okay there seems to be a degree of interest so here you go. the intro to an au i was gonna write before my anxiety meds murdered my writer brain. uhh for reference this fic is set in 2017, with their ages being the same as they would be in canon at that point (so like... 28ish i think?)
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Setsuna had several regrets right now.
She wasn't sure what they were exactly, since she couldn't remember anything after the fifth drink, but she knew that whatever she had done, she had regretted it.
Actually scratch that, that fifth drink was definitely on the regret list. Drinks one through four weren't looking like such a great idea, either.
Everything hurt.
Am I... am I dead...?
No, that couldn't be it. She didn't have any first-hand experience with death, but she was reasonably sure it wouldn't involve quite this much pain. Even for somebody like her.
A bus, maybe. I got hit by a bus.
Possibly. But in that case she'd most likely be in the hospital. She didn't hear anything to make her think that was the case, though. Might as well just open her eyes and take a look.
Except as soon as she dragged her eyes open white hot glare like the sun radiating off the concrete in August, burning through her eyes and leaving charred husks behind in their sockets--okay, so no doing that for a while.
At least she got enough of a glimpse of her bedroom before she was overwhelemed to know that she made it home last night and had not, in fact, been hit by a bus. So there was that.
Ugh, I want to die, she thought, sinking further into her pillow. Work is going to be hell today.
Oh. Right. Work.
She should probably call in and let them know she'd be late today.
Except her body was just so heavy. It was almost like there was some external weight pressing down on her from above, pinning her in place. She couldn't move so far as an inch without something groaning in protest. Perhaps that was to be expected, since until a few moments ago it had seemed perfectly reasonable that she might have spent part of her evening wedged underneath 30 tons of public transport. And besides, she could barely remember her name right now, let alone what she might have done with her phone last night.
She sagged back into bed and the weight pressed down on her even more, filling her with warmth and soothing her malaise, even if just the slightest bit.
Surely it couldn't hurt to rest for just a few more minutes...
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She had no idea how long she'd been out, but at least her head seemed a little clearer.
The pain was still excruciating, of course, but it had mercifully lowered itself to the point that she could tolerate it now. The strange pressure still persisted, but she supposed that would pass with a little more time, too.
Maybe now she would have the clarity to piece together what had happened last night.
She knew everything had started when Tsukuyomi showed up. Most things did, after all.
Honestly, she still didn't even know how Tsukuyomi had known they would be there. She certainly hadn't told her about it, and knowing how the others felt about her, she was sure none of them had either. And yet somehow the nuisance had figured it out, and suddenly there she was, gluing herself to Setsuna's side and not taking any hints that she was making her feel uncomfortable as hell. And that's when Setsuna had started drinking in earnest. The last thing she remembered was finally managing to peel herself away from Tsukuyomi's iron grip and letting everybody know she was going out to get some fresh air.
Not that there was really such a thing as fresh air on the Vegas Strip. But hey, she was drunk at the time.
Was she ever.
And now she was paying for it.
God, are there really people who do this all the time? For fun?
She didn't know if that was impressive or just sad.
Well, either way, that wasn't really the issue. The issue was that she had a killer hangover, and several hours of her life were apparently completely missing, and probably since she was at her house in her own bed she couldn't have done anything too terrible, but that didn't really eliminate all that much in the grand scheme of things and what if she got some really embarrassing tattoos or wound up appearing naked in some video that would go viral and her bare ass was going to be plastered all over the six o'clock news and oh god--
--Stop it. Take a deep breath, just like your therapist taught you. Okay. Now think it through logically. Tatsumiya probably knew exactly what she had gotten up to last night--she was weirdly prescient when it came to Setsuna's behavior, somehow. She was probably sleeping in the next room, so all she had to do was get up and ask her. And if for some reason they hadn't gone home together, her number was on speed dial. That would more than likely settle it. If not, then she could panic again--but Tatsumiya would be there to walk her through it, so she wouldn't risk spiralling quite so much.
But before any of that--none of this would be an issue if she didn't get a glass of water right now, because if she didn't then Tatsumiya would be discovering her dessicated remains in about five minutes.
She attempted to roll out of bed, but that strange heavy feeling held her in place yet again. She frowned. Seriously, what?
Maybe if she sat up, instead...
It was decidedly difficult, but she was at least making headway, even if her muscles were groaning in protest every step of the way.
Until it registered that the protesting she heard was most definitely not coming from her muscles. In fact, it wasn't coming from her at all.
--Oh.
Oh shit...!
Please don't be what I think it is--
With agonizing slowness, she traced a path down from the ceiling, to the wall, to the end of the bed, to the covers bunched at her waist, to--
--there, draped over the left side of her body, so obvious in its existence that she could only stare in disbelief that she had only just noticed it, was the smooth expanse of a girl's back.
She suddenly felt unbearably cold. Then unbearably hot. All of the blood in her body pulsed through her system at once--one single time, then twice, then a third time. Then it didn't seem to move at all for such a long period of time that Setsuna had decided that she was probably dead. Yes, her soul had leapt from her body, and she simply hadn't yet had time to process that she had died. A strange way to go and not at all how she'd pictured it happening, but if she was honest with herself, death from mortification was probably exactly the sort of thing she should have expected all along.
Only as soon as she had accepted that her life had ended, adrenaline reared its ugly head and sent her blood fizzing back through her body with such force that it practically knocked her out of bed.
That was when the ugly little gremlin known as panic sunk its teeth into her hindbrain.
Fight or flight engaged itself.
Flight won.
"SHIT SHIT SHIT--" She kicked and thrashed her way towards the edge of the bed, not really sure what she was doing or where she was trying to go, other than as far away from the naked woman in her bed as possible. Depth perception was a thing of the past, as was the concept of distance, and soon Setsuna felt herself lurch and become weightless as she slipped over the side of the bed and went sprawling into a heap on the floor.
The shock of the impact jarred a little bit of awareness back into her, and she stared back up at where she had just been with wide, disbelieving eyes.
There was a naked girl up there. In her bed.
All of the beds in the city of Las Vegas, and a naked girl wound up in hers.
This... wasn't something that should happen to somebody like her. No, this was firmly in the category of Things That Happen To Other People, And Probably Only Ever In Movies. Movies she'd never watched, at that. What was she supposed to do in this kind of situation, anyway?! She didn't know the protocol.
Oh man I'm so fucked.
Rustling sheets and incoherent mumbling refocused her attention away from her burgeoning anxiety attack and back to the reality that she was currently sharing space with another person. That she was about to have to interact with. While hungover and scared out of her mind.
We've been over this already. Stop. Take a deep breath.
If the shuffling noise she heard was any indication, the girl was moving closer to the edge of the bed. Closer to coming face to face with her. The moment of truth.
Take a deep--
A head poked over the side of the bed and peered down at her with soft, warm brown eyes, bleary from sleep and confusion.
Setsuna forgot about the breathing thing.
"Um. Hi," the girl said, a hesitant, sheepish smile creeping over her face in spite of the circumstances.
Then Setsuna forgot about everything else, too.
She was... really pretty.
Wow, I am extremely fucked.
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