choking on your alibi

chapter three: hasebalhd

By the time Dorian came to his senses, it was daytime.

It was 1:42 PM on a Monday, to be exact (Dorian was a busy guy, liked to get things done early)

He came to his senses in a specific of sequence. First, the nausea hit. His feet moved by themselves as he lurched forward and sprinted to the bathroom, his liver clearly unamused with last night's meal (a few bites of a smoked salmon, seven full glasses of champagne, and too many shots, to be exact). The bile that had been rising and falling in his throat all of last night finally came up in a fifteen-minute, intimate scene between him and the toilet (the fifteen minutes did include the rest periods in between hurls, which constituted Dorian hanging his head over the toilet in regret and his attempting to stand up, which repeatedly segwayed back to hurling). He'd seldom watched scenes this vulgar on stage, but he guessed he just wasn't too familiar with absurdist screenplays.

The realization came second.

By the time he was able to stand up without another wave of nausea knocking him back down to the bathroom tile, he successfully made his way to the mirror and sink. He observed himself in an enumerated list.

Here were his findings, in chronological order:

He looked like shit: his face was not only stunningly green but it was also covered in a sheet of transparent, moist sweat. He swore his face got acne-ier overnight.

He was in his boxers, and only his boxers: the first he was used to, but this was new. He also didn't like the wet spot of precum near the top. He decided to stop thinking about it.

His neck was a crime scene: He counted ten hickeys. Ten.

Realization became raw panic, and the who, what, and when flooded in just as quickly. Flashes of skin on skin, hands, thighs, and everything overwhelmingly human came to him in that familiar wave of warmth in his chest when he thought of such things, and self-satisfaction replaced the alarm bubbling in his throat for a moment. Leo Andreas, of all people, had left him like that. He had to give himself some props.

Leo Andreas.

The panic was back. He rushed back to his room, picking up his phone instinctively, whether it was to distract himself or find that it was all just a dream and he hadn't just gotten almost-blown by his dad's employee and star player, he wasn't sure. Instead, he found seventy-five texts and missed phone call notifications from three of his sisters, all individually yelling at him to get back inside before Father noticed. Below that, the local news app (which he of course had downloaded, with notifications on) read a familiar headline: "The Creswick Royals Welcome Young Upstart Leo Andreas at the Creswick Annual Family Gala."

Hesitantly, he tapped the notification. It opened to the headline he had just read and a photograph of the team lined up in their Sunday best. He zoomed into Leo; clearly, the cameraman had done the best he could to try and make him look presentable, but his expression was frazzled. His lips were still bruised from Dorian's own work, and his cheeks were glossy with embarrassed sweat and redness. Dorian swore he could even spot the ghost of a bite by his Adam's apple.

He was so royally fucked it was almost comical.

He began to pace the room, shaking with incredulity, embarrassment, and a touch of libido. Periodically, he'd flop down on his bed, making noises somewhere between a sob, a chimpanzee shriek, and a moan. Amidst his twisting, turning, and flashes of all the embarrassing things he had (impressively) managed in the short span of a few hours, he spotted a small card on his nightstand. He crawled to it.