You guys, what an amazing response, I love you all! Especially those of you who have PMed me and just been lovely, lovely people. I do think the NG fandom is one of the best ones out there for great authors and readers.

You wanted more, so I have decided to give you more. This is now a multichapter, and it's gonna get wild and free and sexehhh. :) Also, Ztofan helps me with ideas, American spelling, continuity, general life, and points out words that do not actually exist and therefore I have simply made up in my head. So she deserves all the cookies. She gave me cookie. Give her cookie.

Basketcase 16 coming...tomorrow?

Alone: Chapter 2

Nick had woken up alone before, and he had been happy about it. He was the type of man who loved women, found them curious and soft and wonderful creatures, but Nick's problem was that he hated people. Especially his fucking ex-girlfriend.

So when Caroline had dumped him and he had gone out to countless bars, sleeping with gorgeous women and average women and sometimes just any woman, when any woman would do, he hadn't wanted them to stay. He wanted to screw them in the haze of alcohol and lust, and then when he woke up he wanted to drink coffee and eat bacon and remain in his boxers for the rest of the day, without some random pair of tired, make-up streaked eyes judging him with a lingering glance that said thank god I don't have to spend the rest of the day with this messed up human being.

When he woke up on this particular morning and found his bed empty, it had felt wrong. The sheets were cold, the room was drained of color, his hangover was worse. Everything felt off-kilter. He was pretty sure he had fallen asleep in her arms, those nails raking gently, deliciously over his scalp as he drifted off. Her smell had enveloped him as sleep took over. Nick wanted to fall asleep every night like that, in the afterglow of glorious sex, a beautiful woman clutching him to her, hair tickling his skin, the smell of flowers and coconut and sweat surrounding him.

That's when it dawned on him that all he wanted was to spend more time with Jess. One night simply wasn't enough.

"Ugh, Nick, she's just some random chick you met in a bar. She's not your freaking soulmate."

Nick rolled his eyes as Schmidt banged cupboards and drawers looking for whatever green tea herbal infusion shit he liked to drink. "Schmidt, I'm telling you man, this girl was different. She was so…bright." He grimaced at his choice of words.

Winston raised his eyebrows over his cup of coffee. "Aren't you supposed to be the next Hemingway? Bright, really?"

Nick shook his head, glaring at the kitchen island. "Look, I don't expect you guys to understand because you weren't the ones in bed with her last night-"

"Well, if you'd let us know maybe we…" Schmidt started with a smirk, but soon trailed off at the disgusted looks Nick and Winston were giving him.

"Three guys, one girl Schmidt? What is wrong with you? You need to think before you speak son," Winston shot at him, appalled.

"Anyway," Nick cut in, annoyed now. His roommates were worse than squabbling siblings. "You guys don't get it. She was different. I mean, she didn't do or say anything different than the other girls, but I just got a whole other vibe. We had sex and she left but…it wasn't just sex, y'know?" he pondered for a moment, sipping his coffee, trying to find the right words. Dammit, he was a goddamn writer and no one was gonna tell him otherwise. "We had a connection." He eventually settled for.

Schmidt scoffed, and Nick knew it was because he had heard all of this before, countless times. And Nick got it: Schmidt was worried. He was worried Nick was going to grow fond of Jess, try to mold her into the person he was so desperately trying to fill his empty heart with. She was going to like him, at first, and then she was going to find his empty bottles, the moldy pizza under his bed, the towel on the bathroom rack that smelled like a rotten burrito. And just like all the others, she was going to leave. She would be cautious and kind about it, but she would leave him, and Nick would slowly revert back to his damaged self once more.

"Well, if you think she's something special I think you should go look for her." Winston announced to the table. Schmidt whipped round, eyes widening in a warning look. Winston had been Nick's childhood friend back when they thought girls had diseases, and then Nick had hit puberty and gone to college and Schmidt had taken over, watching him fall apart over and over at the hands of Caroline. Winston may have thought he knew Nick best, but when it came to women Schmidt was absolutely in his element.

"No." he said flatly. Winston glared at him.

"Come on man. He likes this girl. He's just fucked her in the dark and she's left and he still wants to see her again."

"Winston, this is Nick we're talking about. There are a million ways this could go down, and they all have one common denominator – the word disaster."

"I'm literally right here guys!" Nick snapped, standing up. "I get it, I'm a mess, I'm fucked up. This girl thinks she's messed up too, I could tell. Well, maybe we're supposed to find each other and clean up each other's mess, okay? I'm good at fixing things, it's one of the very few things I'm good at. I've made a decision. I'm going to find her and I'm gonna ask her out."

Winston slapped a hand on the table in triumph, standing and giving Nick an enthusiastic high-five. "That's what I like to hear."

Schmidt sighed. "All right, okay. Do what you want. Winston, I'm appointing you head shoulder for when Nicholas here needs one to cry on." He started to stalk back to his room, but stopped briefly at the doorway, taking a step back to turn and look at the two of them. "Good luck though. I mean it." He shot Nick a small smile. "I'll wash your towels for you."

With that, he shut his door behind him, and Nick couldn't help but laugh. Schmidt was a royal douchebag, but he had a heart of gold.

Entering his bedroom again, he cast his eyes over the small space. Last night's clothes were still strewn over the floor, and he picked up the shirt, passing his fingers over the loose thread where his button had snapped off. Suddenly, he felt empty again. He couldn't sew buttons onto things, that's what a girlfriend was supposed to do. She was supposed to sigh dramatically and roll her eyes and say something about a feminist world and he was supposed to stop listening because she was too damn pretty when she was mad. Instead he was stupidly touching his shirt and wondering whether he should throw it in the trash or just wear it without the button because if he was honest, he was running out of decent clothes and really couldn't afford new ones.

Something caught his eye, and he placed the material to one side, squinting at it. It glinted under the bed where Jess had slept, and as he drew closer he realized it was a piece of jewelry. A necklace. It must have slipped off her neck while they were pawing at each other.

Picking it up, Nick sank into his desk chair. The chain was tiny and delicate, a curved 'J' at the bottom. Definitely Jess'. He placed the thing in the palm of his hand, watching the silver pool together in the grooves of his skin. He had no idea how he was going to find her. She had left him absolutely nothing but this necklace.

Rubbing a hand tiredly over his face, Nick closed his fist around the chain, swivelling round in his chair to face his desk and opening his laptop. Some research was in order.

As he scrolled helplessly through Facebook, webpages, Google images, he found nothing, and it was starting to seriously piss him off. Jess was a total enigma. With a frustrated groan, he pushed away from the desk, unable to shake the memory of her crying out his name, her hair fanned out over the pillow. "What are you doing to me Jess," he muttered to himself, pushing his knuckles into his eyes.

When he opened them again, his eyes fell on the dog-eared notebook by his desk lamp. He cocked his head slightly to the side. His unfinished novel, the one he had been trying to write since the day Caroline left him. Writer's block had consumed him, and it had been abandoned for at least a week now. Nick reached out and pulled the book towards him, flipping through the pages. Nothing about Julius Pepperwood and his zombie case came to mind, but a whole array of other images suddenly assaulted his brain – undressing Jess. Her tongue running over those red lips. Her skin under his hands. The look on her face when she came beneath him.

It was like a light bulb went off over his head. Placing the book hastily to one side, he closed the browser on his laptop and opened a Word document. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but his fingertips were itching to tap furiously away at the keyboard. He started to write.

Jess was tapping her foot nervously against the side of Cece's breakfast bar, her eyes fixed on the clock above the kitchen sink. She hadn't seen her best friend in two days, and Jess was fairly sure they weren't speaking.

When Jess had left that bar with Nick, she had left Cece. Cece had been alone in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by a large amount of sexually frustrated men, who had clearly all spotted her sipping obliviously on a pink straw. Only after Jess had returned to the apartment the next day to find her missing did it dawn on Jess that she had done a very stupid thing. Cece would never have left Jess in a bar by herself. It was just about number one on the Best Friend Don'ts List.

Sipping her now cold tea, Jess tried to quell the churning in her stomach. She had eventually managed to find out where her best friend had been – with a man, of course – but since then Cece had been working constantly, and the two women hadn't crossed paths at all despite the fact that they lived together. Worry gnawed away at Jess' insides. She knew going home with Nick was a bad idea.

The sound of the door opening made her jump out of the bar stool, her tea spilling slightly. "Cece!" Jess cried as the beautiful brunette paused at the doorway, eyebrows raised. "I am so sorry I left you on New Year's, I was so drunk and stupid and this guy, he took me home and it was just, wow, the best sex I've ever had and I completely forgot about everything, including you and even myself at one point because I pretty much floated out of my body and was watching from above, as creepy as that sounds but what I'm trying to say is-"

Cece's laugh stopped her mid-rant. Jess straightened up, eyes wide. "What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry and I love you and I'm a bad friend."

Cece dropped her purse on the couch, approaching Jess and pulling her into a hug. "I know you are sweetie. I forgive you."

Stunned, it took Jess a few seconds to return the embrace. "You do? Just like that?"

"Well, I've had a few days to stew about it, so I guess I'm okay now." She shrugged, heading for the coffee machine. "Besides, I think you might have needed a good lay to get the-guy-who-will-not-be-mentioned out of your head."

Jess frowned, confused. "Voldemort?"

"Spencer," Cece replied, bemused.

"Oh. Yeah." Jess looked at her slipper-clad feet. "Jerk."

"Anyway," Cece said as she poured out some coffee, "my night was a bust. The guy turned out to be this huge Pokemon fan and basically made me watch the films with him. Did you know there are ten Pokemon films?" she said, turning to her, aghast. "Like, is that Ketchup dude a vampire or immortal or what? He's been about 14 years old forever."

Jess flopped down in her seat again, smiling. "But, less about me, I wanna hear about this amazing sex you had." Cece continued, joining her at the island.

Jess took a deep breath. "It felt like it was…just, exactly what I needed. It's hard to explain Ceec. But it was dirty. Tiger-Boobs had nothing on whoever I was that night."

Cece grinned, raising her mug to her lips. "This Nick guy, he just took me. We barely introduced ourselves before we were all over each other. It was pure instinct with him. No fluff, just raw animal magnetism."

"That's called fucking, Jess," Cece said simply, making Jess nearly choke. "You had to experience it one day."

Jess stared at her. She had expected to be horrified at the filthy way Cece was describing it, but instead, she seemed to be agreeing with it. Now Cece had said it out loud, it fit perfectly. That's what it was. And she quite liked that fact that it had happened to her. In fact, she wanted more.

"Did you get his number?" Cece asked.

"Huh?" Jess said, momentarily distracted by memories of his rough hands, the noises he made in her ear while they were rocking against each other. "What did you say?"

Cece laughed. "His number. This Nick guy. Did you get it?"

"Uh, no. I left as soon as I woke up." Jess remembered her thought process as she sneaked out of his apartment. She had been unhappy that night, the mixture of alcohol and rejection fresh in her bones. She might even venture that she hated men that night. She hated what they did to her. She hadn't wanted to stick around and wait for Nick to wake up, see the disappointment in his eyes when he registered that she was still there, hear the lame excuses he made in order to get her to leave. I have work. Oh, look at the time, we better be getting up. I'll call you, okay. I'll definitely call you.

"Well, well. Jessica Day, screwing and leaving since 2014." Cece teased. Jess laughed and shrugged. "Don't worry babe, you'll find another guy who can blow your mind that way. It might take a while, and a few faked orgasms, but you'll find him eventually." She stood and patted Jess on the back, heading for her room, leaving Jess perched on her seat, a strange feeling in her chest.

After a while, Jess thought about getting dressed. Worrying about her situation with Cece had expended all of her efforts, and now she knew they were okay it was probably a good idea to get out of her pajamas. Opening her closet, she picked out a dress and tights and laid them carefully on her bed. The dress she was wearing when Nick took her was lying forlornly on top of her laundry pile. She sighed, staring at it. God, she wanted to have sex again. Mind-blowing sex, she realized, had this amazing tendency to do the complete opposite of satisfying her. She was already craving it again. And she wanted it with Nick.

Huffing angrily, Jess realized she was kind of turned on just thinking about it. This stupid man had made his mark on her, branded her. She felt different now. She was a different woman – her thoughts were dirtier, her desires heightened. She rubbed a hand absentmindedly over the skin of her stomach under her pajama top. Great, she thought as goose bumps prickled on her arms. There was only ever one thing she could do in these situations.

Crossing the room to her laptop, she opened it, typing a web address into the browser at the top of her screen. When she was frustrated like this, Jess liked to read. She liked to read about love and struggle and people finding their way to each other, but most of all she liked to read about sex. In particular, the people she had been rooting for having sex. It was romantic and beautiful, and sexy, and it made the process of touching herself better, her senses enhanced.

This time, however, Jess wanted to read something dirty. She wasn't even ashamed of it. Who was going to know, really? She scrolled through her favorite website, looking for the right section. Jess hated porn, it was gross and sexist and just plain unrealistic, but she loved literotica. It was sensual and lovely. And women didn't have to exploit themselves to make it possible.

Sinking into her chair, she looked at some of the stories posted on there. She was pretty riled up with thoughts of Nick, so she needed a quick fix and then a cold shower. Looking for short stories, she found one under the username JPEPPERWOOD. Shrugging slightly, she opened it. It sounded pretty suited to her needs.

She was looking at him, just looking, with those gorgeous blue eyes and that cleavage spilling out of her dress. Julius had never seen anything so desirable in his life. No other woman compared to her, and as she swirled the tip of the pen between lips that just begged to be bitten and sucked, he nearly came right there and then. Miss Knight was his for the night, and he knew it. Tossing waves of sweet smelling hair over her shoulder, she batted her eyelashes under those thick frames. Sweet as candy at work, dirty and wild after hours.

Leaning back in her chair, Jess drew in a sharp breath. Yes. This was exactly the type of thing she was looking for. JPEPPERWOOD knew how to get her going. She let a small smirk pass over her face as she untied the soft ribbon of her pajama bottoms, slipping a hand inside and continuing to read.

When she was in the shower afterwards, she thought about what she had just read. It had been hot, and sexy, and meaningful. Even when she had let her head loll back, her fingers stroking her into release as she silently moaned, she had still wanted to read it again, glowing from the aftermath of a great orgasm. The writing was amazing. It drew her in. She wanted to know what happened to this man's mysterious girl, Knight. It had just ended, and she found herself pouting, hoping for another paragraph.

As she toweled herself dry, her reflection foggy in the misted mirror, Jess thought about how the story had made her feel, and she came to a decision. Going back to her still open laptop, she clicked on the small envelope icon by JPEPPERWOOD's profile picture, a zombie priest. She didn't really get it, but whatever. She didn't understand why people didn't just use their own photos like her profile picture, of her smiling and holding an ice cream. No one could see what she had read anyway.

Settling herself on her bed in her towel, hair dripping on the keyboard, Jess typed out a message.

Hi JPepperwood!

You don't know me, but my name is Jess and I just read your 'One Night with Knight' story and thought it was really powerful. I wanted to let you know, I think you're a great writer. I was really drawn to your characters, and the way you wrote their love scene was both passionate and surprisingly sweet at the same time, like something happened between them, something amazing. Anyway, I hope you don't mind me messaging you. I just thought we could chat, since I admire your work.

Eagerly awaiting more of your writing,

Jess x

Lying on his messy bed, laptop open beside him, Nick couldn't quite believe his luck.