Chameleon | ONC 2020

3: Hangover

"Here."

Chameleon groaned and sat back from the toilet, blinking with bleary eyes at the glass of water in front of her face. The memories of how she'd got here were fuzzy. How had she got from the off-licence to puking in a stranger's bathroom?

She blinked again, and the face above her came into focus; bright green eyes and short white-blonde hair greeted her. The woman from the station smiled, insisting without words that she take the glass. Chameleon narrowed her eyes. She still had no sorrow cloud.

"Thanks," she croaked. The water was cold and soothed the burns in her throat, the pounding in her head. Her voice was clearer when she next spoke. "What happened?"

"From what I could gather," the woman said, putting her back against the nearby door frame and sliding into a crouch. She was still smiling, though by all rights she should have been steaming-angry and ready to boot Chameleon out the door. "You went to an off-licence, purchased a bottle of vodka, called my number from a phone box near Charing Cross, and drank a good proportion of the entire thing in the time it took for a taxi to get to you."

Chameleon put her head back; it bumped gently against a white-washed radiator. The warmth seeped from her scalp to the rest of her body, making her shudder gratefully as she tried to pull her thoughts into some kind of order. She remembered fighting with Coran, and everything else was hard to grasp, as if it was veiled in mist.

She closed her eyes. "I'm so sorry. You should have just left me there."

"Why would I do that?" The woman looked almost offended at the suggestion. "You could have died from exposure. Someone might have attacked you. And you called me for help. If you don't believe in basic human decency, then at least accept that it's my job to respond."

Chameleon closed her eyes again. "I can't afford to pay you. I only meant to..." She stopped. She didn't know what she had meant to do. She'd been following Coran around for all the years they'd been together, and he'd always found them someplace to go. It disgusted her that she didn't know what to do without him. "I had a fight with my boyfriend."

"You said that." Lilac was the woman's name. It was coming back to her now. "As well as a few other things."

A lurch in Chameleon's stomach had her slumped back over the bowl in the next moment, but she was almost grateful for it, so that Lilac couldn't see the embarrassment burning her face. "What did I say?"

"A lot of derogatory things about werewolves."

Chameleon froze.

"Don't worry," Lilac said, "I see a lot of them in my clinic."

"You're in on the Seal?"

"Absolutely," Lilac said. "The supernatural often need more counselling than humans do, much as they like to pretend they're invulnerable. That's what my other address is for."

"Let me guess, I'm an idiot for dating one?"

"I wouldn't say it was advisable, particularly." Lilac frowned, so delicately it was almost imperceptible. Everything about her was delicate; she was so pale her veins showed in some places, her lashes and eyebrows white and wispy and only visible when the light caught them. Chameleon had never had the privilege of meeting someone of the fae-folk, but if she had been asked to guess what they looked like, Lilac might have come close. "But it's not fair to tar them all with the same brush."

"That's a damn sight more moderate than anyone else's opinion of it," Chameleon muttered. "At least you didn't place a bet on how long it would be before I was found in a ditch."