Last check, I'm 95% sure Chrome said he was forfeiting. Being wrong would be delightful
[spoiler=Chance Encounter]Judging by the headache pulverizing his skull, there was a chance Chance had gone out drinking last night. It took three hours for the pain to dull enough to even get out of bed, but even as he sat up, what remained caused him to grimace. Murmuring to himself, he pulled his sheets away from his naked body, examining the dozens of scars his silk hid. It only took the initial glance to realize there were too many, dating over far too many years, to determine if anything had happened last night. Nothing was necessarily fresh, but as a gladiator, he had access to the type of medical care that could make yesterday’s gash look ancient. Frowning, he gazed back to his sword on the bed behind him, lying like a sleeping wife, partially tucked in with its navy blue hilt on a pillow.
‘God, how much did I have?’ Rubbing his eyes, he finally arose, but in a single step, his foot fell on something far too expensive to be on the floor. Furrowing his brow, he went to pick up his crimson suit, but froze when his right hand came into view. Palm hovering just above his jacket, the sparkles of a fresh, entirely sapphire ring danced for his eye, placed just below the one from his late fiancee. With his bed empty, his arm began shaking from the implication before snatching the cashmere, but a lack of stains clashed against the assumption. A quivering breath left his body. ‘Maybe I just got drunk. Thank God for-’
His eyes bugged in a heartbeat, and as his palm slapped against his elbow, his pulse accelerated to an alarming degree. ‘Where the hell is the IV!’ Panicked breaths started shaking his body. He slept with that sword all night, so if he wasn’t feeling the need to kill now, then he already had…
And if his jacket wasn’t even stained…
...They never saw it coming.
Trying to shake away the growing dread, he quickly began tearing his room apart, starting by ripping the sheets off entirely and checking every cabinet and drawer, slamming the one he found The Bible in, nailing him to a cross of unknown guilt. Anxiety flowed through his blood when he finally began digging through his pockets in the hunt for any sort of receipt, but when he found his phone, his body went cold.
The background was new… a selfie this time, taken with his left arm outstretched and pointing back down at himself and the girl leaning her back against his chest, while holding his hand over her heart. Aside from both looking plastered and hugging the slender side of things, they were opposite in most ways. His crimson hair dangled just above his blood red eyes, matching his suit, tie and dress pants to a near exact degree, whereas his black undershirt brought out the colors like a highlighter, only thing going against it was the blue ring, barely in the shot as her palms had his surrounded.
What the ring did match, however, was her. Everything about her. Her sky-blue hair pressed against his jacket and drew out the winged, cobalt eyeshadow she wore with a glistening mix of silver fading in from the center of her face, while her light brown irises matched her softly tan skin. The hood of her navy blue jacket was down, but unzipped, it revealed a bleach white shirt, which came up to her neck. All in all, it looked like they were a Comic-Con couple. Looking over his shoulder, he shuttered at the empty bed. ‘Were.’
Clenching his eyes for a moment, they returned to the device, only to be immediately flooded with missed calls and texts when it unlocked, almost entirely from Ester. Seeing that they peppered times through the night and into the morning, it meant that she was safe at least, but unable to remove the blue ring from his finger or even begin to comprehend how he got it there, reading any of them felt filthy. Instead, he went to his map app, tapping the blank bar up top and feeling his face contort with perplextion as he gazed at the only new search.
At first, the result didn’t click, but a sudden, dark thought practically made him fumble his phone, thrusting him closer to cardiac arrest. His red eyes snapped on the door and he was dressed in a heartbeat, blade slung at his side as he sprinted out of his room like it was set ablaze, terrified mind clutching at straws as his realism drowned him. If’d he’d gone to a motel in the dead of night, something forced him to abandon it to come here, and he could only pray it wasn’t a body.
<^v><^v><^v>
It wasn’t until sunlight kissed her cheek that sepita eyes opened, squinting as it burned them. Murmuring to herself, she rolled to her side, but as she sunk into the soft mattress, its stark contrast from her firm futon jolted her like a forgotten alarm. She was upright in an instant, and as her sheets fell from her, her brain felt like it had rammed into her skull, echoing with anguish each time her heart beat. Now cursing, she brushed her blue hair out of her vision in an effort to figure out which friend she was crashing with. Who met her however, was a stranger, sitting in a chair adjacent to her bed, concern rooted deep in her bagged, emerald eyes. Long red hair was pulled over her shoulders and fell on to her dress, it’s textured blue flowers trailing all the way down to her feet, which lifted her as she continued to stare. Cautiously, she moved to the counter, picking up the small white pill and glass of water and offering it to her.
“Is that for the headache?” Uneasily, the blue haired girl smiled up at the woman, but when the redhead turned away, fear crawled up her body. “...Then… what is it?”
“Just take it.” Hesitantly, the stranger pushed them closer to her, but the late-teen seemed to lean further away.
“...I’d like to know what I’m putting in my body.”
“It’s…” Green eyes dipped lower before returning to the girl, her brown eyes glued on her, “You’re in a motel, my motel. I don’t know where you came from, so I don’t know what, if anything happened, but If something did… it’ll… stop it, to an extent.”
“Stop what?”
The manager swallowed hard. “It’s Plan B.”
It took a second for the click, but the moment it did, the girl’s eyes shot open, edges of her corneas still pink from the night before. “You think-”
“That it’s possible-” The manager cut in, “Not necessarily that it happened.” A sigh left her, pity enveloping her when the girl cautiously accepted the cup, “You could barely walk when you got here and whatever you’d been given took all the white out of your eyes. I can’t say I’ve been to enough clubs to know, but you looked like how I pictured ecstasy,” She shrugged as her client swallowed the pill, “Your pupils were dilated like you were giving birth and you were just attached to the guy you came with, clinging to his shoulder and leaning against him so hard it looked like both of you were going to fall over.” The last word cut off with a hard stop.
“...What is it?”
“That ring?”
Slowly, the bedridden girl’s eyes traced down her arm to her hand, landing on the small, crystallized crimson wrapping around her digit. Her mouth fell open, trying to make something out of it.
“You said you got married.”
“What!” The girl’s voice cracked as she jolted to her feet, what remained of the water splashing against her jacket, “Did you get his name?”
The manager looked away, tapping her fingers on her seat. “Chance Downtown.”
The younger of the women paled at the stranger’s name. “...And how… how was he when we… arrived?”
<^v><^v><^v>
It wasn’t ten minutes since he left that Chance was in Fate’s nearly empty parking lot, speed limit having been more of a soft recommendation, thoroughly ignored as he had more than doubled it. Hell, there were even skidmarks where he’d stopped his car, trailing from the entrance and ending directly between the blue lines. It wasn’t until then, however, that he finally took a moment to calm down.
The thought of crossing over and taking an innocent life caused a phobic fear within him, but if he showed up looking like a giant red flag, there could be a silent alarm which could trigger a hellish domino effect. As good as the RHG lawyers were, his sword always demanded blood, and without him wielding it, God knows how it’d find it.
The visual wasn’t exactly calming, but it was powerful enough motivation to fake it. Staring at his clenched hand, still gripping the steering wheel, he waited until it at finally stopped moving before making a move himself. Popping his door open, he made his way to the motel entrance, quietly making his way inside. Unconsciously keeping his head down, he missed anything that made the place unique, but considering the sleazy reputation it had built up, artwork of any kind would’ve been a shock. Eyes trailing along the tiled floor, his sight was eventually met with a wooden desk, relatively empty with nothing but a bell and computer on top of it. Frowning uneasily upon seeing the chair behind it vacant as well, he hesitated a brief moment before before tapping the silver, high pitched ding echoing throughout the empty halls.
<^v><^v><^v>
Giggling filled the air like music as the duo practically broke down the motel door, Chance’s footing faltering momentarily, only to fail entirely when the woman leaning against his side stepped on his heel, sending both tumbling. His carefully groomed red hair was a disaster as he rolled on his back, but with his friend on top of him, blue fell over him like a curtain, the girl falling into a hysteria before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Smiling brightly down at him, her cheeks blushed. She looked away for a brief moment, but after a heartbeat, her creamy-coffee eyes bounced between the sapphire ring he wore and the crystallized crimson wrapped around her finger. Interlocking them, the girl arose to her knees before trying to jerk him up, only for her grip to tank and send her flying back, skull smashing against the tiled floor under her. Seemingly unphased, her laughter only loudened like it was a punchline to a joke.
Cracking up himself, Chance rose up alone, staggering to the front desk while the blue haired woman dusted herself off behind him. Seeing quadruple, it took a few tries to locate the silver bell, but feeling the real, he slammed his hand on it like a buzzer. Glancing over his shoulder, his tender red eyes fell upon his company, leaning heavily to her left, drifting like an unmanned car before colliding into the chair beside Chance, barely catching herself from falling again.
Awkwardly trying to play it off, she shuffled around to the front side, pawing at his face before her palm found his shoulder. Sliding it down his arm, the girl found his hand again, giggling as he placed his other over hers. It wasn’t until footsteps approached that they tore their eyes from each other.
<^v><^v><^v>
“I mean, he looks just as… fucked up, I guess, as I do…” Slowly, sepia eyes left the television in her small room, meeting emeralds, whose brow instantly furrowed.
“You can’t see the sword?”
“No I mean-” Sky blue hair shook as the slightly younger woman collected herself, “If- if someone gave me something, it looks like he got it too.”
“Or maybe he had some of what he slipped you,” Her arms crossed. “He looked like he was enjoying himself.”
“So did I, for that matter.”
“And you woke up horrified.”
“Then what if he did too?”
Hearing a dull ‘ding’ sneak through the walls, the manager stole a glance at her phone, cycling between a few menus before before swearing to herself.
“He looks terrified,” The tenant added, having taken one as well, “Which makes sense if he’s a victim.”
“Do I need to bring up the blade again?” Pocketing the device, the redhead stared in disbelief at the cobalt cranium. “You just had a close call, you really want to test fate?”
“I’ve never woken up in a motel before, what I want, is to know how it happened.”
“I’m sorry, but a guy dressed in blood red with a sword at his hip doesn’t freak you out at all?”
“I mean yeah but…” The late adolescent trailed off, gaze wandering to her shut door as a second ‘ding’ cut into the air, “He’s either panicking because he has no idea what’s going on, which puts us in the same boat, or he knows and can shed some light. I’d rather give him a chance than call the police... if that’s alright.”
<^v><^v><^v>
Within the soul-haunting silence, the quiet creak of an opening door was more akin to a gunshot to Chance, jolting upright from his seat and eyes darting the sound in an instant. Sweat was building up on his palms as he made his way from the desk towards the hall, but when his reds met bright-brown eyes, relief almost caused him to collapse, knees buckling and sending him staggering into the wall, leaning heavily against it.
“Oh thank God…” Nervous chuckles shook his body as the two young women held their place about ten feet away from him. He couldn’t help but smile seeing there wasn’t a scratch on the blue haired girl, and as she looked him up and down, there was faith in her eyes, unlike the suspicion enveloping the other entirely, who leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed.
“So…” Sapphire’s voice was meek, passing seconds making eye contact difficult, “Any idea how I got here?”
“No I-” His eyes clamped shut in an effort to recollect himself, “I just know I stopped here last night.”
“That’s it?” The other tightened her pose as her voice cut in like a katana, “Because you’re acting like you expected something.”
“I honestly don’t know what I expected,” Wearily, his eyes met the younger’s coffee & cream irises. At least the lie had enough truth to sound honest, “All I know is that I came here before checking into a hotel.”
“Yeah. I kicked you out.”
“...Can you tell me why?”
“Because I don’t play games when it looks like a girl’s been drugged.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Well,” The blue haired girl quietly cut in, “He looked drugged too, to be honest.”
“What?” His red eyes danced between the ladies, green remaining steadfast while bronze began showing pity, “I barely remember smoking pot in college.” Blinking as he struggled to comprehend how drugs could even get into his system, he locked onto Blue. “Do you have any idea where this could’ve started then?”
Hesitating a moment, the woman paused. “Yeah, I may know where we came from.” Four eyes were upon her as she cleared her throat. “I-I like to keep to myself, but last night was my roommate’s birthday. She…” Her eyes shut, pondering the discussion, “She’d been trying to get me to Queen of Hearts for a while now… It’s a nightclub a little ways from here.”
“Alright, thank you,” Letting out a long sigh, Chance nodded, “If you’re going to be here a while… would you like me to keep you posted?”
“I’d rather know when you do, if that&
