sleepless in centium city

Hangover

This was such a bad idea.

She should have gone to Bree. Or Oliver. Or Chase. Or probably just stayed in her own room. But here she was, at the end of the hall, fist raised to knock on the doorframe for the past two minutes.

Her breathing was coming out shallowly and she wasn't aware of why, but the prospect of actually entering his bedroom at three am under the pretense "I couldn't sleep" spiked her pulse so much to the point where she began to wonder if it was possible for a Calderan girl to even have a heart attack. She wasn't even sure why her feet automatically went to his door as soon as they hit the floor–it was the farthest away, for heaven's sake!

She could hear his snores. Gosh, why did they both snore? Attempting to push the question out of her mind and focus on what she should have done several minutes ago, she shook her head and swallowed hard. This wasn't even a big deal. She was making this mean too much. All she was doing was waking him up so she'd have someone to talk to about something personal because it had been on her mind lately. She just as easily (she almost scoffed at herself; like this was easy) could have talked to Bree or Chase, or even texted Crossbow.

But the fact was...she didn't want to talk to them about this. For whatever reason, she wanted to talk to Kaz.

Before her courage could take a nosedive once again, she quickly knocked on the door. Not too loud, but enough for him to hear–if he were awake, that was.

Skylar sighed and rolled her head around once before knocking again, louder. Still no response. If she got much louder the other team members would wake up, and the last thing she wanted was to be spotted outside his door this early in the morning. His snoring wasn't getting any quieter, which, in her case, meant she was waking up a bit, so instead of potentially getting herself caught, she chose to do something else.

She just went in.

She'd seen the inside of his room a total of two times. Once when he was so excited about getting his own room for the first time in his life and she happened to be the first person he ran into to show the finished product to, and second in a dream she had. Come to think of it, that probably didn't count, and she wasn't about to admit aloud she had dreamt of anything even remotely relating to him. That being said, she took an extra long look around the area.

Several pieces of furniture were shoved into the slightly small room, but it didn't look cramped. His bed was in the center of the right wall, a nightstand on both sides. One held his phone, a bottle of water, and a lamp, while the other shelved a self help book for which she couldn't read the title. There was an outlet strip on the floor beside his bed, and another on the opposite side of the room. A desk was put into one corner, strewn with all things imaginable–wrappers, knickknacks, and clothing amongst them–except for papers. Skylar seriously doubted Kaz kept an organized folder or drawer in the vicinity, which meant he probably had no use for papers, loose-leaf or otherwise.

As she walked further into the room, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She'd been in the hallway for quite some time, and she didn't dare turn the light on, but this was even darker. His curtains were thick and black, blocking out every chance the moon had to shine its light. Skylar blinked, making out a few piles of laundry on the bean bag chair. She glanced upward and almost chuckled. He'd stuck glow-in-the-dark stars onto the ceiling. She found herself smiling as she imagined how challenging it must have been for him to adhere them before he remembered he could fly.

She was just noticing the television in a corner close to the ceiling when sudden movement shifted her attention. Kaz moved around in his bed, but his snoring continued. She couldn't help but roll her eyes. He was such a heavy sleeper. She stepped over more piles of clothing and an unidentifiable object that she nearly stubbed her toe on, stealing a look at his closet as she went. It wasn't a walk-in like hers or Bree's, rather one built into the wall with sliding doors. One was pushed open halfway, enough for her to be able to make out his T-shirts and jeans hanging along with a small dresser underneath them. It was striking her as odd there wasn't a mirror in the entire room and yet he still managed to look amazing on a daily basis.

Her mind couldn't even register how she shouldn't have been having thoughts like that because she had reached his bed by that point. His sleeping figure looked downright adorable and it actually pained her to have to wake him up, but she had come this far and wasn't just going to watch him sleep like a creep.

She lightly nudged his head with her fingertips. He snored in response. Skylar groaned and leaned down, moving his head around in her hands. She was just getting annoyed when his eyes opened and she fully took in how close their faces were.

She was saved from an embarrassing kneejerk reaction to jump away as Kaz mumbled, "What are you doing in here?" His words were slurring and his eyes were red, and Skylar had to pull back anyway because his breath was awful and–

Oh gosh. He was hung-over.

She didn't even respond, just supersped to the bathroom and came back with a bucket to place by his bed. He was just beginning to sit up when his face turned a sickly shade of green recognizable even in the pale light of the fake stars, and he leaned over to grasp the bucket in his hands and bury his head in it almost immediately.

Skylar wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth. "How much did you drink?" she whispered, one hand moving on its own accord to rub his back as she sat down next to him.

A few moment passed before Kaz could lift up his head to grumble, "Enough to do this," before promptly throwing up again.

Skylar knew Kaz and Oliver had gone out last night–the only reason she declined was because Oliver would've made it seem like an impromptu date with Kaz as the third wheel instead of a night out between the original triad–but she assumed it was to a comic book expo or a movie, not a party, but that appeared to be what had happened.

She contemplated going ahead and discussing her problems anyway. Really, she did. But she couldn't possibly put him through such a conversation (that she seriously thought he'd be bored with) when he was in this state. Well, she could, but what kind of friend would that make her out to be?

She sighed and got to her feet, running her fingers through her hair as she did so. "Well...I guess I'll leave you to..." She inwardly cringed. "...vomit."

She was almost to the door when Kaz wheezed out, "But what did you want?"

Skylar turned around and tried to shrug nonchalantly, like it was no big deal. "It's nothing. It can wait."

She had closed the door and was almost back to her room when she felt her phone buzz in the pocket of her sweatpants. Stopping with her hand on her doorknob, she fished it out and looked at the message on the notification tab.

do you think you could come back?

Her palms suddenly felt very sweaty. Why did he want her to come back? It wasn't like they talked much anymore. They weren't ever super close friends. And if she were him, she'd be in no mood to talk right now. At three am. With a hangover.

She unlocked the screen and typed out no, probably not rn. Her thumb hovered over the SEND button. Her eyes watered from the bright light. And she was almost pressing down when he sent another text.

I don't feel good. idk, it'd be nice to have someone here.

Her throat was constricting. This meant absolutely nothing, she reminded herself. If he had woken up sick on his own, alone, instead of seeing her face, he never would be texting her. He'd either suffer by himself, or get Oliver.

just for the night?

Erasing her typed up message, Skylar turned right back around and pushed open his door.

She didn't get to talk about her problem that night. They didn't really talk at all. They didn't need to. Most of the early morning was spent with Kaz throwing up and Skylar rubbing his back, but the fact that he had wanted her to be there for him? She felt really good about that. Like they weren't so separated as they'd felt in the penthouse.

Needless to say, she didn't pass up the opportunity to tease him about the glow-in-the-dark stars.