The Rink

chapter eleven: breaking rules

George's eyes fluttered awake, his brain instantly becoming aware of the splitting headache throbbing in the center of his forehead. Then he was hit with an intense feeling of nausea that started in the pit of his stomach but eventually moved up into the top of his throat.

His first hangover.

George pushed the sheets off of himself, sprinting into the hotel bathroom just in time to throw up all over and onto the floor next to the toilet. He laid his arm across the toilet seat and then rested his pounding head on top of his arm, staying as still as he could to ease the nausea.

He laid there for several minutes until his stomach eased up a little. Now his hands and arms had vomit on them, and George looked at his white tee that was now soiled and probably unsalvageable.

Dream walked into the bathroom in that moment, down turning his mouth in a disgusted face when he saw what had happened to George.

"Oh my god, George..." Dream said, staring down at George's pale, sickly face.

"I'll clean it up, don't worry." George mumbled, as he sat crisscrossed with his head hanging into his lap.

George sat with his head like that for a few seconds until he realized Dream was silent, so he slowly lifted his head up and looked into Dream's eyes.

"That's not what I'm worried about, George..." Dream stated, his blank and intense stare cutting through George's hangover and sobering him up a little.

"I'll pay you back the, uh..." George started, his brain working extra slow this morning. "The money. For all the wine I drank on your credit card."

"George, why did you do this?" Dream asked, concerned.

George furrowed his eyebrows at Dream, wiping at the sides of his mouth with the back of his hand, confused on what Dream was talking about.

"I thought you said you didn't drink?" Dream asked, avoiding eye contact with George and grabbing towels to try and clean up George's mess.

"I don't drink. Last night was the first time I was ever actually drunk drunk." George said, standing up from the floor and attempting to keep himself from throwing up again.

"You were binge-drinking last night, George. You drank a lot." Dream corrected him, gritting his teeth as he wiped up vomit off the tile floor.

"I wasn't binge-drinking, come on. I'm not an alcoholic..." George said, stripping his shirt and turning the shower on.

"I never said you were an alcoholic." Dream replied, angrily scrubbing the floor to shine it back to it's original state.

"I told you I'd clean that." George said, lightly touching Dream's arm to get him to stop.

"I got it." Dream said bluntly, moving his arm away from George's touch.

"Alright." George said, stripping off his underwear now and stepping in the steaming hot shower.

George took a very long shower, mostly to clear his mind and try to wrap his head around what Dream was so mad about, but also to wash off his own vomit and grime that he was covered in.

By the time he got out of the shower and got dressed in fresh clothes, Dream had already cleaned and sanitized the toilet and the bathroom floor. He had also cleaned up the wine spill and all the empty packets of snacks on the ground in the main room.