Work Text:
She rubbed bleary eyes. 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 woken her up at such an ungodly hour. Must be all that caffeine, during which she had spent preparing for a final. 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 a 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 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 skilfully, by the sounds of it) – and she’d she’d forgot to set the dead-bolt.
She ran a shaking hand through her short hair. Stupid stupid… what’s the use of having genius IQ if all your memory can do is fail?
She glanced wildly around the room. Chairs, table, vase, textbooks – heavy, pointed edges, potentially lethal, a decent choice – lamp, take-out, windows windows! Windows meant balcony which meant escape if she- what? Jumped? She wanted to smack herself.
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 textbooks and pulling out the dead weight of Gray’s Anatomy, she moved as quickly as physically possible to balance herself atop the chair beside the door. The doorknob was turning now; she waited, poised along the door frame. The door slid open a crack, light spilling in from the hallway, then more, 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 to hit.
Finally the rest of his body swung to her side of the door frame, and the curly copper ponytail had barely registered in her adrenaline-high brain before, with a great yell, she threw her weight behind the better part of a pulverised tree and crash-landed on her intruder. Momentarily stunned, she hoped trusty Gray’s had disabled something important. Then she realized her position and scrambled off the body, leaving the book where it had fallen (a shoulder and a section of neck – should’ve done the trick).
She peered down at the new addition to her carpet, who gave a masculine groan. Tentatively, she nudged her textbook off his chest, before issuing a groan of frustration herself, recognising the dreaded face immediately. Goddamn Zach. After a few at the bar, evidently. The young man was out cold.
Hearing neighbours start to unlock their doors (she probably hadn’t needed to yell so loudly), she grabbed her classmate by his ankles, tugging him inside enough so she could close and deadbolt the door. She wondered how much she could kick him before he woke up. He was due a few kicks.
But her better side won out, so she checked his pulse, retrieved and unceremoniously deposited a bag of frozen carrots over the rapidly forming Gray’s-shaped bruise, grabbed some novel from the Mina-recommended stack, and perched on the edge of the chair to wait for his system to come back online.
After half a chapter, he stirred slowly. As he hissed in pain, she waited for his eyes to adjust to his unconventional vantage point, un-blur, take in his environment, then – “Ami? What to hell are you doing in my apartment?”
She rolled her eyes, turning a page. He had a penchant for appearing at her door, which she’d been advised not to read into. “It’s my apartment, you idiot. 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.”
Somehow unable to take in the fervent postulations of the main character, she re-read the sentence for the fourth time, refusing to look at his handsome, idiot face. “The normal response to intruders is heavy objects on body parts, isn’t it?”
He blinked owlishly, processing, neck twisting this way and that 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.”
“I’m honoured to be blessed by your most expensive textbook. And frozen carrots?” He picked the plastic baggie off his chest. “The industry standard is peas, I'll have you know.”
“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 his annoying, inflated sense of self-worth was returning rapidly, and if only he wouldn’t open his damn mouth—
“What are you reading? What the hell are you wearing?”
“Sleeping clothes!” she snapped, incredibly frustrated at the blood rushing her cheeks and grasping desperately for nonchalance. “Eyes up here, moron!”
He didn’t obey with the greatest masculine interest.
Skin prickling with self-consciousness, she crossed her legs and met his green eyes over the top of The Emancipation of Lady Francis, mustering her sweetest voice– “If you don’t leave right now, I have Guyton and Hall here, ready to match your bruise from Gray’s. And you know it’s a much cheaper text.” -before tapping her ankle against the pile of materials she’d propped beside her seat.
“You’re bluffing,” he laughed.
But he dragged himself to full height quick-smart (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 sheer camisoles.