Prompt #83: Out Cold
Rating: PG
She rubbed bleary eyes as she yawned deeply. Turning lethargically onto her side, still half-asleep, she groped for her alarm to- she paused in her movements, fingers finding the small OFF button still depressed. She squinted up at the neon numbers – 3:02 am. With a groan, she rolled back onto her back, wondering what on earth had caused her to wake up at such an ungodly hour. Must be all that caffeine I chugged last night time during which she had spent preparing for respiratory physiology. Yawning again, she buried herself back in the warmth of her duvet, slowly drifting off into the land of…
Her eyes shot open again, and this time, the sound registered – the door knob resisting someone's incessant turning against the lock. She sat up in her bed, skin prickling. The muffled curse and the thud of fist meeting wood kicked her preservation response into high gear. Someone's breaking in someone's breaking in someone's breaking in-
Slipping out of her bed (gasping as the cold hit her) she edged towards the front of the apartment. Just soft metallic twangs now – he was probably picking the lock (not very skillfully, by the sounds of it) – and she'd she'd forgot to set the dead-bolt. Running a shaking hand through her short hair, she made a mental note to kick herself if she made it out alive. Stupid stupid… what's the use of having genius IQ if all your memory can do is fail?
She glanced wildly around the room, cold momentarily forgotten. Chairs, table, vase, textbooks – heavy, potentially lethal, good – lamp, wine, windows Windows! Windows meant balcony which meant escape if she- what? Jumped? She wanted to hit herself.
Um um umm ummmmm…
There was grunt of satisfaction and the lock clicked smoothly, and she could swear her heart stopped right there in her throat. There was only one thing left to do.
Tiptoeing to her stack of texts and lugging out the Gray's Anatomy dead weight, she moved as quickly as physically possible to position herself atop the chair beside the door. He was twisting the knob now; she waited, poised along the door frame. The door slid open a crack, light spilling in from the hallway, then to about forty-five degrees, followed by a leather-clad foot and dark jeans. Barely breathing, she imagined that if he looked up now, he'd probably have a heart attack himself.
Her arms were beginning to ache – if only he'd hurry up with his dramatic entrance! Come on come on, give me something important, like an expanse of cervical spine, or, you know, any part of your skull…
Finally the rest of his body swung to her side of the door frame, and the curly copper-coloured ponytail had barely registered in her adrenaline-addled brain before, with a great yell, she threw her weight behind the looming medical text and crash landed on the prone form of her intruder. Momentarily stunned, she hoped Gray's had poked a corner into something important (her sternum was testament to that). Then she realized her position and scrambled off the body, leaving the book where it had fallen (right clavicle and a significant part of the trachea).
She peered down at the new addition to her carpet, which gave a masculine groan before falling silent. Tentatively, she nudged her textbook off his chest with a foot, before issuing a groan of frustration herself, recognising the handsome face immediately. God-damn Zach. She sniffed – alcohol. Typical.
Hearing neighbours start to unlock their doors (she probably hadn't needed to yell so loudly), she grabbed the aforementioned Zach by his ankles, tugging him inside enough so she could close the door (locked and dead-bolted). She wondered if she could kick him (gently…) without him waking up. But she decided she'd be civil to a fellow student, so retrieved a bag of frozen carrots (which she deposited unceremoniously over the rapidly forming Gray's-Anatomy-shaped bruise), some novel from the Mina-recommended stack, a jacket, and perched on the edge of the chair to wait for his system to come back online.
After two chapters, he stirred slowly, and she grinned at the thought that his head must be killing him. As he hissed in pain, she waited for his eyes to adjust to his unconventional vantage point, take in his environment, then – "Ami? What to hell are you doing in my apartment?"
She rolled her eyes, turning a page. "It's my apartment, you drunk dolt. Yours is a floor down."
His hand pressed against his temple as he willed the room to stop spinning. "Thanks for the wake-up. You have quite an arm."
She pretended to be riveted to her book. "The normal response to intruders is heavy objects against skulls, isn't it?"
He blinked owlishly, processing, neck twisting as he tried to assess his surroundings. "Is that- is that Gray's Anatomy?"
She coughed. "I don't have a baseball bat. And my pot plant is too heavy."
"And frozen carrots? How considerate." He picked the plastic baggie off his chest. Guess his sarcasm hadn't been impaired at all.
"I don't like peas."
The room came to a standstill enough for him to sit upright. Even from behind her book, she could feel that annoying self-confidence/arrogance returning, and he really didn't have to talk-
"What the hell are you wearing?"
Incredibly frustrated at the blood flooding her cheeks, she tried to go for nonchalance. "My sleep clothes – eyes up here!" Crossing her legs and meeting his green eyes over the top of The Emancipation of Lady Francis, she mustered her sweetest voice – "If you don't leave right now, I'll give you a Boron-and-Boulpaep-shaped bruise to match the Gray's," before tapping her ankle against the pile of textbooks she'd propped beside her seat.
He stared incredulously. "You're bluffing." But he dragged himself to full height (and she hated how she now had to look up at him), and smirked before saluting, "Good night, Sailor Mercury," whistling as he disappeared into the corridor, and she realised that she'd forgotten all about blue bras under white camisoles.