I wake up Sunday morning with my mind all in a haze...

[whattigerscanchange]

Who: A pretty random group of people who got stupid drunk at the Swap Meet.
What: The morning after.
Where: Sobex Croix. Probably. Check the GPS?
When: Pre-dawn, Shundi.
Notes: Organisational post can be found here.
Warnings: Bad behaviour. Possibly furries.

The sun has not quite yet risen over Baedal, or Sobex Croix in specific. Moonlight illuminates the shapes of several bodies in a sprawling clearing, or a field. Nearly all of them are unconscious. At least one appears to be dead – at a glance anyway.

Several items are scattered amongst the people as well, including but not limited to: a pair of women's underwear, roughly a half dozen empty bottles of hard liquor, a couple plastic tiaras, several inflatable sheep -some being used as pillows. Additionally, one (1) sign reading KEEP OFF GRASS, raising the question of whether or not the very grass they're spread out upon is that which they're meant to keep off.

Comments

[whattigerscanchange]

It's a pounding in her skull and a distinct urge to roll over and reject the contents of her stomach that brings Odessa around.

She is not in her bed.

Actually, she isn't in anybody's bed. Huh. Flipping over onto her stomach feels like a mistake the instant she does it, but one that has no lasting ill effect, fortunately. She braces her palms on the grass – grass? – and pushes herself up onto all fours, and eventually just to her knees.

This is a field. It is a vacant field. Odessa isn't the best judge of distance, but she would wager it's half a mile at least to the nearest structure. How did she even get here? – And she isn't alone, either. Some faces she recognises, but others she does not. Blearily, she blinks until her vision clears enough for her to try and assess the situation. It takes her an embarrassingly long moment to realise she's not only damp, but she's apparently wearing a suitcoat over her (blessedly matching) yellow lingerie. It isn't a sense of shame or modesty that causes her to wrap the coat around her a little tighter, but rather because it's fucking chilly.

Also, she's glowing. That's new. So is the shade of hair she brushes out of her face. She stops and tugs it away from her head so she can peer at it. “I got red on my hair,” she utters, dumbfounded. In fact, she got red all over her hair. Sometime during the night, she decided to make good on her threat to become a redhead.

What else happened?

[cerebral]

As soon as someone else awakens, Charles' eyes fly open. He too is damp, although fully clothed --and the tiara is still sitting on his head, a few black feathers sticking to it from using a feather boa as a make shift pillow. There's make-up on his face, specifically smeared lipstick, and a bandaged wound on his wrist (although there's a stain seeping through to the white of his now crumpled shirt cuff).

But his appearance doesn't begin to compare with how he feels, which is indescribably awful. After sitting up, he takes five minutes or so to close his eyes and stop the world spinning before turning to look at Odessa.

Ah. Well. Indeed.

"Oh. This is..." This is what it is, Charles, and nothing else.

[whattigerscanchange]

"Unexpected? Awkward? Mildly horrifying?" All of the above, maybe. Odessa is distinctly pale as she turns her head slowly to look in his direction. Even though she's stopped moving, it takes several seconds for the sensation to match reality. Even the sound of her own voice seems to loud in her ears, despite that she's barely above a whisper.

"What happened to your wrist?" For whatever reason, she's operating under the belief that his recollection of the evening will be better than hers. Mostly because she can't imagine anyone remembers less about whatever happened the night before than she does. Without thinking much about it, she reaches up to scratch at the side of her neck, where there's some dried blood against her skin as well.

[cerebral]

She's right; despite excessive drinking, it's extremely difficult for Charles to forget most things, and failing that his observations are always reasonably quick (although please, God, stop the swirling). "I think we got bit. Consensually, by the looks of things," and he nods in the direction of the mark on her neck.

He crawls over, ushering to him with one arm. "You look cold. I am cold. You should come here." At least he can still parse the logic of sharing body heat.

[whattigerscanchange]

As she focuses on the traces of blood on her fingers, another horrifying thought occurs to her that has her carefully pressing her fingers over the left side of her face, feeling against the hollow under her brow and closed lid. Thank goodness, at least that's present and accounted for.

There's a moment of deliberation before Odessa decides misery loves company enough that she'll crawl to meet him halfway. "No, I look hot," she quips, though almost half-heartedly. Chalk it up to being immensely tired and feeling a bit like death. "But I am cold." Any brush with her skin provides confirmation of that. A shiver runs through her body as she huddles up against his, suddenly aware of just how deep the chill has settled in her. "Do you know you're wearing make-up?"

[cerebral]

"I do now," he says, rather weakly, and wraps an arm around her, fussing over keeping his jacket closed.

"That's better." Marginally, at least. "We're in Sobek Croix. I don't know any of these people --well no, that's Steph," and he points, "and I do know their names but I don't know them know them." How articulate.

He pauses for a moment before adding, "This is without a doubt the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my entire life." A dry chuckle tries to escape the back of his throat, although it quickly turns into a cough he needs to quieten with the back of his hand.

[whattigerscanchange]

Odessa lifts her brows and shrugs. "At least it was a group effort. I can almost guarantee you were not the mastermind of this... I have no idea what this is." It's so absurd, she can't help laugh. It's brief, a raspy sound.

"Why am I the only one who went swimming?" She may as well be asking why am I the queen of bad decisions? "Actually, the answer to that has got to be pretty obvious. Forget I asked." She squints and rubs a hand over one of her bare thighs. "I'm wearing garters," she observes. "What the fuck happened to my stockings?"

She buries her face into Charles' collar and groans. What is her life?

[controlledvariable]

This is not the first time Steph has woken up in a field with grass patterns imprinted on her cheek. Admittedly, it's the first time in a few years that it's happened and there's an odd sense of time displacement as she suddenly feels fifteen all over again. Fortunately she has not travelled back in time, but rather has indulged in more alcohol than she had intended to. Oops.

She's grateful it's still dark, well aware of the fact that she's got a terrible hangover brewing and that any bright light would probably make her want to die. For a few long minutes, Steph decides that moving is more trouble and stays still, listening to the quiet breathing and rustling sounds of the people around her.

Eventually she rolls onto her back to stare up at the sky, wondering idly why her wrist hurts.