Characters: Polly/Mal
Rating: C

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.

The Night Before
by Amazon Syren

     Oh, gods, my head...
     Polly stirs in the narrow bed, squeezing her eyes shut and turning away from the cruel, cruel sun that, apparently, is intent on making her suffer even more than she already is.
     Great big fish, my ass, she thinks. Why didn’t this nightshirt come with a blindfold. Brilliant idea, sleeping with a blindfold...
     She bumps up against something – Mal’s shoulder, probably – as she pulls the blankets higher.
     “Mmf. Morning,” mumbles Mal, turning towards her. A slender arm slides around her waist.
     Uh...
     Well, best make the most of it.
     She pulls Mal closer, quietly relishing the touch of their bodies.
     She very much wants to drift back to sleep, particularly given the sudden development of a snuggling Maladict beside her, but the reality of the situation is niggling at her mind.
     She reviews the events of the previous evening in her head.
     They’d checked into the inn, the lads installed in the shed across the street, and they’d – well, she’d eaten dinner. Not much, granted, but something. Significantly better than scubbo, certainly. And then… Then they’d started drinking.
     Uh-oh.
     Her mental litany grew a tad more urgent.
     They’d been drinking. Both of them. She remembered the number of empty glasses growing steadily – Mal had started out with coffee, but she'd gone from straight coffee to coffee laced with every possible sticky-sweet alcohol Polly could think of – and she’d been a pretty good bar-keep back in her other life – and had ended up being shots of wahlulu and Tia Dalimah, those coffee liqueurs that were so sweet they’d make you choke if you took them straight.
     Polly’d been drinking beer, because soldiers drink beer and because she knew the alcohol content of beer was relatively low compared to, say, the Abomination in a Glass cocktail that she distinctly remembered ordering later in the evening. That had been after Mal had convinced her to try a Doornail (which is what you got if you mixed sour apple wine with beer and black currant liqueur). But after that, the details started getting really hazy...

     Polly remembers laughing at something Mal had said, and the way she’d reached across the table to pluck a speck of lint from her corporal’s jacket.
     Oh, dear...
     Under the blankets, Polly feels Mal’s hand start to… wander…
     Er.
     Not that she’s complaining. In fact she has to grit her teeth to keep herself from squirming.
     What the hell did we do last night??
     She remembers stumbling up the stairs, her arm slung around Mal, and saying something... oh, gods, something unbelievably stupid as they’d tumbled into their shared room. What had she said? ”Alone, at last”?

     She feels Mal’s hand on her thigh, moving higher, over the curve of her hip, and hears Mal sight the contented sigh of the not-entirely-awake.

     “Er, Mal?”
     “Mmm?” A sleepy smile is bestowed upon her.
     “Uh... Do you, er, remember what… happened? Last night?”
     A low chuckle.
     “Bit hazy on the details, are we?”
     “Er,” says Polly. “I remember, ah, flirting rather inappropriately with you…?”
     Another chuckle, and Mal shifts, propping herself up on one elbow.
     “You were pretty over the top,” she concedes.
     Polly groans.
     “Gods, Mal, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was—”
     But then she feels steady fingers against her lips, and stops.
     “You don’t remember me flirting back. Do you?”
     She what?
     “Uh... No?”
     Mal’s fingers are playing lightly over Polly’s toast-rack of a chest, making her heart race.
     “Do you remember this?”
     “...No?”
     Mal nuzzles Polly’s neck, laying light kisses along the edge of her jaw.
     “This?”
     Polly shakes her head, suddenly unable to find her voice. Her breath is very shallow and she's afraid to move, incase she turns out to be dreaming.
     "I’ll just have to remind you then, won’t I?" Mal whispers in her ear.
     Polly’s mouth drops open – quite a feat, considering she’s lying down.
     Headache? What headache?
     "...That’d be a help," she says, weakly, once her voice has come back.
     So Mal bends her head, and kisses Polly good morning, and then proceeds to remind her, in great detail, of everything they did last night.