bakerstreet | THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR IS LAVA.

THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR IS LAVA.

Just share the damn bed with me.

For whatever reason, the floor is unacceptable as a place to sleep. It's messy, the dog is there, THE FLOOR IS LAVA, or maybe there's flooding. Who cares why it's not acceptable, it just isn't! Normally, that's not an issue, but tonight you have a friend over. Maybe it's the safest place, maybe it's hurricane season and your house is the only one out of the path of the storm. Stop trying to figure out the details, just get over it and share the bed with that person! Sexy times are not required. Intimacy is not required.

Just share the damn bed already.

Do you need options? Here! Have some options!

1. It's late. You're tired. Too tired to drive and THE FLOOR IS LAVA.
2. It's late. You're drunk. Too drunk. Honestly, how did you drink that much and not die? Should we take you to the hospital? Here, just stay in this bed with me. No, you can't sleep on the floor. THE FLOOR IS LAVA.
3. It's early. You thought you'd just come by and visit but you can barely function. The bed seems inviting. Guess what, you're invited into the bed! Yes. The bed. Not the floor. THE FLOOR IS LAVA.
4. DO YOU LIKE TO CUDDLE? CUDDLING IS OKAY. And yes, the floor is lava.
5. WILDCARD. Just figure out a reason why you need to share the bed. But don't forget: the floor is lava!
6. The Crack Fun Insane Option - Actually Play the Floor is Lava Game!! Move about the room without touching the floor... because the floor is lava.

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She was having trouble trying to remember what happened after he'd shown up. But she was dressed and that was the thing she was focusing on right now. "How did... did you bring me here?"

The mention of water had her reaching for it, realizing how parched she was and working to get the cap off, swallowing half the bottle before she had to draw off and breathe. She still felt a little off; six hours wasn't exactly enough time to get it all out of her system, but she was conscious and could focus. Mostly.

"Yeah, I brought you here, Veronica," Derek sighed, laying back down and staring up at the ceiling. Was he going to have to fill in the blanks for her? Because he didn't have a whole lot of information to do that. "As loathe as I am to admit that, it beat leaving you in a dark alley drugged out of your fucking mind."

She moved to push herself up, sitting, then standing. She wobbled a bit, but she was up and she was looking over across the dark of the loft in the direction his voice was coming from. "I wouldn't have thought you cared."

That's not true. Even if she said it, she didn't believe it. It's probably why she'd dialed him in the first place. He was dangerous, but he had some weird set of morals.

He could hear her moving around as if getting up and Derek made the assumption that she was going to find the bathroom and her body was going to rid itself of whatever leftover toxins were lingering in her system. It seemed like a logical response to poison to him, anyway; that was what his body did when he'd been shot with the wolfsbane arrow and what Cora's body had done when she'd been dosed with mistletoe.

The response she gave earned her a roll of his eyes that she couldn't see. "Not that big a shitbag," he reminded her dully. "Go back to sleep."

Unfortunately for her, human bodies didn't work that way. It would stay in until it was worn out, which she hoped was soon. It was too much in her system for vomiting to work and not quite enough for relieving herself to work. Which she didn't really have to do yet anyway.

What she wanted was to figure him out. God, he confused her. Scared her. Pissed her off. "No, you're not." It was said with a bit of surprise to it, but she remembered that from last night, too. Not that big of a shitbag. He'd saved her. Brought her back to his place. Kept her safe. "I..." She stood there for a minute, hands holding her arms as she looked into the dark. "I should go."

She should. Hell, leaving him alone was the least she could do. But that meant finding her bag. She turned and moved to feel over the floor by the side of the bed. She should grab her bag and get out of here. She could call a cab or... no, she wasn't walking. Not like this. She'd call a cab.

Closing his eyes, Derek sighed again. Where did she think she was going to go at this hour? She sure as hell wasn't walking, because he sure as shit wasn't going to let her. He was too tired to get up to drive her back to wherever and he would really prefer it if she didn't give out his address to get a cab.

"Just go back to sleep," he grunted, frowning. "I'll take you back to your car in the morning."

He hoped that his tone was dismissive enough in tandem with however shitty she must feel by now that she'd just take the suggestion as the best option and go back the hell to bed.

Did he just tell her to go back to sleep? He did. She looked over at the corner he was in and frowned. "I don't want to sleep." Here. She didn't want to sleep here, even though she did. She was safe, but not safe. He could still rip her throat out, she just knew he'd do it and not touch the bottom half of her while he was at it. Good to know. "I'll just take a cab."

"I don't actually give a shit what you want, because I want to sleep and I think you owe me enough not to give out my address to some random cab driver who, I might add, is probably driving a cab because he's a loser with no family to go home to, which probably also means he probably hasn't been laid in a while and, quite honestly Veronica, I'm way too fucking tired to come save your ass again tonight. So go lay down and go back to sleep will you?" he grumbled back, frowning as he sat back up to look at her again with a dull, drawn expression that, assuming she could see it, ready very much like a long-suffering parent.

... Well. Well. "Someone's grumpy." She frowned, getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed, staring across at the shape that she could almost see now. "You always think so highly of people?"

What a dumb question. Derek hated everyone that existed. Of course he thought everyone was a loser with no life and no family to go home to. Because that's what he was. Hah. So there. The fact that she didn't say that out loud was due to her realizing that yes, she did owe him. She owed him a lot. God dammit, she didn't want to owe Derek Hale.

And yet, it got the job done, he thought to himself as he watched her move to sit back down on the bed. "What do you think?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. What little she knew of him should've already told her the answer to that. Derek didn't like people at all because he didn't trust them. People were hunters and monsters, more so, actually, than werewolves were in Derek's experience. The fact that he didn't point it out to her was only out of respect for the shitty night she'd already had that proved his point plenty.

"Humans are the only species that treat one another the way that they do. Why should I think highly of them?" he grumbled in addition. "Now please go back to sleep."

"You sure you trust me to? Sleep, that is." Why she couldn't just keep her mouth shut, she didn't know. Oh, sure she did. She was a sucker for punishment and a part of her was poking at him, waiting for him to be the monster he was and throw her out.

A very, very, very small part of her hated herself for that. For always having to pick.

"I trust that if you don't shut up, I'll make you walk home, anyway," he snapped back. "Jesus, I do you a favor and you can't just return it with a simple acquiescence to a request like 'go to sleep,' when you're already out of it? What's your deal?" he complained, laying back down.

It was an empty threat, but he was sort of hoping that was all he'd need.

Maybe it was because she was already in a low state, maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was just everything catching up with her, but she felt her lower lip tremble for a bit. Nope. Veronica Mars was made of sterner stuff than Derek Hale could huff and puff at. Maybe. As disoriented as she was, she was remembering the last two times she'd wound up like this, remembered the shame and guilt and anger, the rage and fear and vengeance... She answered without even thinking about it. "I don't know."

That was a lie. She knew. Her deal was making the people who hurt other people hurt worse. Victims needed a voice. Bullies needed a kick to the balls. Corrupt assholes needed a wake up call. That was her deal, but she couldn't tell him that.

Letting out a soft sigh, Derek closed his eyes in a slow blink before staring back up at the ceiling. He didn't like that woman at all, but he liked even less hearing her without the biting sarcasm and confident snark that made him hate her so much. It was almost enough to make him apologize—almost.

"Look, just...go back to sleep. You need the rest and I'm tired. This couch is the worst, knowing you're in here is the worst, just this whole goddamn night is the worst and I'd love it if you would go back to sleep so I can go back to sleep so that it'll be morning soon. All right?"

She looked over at the couch, thinking about what he'd done and what he was doing for her now. "Why don't you take the bed? I can take the couch. I'm used to sleeping on uncomfortable things." She was a college student. She fell asleep when she could.

"Because, for the third time now, I'm not that big a shitbag," Derek replied succinctly. Veronica was the personification of a thorn in his side, but the bed was pushed back in such a way that she'd have a clear, obstacle-free walk from there to the bathroom if she needed it and, on the other hand, it was tucked back into the only part of the loft that wasn't in the direct line of the wall of windows, so when morning came, she'd be able to ease into it instead of being sun-shocked into an instant migraine to wake her up.

"Taking the bed in your own house isn't being a shitbag, Hale. You've... done more than you had to. I'm here. I'm safe, thanks to you. Your status as a shitbag has been clearly revoked and confirmed as not true, okay?" So maybe she felt a little bad that a guy who clearly rubbed her the wrong way and who obviously felt the same had gone out of his way to help her and now she was... doing what she did best. Being a pain in the ass.

Derek rolled his eyes and then closed them again, turning on his side in another attempt to get comfortable that he knew was going to be fruitless. "Go...the fuck...to sleep," came the grouchy response with no actual effort behind it to sound softened in the least.

Her answer was a huff, exasperated and aimed at him as she stuck her tongue out at what was probably his back, then moved to lay back on the bed.

Only she couldn't sleep. Sorry, Derek, but her mind was sluggishly going through the events of the night. She knew she hadn't had anything alcoholic to drink and when she'd left the table, she'd ordered a new drink. So either someone working there had dosed her, or they'd done it with her drink en route to her table, or someone had managed to do it when she'd maybe taken her eyes off her food to reach for the salt or ketchup. Meaning it had been targeted at her specifically.

She wished she could remember the guy's face. She wondered if Derek did. Or maybe his smell. That was a dog thing, right?

Finally, Derek thought when more than a few minutes slid by with no sound from Veronica across the room. She wasn't sleeping yet — her heart was still beating too quickly to have drifted off into slumber again — but at least she was being quiet. Derek willed himself to fall asleep before she changed her mind and started running off from that big fucking mouth again.

It took another hour or so for her mind to slow down, for the pieces to stop jumbling in front of her before she drifted off again. Oddly, while she expected bitching in the morning, that steady thrum of fear she'd had around him had abated a bit, leaving her just a little bit less scared of the big bad wolf.

He'd probably do something to change that, and soon, but for now, Veronica drifted off to sleep wondering what had turned him into such a jerk.

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THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR. THE FLOOR IS LAVA.

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