .” Tavy looked away. “I may have had to look at her bum to remember her name . . .”

Once Vinyl had finished having a hearty and thorough laugh at Tavy’s expense, she raised an eyebrow. “What’s up? You’re totally not laughing. That was hilarious. You know, she’s totally—oh wait, no, you wouldn’t know! Okay, so, get this! She’s totally in this completely obvious ‘secret’ relationship with—awesome! Awesome. That’s just, so great. Thanks!”

“No problem . . .” Bon Bon gave Vinyl an odd look as she set the drink Vinyl had ordered on the table, and walked away.

“Hwoo, that was close!” Vinyl cracked a large grin, turning back to Octavia. But it slipped away as she caught the look on her face. “Seriously, what’s up?”

“No, sorry . . . it’s just . . . mostly nothing. Nevermind.” Tavy took another drink. She tried to shake off what she was feeling, as it was infinitely less preferable than having a laugh with Vinyl. It was just . . . tenacious.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Vinyl looked to the side a bit. “Uh . . . if it’s about us or whatever, it’s alright if you want to talk about it,” Vinyl said in a way Tavy would almost say seemed nervous—if that was not something she was quite sure Vinyl was altogether incapable of feeling. Now paying a bit more attention to Vinyl, however, Tavy could see that the earlier excitement may have been a bit forced on Vinyl’s part. The unicorn shifted in her spot a bit as she continued on. “I mean, if you’re not totally sure about . . . well, us . . . because, you know, things have gone pretty fast. It’s been, what? Two days? It’s okay if—”

“No! No, it’s not that. I . . . this is what I want. To be with you,” Octavia stated. She saw how Vinyl could be getting those kind of signals from her, but it wasn’t like that at all. “No, it’s just . . .” Tavy tried to think of what exactly it was. She tried to nail it down to something that would make some kind of sense. “Well, I guess I’m still feeling bad about how I left you—is what I think this is. Like, the kiss. I mean, you kissed me, and I yelled at you and left.”

Vinyl looked at her for a moment, saying nothing. Then she sighed. “No, actually, I think I should apologize.” She took her glasses off, setting them on the table. “I really want to say I’m sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“How I kissed you like that!” Vinyl said quickly. “At the party way back then!” She was avoiding looking at Tavy. “That wasn’t okay. It was selfish and stupid. I had, like, this totally hopeless crush on you or whatever, and then you were leaving, and then I was all, ‘consequences be bucked!’ I really didn’t think that it’d do all that to you and stuff . . .”

“Really? Well . . . it’s okay. I mean . . . I was mostly alright about the kiss actually. It made me think about things, but . . . I think it made me happy—”

“What?” Vinyl’s head snapped up to look at Tavy. “You didn’t hate me because of that?”

“No. I mean, you were my best friend. If that had really bothered me—if I really hadn’t felt mostly the same way about you—I would’ve just said something. Don’t you remember how close we were? That would have been nothing compared to some of the things we talked—”

“Then why the buck did you leave me?!”

Tavy flinched from Vinyl’s sudden volume, stumbling over her words for a moment. “You . . . I . . . I was going to leave! I had been pushing everything down—setting myself up to leave everything!” Why was Vinyl so surprised? Tavy thought they had been over this. Though, as a dark falling sensation made it’s way back into her, she realized that they hadn’t really gone over this all that thoroughly, at all. “D-Didn’t you say you didn’t care about that?” Tavy said, hearing a hint of panic sneaking into her voice. “You said you were mad at me because I left—that all that about the kiss wasn’t such a big deal anymore! I mean . . . we didn’t really say that specifically, but that’s what we were really talking about, wasn’t it?”

The initial surprise on Vinyl’s face started to seep away, but began to fall into a harsher expression. “Okay,” said Vinyl evenly, “even if there was this big secret thing that we were really talking about—even though nopony mentioned it—yeah, I’d pretty much say that I had been okay with all that.” She set her hoof down on the table. “Because I thought you were being honest about what you said you had felt! That the kiss wasn’t well received, and that it screwed with you, and set you off. And that’s why you left . . . yeah, in that case, I would’ve been okay with how everything had happened. I was an ass to do that, and would’ve mostly deserved it all. I felt bad, okay?” She ran a hoof through her mane, letting out a puff of breath that was almost a laugh, leaning back from the table a bit. “But now you’re basically saying you felt the same way?! I was bucked up after that, Tavy!” Vinyl brought her foreleg off the table, holding it out to the side a little. “Can you see why I’m freaking out a bit, here?”

“Well I’m sorry! I’m saying that now! I just . . . was so prepared to be leaving. And then you suddenly . . . and then maybe there was something I wanted more than going to Canterlot, okay? Years of psyching myself up so it wouldn’t hurt when I left, and you tore that all down in one night! I was so frustrated—”

“Kay, yeah, that’s all about you. Did you happen to think of what I was feeling? Contrary to public image, I don’t go around kissing fillies left and right. You knew that!”

“What . . . but I . . .” Octavia was caught short for a moment, her mouth falling slack. It was true, she hadn’t thought much about what Vinyl must have been feeling. But her face hardened. “Well, okay, yes, I was selfish. But you were, too! You just said so yourself!”

“But I was, like, selfishly honest, or whatever. You were being . . .” Vinyl waved her hoof in the air. “Selfishly deceptive!” she concluded.

“Huh, that’s convenient that that makes it suddenly not any of your fault! What the buck?”

“Tavy, I was bucked up after that! I mean, like, it screwed me up a bit, I think . . .”

“You think I wasn’t screwed up from this!” Octavia let loose. “Yeah, who’s being selfish right now, then? For three years I had no idea what the buck I was clopping doing . . . no idea what I was doing it for. Nothing was familiar! I had nopony I could even relate to! And it turns out I really had made you completely hate me! And you’re not really even forgiving me for it!”

“Would that actually change anything?!” Vinyl shouted back. Then she settled back down, falling into a regular speaking level. “This has already happened. We’re just back where we started. The damage is done.”

They sat for a time in silence, not making eye contact. Bon Bon shot venom at them as she passed by their table, bringing drinks over to another group.

“Clearly . . .” Vinyl began, “we both have a lot more baggage from all this than we had thought. I don’t know Tavy, I—”

“But we’re both here now.” Tavy said. “I think that . . . maybe . . . we could probably just let it go now.”

Vinyl’s eyebrows fell straight, and she stared at Tavy. “What, seriously? That’s your answer? Yeah, okay—ploof! There. Gone.” Vinyl rolled her eyes. “What the buck Tavy?”

“No. Really. Just . . . we need to forget about all that. Thinking about it hasn’t made it go away, talking about it hasn’t made it go away, and apologizing obviously won’t. Maybe . . . forgetting about it will.”

“What, just shove it back down? That’s worked so very well for both of us these last few years. I’m sure—”

“But it’s different this time. I’m here and you’re here. It’s time to let it go. Like, me, too. Both of us.”

“That . . . is just a ridiculous suggestion. Like, really—so bad.”

Octavia reached over and put her hoof on Vinyl’s. “Just . . . forget. We’ll make it okay.”

Vinyl was pointedly looking away. “That’s bucking stupid. Are you even hearing the noises coming from your mouth?”

Tavy reached over and took the side of Vinyl’s face with her other hoof, directing the unicorn to meet her gaze. “Come on. Try it. For me. For our thing?” Tavy kissed her, with no question in the action. Though Vinyl was resistant, Tavy felt her begin to relax, slumping into Tavy’s statement.

“Okay, shouting, or making-out, or whatever—it’s time to find a room to do that in that isn’t this one.”

Without breaking from the kiss, Tavy stuck her foreleg out toward Bon Bon, making an obscene gesture with her hoof.

“Gah!” Bon Bon turned away. “Whatever! We’re not serving you anymore. Pay your tab and leave!”

Vinyl and Octavia walked together, the sound of the case containing Vinyl’s kit rattling on as it rolled behind her, echoing out around the silence surrounding them. Tavy pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

“You should really think about stopping that,” Vinyl said, not turning her head. “I mean, obviously it’s evil or whatever, but it also tastes bad, too.”

“What? Hey! Deal with it!”

Vinyl turned to face Tavy. She had put her glasses back on, but a frown was clearly visible from overtop them. “You deal with it! You . . . smoker!” Tavy blinked, and Vinyl opened her mouth a moment, but closed it and faced ahead once more. They walked on, and the quiet of the night set back in.

I . . . I’m sorry I got us kicked out,” Tavy said eventually.

“Whatever. That clopping Bon Bon’s just a jealous clopping mare who’s jealous.” Vinyl paused, then shook her head slightly.

Tavy rolled her eyes. “Your insults are noticeably lacking tonight, Vinyl. Thought I’d point that out.” Then she looked over at Vinyl. “And what do mean jealous? Ponies just lining up to get at you, or what?”

“Not jealous of you, you . . .” Vinyl cut out, her mouth searching for a word to form, but then she sighed. “Okay, I’m just freaking out a bit, alright? And I’m still mad at you!” Vinyl looked to the side, frowning. “Well . . . not mad at you, exactly. Though I am a bit. At old-Tavy, I guess. I just . . . she’s dating Lyra.”

Octavia said nothing for a moment. “Bon Bon, you mean? With Lyra?” she asked, going along with Vinyl’s abrupt topic change.

“Yeah,” Vinyl said. “Like I was saying earlier, it’s totally obvious that they’re trying to act like it’s a secret, but everypony knows. What’s up with that?”

“So . . . that’s why they were both giving us such a hard time today, hey?”

Vinyl nodded, and the silence was back.

Octavia watched the smoke she expelled curl up and twirl away. She jerked her shoulder, shifting the saddlebags she was wearing, thinking of the record she had brought along. She couldn’t remember seeing Vinyl like this, before. She took another puff. Maybe it’d be best for both of them to have a bit of space right now, she thought. It’d give them each a chance to work things out. She felt the creeping dark fallingness trying to sneak back in unnoticed, as if it weren’t suddenly the only thing she could think about . . . and Tavy stopped.

No, space and thinking and silence were the last things she needed. It was what had turned an ancient, baseless argument—which should have been able to be fixed in about four words—into the . . . monster it had become. She blew out smoke, taking the cigarette out of her mouth. She didn’t know if it was the same for Vinyl or not, though. Did Vinyl even want to be around her, right now?

She blinked, shaking her head, then her eyes snapped open. Tavy tossed her smoke to the ground, crushing it under a hoof. This was ridiculous, she realized—there was no point in trying to reason out what Vinyl was thinking when she was standing right there beside her.

“I want to come over to your place,” was what Octavia said. “I’ve got that jazz record I wanted to play for you, and . . . I still think we should do that. Like we planned.”

Vinyl looked at her for a long moment, her thoughts hidden behind her shades. Finally, she opened her mouth to speak. “Okay.”

“Hey, look. There’s room to walk now,” Tavy said as they entered Vinyl’s apartment.

“Yeah, I cleaned up a bit,” Vinyl said, setting her packed-up kit over against the wall, and walked over to the counter. “Do you want a—”

“Yes,” Tavy said. “And make it a proper Vinyl-pour, if you would.” She made her way over to the futon couch.

Vinyl brought over two tumblers, each of which were nearly half full. Vinyl set her equipment back up in silence. Once finished, she went over to the couch and sat down, taking off her glasses. When Tavy finally spoke, their glasses were significantly less full.

“Okay, I’ll put on that record—”

“Tavy I . . .” Vinyl cut her off. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. This . . . is really bothering me. You liked me, and wanted to be with me, and still left me to go to Canterlot?”

Octavia put her hoof on the side of Vinyl’s face. “. . . We should forget about all that—”

“Stop saying that! That’s still ridiculous, Tavy, no matter how many times you say it,” Vinyl said, looking away from her. Octavia held her there for a moment, still holding a smile, before pushing Vinyl’s face to the side in a silly, exaggerated way. Tavy got up and went to get her record, and brought it over to the DJ pony’s turntable. Once setting the record down on it, she took only a moment or two before switching it on. She lowered the arm, and the needle touched the record. Tavy turned back around.

“Tavy, come on, seriously. I . . . uh . . .” she trailed off. “Wow . . . that’s—”

“Right?” Tavy smiled and made her way back to the couch.

“What is—”

“Bari sax.”

“That thing . . . it . . .”

“Doesn’t it?” Octavia said, a grin touching her face, only the slightest hint of smugness to it.

“. . . It screams.”

The saxophone tore up into it’s higher octave, then flew down, labouring a few runs going back up a number of times along the way, and muddled around on the lower notes. Tossing back up, it went into a fall, and then dropped away for an easy breath. It came back in with a sort of melody, blaring out the lowest note.

“I maintain that if Luna had picked up one of those a thousand years back, we wouldn’t be seeing much of the sun these days,” Tavy said. Vinyl rolled her eyes, but distractedly, as if she was only half paying attention to Octavia.

With a bass kick, the bari switched into a variation.

“This isn’t the original version of the song actually,” Tavy explained to a Vinyl that wasn’t listening. The rest of the band began filtering in, Vinyl bobbing her head a bit. “It’s a Mingus tune, with Pepper Tone on the bari. This version’s done by a group with a few alumni from the original band, but with mostly new players,” Tavy continued, unable to stop now that she had gotten going. “Though Pepper changed the way ponies play that horn, I think Cuber here picks right up where he left off.”

A trombone and trumpet shot around a counter melody to the bari’s licks, with the drummer slinking away on the cymbals. Tavy was having difficulty keeping still, swaying and bobbing her head left and right, and soon noticed the pony beside her was similarly afflicted.

With a switch-up on the drums, the bass plunked into a driving rhythm, the horn section pulling up around it. Tavy sprung up. “Though not strictly-speaking swing, this song swings! Doesn’t it?”

“Tavy, I actually have no idea.”

After slamming back the rest of her drink, Octavia bounded into the center of the room, lifting herself up on just her back legs. “Come on, Scratch!”

The other horns began tearing off into almost random-seeming licks, and Vinyl just sat, taking a sip from her drink. Neither of them moved for a moment.

“Hurry up!” Tavy said. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing how long you can stand like that. That’s amazing!”

The drummer switched into a different beat, driving it along, with the other horns laying out a syncopated unison rhythm. Tavy shifted her weight as she got antsy, her brow falling straight. “You’re supposed to come over here, too. We’re going to dance now!”

“No way.”

Tavy sighed, plopping back to all-fours. She sprung over to the couch. Just as Vinyl looked to be plotting an emergency escape route, Tavy grabbed her front legs and pulled her up, swinging her to the center of the room. Once there, she pushed the unicorn away while holding onto her front hooves, then pulled back in time with the music—which was rather fast.

With the horns shouting out, they fell back into a unison, with the bari still ripping beneath it all. “Wha—hey!” Vinyl stumbled, trapped in the dancing mad-mare’s throw-and-catch routine. Tavy moved easily to the music, lilting side to side as she did, all the while managing to somehow keep Vinyl aloft. But then, just after been pushed away, Vinyl got her left leg hooked behind her right, and toppled backwards. Tavy caught her, and spun her into a dip.

“You’re a terrible dancer!” Tavy said, laughing.

“Wha-Whatever!”

The horns broke off into cacophony, the drummer knocking around a sort of fill behind it, as Tavy flew Vinyl around the tiny room. The pianist chomped out chords, and a trumpet yelled up over top of it all, then spiraled it’s way back down.

“This dance move’s called the ‘octopus!’ ” Tavy said, grinning like an idiot. “It sounds like it suits me, don’t you think? Look, now you move your forelegs like this . . . and then I—” Vinyl found herself standing with her back towards Tavy, all manner of hooves tangled up in front of her, and then she was suddenly tilting backwards. Then she was twirling to the side, coming to a sharp stop as Tavy remained connected to her at one hoof. A tug, they snapped back together, and everything stopped.

When everything started moving again, Vinyl found herself being kissed, and the two of them were moving back towards the couch. Tavy maneuvered Vinyl around the coffee table, while sliding a hoof along Vinyl’s back, keeping them pressed together as they kissed. Still standing upright, Vinyl stumbled, and Tavy shifted, resting the unicorn on the coffee table, the unicorn’s tail splaying out atop it. With their mouths still pressed together, their tongues pushed against each other’s, the ponies sucking and gasping out around them.

Tavy pulled Vinyl off the table she had sat her on, tossing the both of them over to the couch. Slumping onto it, still sitting upright, they grabbed at each other. Tavy pulled through Vinyl’s mane, locking them together. Flying her forelegs down to to Vinyl’s sides, her lips smeared away from Vinyl’s mouth, slipping down to her neck. Vinyl reached up and grabbed Tavy’s ear in her mouth, her white hooves tangling in Tavy’s mane.

Tavy wrapped her forelegs around Vinyl, looping around her midsection and across her back, pulling her closer. She wanted Vinyl to feel her more—to cover as much surface area as she could at once—to drive Vinyl crazy. She sucked and nibbled at Vinyl’s neck, and Vinyl gasped, tightening her grasp on Tavy’s mane.

Octavia grabbed Vinyl more firmly, lifting her up slightly and depositing her on her back. Tavy shifted herself, slipping down Vinyl’s body, kissing her chest down to her belly. She slid her hoof down to Vinyl’s flank, and across the pair of backwards eighth notes. Vinyl let a short moan escape her mouth, her hips giving a little jolt forwards. Tavy moved lower . . .

“Wait. Stop,” Vinyl said. Tavy sat up, and Vinyl lit up her horn and stopped the record from playing.

“Do you . . . I thought you—” Octavia began quickly.

“It’s not that, I do, it’s just . . . I know what you’re trying to do,” Vinyl said. “Ponies can’t just forget about things like that. That’s not how it works. It’ll keep coming up. We’re not going to be able to keep dancing around it forever.”

“Of course not—you’re an awful dancer.” Tavy said, frowning as she looked over to the turntable that had betrayed her. “I had something else in mind . . .”

“Octavia! Seriously I—”

“I don’t want to think about it anymore, alright?!” Tavy shouted. The silence nearly reverberated around them, sharply contrasting the horns that had just been wailing. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it in three years, and I just want to stop.” Tavy said. “It’s bucked me up, alright? There was a while where I . . . dreaded that I’d let my thoughts slip and that they’d land on you, because when they did, everything seemed so bleak or pointless or hopeless or whatever!” She looked up at the ceiling, taking a breath and a moment to keep from breaking down. She looked back down at Vinyl. “And I don’t want to feel that way about you anymore. I don’t want to be that far away from you anymore.”

Tavy blushed and looked away. “It’s true I can’t know what you felt, or how you feel now, except I think that maybe you might love me, and I know I . . . well I mean, obviously . . . I think it’s pretty clear I totally love you . . .” Tavy put her hooves on Vinyl’s shoulders, looking down into her eyes. “And we need to stop thinking before we turn into completely insane crazy-ponies and lose each other properly. Like, we aren’t really all that far from crazy as it stands, so that goes doubly so!” She paused a moment. The white unicorn didn’t say anything, and just stared back up at her. “And I think . . . this is a way we can do that. I mean, I love you . . . and I want to feel it. More than any bad things. More than all the mundane things. More than any things.”

Neither pony moved for quite a while, their still-heavy breathing the only noise that wasn’t the silence around them. Tavy’s mane spilt down around her face as she leaned over Vinyl, who lay, silent, holding her gaze.

“Okay,” Vinyl said, suddenly splitting the silence. With a flick of her horn, the music started back up. She reached up and pulled Tavy into a kiss.