This isn't weird.

Earth to Ben

It had been so long since Ben had experienced a hangover, he initially failed to recognize it as such. His first semi-conscious thought was that he had fallen prey to some devastating fever—beyond the standard nausea and headache, his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and dehydration had his throat feeling like he'd swallowed a roll of sandpaper. But it was the sense of asphyxiation that most threw him off. Try as he might, he couldn't draw in a full breath. His chest was heavy, his lungs compressed. Surely, this was some deadly flu, slowly shutting down his respiratory system—

Something slapped his face.

Ben's eyes snapped open, but they were painfully dry, and struggled to bring anything into focus—he'd fallen asleep wearing his contacts, he realized. A vague gray blur loomed over him. He squeezed his eyelids shut, opened them again, and his vision began to clear. A few blinks later, and he found himself staring into a pair of heavily dilated translucent green eyes.

"What the fuck?" he choked. He tried to sit up, but he was stiff and weak, and the cat was much heavier than expected. The movement only elicited another furry slap on his chin, then another weight shifted lower on his chest, and a shrill meow erupted just out of sight. Groaning, Ben threw his hands over his ears.

"Well, wouldja lookit that!" came Walt's voice, infuriatingly chipper. He was leaning in the doorframe, looking far more casual than a man who had to stoop so far down to actually fit into a doorframe had any right to. "I ain't never seen these two sleep in the same bed, let alone all cuddled up together!"

"Get them off me," Ben pleaded, just as Billy Shears let out another ear-splitting yowl, and George, again, batted at his nose. "I can't breathe."

"Aww, but they love you!"

"Please."

"Okay, okay. Scoot on along, boys, you done wore out your welcome." Walt bent down over the bed to prod at the cats. Billy Shears leapt off at once (his hind claws digging into Ben's stomach in the process), but George settled in defiantly, dead weight, until Walt finally grabbed him around the middle and scooped him up. Hearing a long, guttural growl, and Ben braced himself for another set of puncture wounds, but George's claws remained mercifully retracted.

"Those two sure done took a shine to you," Walt chuckled.

"Why me?" Ben moaned, kicking off the covers and pushing himself up. 

"Reckon they've just got good taste."

"Ugh, why do I feel like I'm dying? How much did I drink?"

"'Bout twice as much as you oughta've."

"Why did you let me?"

Sauntering over to the window, Walt pushed open the curtains, flooding the room with morning sunlight. "Well, I heard you'd had some troubles with your drinkin' a while back, so I figured if we were gonna get drunk together, I owed it to ya to make sure it didn't leave ya feelin' like you'd wanna go and do it again any time soon."

"What the fuck kind of twisted logic is that?" Ben fell back down against the bed, shielding his eyes from the light with his forearm. "Jesus Christ, Walt, if I didn't want so badly for you to like me, I'd fucking hate you."

"I get that a lot."

"Ugh, I reek of cigarettes. I think I'm gonna have to burn these clothes."

"Or, I can throw those in the wash while you hop on into the shower, then we'll go out and get some breakfast?"

"Oh god, please don't talk about food."

"Hogwash! It'll make ya feel better. Come on, now, day's a-wastin'."