Ounce for Ounce

Disclaimer: I do not own Silent Hill; all characters contained herein are of or over the legal age of eighteen.

A/N: I am completely angsted out.

City is restless; it's ready to pounce
here in your bedroom, ounce for ounce
(Violent Femmes, "Add It Up")

When it came right down to it, Maria was a creature of habit, and Silent Hill was a town that was all too willing to cater to this lifestyle. From the time that she'd realized just how major a role she played in the town to as she was now, strolling through the broken, empty streets like it was nothing, just another day in the life, she'd always struggled to find some sort of routine.

Because when it came right down to it, Maria craved stability. Habit equaled routine; routine equaled familiarity; familiarity equaled stability. It was all just a part of a plan, the plan, one that had been unconsciously and intricately laid and followed for years.

People came and went. Some survived, other's weren't so lucky. Most weren't so lucky, in fact, and if they did manage by that microscopic sliver of a chance to get out of their Hell, nobody got off scotch-free. They all carried their personal demons, always looming over their shoulders, always whispering hot and heady in their ear.

Sexuality, Maria found, was a very predominantly occurring theme. And sex, Maria deduced, and the never-ending lust produced as a direct result thereof, was quite possibly the root of all evil.

She often played a role in these people's lives. She was the abusive mother, the sexually assaulted sister, the prostitute in the alley that they had strangled. She supposed they each saw her differently, then, and she didn't have the strength of will to not become the most influential matriarch in Silent Hill. Next to the Holy Mother of God, of course, but that was a very different subject, one she would rather not dredge up. Organized religion, cult going-ons, was what had brought Silent Hill to its knees, and she'd be damned if it did the same to her. Especially when it was such an easy thing to grab on and anchor oneself to.

And the monsters themselves didn't harm her. She was one of them, after all. She was a part of the town. The monsters obeyed what the town told them, just as Maria herself did, and when the town said nothing, the monsters were nowhere to be seen. They had the oddest tendency to skitter out from seemingly nowhere when the real monsters—the people that came to Silent Hill for redemption—came about. It was as if they materialized from the darkness itself.

The last person to visit had come a little more than three years ago. He'd been a man with a decadent taste for luxury and a wallet size to back it up. All the money in the world couldn't have bought him out of his sins, though, out of the dark things that lurked in his mind and made him rot from the inside.

Pyramid Head, resident executioner and overlord nightmare of Silent Hill, had been the one to deliver the final blow with that horrible Great Knife. The man had conned his way to the top, it seemed, and look where it had him now.

Pyramid Head…was much like the other monsters of the town. He had a strong sense of duty, or maybe just a weak sense of independence. If the town told him to fuck himself with his own sword, then damn it all, he'd do it. He probably wouldn't enjoy it, but he'd do it nonetheless.

Still, he did hold a certain charm. And by charm, Maria meant a certain aura that clearly told her to stay the fuck away. Not that they didn't have their run-ins, especially when there were strangers in the town, but it was a general rule of thumb that both should avoid each other at all costs.

Well, it was her rule of thumb, anyway. She supposed he followed the same unwritten law, though, because whenever they saw each other on off-days, he'd instantly pretend not to see her. She was the insects that he marched among, as high in rank as any backwards-faced nurse or lingering ghost.

And really, in comparison, she'd much rather hang out with the patient demons than with Pyramid Head.

As much as she wished to have avoided him forever, though, and as much as she had prayed that he would disappear along with the resolving of James' issues, Pyramid Head was just as much a part of the town as she now was. They were both like actors, pushed into ridiculous roles and forced to play them out. And God help her in the acts that involved her coming face to face with this demon.

His personality or lack thereof was shaped according to the stranger's fears and trepidations, and Maria often found herself on the sharp end of the proverbial fuck stick. He never actually penetrated her, which, though she was thankful for, was peculiar. When James had been around he'd never even shown a sexual interest in her, though that was a completely different story when it came to other lonely new denizens of Silent Hill.

She remembered one incident quite clearly when a man had come to Silent Hill because of his guilt over involvement in his own sister's rape and murder. And so, following exactly on cue, Pyramid Head found it in his interests to show up wherever Maria was and stalk her constantly.

She'd actually befriended this man, this "Charlie," as he'd said his name was, during that time. He wasn't bad, just a little…off-kilter. But he was nice enough, and Maria had been glad for the company, even if he constantly commented on just how much she looked like his late sister.

Pyramid Head, at first just a niggling presence that lurked in the corners and scared the living daylights out of Charlie, soon started advancing upon Maria. And the fear had been very, very real. While it was true that Maria could not die while she was still contained within Silent Hill, the experience was not pleasant. She'd "died" enough times to know.

His aim wasn't to kill her, though. His aim was to molest her every chance he got, as long as Charlie was somewhere within eye- or earshot.

The first couple times had been frightening and surprising and just damn confusing. He'd back her up against a counter, splay her out on the floor, force her in a chair and curl his tongue around her neck from behind. The helmet was a nuisance, of course, and it was the cause of several bruises still present on Maria to this day.

But Charlie, in some respects, had reminded her painfully of James, and likewise, what had left her behind. Every time he would come walking into the room, flashlight bouncing across the walls, his name on her lips and her pleas for help in his ears, her chest would ache. Granted, sometimes it was because Pyramid Head was a fatass and when he laid on top of her she felt like her ribcage was going to collapse, but other times…other times he just sounded far too much like things better left forgotten.

"Maria!" he'd call, fiery red hair sticking out at odd angles, the freckles dotting his face blending with the splatters of dried blood. "Maria, oh, God, where are you?"

"Charlie," she'd cry, trying so desperately to push Pyramid Head away. "Charlie, help me!" No, no, she wanted to tell him to turn back, to go home, to try his best to leave, because she was going to be okay, but the words bubbled up in her throat and spilled out before she could manage to stop them.

What Silent Hill wanted, Silent Hill got, apparently.

Pyramid Head was surprisingly docile in the right circumstances, and she almost felt bad for him sometimes. Sometimes. It must have been painful, that helmet, and always having to bend at the every whim and will of some decrepit town must have worn him down quite a bit.

But then he'd twist her nipple and she'd develop a knee-to-groin reflex.

It worked. On occasion. Other times it was like he had steel testes or something, brushing it off like it was nothing.

The attacking, if it could be called that, continued for a few weeks thereafter, which was far too long in Maria's honest opinion. Especially when he'd started dry-humping her.

The attacks had gone from horrifying to traumatizing to annoying to ridiculous to just downright funny in a very short span of time. And if she didn't know any better, she'd say Pyramid Head was enjoying, it, too.

…He wasn't, of course. Not when he was growling in her ear and rubbing his insatiable erection against her thigh.

He had her from behind, pinning her arms at her sides with his arms around her waist, locking into fists at her stomach. She was doubled over and he was doubled over right with her, chest right against her back and his helmet and those dark depths beneath it hovering directly over her neck.

She started to laugh when he'd set in on the humping, though, even when hists fists clenched instead into the fabric of her skirt.

Each thrust presented the danger of toppling over, and yet this just made her laugh harder. Silent Hill was really slipping up in its game. Or maybe she was just getting used to it. But she hadn't found something honestly worthy of a laugh for such a long time, so she continued to rock her insides with hard laughter.

Pyramid Head had managed to push the both of them right up against an abandoned computer desk, and she leaned heavily against it, keeping them both steady. His hands were kneading into the front of her thighs by then, very likely tearing more holes in her nylons. And the way he was panting as he rocked his hips into her ass, striving for something that Silent Hill just wasn't going to let him have, seemed absolutely hilarious.

So when Charlie ran into the room, handgun at the ready in one hand and the flashlight shedding more light upon her in the other, the horrified look that crawled over his face was probably warranted.

Maria was laughing so hard that she was crying as a rather frightening man-slash-monster was sexually assailing her from behind.

"Charlie," Maria laughed, burying her face in her forearms. "Charlie, it's okay, it's—it's funny, he's not hurting me." She giggled to herself at the stupidity of the situation, even when all of that insane laughter died in her throat and Charlie shot a few well-aimed bullets into Pyramid Head's helmet.

The force of said bullets knocked him backwards a few steps, and seeing her chance, Maria bolted. Charlie was on her heels, and Pyramid Head was right on Charlie's, groaning and growling and pulling that heavy sword behind him.

Charlie didn't make it out of the building.

That was honestly the only string of incidents where Pyramid Head asserted his sexual prowess over her in any manner. The other times were mainly comprised of him scaring her half to death whenever she turned a corner or chasing her down filthy hallways while even filthier men ran for their lives.

So, much later on, probably a couple years, actually, but they didn't age, so who knew, she wasn't surprised to find that Pyramid Head had developed a couple vices of his own.

At first glance, it almost looked like he was dying. He looked like he was in some sort of pain, anyway, fumbling with the sword in his hand, dropping it, almost falling over.

In fact, she would have tried to help him if she hadn't noticed the number of empty alcohol bottles sitting around him.

She narrowed her eyes.

The bastard.

How dare he get into her stash?

Mentally pulling on her big girl shoes, Maria puffed up and stepped into the room, hands on her hips as she stalked to where Pyramid Head was currently attempting to dislodge his foot from a crate.

And with a burst of courage that probably came from a)the fact that she couldn't die in Silent Hill and b)the thought of him drinking all of her booze, she pressed her hands to his chest and shoved hard.

His supposedly drunken haze combined with his boot stuck in the crate caused him to topple over backwards, grunting when he landed right on his ass. It had to have hurt, but he didn't look like he was in any position to retaliate.

Instead, he let his head drop to the floor. The back of his helmet forced his neck to crane at an awkward angle, though, and Maria got an eyeful of a defined chin and what may or may not have been a bottom lip.

He lay there for a while, occasionally shifting, the only sounds in the room being the far-away shuffle of monsters outside the building and each of their breaths. Maria's was coming far faster than his, of course, but she attributed this to the fact that she had just physically assaulted Pyramid Head, for God's sake. She must have had a subconscious death wish.

Finally he made some sort of movement, and it was so out-of-the-blue that Maria flinched. He put one gloved hand to the brim of his helmet, tugging at it, adjusting it, and then groaned. He tried to roll to stand, but when he finally sat up, he just vainly tried to detach himself from the crate.

"Oh, jeeze," Maria said on a sigh, cocking a hip out and furrowing her brow. She donned a wry smile when Pyramid Head finally settled for trying to beat the thing off of him, oblivious to her presence.

She put on her best sexy swagger when she approached him, purposefully clacking her boots against the tile floor louder than necessary. She bent down, tucking her skirt in the crease of her knees to make it stay there, damn it. The last thing she needed was to show off the goods to some random monster.

He didn't seem to perceive her as any sort of threat, because he just backed off from his captured appendage and tilted his helmet toward her patiently.

She glared at him pointedly before cautiously beginning to pry off the broken pieces of plastic surrounding his ankle. "I hope you know you're now officially in my debt, you filthy hulk," she spat, pouting. "No more trying to kill me, shithead. Also, no more molesting. Ever."

A piece of plastic cut her hand, but she ignored it. She'd finally broken a big enough hole to slip Pyramid Head's boot out, with a little bit of struggling, and he drew his leg to his chest when he found that he was free.

Maria tossed aside the crate and stood, wiping her hands on her skirt and then licking the bit of blood that formed on her hand. "Bastard," she mumbled under her breath, and then started walking away.

She must have been halfway down the nearest hallway before she noticed that his presence was still behind her. When she whirled around, he was there, stopping when she stopped.

"What do you want?" she asked, growing wary again. "Come on, no one's here. Go off and…do your own thing." She waved her hands for emphasis. "Shoo, shoo!"

He didn't reply, but when she didn't make any sort of movement for a while, either, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Sighing, she turned back around and started walking again. She could hear his footsteps behind her, louder this time.

When she opened the door to daylight, she broke out into a full run, heading toward the bowling alley with her heart pounding in her chest. She encountered only a nurse, who turned her bubblehead toward her fleeing form, but none of that really mattered at the moment. Currently, all that she was concerned with was Pyramid Head, his disturbing lack of physical violence, and the fact that he was following her.

She got there in record time, slowing to a stop in the alley running down the side of the building. An old, rusty dumpster allowed her access to the fire escape overhead, and she climbed it dutifully to the roof.

The roof of the bowling alley was more or less Maria's base of operations. It was the safest place in Silent Hill, as far as she was concerned. There was no other way to get up there, and the monsters didn't quite have the intelligence or the dexterity to climb all the way to the top.

Sleeping under the stars was nice. It got old fast, but it was nice, nonetheless.

She flopped down on her makeshift bed of blankets and sheets and pillows—more of a nest, really. She allowed herself to catch her breath and her heart to slow to a comfortable pace before she opened her eyes.

The sun was just barely going down, dipping over that unreachable horizon. Fog was slowly beginning to thicken and creep up the sides of buildings, flooding over fire hydrants and engulfing cars. If she looked down over the edge of the roof, she'd barely be able to see the street.

After one long, unnecessarily drawn-out breath, Maria groped around beside her and pulled an unopened bottle of beer from the box by the bed. Pyramid Head had broken into her main stash, but she'd hidden the bottles here and there around the town. She still had enough to last her…oh, about another year, if she was lucky. Neely's Bar and Texxon Gas stayed suspiciously stocked throughout the course of her stay in Silent Hill. Maria generally stayed in the South Vale area; she wasn't interested in any of the other sections of the town, especially since her own neighborhood housed all of her needs quite nicely.

She twisted the bottle cap off with a wet pop, bringing the drink to her lips. As soon as the beer splashed into her mouth, though, familiar and bitter, just how she liked it, a loud clatter near the fire escape startled her. She abruptly choked on the drink.

Tossing the bottle aside in favor of rushing to the fire escape, she realized far too late just how old the thing really was.

And peering over the side, there was Pyramid Head, very near to the top, very close to pulling the ladder straight out of the bolts on the wall, and his helmet very, very stuck in the rungs.

She would have laughed if she wasn't so exasperated.

"Get off of there, you idiot!" she screeched, watching with horror as the bolts slipped with another jerk. She really didn't give two shits about Pyramid Head, but if the fire escape fell off, she had no way of getting down without having to kill herself or break a leg in the process. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Vainly, Pyramid Head jerked his head back. This just tugged the ladder further away from the wall, though, and he stilled and stiffened when the bolts scraped against plaster threateningly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Maria demanded, reaching down to try and free him. Again. "If you get me stranded up here, I swear to God I'll—"

As soon as she successfully nudged his helmet out from between the rungs, the bolts gave one last cry of anguish before slipping completely off of the wall. Panicking and not quite sure what else to do, Maria grabbed one of Pyramid Head's hands while he gripped the edge of the wall with his other.

He looked sort of helpless at that moment, even when devious thoughts of just letting him go and plucking each finger off of the ledge passed through her mind. She wondered what sort of expression he wore.

Grunting and using most of her weight, damn near dragging her down in the process, Pyramid Head managed to scale the wall, deftly hopping over the ledge and onto the roof when he made it to his feet.

Maria backed way, way up.

He stood there for a second, swaying on his feet, before stalking purposefully to her nest o' blankets and flopping unceremoniously down.

And as if he was just rubbing it in, the son-of-a-bitch, he took the beer she'd discarded and finished off the contents, the neck of the bottle disappearing under his helmet.

"Hey! No! No!" Half jumping half running, Maria fisted two hands around a bundle of blankets and pulled, intending to rip her bed away from him.

She was barely able to just drag him along, though, blankets scraping dully against the concrete of the roof.

"You Goddamn raving alcoholic!" she accused, growing more frustrated by the second. "Leave me the hell alone!" And why did that sound familiar?

He tossed the empty bottle aside, where it shattered.

"That's not fair!" she scolded, losing some of her steam when he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her on top of him.

She landed with a gasp on top of his chest, one knee falling between his legs.

He growled in what she assumed was approval. Oh, God, she hoped it was approval.

Nonetheless, he was absolutely shit-faced drunk, so she glared daggers at him and tried to push herself to stand. He hadn't relinquished his hold on her wrist, though, and he just held her over him when she tried to get away.

"What are you, an affectionate drunk?" she snorted, trying to pry his fingers off of her.

He tilted his helmet up a bit, just so that it covered most of his nose and upwards, and she saw his lips twist up into a grin. Why the fuck did he have white teeth? She had to fight tooth-and-fucking-nail for a Goddamned tube of toothpaste around here, so why did he—?

He took her silence as an "Ooh, please continue," because that long, thick, dark tongue slid out from somewhere between those lips and those teeth, still grinning like the madman he was, and it followed the curve of her jaw and to her earlobe. She found that she was quite devoid of breath for a second, but even when it came back, she just couldn't sum up the willpower to say anything.

Not that he'd stop, but it was the principle of the thing.

His tongue shifted to push all too forwardly past her lips, dipping under her own tongue and then curling around it, moving in a sort of rhythm, filling her mouth, tasting like beer and something else natural that she couldn't explain.

Her thighs started trembling, then, and some automatic response trigger had her returning the favor in kind, sucking on the tip, pursing her lips around the tongue and moving her head with each curve of the morbid, creepy, wonderful thing. She hadn't been aroused from a kiss since high school.

Not that this counted as a kiss, exactly, but it was close enough.

He withdrew his tongue back into his own mouth, running it over the front of his teeth once. He swallowed visibly, and when he parted his lips again, his breathing had quickened significantly. Not quite panting, but that part would come soon enough, Maria figured.

Oh, to hell with it. He was an affectionate drunk; she was going to take advantage of it.

The first touch of her lips to his had him jerking backwards in surprise and then stilling, sensing possible danger, but when she tried to copy his previous actions, what with the tongue-on-tongue and all, he quickly recovered. And once again he was dominating over her, steely grip holding her biceps until she was sure she was going to bruise.

Her nails scratched almost teasing lines across his chest in reply, teeth nipping at his surprisingly full lower lip.

One of those deep, disturbing groans rumbled through his chest and into hers, and for a moment Maria had to remind herself that she wasn't, in fact, laying supine on top of a very friendly motorcycle. The thigh that abruptly pushed between her own only helped the thought anchor itself in her mind.

Then again, there were pros to this situation. Maria couldn't exactly fuck a motorcycle. Comfortably. Pyramid Head, however, possessed the right bits and pieces to do the job.

Distracted by the idea of straddling his chest and seeing just how long he could keep up the growling, she was justifiably startled and suitably aroused when one of her arms was released and a wide hand found its merry way down to cup her ass. Shifting against him in a decidedly encouraging manner, Maria was rewarded when two thick fingers squirmed their way further to tease her sex through the thin material of her appropriately wet panties.

He was growling again, groaning, purring, maybe, and she lay her breasts against his chest as he explored every inch of her slit, the calluses on his fingers adding a bit of "oomph" to his ministrations. She slipped one hand down, eventually, figuring he deserved it, to wrap around his length, stiff and deliciously warm in her hands. Pyramid Head jerked appreciatively.

Hell, if he was good, she might even blow him. If he didn't try to make her choke on it, of course; he was definitely big enough, and she could only hold her breath for so long.

...She really hoped he wasn't into carving his own holes or anything. Painful, and not sexy in the least. Forcefully pushing the thought away, Maria tightened her grip on his cock and pumped experimentally, twisting her wrist at the base. Pyramid Head groaned, the sound quickly joined by the sharp rending as he tore her panties away impatiently.

"You stupid shit," she grumbled, though it was significantly drowned by his heavy breathing and her own intermittent intakes of breath. "Good luck finding another fucking pair of panties around here for me."

He didn't seem to care, though, especially when he rubbed a demanding thumb over her clit and stuck his vile, dripping, wonderful tongue into her mouth again. Maria moaned and leaned into it, pumping him and running fingers over the tip.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost picture someone else, somewhere else, anything other than on the run-down roof of a run-down hell of a town where she was playing tonsil hockey with the resident anti-christ of a monster.

A month, maybe even a week ago, the thought might've caused her some pang of concern. And maybe it was still there, that tiny screaming voice of her conscience, but it was easily ignored. Because she was one of the monsters in the end, and it didn't really matter.

Shoving Pyramid Head's bloodstained apron further up to bunch around his stomach, Maria suddenly let her grip go teasingly light, one hand dropping to cup and massage his balls. She broke the contact he had on her and moved lower, touching her tongue to the shaft and sliding it up in one slow, tantalizing stroke.

Pyramid Head let out a sound that might have been a word, an urging to continue, and continue Maria did. She, herself, was feeling it now, the need to be filled, an aching emptiness that was frustrating and masochistically pleasing at the same time. She pushed his length into her mouth, the tip touching the back of her throat, scraping him with her teeth once or twice. He only seemed to enjoy this further, squirming, hands clenching into her hair and the blankets alternately. And she realized, with a great deal of amusement and an even greater deal of sexual pleasure that rushed straight through her and made her hum around him, that he was curling his toes. His big, bulky boots scraped against the pavement of the roof and then stretched out to their full length, every muscle in his body presumably stiff and taut.

Let it be known that Maria was very good at what she did-- the current example being blow jobs. She had done a fair number in her time before she'd ended up in Silent Hell, though a few were a bit fuzzy from the drunken haze she'd been working through at the time.

She also knew that liquor affected normal men in some distinctly fun-crashing ways; while Pyramid Head was obviously male and obviously drunk, she had no idea whether it would impare his sexual prowess. Just in case it did, she was careful to pull away before he could come, fingers tight around the base of his cock while she worked her jaw.

He seemed extremely, extremely averse to this idea, but she straddled his lap and guided his cock against her opening, soaking him and teasing him, giving him none of that control he thought he had in the first place. He started rocking into her, hands on her hips, head back, mumbling things from under his helmet. And finally, with a final sigh of contentment, she pushed him into her.

At the first contact of her inner muscles, clenching around him and pulling him deeper, Pyramid Head started up an impossible rhythm of thrust-grunt-jerk. Maria may have been on top, but that didn't mean she was dominating him. In fact, she found it nearly impossible to do much other than hang on for the ride. Slightly annoyed but not insane enough to pull away, she instead leaned forward, cautious of his twitching helmet, and set her teeth into the curve of a bulging bicep, nails digging little crescents into his battered skin. From the way he jerked her down harder into the next stroke, it was something he enjoyed. Panting, she did it again and again, leaving marks up and down his arms, outlining his collarbones until his tongue invaded her mouth again, muffling her moans.

The situation would have been funny if it wasn't equal parts terrifying and disgusting, but she hadn't gotten off since James had been around. She wondered, while Pyramid Head shifted where he lay, whether Pyramid Head was the jealous type.

All thoughts on the intricacies of Pyramid Head ceased, however, when his tongue fell from her mouth to her sex, double-stimulating her in a way that made all of her pre-conceived notions of sex and the male population's general incapability to satisfy her fall to pieces. She called his name, or the beginning syllable of his name, anyway, rolling into him, making sounds that reminded her more of squeaks than anything, and threw her head back. She ran her hands over her own breasts, squeezed lightly at her nipples, and reveled in it when she realized that Pyramid Head was watching her from beneath that massive pyramidal helmet of steel.

She felt blunt fingernails dig into her hips that slipped until the pads of his fingers were leaving angry red marks on her skin. A decidedly vulnerable and uncharacteristic noise slid from his lips, his tongue withdrawn, and when he tilted his head back, Maria caught a delightful glimpse of infuriatingly white teeth clenched tight. He inhaled sharply, and that acute gasp was what set Maria on that edge, and the subsequent, groggy grunt of her name was what pushed her right over it. Her insides coiled, wound, tightened, and then released, moisture from either her or him dripping down her thighs.

It was apparent that he was already spent, but she couldn't remember when, exactly, he'd climaxed. She pulled off of him and rolled to lay in the bed at his side, her heart slowing to a considerably normal pace. She listened to him breathe, too, and neither said a word, until all was even and in-tune and back to startling normalcy.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd lain next to someone and listened only to their breath, but she did remember that it had been nice. And it still was. The fact that this was Pyramid Head, and Jesus fuck, something must have been wrong with her, never really registered as much as it probably should have.

The air became colder after a very typical Silent Hill breeze raised the goose-bumps on her skin, and she pulled the one blanket that Pyramid Head wasn't laying on over her. And, after careful consideration, she stretched it over him, too. He smelled like booze and metal and, well, skin, and if sex had a scent that she could clearly discern, then he'd probably smell like that, too. Overall it wasn't a bad smell, but it wasn't something she could easily grow accustomed to.

Her mind drifted as she drew closer to absolute sleep, and along with the drifting of her mind went the drifting of her self-control. She couldn't help herself: She tossed an arm lazily over his chest and pressed her face to where his collarbone met his shoulder. The helmet hovered over them haphazardly, and if Maria really tried hard enough, she could see a brief flash of white teeth whenever he inhaled.

- - -

As pleasant of a night as the previous one may have been, Maria had to admit that waking up to a very hungover, very groggy Pyramid Head puking all over the side of their newly appointed "love nest" wasn't a pretty sight to behold.

She wasn't mad, though. Not entirely. It was actually quite comical, with the way he tilted the helmet up, gasped feebly when one round was done, and then grunted with a stiffening of neck muscles to empty out more of his stomach. The guy looked like he was about to fall apart at the seams.

Maria laughed to herself and rubbed his back, fingers tracing a shoulderblade for less than a second. "Welcome to the morning after, big guy."

He glanced back at her, helmet still tugged up over his mouth and nose, and in the grey morning light, Maria could faintly see the outlines of his eyes. There were dark bags under them. Were they brown? Either way, he certainly wasn't hideous. Not attractive, but not hideous, either.

He held her there in his sights for a while, right up until the dry heaves set in. His entire torso jerked away from her, and he gagged on nothing. It didn't look like he deemed her a threat, in any case. Or, rather, it didn't look like he had any intentions of attempting to kill her anytime soon.

The dry heaves and retching finally stopped, and he only lay back down against the bed, head undoubtedly spinning.

Maria pointed off in the distance toward where the sun was creeping up over Toluca Lake's bleak reflection. "See that thing right there?"

Pyramid Head actually had the decency to glance over at where she was pointing.

"That's called the sun, and from here until he sets, he's your new mortal enemy."

They spent the rest of the day in bed, Pyramid Head sleeping off his hangover and Maria steadily working on her own. Empty, brown beer bottles littered the ceiling by the evening, and she drained her stash ounce by precious ounce.

When the sun set again, Pyramid Head once more realized that he'd developed a taste for beer. The two of them completely diminished whatever supply Maria had, and when the moon took the sun's place over Toluca Lake, Maria was wondering how horrible it was to have unwittingly introduced Pyramid Head to alcohol.

It wasn't bad at all, she decided. And that was that.