Chapter Text
You wake up in someone else's house.
You remember the things Grandpa taught you when looking at an unfamiliar ceiling: don't panic, observe your surroundings, and check for condoms in the trash can to make sure things went safely. If there isn't anything the trashcan, you're supposed to tie down the victim and interrogate them about their sexual history with whatever ropes, twist ties, or shreds of toilet paper you can find in the room. Grandpa never instructed you to go down to the drugstore and maaaaayyybbbee get something to stop you from getting preggers, but you figured he wouldn't know since you're pretty sure he batted for the other team. You wonder what sort of things you can utilize for your interrogation when worst comes to worst. Maybe they're some douchebag who keeps butterfly knives around and doesn't know how to use them? Perhaps you can yank the sheets off the bed without them noticing and tie up their wrists? The possibilities are endless!
You count: "calmly thinking of interrogation methods" as a satisfactory qualification for the first step. Don't Panic. Check.
Alright, second step. Observe your surroundings.
You are lying flat on your back, glasses still on through some miracle, staring up at a very white, very blank ceiling. No scientific deductions to be made there, although you're glad you didn't wake up in the middle of the street. You feel the cool breeze from the morning air and you turn your head to your left, which hurts. Ow, okay, so you've got a hangover. Great. The view to your left reveals something rather important: you're not in a house, you're in a motel room. You can see a door into a hallway, a armchair, and a really shittily made dresser which is balanced on a phonebook. The edge of the top of it looks pretty sharp and you think you might have cut your hand on it, but a quick glance towards the aforementioned part resting on top of the blanket reveals there is no wound. Good to know, you suppose. The window's open and you can see a beautiful blue morning sky. It doesn't look like you're on the first or second floor, so if you need to make a fast getaway, you probably can't jump out of it.
Your clothes are scattered across the floor, but you don't spot your panties, which you think you're still wearing. You think. The other clothes on the floor are really big, baggy black things. Shit, you hope you didn't sleep with a juggalo or something. Who wears all black in this sort of heat?
You turn your head the other way, carefully adjusting for the pangs of your hangover. On your right, you see the sleeping form of the guy you totally boned last night.
He's... interesting. Yeah. Jade Harley, you picked a winner. The tattoos are what you see first. His back and arms are covered with strong, black lines, drawing jagged edges along very particular spots. Some of the zig-zags have smaller mirrored lines running alongside them, and some are punctuated with little dots and swirls. You can't see how far down they go, since the sheet is covering his nethers. It's got to mean something, but its not much like any art style you're familiar with.
He's facing away from you, his shoulders heaving with breath from a deep sleep. He's got a large mop of black hair, and while it's probably ruffled from being in bed, his hairstyle just looks like it would be really messy even if he brushed it. His skin is the shade of this really nice dark cherry dresser you used to have in your bedroom. Probably Mexican. You hope you got some Spanish practice in last night, you've been meaning to brush up on that. His waist curves like the kind of stereotypical girl figure you see in women's magazines at the gas station, and you push away the strong urge to start tickling his ribs. You see a bit of his earlobe behind a particularly pointy tuft of hair, and he looks like he has really big... what are they called? Gauges?
You think that's enough for step two. Besides, he's pretty scrawny in comparison to you, and you could probably break him in half with one arm if he started threatening you! Observe Surroundings. Check.
Step Three: Did you have safe sex?
This one is the most important one. You sit up like the monster in Frankenstein, partly for fun, partly because your head hurts a lot and you reaaaallllyyy don't want to move. And yes, your panties are most definitely on! Bra: not so much. It's way over by the door, too. Did that come off first or something? How? And more importantly, why?
You swing your legs over the edge of the bed (slooowwwwllyyy) and start to stand up.
"Jade?"
Aw, his voice sounds kind of cute! It's kind of quiet and husky, like he just quit smoking after thirty years of sheer lung cancer. You feel guilty you don't remember his name, but maybe you can prevent bad blood between you both by speaking in his native language. You turn to him (slowwwwllyyyyy) and try to remember your Spanish through the fog of a hangover.
"¿Buenos días, cómo estás?"
"Wow, are you fucking shitting me? Just because I've got skin darker than your average cover model doesn't mean I'm some kind of Spaniard, you racist punk."
Okay, you take it back, his voice isn't cute at all. It still sounds like lung cancer, but rubbed against a cheese grater and amplified by a megaphone. Your ears ring a little bit. You also feel maybe a little bit guilty for fucking that assumption up. You really need to stop that kind of stuff.
Also, who uses the term "Spaniard?" What the hell?
"Sorry, I was being dumb. Um, could you lower the volume a bit, though? I kind of have a hangover."
"Sure, whatever, I'm going back to sleep."
He rolls over. You forgot to get a good look at his face. What if he's got those weird tattoos all over his face? Actually, you probably wouldn't care too much but it would make for a good story to tell around the campfire.
Now you have finally arrived at Step Three. You stand up and shuffle around the room a bit, looking for any discarded birth control packages, wrappers, or the (probably gross and dried up by now) condom. You don't see one on the floor anywhere, so you look for a garbage bin. You hear a shifting on the bed and the beginnings of a whine.
"What the hell are you doing?"
He's TRYING to keep the volume down, you can tell, but it sounds like he's speaking through a wad of wet rags instead of actually lowering his voice. You look, and no, he is not speaking through some kind of barrier, he just talks like that. He doesn't have any of the strange tattoos on his face. He's actually pretty cute, a square jaw and flat nose with the remnants of a baby face, and just the little twinges of a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"I'm looking for a condom."
"Oh, we didn't use one."
You didn't WHAT? Oh shit, how could you be so stupid!? Ugh, where even are you in your cycle? You smack your head in disbelief, but waste no more time in remembering Grandpa's advice. You make a quick scan of the room, looking for any tools to utilize in your interrogation, but decide he's small enough for you to just take on by yourself.
You hurdle yourself onto the bed, ignoring the screams of your head and the screams of your mysterious suitor, and roll him flat on his back with practiced force. You pin both his wrists above his head with your right hand and press on his neck with your left, then clamp your thighs down on his hips. This guy isn't moving ANYWHERE.
"Tell me your sexual history!!! This includes partners and any STIs you have!!!!"
"Holy shit! This is an infringement on my personal rights!" he turned the volume back up to eleven. Ow ow ow. "I demand a lawyer to read me the Magna Carta!"
"Um, I don't think that's the right documen..." this is no time for foolish debates! You clamp down on his neck a little harder. "Shut up, fucker!!!! Start listing!"
"Give me one, solid reason for me to-gak- okay-okay. Uh. Partners: A lot. STIs: None."
What a wise-ass response, that shrew! "How many partners!!!"
"Shit, I don't know, I don't fucking count."
Just a little push.
"Gaaaakk- Okay, okay, let me just calm down for one brief second."
You give him the benefit of the doubt, let him start counting up. You relax your grip a bit and watch his eyes start moving back and forth with thought. You watch the fingers on his hands retract and extend with counting, your hand poised to clamp down at any time if he starts getting testy. You wait for about thirty seconds, with no sign of him slowing down.
"Ummm, you can't have had that many. And if you did there is literally no way you wouldn't have an STI."
"Shut up, I'm counting."
You look at him with your eyebrows furrowed, in what you hope is the most disapproving look you can muster.
He sighs, the bones of his shoulders shuddering under his skin. "Weren't you the one that wanted to know how many people I've slept with?"
"Yeah, but now I'm just bored!"
"Now you got me curious as all hell so don't interrupt me!"
"How old are you, anyway?"
He stares at you like you just ran over a deer. "You mean... You don't remember?"
Oh gosh, are his eyes beginning to water? He doesn't look dangerous at all when he's about to cry. "Not really?"
"Do you... even remember my name?"
Eridan? No, that was the one that tried to hit on you earlier. Tavros? No, that was the last guy. You put on your puppy dog eyes. "No? I'm sorry?"
His mouth purses together and his thick eyebrows close in rapidly and he looks absolutely destroyed. The puppy eyes appear to have failed on this one. You feel really bad so you release the grip on his neck a little, rolling your hand down to his chest. Maybe you should get off him? You unhook your legs and scuttle back to your side of the bed, lying down next to him with as much care as possible. He flips onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow. He screams into it, all dramatic-y, like something you see on the telemundo novelas (which you watch even though you can't understand a goddamn lick of it).
"I can't believe you forgot my name," says the boy, still loud through like, two layers of shitty motel pillow foam. "It's like I've been stabbed in the back, betrayed, left to die on the side of the road as a car runs over my corpse and truckers pull over to fuck me in the asshole."
"That's... not at all what it's like." you say. This guy is reaaaallyyy weird. Kind of reminds you of your ex-boyfriend except louder and the ironic metaphors are straight from the heart. So not at all like your ex. You gotta get out of here after you get more information about his STI's. "Besides, that's kind of a weird overreaction for a one night stand you know!"
He picks his head up from his pillow next and glares at you. Not only are his eyebrows pushing down, the gigantic bags that take up like half his face are pushing back up, narrowing his eyes into really intimidating coin slots. Or, they would be intimidating if he didn't look like he was about to throw a temper tantrum. "You... Really... Can't remember? Anything?"
Maybe you should throw the guy a bone. Start remembering from the beginning?
"Hold on a sec," you say. "I'll try thinking."
You close your eyes.