"i woke up this morning to find you sitting in my living room with a goat in a poncho? who are you? why is the goat wearing a poncho? how did you get the goat in here i live on the 12th floor?" au

Jennifer woke up with a startle. The only thing she could remember from her dream was the distant melody of a guitar accompanied by rattles. She shook her head to get rid of the weird feeling in her guts thinking about it, but instantly regretted the movement.

Groaning Jennifer rolled onto her stomach and pulled her pillow over her head to block out the light falling through her curtains. She just hoped that she wouldn't have to throw up on her covers. This was the mightiest hangover she had since college.

And she had no idea how she got it.

Trying to stifle the feeling of nausea in her stomach Jennifer tried to remember anything from the night before, but except getting hungry for a burrito and pulling on a pair of pants to go out and get it she really had no clue what happened.

Maybe they have put tequila into the filling.

Lots, lots of tequila. She has never been able to handle that stuff.

Taking deep breaths to settle her stomach Jennifer slowly inched the pillow from over her head. She opened her eyes a crack, and when she didn't get the feeling as if her head was split in two she opened them fully. Looking around her bedroom she noted that mostly everything was in order, except maybe a few clothes that lay on the floor which she haven't worn for a while.

Maybe the tequila has made her play model again. She still hated her friends for taking photos the last time. They would forever blackmail her with them.

Jennifer huffed out a heavy breath before she collected herself to step out of bed. She stood in one place for a while after she heaved herself upright and waited until the world stopped spinning before she turned towards the door to the living room.

When she opened the door she immediately closed it again. She leaned her head against the wood, only hearing how her blood rushed through her ears. She blinked a few times to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with her eyes before she gripped the door handle a little tighter and turned it again.

Nope, there was nothing wrong in with her eyes. There was still a goat wearing a poncho standing in her living room.

The animal directly looked at her, its dark eyes fixed on her face while it erratically worked its jaw. A colorful poncho was draped over its body, the lower half dragging over the floor.

It was kind of creepy.

Careful to not make any sudden movements Jennifer looked around the room. She tried to just move her eyes while she took in the disheveled form of her living room. There was goat dropping littering the hardwood floor, a vase lay shattered in a pool of water while the flowers were gone (very likely eaten by the goat in a poncho standing in her living room) and a few of her furniture looked as if something has tried to eat them (probably the goat in a poncho standing in her living room!).

Trying to not startle the animal Jennifer slowly stepped to the side, reminding herself to close the door to her bedroom. Carefully she walked around the goat, keeping eye contact with it the whole time to determine if it would attack her or not.

Slowly and carefully, slowly and-

She started screaming when something shot up from her couch. Jennifer threw her arms over her face to protect herself from anything that was residing in her living room while the goat let out a loud baa and dashed towards the safety of the kitchen.

For several long seconds nothing happened, and when Jennifer was sure that whatever was on her couch didn't try to kill her she opened her eyes again and lowered her arms for a fraction to look over them.

At first she thought there was not only a goat in a poncho in her apartment but also a bear wearing pants, but after the fist shock faded she noticed that the bear was in fact a man.

A very hairy man. A very hairy man built like a bear. God, how Jennifer wanted to run her hands through that dark hair on his chest and check out if those muscles were as hard as they looked-

She startled when the man raised his disheveled head and looked at her. He blinked a couple of times before one of his hands reached up and rubbed over his face. He looked at her again, squinting his eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice still low and raspy from sleep.

Anger swelled up in Jennifer's chest. "You are in my apartment, so I should be the one to ask that question!" she shouted indignantly, but, like the headshaking earlier, she regretted it shortly after.

She and the man groaned in unison, trying to block out their pounding headaches.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," the man muttered. His hands holding his head fell down to his lap again. "I'm Derek. And I have no idea who you are or how I even got here."

Jennifer sighed. "So you also wouldn't know how the goat got in here."

Derek furrowed his eyebrows. "Goat?" he asked in confusion. In that moment the goat decided to make itself noticeable again and walked back into the living room. It baaed at them once and then proceeded to walk towards the window.

Derek blinked at the goat, his eyes wide with shock. He raised a hands and pointed at the animal, slack jawed. He turned towards her, not a single tone coming out of his mouth.

She knew how he felt.

"I have as much of an idea of how the thing came in here as you have, so don't ask," Jennifer answered his unasked question.

Derek just nodded and let his hand sink again, his eyes wandering back to the goat. It started nibbling on her curtains. Both of them stared at it for a good minute.

"Coffee?" Jennifer asked.

Derek nodded. "Coffee."

"How did we even get that thing up here?" Derek asked over his mug.

Both of them were sitting at her kitchen counter over their coffee. They were staring at the goat that has joined them in the kitchen. It was sniffing at the ground, the hooves clicking on the tiles.

"Like I said, I have no idea what happened last night, including how we got as goat into my apartment," Jennifer answered with more exasperation than heat. "At least I don't think we slept with each other."

Derek furrowed his brows at her in confusion. Jennifer sighed. "I doubt I would have banned you to the couch if we had a rumble in the sheets. Not to forget that both of us still have clothes on."

Derek raised his eyebrows and shrugged in acceptance before returning to his coffee mug. They stayed in comfortable silence for another couple of minutes, watching the goat strolling around. "Maybe the elevator?" Derek threw into the room.

"Broken. Already since Wednesday." Jennifer answered. She could still feel the slight ache in her muscles from carrying all her class tests up the stairs.

"Maybe I carried it?" was Derek's next proposition.

Jennifer blinked in surprise before her eyes were drawn to his biceps. Absentmindedly she nodded. "But where did we get the poncho from? The clothes in my closet are thrown across my room, but I know that I never owned a poncho."

"Maybe we got it from a Mexican restaurant? The only thing I know from last night is that I was hungry for a burrito. Maybe I got it there?"

"I was also craving a burrito, so maybe that's where we met, too," Jennifer said. "This are a lot of maybes, but at least it sounds logical… maybe."

Derek nodded and continued watching the goat, but after another moment his brows furrowed again. "And where did we get it from? I doubt you could buy goats at the animal store."

"No clue."

Just in that moment the doorbell rang. Placing her mug on the counter Jennifer made her way around the goat and towards the door. When she opened it an angry looking, quite obese young man was glowering at her from underneath the rim of his baseball cap. Sweat was coating his forehead, his face flushed after the twelve sets of stairs.

"I believe you have something that doesn't belong to you," he growled, tapping his foot with agitation.

Jennifer's eyes widened. "That poncho is yours?"

The man's eyes widened in surprise before he frowned once again. "I don't know what poncho you're talking about, and I don't really care. What I came for is the goat!"

A baa came from behind her. Quickly Jennifer stepped out of the way to not get overrun by a desperate even-toad ungulate.

The face of the man immediately brightened. He crouched down and hugged the goat running into his arms. He started to coo over the animal, mumbling into his ear something about a "little darling" and how "daddy was so worried". The sight was slightly disturbing.

Jennifer felt a presence in her back and knew that Derek must have joined them, also watching the spectacle. After another minute of loving reassurance the man straightened again. He raised two fingers to his eyes before pointing them at them, accompanying the gesture with a glare. He tucked the goat under his arm and turned towards the stairs.

With stunned silence both Jennifer and Derek stared after him. "Um, do you need help?" Derek shouted after him.

"Not from you!" came the winded answer.

Both of them stared at the stairs for another couple of moments before they turned around again and stepped back into the apartment. Silently they made their way to the kitchen. Jennifer poured them another cup of coffee. They drank for a few moments. None of them was saying a single word of what has just transpired outside her door.

Jennifer looked over the rim of her mug, her gaze meeting Derek's. Their mugs stilled halfway to their mouths, and after an absurd second of mutual misunderstanding they started laughing.

It took them a while to calm down again, gasping for breath. "It's kind of sad that we can't remember anything from last night. I'm too curious of what happened," Jennifer pressed out between giggles.

"Yeah, and I'm still wondering who that guy was, how he knew it was us who stole it and how he even found us," Derek said.

"Who knows what crazy shit we've done? We will probably never find out." Jennifer took her and Derek's empty mugs and put them in the sink. She leaned her hips against the edge, crossing her arms over her chest. "How about we go and get us some pancakes?"

Derek smiled. "Sounds good, but let me search for my shirt first. I have the slight suspicion the goat ate it."