Soft light filtered through the room in small streams, illuminating the bedroom in a gentle glow.

Despite the warm ambiance of the room, the man sleeping in the large bed felt anything but contentment. But when did hangovers ever really allow anyone to have such comfort?

No. This hangover currently had his head spinning like he was on an out-of-control carnival ride and pounding like he had just went three rounds in the ring with Muhammad Ali.

The man had no idea what had happened for him to have the hangover to put all other hangovers to shame, but he knew it must have been one hell of a night. He had had plenty of hangovers in the past, but nothing even remotely this severe. Could hangovers kill people? This one felt like it could.

With a groan and a good stretch, the man got up, wincing as he did so as he heard his bones pop like an arthritic old man's. How long had he been asleep? Ten hours? More? It felt like it had been forever.

The man shook his head lightly to dispel the pain behind his eyes, stumbling around as if still drunk. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he made his way towards his bathroom, tripping over thin air as he did.

Once inside, he closed the door and blindly reached around for his sink. Once he felt the smooth porcelain underneath his fingertips, he reached a little further for the faucet handles and turned them on. When he found a temperature he liked, he cupped his hands full of the liquid and splashed it in his face and rubbed it tiredly.

After a few seconds, the man forced his eyes to open slowly, taking a peak at his reflection as he did so.

If he didn't feel so drained then he would have screamed in terror like a dramatic teenage girl. The ghastly creature from hell staring back at him from the mirror couldn't be him, right?

His reflection looked like him, but his features were gaunt and his skin pasty as if he had either seen a ghost or was turning into one. His eyes were half-lidded and there were dark circles under his eyes. He didn't even want to think about how terrifying his hair looked either. He didn't even know his hair could stand up like that.

Nothing could make it look worse, and with how he was feeling, he doubted he could do anything to make it look any better. That left him with only one option: Take a shower hot enough to melt away all the grime and tiredness he felt.

He splashed his face once more before he turned his sink off and walked over to his shower stall instead. Turning the faucet on, he held his hand under the steady stream of water until he found a temperature he liked.

Not needing to shed his clothes off, considering he woke up as naked as the day he was born, the man stepped in front of the showerhead like he normally would. What he wasn't expecting, however, was the sharp sting to his back. It was like salt was being rubbed into open wounds while simultaneously being slapped. It hurt like hell and he instinctively recoiled from the pain as if he was burned.

He let out startled gasp as the pain subsided. Scrunching his face in confusion, he held his hand under the water again to see if it had become too hot all of a sudden. It was slightly warmer than lukewarm. Even a child wouldn't complain about the water. Then, why did it hurt him?

Stepping out of the shower and turning the water off, the man returned to his mirror and looked at his reflection. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was a pretty good-sized hickey on the right side of his neck, along with a couple others peppered across his chest, but that was it.

He had sex. That wasn't really out of the ordinary, but he didn't see anything else marring his body.

A hand came up and pinched the bridge of his nose as the man tried to recall the events of last night. He remembered having a rough day at work, but nothing beyond that. Had he drank himself into oblivion and found a random stranger to have sex with afterwards?

Not wanting to overthink anything at the moment, the man turned to his shower again and stepped inside to turn the water on.

Before he could step in under the inviting warmth, he was stopped by the sound of someone ringing his doorbell. It was gentle at first, but as seconds went by, it became more incessant. It was like a grubby, impatient child ringing the doorbell of a house on Halloween night.

The man frowned but shut the water off and grabbed a towel to cover his lower half. He had no problem showing off his body, but he had been told many times that walking around naked wasn't socially acceptable. Besides, he couldn't scare his doorman again, like he had last time. That incident had been months ago, yet the poor man could still barely look at him.

Making sure his towel was firmly in place, the man walked out of his bathroom and across his living room until he reached his front door. Without thinking about who might be on the other side, the man swung the door open, staring his visitor down with a look of disdain.

The man on the other side, Christophe his mind supplied after a few seconds, looked at him with concern evident in his eyes.

"Victor? Are you alright? You look like death," Chris murmured softly as he looked his friend up and down. "Did you get in a fight last night?"

Victor shook his head raggedly before turning around and making his way into his living room, leaving the door wide open for Chris to come in.

Taking one look at his friend's back sent a gleeful expression across Chris's face. "Oh, I see now. How was she? Good, I take it. She still here?"

The platinum blonde man turned around to look at Chris with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity. He was annoyed because the man was talking while his headache still pounded like a thunderstorm in his head. But at the same time, he couldn't help but be curious by his words. What was he talking about?

"What?" was all Victor managed to get out as he lifted a hand to massage the side of his fore-head.

Chris let out a soft laugh before leading his friend to his bathroom. Once inside, he positioned Victor in a way that would allow him to see his backside. If it wasn't for the fact that he was in the middle of his worst hangover yet, he would have cried out in shock.

Covering nearly the entirety of his back were long, angry marks. Some of them were merely red trails of angry flesh while others were actually open wounds. Whoever he had screwed last night must have been part cat, because the claw marks raking down his back looked like he had gone a few rounds with a tiger.

"Must have been some pretty good sex if you have scratch marks like those." Chris commented as he left the bathroom so he could take a look at the state of Victor's bedroom. If his friend looked like that, he couldn't imagine Victor's normally pristine room was left untouched.

As Victor stared at the marks left on his body by his mysterious one-night-stand, he suddenly heard Chris let out a bark of laughter from his bedroom.

Tearing his eyes away from the mirror, Victor made his way into his room to see what his friend was laughing about. "What's so funny?"

A few more giggles left his friend's lips. Without saying a word, Chris picked up several items from off the floor before flashing them at his friend.

Tinfoil wrappers, gold in color, caught his eye as his friend waved them around. There were three of them. All three were opened and their contents nowhere in sight. "Size large, eh? You must be a grow-er, not a show-er." Chris teased.

Before the hungover man could bite back a retort, Chris let his eyes trail to the rest of the room until they rested on one of its corners. Victor followed his gaze and found his desk a mess. All of his paperwork was on the floor and his computer was sitting crooked. And, was that a butt print sitting on its surface?

For once in his life, Victor felt himself getting embarrassed. His cheeks took on a rosy hue and his lips pressed themselves into a thin line. He was having troubles processing all of this at once and he felt that if he thought of it any longer he would go madder than the Mad Hatter.

"Is there a reason you're here? Or did you magically know I have a hangover and come over to tease me and make my headache worse?" Victor snapped tiredly, though his words held no real venom.

"I wish," Chris answered with a mockingly sad tone of voice. "I actually came over because you didn't come into work today. No one had seen or heard from you, so I decided to come over and check on you myself. It's like I'm your friend and your keeper."

The platinum blonde's stopped short of his doorway, eyebrows knitting in confusion. "What time is it?" Victor inquired, not sure how long he had been asleep.

Before his friend could answer, he glanced at the alarm clock sitting askew by his messy bed. It read 3:03 PM. He was supposed to be to work five hours ago. No wonder Chris had come to his condo to look for him. Victor was surprised he actually hadn't come sooner.

The Russian man let out a heavy sigh before raking his fingers through his unruly hair. "Wow, I'm really late to work."

Chris chuckled again and nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, you are. Care to join us the last two hours of the workday? Or would you rather me go back and inform them the boss is hungover and can't come?"

Victor groaned in response but nodded his head. If he took a shower now and got dressed quickly enough, he could make it to work around 4:00 PM and still have time for two hours of work. "Just let me get freshened up first. I look horrible."

His friend nodded before leaving his room, most likely to go to his living room to watch something on his TV. The Swiss man always did have a tendency to make himself at home whenever he came over.

As he took one last look around his room, Victor let out yet another defeated sigh before entering his bathroom.

Once inside, he dropped his towel to the ground and got into his shower stall and turned the faucet on to find his desired temperature yet again. Like last time, he winced at the sting the warm water left on his wounds, but he gritted his teeth until it subsided.

Once they had, he lathered his hair with his normal shampoo, scrubbing at his head vigorously as he tried to wash away the stink of sex and alcohol clinging to his body.

Just to make sure he no longer wreaked of his one-night-stand, he pumped a generous amount of the strongest smelling body wash he owned into his hand. His nose was assaulted immediately with the sharp scent of eucalyptus, followed by soothing balsam.

The eucalyptus invigorated his senses, piercing through the thick veil of mugginess the hangover had shrouded him in. He felt more alert than before, his senses coming back to him the longer he stood under the soothing stream of warm water.

However, he couldn't stay in the comforting confines of his shower stall any longer, no matter how much he wanted to.

It took every ounce of his remaining mental strength to turn off the water and exit his shower. He could have stayed under its warmth forever, but work had literally came knocking and he knew it was only right that he go for the remainder of the day.

Not even bothering to grab his towel from back off the ground, Victor walked into his room completely naked so he could search for a suit to wear. He may only be going in for two hours, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to dress professionally. He had standards to uphold.

With that thought in mind, Victor crossed his bedroom and opened his closet to fetch one of his designer suits.

The pants and vest were dark gray in color, his hands reaching for a crisp, white shirt to pair with the ensemble. For the finishing touch, he opened a drawer that held all his ties. Searching with his eyes, he eventually found one of his favorites: Black and made of silk, with Gucci printed on the back. He liked to think he was a simple man, but apparently not just anyone owned a two-hundred dollar tie.

Dismissing those thoughts, Victor took the things he needed before walking over to his bed and laying them across his comforter.

Piece by piece, the man put the suit on until all that was left was his tie. However, when he looked to his mess of a bed, he didn't see it. Lord knows where it went in that disaster area. However, being it was one of his favorites, he couldn't just leave it in there to be rediscovered later.

With a sigh, his hand reached for the lip of the blanket and peeled it gently from his bed. The sight that met his eyes was enough to make anyone blush. Three condoms, as used as they can get, were laying on his silk sheets, threatening to spill at any moment.

"Shit," Victor let out under his breath. He wasn't expecting to find those in his bed. He had never known himself to have sex good enough to the point where he needed three condoms. Hell, he barely had sex great enough for two condoms. Whoever he had met last night must have been one hell of a woman.

The man pulled his blanket down further and out of the corner of his eye, saw something drop to the floor. It looked to be black.

Thinking it was his tie, he bent down to grab the article of clothing. Yet again, he was startled by what he found. The piece of clothing he picked up was not his tie. They were a pair of briefs. Normally he wouldn't find this odd, but the problem was: They weren't his.

They were smaller than his own by just a single size, the brand not matching any he's ever owned either.

Finding these could only mean one thing: He'd slept with a man. Sure, he found himself appreciating the male form as much as the females from time to time, but he had always been with women when it came to sexual exploits.

So, what had been so special about the man he had slept with last night? He had seen men so beautiful they could have been models for the top fashion companies in the world. But did he ever want to sleep with them? Not really.

Why in the world was the man from last night so different from all the others? He wasn't sure of the answer, but he needed to know now.

Seeing the things left behind from their sexual escapades bothered him in a way he'd never been bothered before. He'd had plenty of one-night-stands in the past, but this one suddenly felt so different.

Who was this mystery man and where was he now? Looking around his room, he found nothing that could tell him more about who he shared his night with. No tantalizing note to tell him to come find him. No number left hastily on a napkin. Nothing.

Victor was struck with the thought that maybe the man didn't want to be found. However, his lover must not have known who he had slept with. Victor liked challenges and he couldn't help but feel this was his biggest one yet. And when it came to challenges, the Russian man never lost.

A/N: So, this is the first fic I've actually finished a chapter for in over three years. I found YOI in a time in my life when I needed something to pick me up and I don't think I've ever loved a show more. I haven't been inspired to write anything in quite a while, but I think you'll find me finishing this to the end. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.