There was a small army of dwarves taken up some residence in his head, and they were merrily taking their picks to the inside of his skull. A rhythmic throbbing that was only occasionally upset but a sudden lurch, as if someone had picked up the room was he was in and turned it round a few times.



Only - and this was not really alarming given how often it occurred - he wasn’t entirely sure what room it was.



Silanos cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it because it was about three hundred times brighter than he needed it to.A sharper pain burst behind his eyes and he remembered those fucking dwarves. What misery was this. A low groan made its way past parched lips, and the indistinct lump beneath the sheets rolled over, an arm emerging to grope blindly for the phone on the floor beside the bed.



Time. Figure out the time, decide if he really had to be awake and then figure out where the fuck he was.



Through squinty eyes, Silanos managed to make out the angles and shapes on the digital display, though there was a slight delay between him reading the numbers and his brain computing what they meant. Ten am. Which meant he’d already missed his class but ..eh, 9am classes were for losers anyway. Blinking blearily at the screen he scrolled through his last messages to see if they were all all enlightening.





Where you go?



Hey fucker we’re going to Huck’s in ten



Jen is freaking out. Where r u?



Dude you’re dead. I’ll say something nice at your funeral.



~~~



Heya. Are you at the bar? Xxxx



Jon says they’re leaving in a few minutes. Where are you? Xx



Srsly where r u? Call me so I know you’re ok?! x



Did you *leave*?!



Nice. I hope wherever you are you are having a better night than me. I’m going home. Don’t bother calling.

~~~







Silanos stared blankly at the messages and tried to work out if he should be offended that no one had checked to see if he was dead. Fuck, he felt like he might be. Frowning now, he pushed up to sitting, wincing as the world lurched again and blinking as he tried to get his bearings.



The bed he was in wasn’t his. The sheets were floral.He didn’t recognise the room, and from what his slow, beer-soaked brain could gather, it was a girl’s room. ( Well that was comforting) Too many plants and useless cushions than had ended up on the floor to be anything but a girl’s room.



His mouth was dryer than a desert and tasted like something had crawled into it and died and with a grimace, Sil made a lurching reach towards where his jeans lay crumpled on the floor and after a bit of rummaging found some gum that had been his pocked a questionably long time. Still, it was better than nothing.



He tugged the jeans on too for good measure - what fucking asshole invented skinny jeans anyway?- and with a gigantic effort, managed to haul himself from the bed to do a bit of subtle reconnaissance on whole room he was in. There were a bunch of books, but he wasn’t looking to psychoanalyse her reading choices. He needed something concrete. There were vague recollections of a blonde, and after some half-hearted nosing, found a couple of pictures pinned to a notice board that jogged his memory.



Aww fuck.



Now he remembered. That fucking over-enthusiastic girl who he was pretty sure low key stalked him on campus. It had become a bit of a running joke how she would just materialise wherever he was, and whilst she was cute in a kind of ‘starey eyed might lock you in her closet for the rest of your life’ way, he certainly had not ever envisaged ending up in her room. He must have been really wasted.



Feeling like a stealth exit was the best bet, he cast his eyes around for his shoes. And shirt. Had he been wearing a jacket?



The black t-shirt with the bones on was an easy enough find, it smelt of sweat and beer and something sweet like….urgh, Smirnoff green. His stomach rolled at that and it was all Silanos could do not to leave Andi...Amy..whatever her name was a little trick or treat of his own in her wasterpaper basket, but he swallowed back the bile and shoved his feet into shoes with some urgency. She could come back at any minute and he didnt want to deal with that bullshit.



Phone, jacket...keys were in his pocket. It was all in all a fairly respectable turn out all things considered, and Sil headed for the door, hoping the party gods would see him safely from the gates of hell.



Opening the door as quietly as he could, he snuck down the hallway, pressing his hand to his pocket so his keys didn’t jangle and give him away. The smell of coffee and the sound of chatter was coming from what he guessed was a little kitchenette but he wasn’t hanging around and slipped past partially closed door as quietly and quickly as he could. Operation escape, success.



Outside it was fucking raining, because of course it would be, and he tripped over the jack o lantern that had been left on the step, nearly face planted on the path which would have really ruined his morning. His head gave a dull thump in protest at the sudden movement it took to save himself and Sil ran a hand through his hair and cursed hangovers, not for the first time. Why oh why did he have to be punished so unfairly for having a good time? Surely the questionable decisions of his night were punishment enough? Turning his collar up against the rain, he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and wished that hangovers weren’t a thing.