Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds
Title: The Morning After
Romance: Aki x Carly/Carly x Aki
Word Count: 1,488||Status: One-shot
Genre: Romance||Rated: PG
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section C54, write an unusual pairing; Written for the Dice Gods Challenge, random 'ship, Aki x Carly/Carly x Aki; Written for the Stardust Accelerator Challenge
Summary: It's New Year's Day. Carly is just waking up. In a bed that's not her own, with someone next to her that she doesn't remember falling asleep with.

Carly couldn't recall having had a hangover before. Mostly because she usually didn't make enough money so she could get drunk in the first place. Sure, she was doing a lot better than she had when she'd first come to Neo Domino City, and she had good connections that helped her not worry about having to pay her bills or put food on her table, but she still didn't drink often enough so she could get drunk.

Usually.

Now it seemed that she had and her head ached hard enough that she knew she'd never do this again.

Next to her, something moved. Carly froze the moment she realized there was another body in the bed with her, and a cascade of other memories fell into place.

This wasn't her room. This wasn't her apartment at all. She didn't recognize it, but she knew it wasn't hers.

There had been a party the night before. New Year's Eve. She hadn't been on the clock, though if she'd noticed anything interesting, she definitely would've chased it down and told whatever story she could've gotten from it.

A lot of her friends had been there, and friends of their friends. Nothing at all wrong about that; it made the party merrier, and she hadn't seen some of them in a long time. Jack hadn't made it, unfortunately, but with how he traveled the world, no one had really expected him to anyway.

Well, Carly had kind of hoped that he would somehow turn up. She wouldn't have been upset at all if he had. Even if the fires that burned at his name weren't quite as strong as they'd been in those early days or even when he'd left to travel the world to start with. But regardless, she liked Jack and it had been too long since she'd seen him.

Aki had been there, and Yuusei, and Crow, and the twins, and others that she couldn't put a name to with how her head still hurt. She chased down those thoughts in an attempt to avoid the fact there was someone else in the bed with her.

They'd all had fun, hashing over old times and getting caught up on what everyone else was doing and had been doing. Without the constant threat of the city being destroyed, everyone's lives seemed to be looking up more and more. Carly liked that. Sure, the constant threats had made for good stories, but she didn't like the thought of people dying.

That was yet another thought that got pushed to the side. Over the years, she'd gathered enough information from chance dropped comments to piece together what happened to her, but it wasn't something she wanted to give serious thought to once she realized what had happened.

The thought of finding out who was in bed with her was actually more palatable. She tensed herself and flipped over, ready to face this head-on. So long as it wasn't the mayor, then everything should be all right. Shouldn't it?

Carly blinked, not at all certain if she should believe her eyes or decide she was dreaming and go back to sleep. The latter option definitely sounded pretty good, because waking up to Izayoi Aki had to be some kind of a dream. She couldn't decide off the top of her head if it was a good dream or not, mostly because she'd never thought about doing it in the first place.

All of her instincts seemed to figure out what to do before her head did, though, since once it sank who was there, she made a squeaking kind of noise and scrambled back off the bed. There wasn't enough bed for her to scramble very far before she slid off entirely and flumped onto the floor.

There she sat for a few seconds, trying to get her head together and not doing a very good job of it, because her head still hurt and her mouth was dry and a dozen thoughts chased themselves around in her head and none of them made sense beyond the simple awareness that Aki was there, and starting to wake up.

The last part of that thought slammed into her at mental warp speed and she shook her head harder, no matter how much it hurt. Maybe if it fell off it wouldn't hurt that much anyway. That didn't happen, though, and she had to try to get up. If she could get her legs to agree on which way was up in the first place.

Then Aki sat up, rubbing her eyes. She blinked, peering first at the rumpled side of the bed next to her, then over it to where Carly still fought with the blanket that she'd pulled over with her, and was in the process of losing said fight. She blinked a few more times.

"Carly?"

Carly tried to smile. It wasn't a really good smile, mostly because she'd never tried to smile when she woke up next to a friend after a night of drinking that had apparently gone too far and perhaps not far enough, because now she realized that they were both dressed, so maybe this wasn't as bad as she'd first thought? Maybe?

"Uh… good morning?" At least if this were Jack, she would've had some kind of idea of what to say. She probably would've flubbed it up, talking too much without thinking, but … well, this wasn't Jack, and she'd probably do the same thing anyway. "Do you have a headache? Cause I do. And do you know where we are, because I don't."

Aki pushed herself all the way to her feet, wincing as she did, and rubbing the side of her face. "Yes. And no. I… think we're in a hotel?"

Carly looked around one more time. Yeah, now that the idea had been broached, she could see this was a hotel. Not a bad one, either, though who was going to pay for it, she had no idea. She knew she couldn't. "So..." Really, what was she supposed to do? What were either of them supposed to do. "I guess… we had too much to drink?"

Aki brushed herself off, nodding as she checked out the area herself. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, biting her lip. Carly had an idea of how she felt. This was so awkward. At least if they'd… well, done more than they had… they would've had something to talk about? Maybe? Carly had woken up with people before, but never quite like this. Completely out of her range of experience.

Probably out of Aki's, too. Before Carly could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth. "So, um, ever woken up with someone else before?" She wanted to smack herself the moment she heard the words. She was a reporter; it was her job to be curious, but was now really the time?

Aki glanced at her, quick and light, but then shook her head. "I've never been drunk before, either. It wasn't a good idea before." She didn't need to clarify what 'before' meant. When someone could bring spirits into physical form, losing control of that ability would be a very bad idea.

Something clicked somewhere in Carly's head. She scrambled to her feet and looked around until she saw a door and hurried right over. A handful of minutes later, she came back with two cups of water.

"I found the bathroom!" Carly declared happily, offering one cup to Aki. Water would help with a hangover, or so she'd heard. It would taste better than what her mouth tasted like now, without a doubt.

With awkwardness growing with every second, the two of them stood there drinking, until finally Aki spoke again. "I think we should get some coffee. I think I'd feel better with coffee."

"Right! Coffee!" The water had perked her up some, but coffee would be heaven and Carly thought she deserved a little heaven. "My treat!" It was the least she could do. She didn't know if she'd been in any way more responsible for how they'd ended up like this than Aki was, but she wanted to do it anyway.

The thought of actually talking to Aki, though, getting to know her better, wasn't a bad one. They'd very seldom spoken before, with Carly's attention focused mainly on Jack, and the few words they'd exchanged now, while not comfortable and still highly awkward, just didn't feel right to Carly.

And Carly's first instinct with things that didn't feel right was always to put them right. More often than not it ended up with a disaster, but that hadn't stopped her yet and she didn't see any reason for it to stop her now.

It was a new year. Why not start it off with getting to truly know a new friend?

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.