A/n

My update was delayed due to covid. Like, ugh!! When the fuck will this shit be over?? I'm sick and tired and so fucking DONE.

*sigh*

I hope y'all are alright. Stay safe and wear your masks, yeah?

I woke up in a room I did not recognise, buried in a blanket that smelled of sandalwood and detergent... and something else that was familiar but I could not quite put a name to it. It was soft, comfortable and warm; too homely to be one of those hotels I usually woke up in.

Bright light fell through a large window, blinding most of my sight. I shielded my face with one hand, and stretched out the other to look for -

Splat! Came the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting mud. Except... it wasn't mud, by the feels of it. I wriggled my fingers. It was wet clay, with a heavy mix of mica, iron and... quartz? Yes, it felt like quartz. There was also something inorganic mixed into it, making its texture - wait, what was I doing?

I shot up on the bed, groaning as my head screamed in protest.

I was in a medium-sized room. One entire wall was taken over by a big window devoid of curtains (which monstrous creature lived here like this without curtains?!) that had a small balcony attached to it and looked out at a blue sky held up by the ochre and grey buildings of Blue Hill University.

Huh?

The bed I was sitting on was a single, with light turquoise-coloured sheets. The walls of the room were a similar shade but it was hard to tell with the way most of it was covered with paintings. By most of it, I meant that I was sitting in a room hellishly cramped with paintings. Some were stunning, no doubt - replicas of landscapes, still life and portraits of people I did not recognise. Others were obscure splattering of colours that made no sense to me. And yet others looked like they were made by toddlers - stick figures, poorly coloured... things. There was one painting, stuck right next to the bed, of six stick figure people: a woman with short hair was holding on to two smaller stick figures in skirts. On their right was a stick-figure in what looked like a suit. To their left were two figures, one with grey hair tied into a bun, and the other was a guy with blonde hair. The background was completely blue - as if they were flying, with no sight of land - with random curves scribbled around the figures... to show wind?

I wasn't sure whether to be creeped out or -

"Good morning." At the door was a handsome young man with golden hair and an athletic build.

Smiling at me.

Fuck.

Did I hook up with him last night? My memory from last night was a gaping, black hole so if I did manage to score that and woke up to remember nothing, I was going to be seriously pissed at myself!

"You okay?" the guy asked in a very sexy voice, his brows slightly raised in... was that concern? Satan, what?! I hated how I could not remember anything, which was new, to be honest; alcohol and I were old friends and I could hold my liquor pretty well. But now, I was having the worst hangover of my life, with my mouth tasting like dry sand and head pounding like the Villain-attack sirens laid out across the city.

The guy shifted on his feet and moved closer to the bed. He suddenly stopped and muttered a soft, "Shit." I followed his gaze and saw a gutted mess of clay sitting on his nightstand, completely destroyed. Shit, indeed.

"I'm sorry about that," I croaked.

He smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He was wearing a casual t-shirt that did wonders to show off his body. There were no bruises on his exposed collarbones, which was strange because, well, don't shame a man for his kinks but I liked biting. "It's alright," he said. "I wasn't - it was a work in progress that I was anyway not happy with. Here." He took out a pill from the drawer of the nightstand and handed it to me with a tall glass of water.

I accepted it with my muddied hand. "You shouldn't have put it near the bed."

"You're right." He rubbed his neck again. "I just... don't get guests much."

Was he for real? With a face like that? With a body like that? But maybe he was a dickhead with a shitty personality. That would explain why I was on his bed.

"Anyway." He shifted on his feet. Again. "Just take the supplement. It'll help."

Huh? "With what?"

"Uh." His tongue flicked out to lick his lower lip. "So don't freak out... but I think you were drugged last night."

I was off the bed in one graceless leap, my bare feet meeting cold marble. "What?"

The guy's eyes were wide and hands half-raised in surrender. "Not by me!" he cried, then paused and added, "Though I'd understand why evidence looks bleak against me. But I swear it wasn't me."

I blinked at him, at the stupid sunlight splitting open my brain. Drugged, he said. Drugged. Me. Someone drugged me?

What the fuck?

But that would explain the hole in my memory and my obnoxious hangover.

But what the fuck? I was a Super fucking Villain! How could I get drugged at a college party? If anything, I should be the one doing the drugging, by my job description.

What the fuck? If someone wanted to fuck, they could've just told me; my standards were as high as the Mariana Trench.

"Yeah," the guy added into my silence. "I'm so sorry about that. I don't know who did it but you slept it off so you should be fine."

A sudden, jarring image of a young blonde watching me through the crowd invaded my mind, freezing the blood in my veins.

No! That was impossible. It could not have been him. I was probably hallucinating due to the drug.

Wouldn't be the first time I was seeing ghosts.

I eyed the other non-ghostly blonde who was currently in front of me. I was fully clothed and nothing hurt except my head, but still, I was a dick so I feigned offense and asked, "Why should I believe you?"

"Uh." He looked like a deer caught in headlights; if I hadn't met enough liars and assholes in my life, I'd have thought he was hiding something from me. "I promise?"

Satan!

"I'm a good guy," he added, very smartly.

"That's what every bad guy would say." Except for me, of course. I owned my bad-ness.

He looked flustered now. "Right. You're right. Uh. Wow," he shuffled his feet, "no one's ever asked me to... prove that... before. Uh. I... don't know how to prove that. But," he cried on spotting my frown, "I didn't know where you live so I... brought you here. This is my dorm. You... I... I was sleeping on the couch in the common room." He jerked a thumb towards the door.

What a cutie! It made me want to mess with him more so, very seriously, I added, "Can anyone testify for it?"

"Uh..." His eyes widened. They were a delicious shade of blue, the shade of Super Storm's costume, in fact. "Shit. No. Because I... don't share my dorm with anyone. Look, Ridge, I... I promise, okay? It wasn't me! I didn't do anything!"

"Hmm..." I crossed my arms over my chest. "How do you know my name?"

"You told me last night!" He sounded frantic. "I... I know this looks bad but... I promise, okay?" What a silly little - but hot - fucker.

I burst out laughing before I could help myself.

He looked appalled. "Are you... laughing at me?"

I wheezed as I nodded.

His face went a deep shade of red, expression tightening to an adorable glower. He indignantly folded his arms over his chest. "That was... not nice."

Cute. "What can I say, I'm not a nice person." I winked, then swallowed the pill he had given me, chugging down the glass of water.

He watched me. I let him.

"You..." His voice was soft and low, "don't remember my name, do you?"

"I don't remember anything," I answered honestly. Not even where I picked the damned drink from. Who on earth could've spiked my drink?!

"I'm Aspen," he said. "And you don't go to this Uni, do you?"

The "Of course, I do," was out of my mouth before I could even consider the pros and cons of lying vs. being truthful.

"Really? And what's your department?"

"Uh... Geography."

His lips curled into a smirk, revealing a sliver of teeth. "Liar."

I glared at how impossibly smug he looked. I wanted to say I preferred when he was being a flustered mess but there was something impossibly attractive about my rivals smirking at me.

"Last night you said your department was Earth Science, which I found surprising 'cause there's no such department here. Neither is Geography. It was shut down last year after a Villain blew the department building apart."

Stupid Villains. It was probably Terra Mess' doing, that dick. With my game up, I huffed and raised my chin. "So what? Are you gonna report me to the authorities? Y'all are the ones who had the wild party where I was drugged." Even as I said it, I knew it did not matter; the students here were from elite families who got plenty of leeway in terms of breaking rules.

But this guy, though, looked weak to authoritative power.

So as he opened his mouth, I beat him to it: "If you report me, I'll tell them I'm a hooker you hired."

The smile cracking off his face was worth everything.

I nodded at him, smirking. "I'll tell them you sneaked me in. Someone must've seen us together last night and if not, I know exactly what your room looks like."

He was gaping at me now.

I loved it!

"So, yeah. I'll just be taking my leave, thanks." I spun on my heels and got to the door. "Oh and, your clay, by the way, sucks. You should get a new supplier; this one's doused in inorganic chemicals which will explain why your project sucked." I frowned. "That or you're a bad sculptor. Guess you'll find out. Bye."

Aspen's jaw was still hanging low as I waved at him and walked out of his ungodly art-infested room.