Bad Luck: Like a Girl (Val)

[Noah Washington]

Noah spent half his nights of a week staying at Val's place. Partly because he didn't like his new roommate, partly because she didn't like him either. Things were hostile enough with Lucah spitting proverbial venom all over the place. Aside from their little squabbles they were doing their best to steer clear of each other. But he didn't like the idea of bringing his girlfriend into said hostilities. And she seemed okay with that.

Anyway. Ever since he had a shower this morning, there'd been this thing on his mind.

When he went to get dressed after said shower, this big ass spider had literally been lurking in his briefs. Did he scream? Ha, no! Screaming was incredibly anti-manly. He muffled the sound into his underwear (they're his, so it's all good) and decided not to say anything about the incident. But it kept lurking around him all day.

In the corner of the room. Peeking out from underneath the fridge. And he could have sworn it crawled across the TV when Val wasn't looking, like some terrible horror movie. But after that, the big ass spider was like... Gone. For ages. And so he was a bit paranoid about it, and started acting... Well, paranoid.

Anyway.

When he decided it might be time to head out - and maybe go home to his psycho roommate - he dropped his foot into his shoe when he found the notorious big ass spider's hiding place. The blonde's reaction was instant. He hauled the shoe off his foot and threw it aimlessly across the room, letting out a very high pitched, terrified scream in the process.

[Valerie Danner]

Valerie didn't like that Noah had to stay with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named any more than Noah did but she knew he needed a place to stay. She would have offered her apartment since nobody else was living there but the time apart sort of made getting together all the more rewarding. And she did like to hear Noah's tales about the curmudgeon of his roommate. It all had panned out pretty well.

She had just stepped out of the shower when she heard the shriek. A part of her almost had hopes that it was Spencer returning from home to continue with her studies. What she found made her smile even wider.

That was, until she realised just exactly what Noah was screaming about. The spider scuttled across the floor heading in her direction and she gulped. She wasn't entirely freaked out by the spider but the size of it did make her look at Noah with wide eyes.

Luckily the spider changed course but that only meant it was going to be harder to catch if it went out of sight.

"Where did that come from?" She hissed, finding higher ground and holding on to her towel tightly.

[Noah Washington]

Noah flipped out. Screaming like a girl, throwing his shoe across the room. Throwing the other one to the other side in case there were two spiders and they were plotting against him. But then Val stepped out and holy balls, the thing was going- right- for- her!

By that point, Noah moved into action and had... Juumped onto the counter, safe from the ground.

"Don't look at me!" He shouted, his blue eyes searching the ground in dismay. "You left the window open last night, didn't you!"

That's right. It was all her fault.

"Kill it, Val." He ordered. "Kill it now. Find it and murder it."

[Valerie Danner]

The change in Noah's demeanour from the usual cool calm and collected young man almost made Valerie laugh even more, if she wasn't such a huge target for a rather large spider.

And when he started accusing her of having opened the window, she snorted, giving out a loud bark of laughter, tightening her hold on her towel even more.

"Yes, I'm the one who opened the window in this weather." She rolled her eyes before looking around for something that could hurt a spider that big.

"How in the hell does Vermont have these monsters?" She wondered out loud as she found a big book. The spider had moved up to the wall and stayed there for awhile. "God, that thing is huge." She hissed as she slowly got off the chair she had jumped on.

Her breathing was shallow as she looked from the spider to her boyfriend who was on her counter. She bit her upper lip, clamping her mouth shut so that she didn't laugh at him. She turned her attention back to the wall and plucked her courage and threw the book at the spider.

That only served to get the spider to drop to the floor and scuttle away. It was Valerie's turn to shriek and run off the opposite direction of the spider. "God dang it!" She cursed, her eyes madly searching for where the spider had run off to.

[Noah Washington]

"I knew it!" Noah called out to her; her sarcasm was completely lost on him.

He cringed hard when he finally caught sight of the spider again. Augh, thank the lord it was no where near him. But it totally could have been a jumping spider. A new level of crazy was just added in his head.

"Maybe it's a meta-spider." He said seriously. Seriously.

Noah held his breath in the desperate moments before anything happened. He didn't know how he was going to explain his reaction to her, but he was going to have to. After everything went down. She made the fearless throw and-

"You missed!?" He literally smacked his palm against his forehead; "It was right in front of you! How could you miss!"

[Valerie Danner]

Valerie rolled her eyes at Noah's response to her sarcasm. That would have to be dealt with later as she concentrated on the matter at hand.

Her head snapped over to her boyfriend at his remark. "Then it's your fault it's here!" She exclaimed. "It probably bit you and got all your meta-y blood in its system and now it's grown big and it's going to start leaking water everywhere." She continued, gesticulating wildly.

His comments at her failed attempt did nothing to assuage the situation, though laughable as it was; her in a towel, him cowering on the counter.

She grabbed the book from where it had dropped and tried kicking furniture, hoping the spider would leave its hiding place so she could squish it. When it finally came out from under the coffee table, Valerie squealed and threw the book down again. She thought she heard a squelching sound but she couldn't be too sure as she had run off to the kitchen and jumped on to the counter with Noah.

Clutching at his shirt, Valerie breathed shallowly, looking out to where she thought she might have killed a huge spider. "Is it dead?"

[Noah Washington]

His fault? Noah scoffed, rolling his eyes. "It didn't bite me." He chastised her, clenching his jaw until his eyes widened.

"...Did it?"

And with that, he was searching his skin for those little duel bite marks. "I'm not ready to be the father of mutant spiders, Val. I'm just not." At this point, he wasn't even sure if he was joking.

"Can you not make it angry!?" Noah shouted at her as she kicked furniture around. Because if that thing could jump, he'd be jumping too. Right out the open window. Or the door. Whichever was more feasible when his survival instincts kicked in.

There was a sound. Like a really loud thump and when he realised what was going on, she was on the counter with him. Noah stared purposefully at where it was. Was it dead? He didn't know. Noah took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly.

"I'll handle this." He said definitively, glancing towards her. If he didn't live, she'd know what to do.

Move house.

Climbing down, Noah walked on his toes as he made his way over. He went at it with precision, moving across and stopping shy at the book in question. When he finally lifted it up, he screamed again.

"It has babies!" Literally spilling out of its crushed body were what looked like hundreds of tiny, minuscule spiders. Maybe he really was a father.

[Valerie Danner]

Valerie just stared at him when he denied being bitten, purposely letting him think it actually did. And he panicked, understandably. She wanted to calm him down, slap some sense into him but that would probably just set off something else.

As she kicked the furniture, she ignored his pleas and once she had done what she had to do and joined him on the counter, she breathed a sigh of relief when Noah stepped up. The look on his face made her nod determinedly to encourage him.

“God speed, Washington.” She called out before making puke noises when she heard the squelch. His remark did nothing to stop her from doubling over in disgust. “Augh, I’m a mistress to a spider. Your children are probably going to call me the evil human mother.”

[Noah Washington]

She was right. Noah was on edge. And being on edge meant the slightest thing was setting him off and making him crazy. Clearly she knew him too well.

Noah was cringing at the sight before him. It was like something out of a horror movie, watching those tiny guys climb out of the big guy's belly or back or wherever they lived.

"There's like fifty!" He shouted, standing there with a book in hand an a frozen expression on his face. And body. "If I killed their mother, you're automatically next in line. Sorry, that's baby-protocol."

He laughed. But this was no laughing manner!

"Do I kill them?" He asked, glancing over this shoulder towards her.

[Valerie Danner]

Noah's commentating made Valerie throw an unopened bag of chips at him. "You're an asshole, you know that?" She said, though she was also laughing.

His question led her to a moral dilemma. On the one hand, they were disgusting and should not procreate any more. But on the other hand...they were babies.

"Ugh, don't make me make decisions at a time like this, Wash." Valerie growled before making a decision anyway. "Damn it, just kill them." She turned away, peeking every now and then to see if Noah was actually doing it.

"Is it done?"

[Noah Washington]

Noah twitched at the sudden collision that was unopened bag of chips + his head. That was totally not helping his concentration.

"You're not a blood relative! You're perfect for this!" Noah called out to her. After all, these were his babies. They were her step-babies. The chain of command seemed pretty evident.

But she declared that they should die, and die they would. "You're lucky I love you." He turned his attention back to the spiders. With the same book, Noah made the move to squish every one of his spider-spawn children. It was brutal. Painful. But it was necessary.

Noah sighed, exhaling the breath he knew he'd been carrying throughout the whole ordeal.

"It's done."

Wait.

Did he just say he loved her?

[Valerie Danner]

"I don't give a shit, Wash!" She yelled out when he actually thought she was a better candidate to kill them. "I can't believe you're already making a distinction between me and your spider wife!" She exclaimed, briefly amused at how ridiculous this conversation was. She was sort of relieved the neighbours hadn't come around to ask them to shut up. Also, how the hell are they not coming around to ask them to shut up?

She almost didn't hear what he said in the midst of being a little insane. But the moment things died down, no pun intended, she cleared her throat and looked at Noah. "Uh...what?"

[Noah Washington]

The recognition of his action was clear in Noah's eyes. They were wide. His mind instantly started racing, and he wondered what was the best course of action. Running? Should he run away? Literally bolt out of the room, leaving everything behind? He was panicking.

But he blinked, finally.

"I said-" He choked out, faltering suddenly. "I love you." Noah shook his head suddenly.

No, that wasn't right. "You're lucky I love you." He corrected.

That was it.

[Valerie Danner]

Valerie quietly dropped down on the floor and padded over to Noah, her eyes peeking at the damage he'd done to a thankfully easily cleaned floor. "So gross," she whispered before looking up at her boyfriend who actually corrected himself on what he said.

She pursed her lips in amusement at how douchey he sounded right then. "Am I?" She asked with a smirk, though she had to admit, she wanted to say it too.

"It was a passing comment right? Heat of the moment thing?" She asked, sort of hoping it wasn't.

[Noah Washington]

Noah's eyes followed her as she came closer, but he still didn't really move. He blinked the dumbfounded expression out of his eyes as best he could, but his jaw was still slightly dropped.

Was she smirking at him? Didn't she get what he'd said?

"What?" Noah asked her, shaking his head finally. Finding his footing in this conversation. "No, why would anyone ever say that and not mean it? I-"

He paused, pressing his hands to her face lightly as he took a breath. He opened his mouth to speak again.

"I ruined it, didn't I."