Monday, Week 2, Natalia Porter's Second Date Part 1 (Harem Hotel: It's Your Fault has had a challenge and starts a week)

Alan woke up with the first hangover of his life.

To be fair, Tess had warned him that the liquor was designed to challenge baseline metabolism.

Alan had a vague feeling that meeting the challenge had been necessary.

Natalia sat on the edge of the bed. Sky was leaving the room, apparently responsible for opening the door. Natalia wore a leather outfit that looked like an assassin’s, but only in the imagination of the horny.

“Huh.” Alan smiled through his headache. “What time is it?”

“Four AM,” Natalia said. “I couldn’t sleep. You can go back to bed if you want.”

“Ugh.”

Alan closed his eyes.

“I think I’m supposed to be mad at you for some reason?”

“I would rather keep you from remembering the reason,” Natalia said, looking away. “But I don’t think that would end well.”

“Oh.”

Alan paused.

“How was Laurel?”

“I have no idea. She acted normally. With anyone else, I would think it was fake, but she is a hard woman to understand.”

Natalia studied him.

“How are you holding up?”

“Relieved,” Alan muttered.

“Um. Okay.”

Natalia looked worried when Alan opened his eyes to glance at her.

“Do you think we were going another month without Laurel earning VP?” Alan asked. “This way, we can say it was an accident.”

He shook his head.

“Yeah. Relieved.”

Natalia grimaced.

“What about you?” Alan asked. “I can’t imagine you feel good about it.”

“I’ll deal.”

That was not an answer, but Alan was not sure he deserved a better one.

Natalia folded her hands in her lap.

“Are we, um, okay?”

“We’re not worse than before,” Alan said carefully. “You messed up. We’re in an arranged marriage. Tess said to think of it like a parent or sister screwing up.”

He winced.

“It made sense when we were drunk.”

“I admit, I was worried when I heard you were alone with Tess,” Natalia said. “She has not come across well.”

“The giant snake likes her, so she’s got to have something going for her.”

Alan sighed.

“She spent half the afternoon showing me clips of cheerleaders having horrible accidents during practice and arguing that it proved the final form of humanity was serpentine.”

Natalia blinked.

Then she smiled.

“That sounds like a normal day for you.”

“Yeah,” Alan said. “It kind of was.”

“What are your thoughts on the idea?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s horrible.”

Natalia laughed, but there was no warmth in it.

“Physically, Ariadne was made into a monster, and she’s too proud to admit it. Joan and Chloe are crazy if they think they won’t regret having their own children deformed by the Crawler infection. It’s not my place to tell them what to do with their bodies, but I really don’t understand it.”

She looked down at herself.

“I shouldn’t be old enough to think the kids are out of control.”

Alan sat up in bed, his headache fading faster than he trusted.

“What’s wrong with being a Crawler?”

Natalia stared at him.

“Ariadne and Joan have both tried it,” Alan said. “They seem to like it.”

“Perhaps the power to transform into a Crawler is a good thing,” Natalia said. “But having a child without limbs, who will grow up looking like a snake, is clearly monstrous.”

Alan frowned.

“Hey, Sky? Hotel AI? Something?”

The air popped.

For some reason, Nagasaki appeared.

“Hi, Prince-Consort Uncle,” Nagasaki chirped.

“Um, hi.” Alan blinked. “Can we bring up Tess’s clips from last night? The cheerleading injury montage?”

“Oh, fun!”

Nagasaki perked up.

“By the way, I’m leaving with Grandma Rat and Jessie.”

“Grandma Rat?” Alan asked. “Is that Grandma E, or another grandmother?”

“Her full name’s Echidna Simone Rat, Professor of NIMH,” Nagasaki said, as if that explained anything.

The mirror-television fixture flickered to life. A pyramid of middle school cheerleaders appeared on the screen.

“Oh,” Nagasaki said. “Tess pulled out the good stuff for your date.”

“That was a date?” Alan asked.

Natalia’s eyes fixed on the image as a child arced into the air and fell badly, breaking her ankle. The group started screaming in panic. One girl managed to fall onto the injured one while the team failed at helping.

“Eh,” Nagasaki said. “She’s totally gonna be drafted into your stupid harem thing. It’s half of why she’s fighting with Ari. Like, it’s not a legal thing, but any fan knows how this ends.”

The montage cut to another injury, starting with a pool of blood and zooming out.

“What is the point of this?” Natalia asked sharply.

“Hips keep lying, turning sharp,” Nagasaki said, half-speaking and half-humming the words. “Making promise, missing mark. I see a crowd and count the weak. All those joints, all that creak...”

Alan’s confusion spiked for a second before he recognized the lyrics to “Below the Knees.”

“Yeah,” Alan said. “What she said.”

Natalia turned toward him.

“Are you seriously arguing that you want giant snakes for children?”

“I’m eighteen,” Alan said. “I’ve given less thought to having children than whether I could date Olivia Rodrigo if I won the lottery.”

“Oh, do you want us to grab her for you?” Nagasaki asked.

“No!” Alan and Natalia shouted together.

“It was just an idea,” Nagasaki said, sulking.

Alan rubbed his face.

“You guys want anything from the Chi-series timelines?” Nagasaki asked. “I can send, like, postcards when you do the fanmail arc.”

“Um,” Alan said. “Those words make individual sense.”

“Ask your grandmother, I guess,” Natalia said.

“Good idea.”

Nagasaki vanished.

The cheerleading montage continued.

Natalia stared at the latest catastrophe on the screen, then closed her eyes.

“Please tell me we can do something else on our day together.”

“Huh.” Alan shrugged. “Dinner and a movie?”

Natalia opened one eye.

“Or are those not fun for an actress?” Alan asked.

“It depends, if I’m being honest. My filmography would be awkward.”

She hesitated.

“I wasn’t expecting to get the first day this week.”

“It’s gotta be less awkward than another one with Laurel,” Alan said.

Natalia looked at him for a long moment.

Then she nodded.

“That may be the saddest reassurance I have ever received.”