There was light. Why was there light? The tub of feathers shuddered and shifted to better block out the slice of morning that came through the bathroom door, but showed no other signs of life. Kat’s head felt like a 12lb rental bowling ball. Heavy, banged-up, and too cumbersome to lift. She winced, hoping she could fall back to sleep. No such luck. She heard Reed’s voice through the muffling insulation of her wings and groaned. “Nooo. Kill me,” Kat pleaded, barely loud enough to be heard through her feathers.
Something touched one of her primaries. She twitched. Her entire body, wings included, covered in a silvered metal alloy so quickly it looked like she’d snap frozen. Feeling as raw as she was, the overreaction was understandable but still irritated her in immediate hindsight. Kat struggled to sit up in the tub, unfolding herself enough to poke her head out of the burrito-wrap of her wings as her armor dissipated. She rubbed at her face with the palms of her hands, trying to clear to groggy sleep from her tired eyes. “Hey,” she yawned. “Morning. What time is it?”
---
Reed wore a sympathetic grin on his face when she finally looked at him. Kat reminded him of a kid begging mom for ‘five more minutes of sleep’ while pulling the blankets over his head. “A little after nine. You wanna sleep a bit longer? I can go get some coffee,” he offered. No one could ever accuse Reed of not being caring, especially when his friends were in pain. Yes, she’d brought this on herself, but he adored her, and he wasn’t going to take advantage of her suffering or mock her (too much) for it.
He hopped up from the floor and got what was left of her bottled water as well as the aspirin. Reed tapped out three (it wouldn’t kill her), and handed the supplies over. “More aspirin. More water. My orders..and I’m nearly a doctor, so you have to listen to me.”
---
“Never question the Doc, huh?” Kat took the aspirin and bottle, and popped the meds without question. That was the first order of business; growing her wings hadn’t been as painful as usual, as she’d had what little remained of her buzz to ease the transition. She’d lack that advantage when hiding them again in order to leave the apartment.
It was just after nine. “I need to be back by one. What’s your day look like?” She wanted to give herself 15-20 minutes for the aspirin to kick in before doing anything about her wings - hopefully it would help. “Coffee would be great. I don’t think I’ll get back to sleep though.” Kat crossed her arms over the edge of the bathtub.
“Was I too terrible last night?” She asked, squinting through her headache. Kat felt like she remembered most of it. She’d said ‘sorry’ more times than most drunk people were allowed too, but that wasn’t surprising. There were other things she’d done that weren’t surprising either, but nevertheless made her cringe inwardly. “Thanks for taking care of me. I owe you.” She propped her head in an open palm. “Did you sleep alright?”