Chapter Text
It should have been a sign to Dream of something amiss, that he had gone the entire day feeling completely exhausted.
They had spent the mild and sunny day sightseeing around London, George taking them not just to the tourist destinations but to interesting streets and shops, locations he had frequented while in college, and lunch at an eclectic downtown cafe where they sat on a quaint patio watching Londoners walk past without a glance and pigeons strut beside the low wrought-iron fence hoping for crumbs. It had been a lovely day, to be sure, and spent with Dream's two favourite people.
He just hadn't been able to muster a lot of energy, is all.
They return to their hotel in time for dinner at the restaurant downstairs, thankfully a low-key affair. Dream picks at his food, grateful that British portions truly are much smaller than American for he doesn't have a huge appetite. Sapnap and George talk over one another about their day - some good-natured argument about how London tourist destinations are meant for history enthusiasts and aren't very 'fun' - and so Dream is left to his own thoughts a while, sipping water and thinking how nice it will be to go back to the room and maybe nap a few hours before they head out for a night of pub crawling.
"Dream?"
He looks up from his plate and finds Sapnap addressing him, a slight look of concern furrowing his brow. George is also gazing in his direction, chin propped in his hand.
"Yeah? Sorry," he apologizes, assuming he must have missed part of the conversation, "I wasn't listening." George half smiles behind his hand, and Sapnap rolls his eyes.
"We could tell. You okay?"
He knows he has been quiet. Dream shrugs. "I'm pretty tired. I must not have slept well last night."
"That's cool, we can chill for a bit," Sapnap leans back in his chair. His meal is gone already. "My feet are killing me, anyway," and he shoots a glance at George in mock annoyance. George smirks.
"You're such a baby."
"Yeah, I know your feet hurt too, you wanted to take a cab back here."
"I didn't hear either of you complaining!"
Dream sighs, half-tired, half-content with the soothing presence of his friends. When the waiter comes by to collect Sapnap and George's empty plates, Dream gives his up as a bad job and gives an apologetic smile to the man who takes the rest of his meal away. He doesn't feel hungry enough to eat any more. He sees Sapnap and George give him looks, but honestly - they had breakfast and lunch, and then ice cream and a bunch of other British snacks to try, so he's had enough calories for the day.
Now, he just wants a rest.
There is a brief scuffle between he and George over who pays for the meal - George keeps insisting that this trip should be his treat - but Dream wins the battle to tap his card first which makes the waiter smile behind his hand. With everything paid, Dream is grateful to head to the elevator and back to their room.
The motion of the elevator taking them up makes Dream strangely dizzy. He isn't afraid of elevators as a rule, not unless they have glass windows looking down, so the feeling of vertigo is unusual, and Dream closes his eyes for a few seconds until the ride is over.
He actually doesn't open his eyes in time, as he is tugged gently by George when the doors open.
"You must be really tired," George comments as they open the door to their room, kicking off shoes and setting down keys and bags. Sapnap disappears into the bathroom to pee, and Dream makes a beeline for the bed, flopping down face-first into the soft duvet and pillows.
George laughs. "Take a nap, we've got a few hours to kill."
Dream mumbles an affirmation into the pillow and, as Sapnap comes back into the room, he shuffles to get comfortable. The other two discuss killing time while Dream rests, and decide on a movie from the hotel's pay-per-view service. Dream rolls over onto his back as the two join him on the bed, and he watches the first few minutes snuggled into the pillows but quickly finds himself losing the battle to stay awake. He hears Sapnap snicker at his drooping eyes, but can't bring himself to care.
" - shivering? That's weird, it isn't that cold -"
" - ver him up?"
Thick fabric slides over Dream's shoulders, his mostly-asleep mind only aware of the relief he feels as his tense body relaxes minutely. He curls up tighter, snuggling into the warmth, and the sound of voices fades away again.
Dream comes to consciousness again when his body protests his position, and he tries to roll over only to be sent into a bout of violent shivers that pull him from half-sleep into full wakefulness. Why does he feel so cold? He feels the weight of blankets on top of him, but they may as well be sheets for how well they seem to be warming him.
His breath catches and the sound must alert someone that he's awake, because he feels a hand atop the blankets and a voice speaks up.
"Dream?"
His lips part to answer, but all that comes out is a croak around a dry throat and heavy tongue. Someone else murmurs in the background and he hears the snap of a bottle being opened.
"Here, sit up," George says, and it is George, applying pressure to Dream's side and tugging the blankets away from his head even as he protests the cold air that rushes around him and makes him shake harder. "Come on, I've got some water here."
He does want water. His throat is parched. Dream struggles upright with George's help and doesn't realize his eyes are shut until the sudden coolness of a plastic bottle rim touches his lips. He reaches blindly, hand cupping around the water bottle until he can bring it to his own mouth and tip his head back to drink.
The water is cold, and makes him feel colder, but it's wonderful in his sticky mouth and he gulps it down without hesitation until a hand tugs it away. "Don't drink so fast," George reprimands, and the bottle is gone.
"Dream?" Sapnap's voice is suddenly close. "You okay? Open your eyes, bud."
He obeys. The lights of the hotel room immediately stab his vision, his head responding with a throbbing pain and dizziness that clouds his view in orange for a long moment. He manages to force his eyes open long enough to focus on the two people on the bed with him.
George is on one side, hand still hovering at Dream's shoulder while Sapnap sits on the edge of the bed in front of him. Both are peering at him with worried expressions.
"What -" he groans. "What time's it?"
"About ten," George replies softly. "Dream, you're burning up."
He almost protests the statement, but realizes as he takes full stock of his body that George is right. His body is shaking with cold but the places where his skin meets skin are unbearably hot. He is incredibly dizzy, head pounding, stomach unsettled by the water he had downed too quickly.
"M'sick." He groans. "Fuck."
"You started feeling hot a couple hours ago. We didn't wanna wake you." Sapnap fidgets with his pant leg, picking at fluff settled on the fabric of his jeans. Nervous.
"How bad do you feel?" George questions. A hand comes to rest on Dream's forehead, much too cold and yet relieving in complete contrast to how Dream feels. "Were you feeling sick earlier?"
"You shoulda said something if you were, Dream."
Dream shakes his head. "Was tired. A little off, I guess..." his memory feels fuzzy, like he's trying to recall something from last week instead of that day. "Should've known."
"That's alright." George brushes some hair away from his face and shifts backward on the bed. "Lie back down, I'll get a cold cloth for you."
Dream obeys, his body feeling too heavy to keep upright, but frowns as George gets up and heads to the bathroom. His eyes dart to Sapnap, watching him worriedly, to the television which has been turned off, to the darkened windows of the hotel room. "Wait -" he says. "We were gonna..."
Sapnap snorts. "You're in no shape for bar hopping, dude."
"Yeah, but..." Dream focuses hazily on the clock. It's after ten p.m. "Aren't you going?"
George comes back with a white hotel cloth in hand. "We'll go another night. We aren't leaving you while you're sick."
Dream is silent. The wet touch of the cloth on his face makes him flinch and he makes a face at George for babying him. To prove the point he snatches the cloth and adjusts it to his own forehead without help, admittedly relieved by its coolness and pressure. He ignores the amused sigh he hears.
"Fuck," he mutters again. "This is not how I wanted this vacation to go."
"Eh," Sapnap shrugs, "not much you can do about it. If you're sick, you're sick."
"I don't wanna be sick," Dream groans. "This sucks. I feel like shit."
"You look like shit," Sapnap agrees. "Just sleep, Dream. We'll be fine hanging out here for the night."
George nods in agreement, Dream's gaze flicking from one friend to the other and seeing nothing but amused concern on their faces. He sighs.
"You better not get sick too, y'know," he mumbles, rolling onto his side and yanking the blankets up to get warm again. Closing his eyes makes the pounding in his head subside a little, blocking out the harsh light around him.
A hand absently pets his hair for a moment, ruffling the strands and then tucking the blanket up as far as it will go. Dream shivers, and gradually tunes out the sound of soft conversation, mind hazy with heat and tired enough that he drifts back to sleep automatically.
-
Hazy dreams of Florida sun, aimless driving and a confusing segment of being lost in winding London streets searching for his two companions gradually fade into awareness with the sound of voices that he had been dreaming was the car radio. Dream stays in the blurry state of almost-consciousness for several long minutes, not wanting to confront the awfulness of being sick. He listens to the sound around him and eventually figures out that the voices are not people in the room but a movie playing in the background. It sounds familiar.
It slowly draws Dream into awareness of both his surroundings and his body. He can feel the pounding of his pulse through his skin. Waves of heat wash over him with each heartbeat. His head aches behind his closed eyes. If he focuses enough on the movie, he can almost ignore how bad he feels.
Inevitably, he becomes aware of his body's discomfort at being curled tightly in one spot and he has to move. As soon as he shifts under the blanket, cool air rushes over his skin and makes the heat inside him worse.
Dream feels awful. He can't remember the last time he felt this bad - well before the Dream Team finally met up, probably before COVID, perhaps even before he'd moved out of his parents' house.
He rolls over, hoping to find relief by stretching his muscles and changing sides. Instead a rush of dizziness and nausea makes him groan.
"Dream?"
Sapnap is surprisingly close. On the bed, it sounds like, right next to Dream. Somehow he had missed that.
Sapnap shuffles a bit and Dream cracks his eye open to meet him face to face. "Go 'way," Dream complains.
"Okay, okay," Sapnap mutters, but not before pressing a cold hand to Dream's cheek. "Jeez. You're super hot."
A growing feeling of unease in his stomach is distracting Dream from commenting back. He presses his face into the pillow, willing it away. He feels restless at the same time, legs twitching with a need to move. The blankets suddenly feel suffocating.
He shoves the fabric away in frustration and sits up abruptly to try and relieve the restlessness in his limbs. The movement is too quick. Vertigo makes his head swim, the room swaying dizzily - or is he the one swaying? A gurgle in his stomach makes his skin prickle with sweat.
"Hey, you good?" Sapnap asks. Dream can't look in his direction, not when he's swallowing back a sensation that he really, truly does not want to deal with right now. "Dream?"
Saliva pools in his mouth, a sour taste in the back of his throat. He grips the blankets, needing to get up, but unwilling to move knowing what will happen as soon as he does.
Sapnap says his name again. Dream swallows convulsively, pushing himself toward the edge of the bed. "I - I'm gonna throw up -"
"Oh, shit -" Sapnap says, and there is a second of panicked pause before a hand is on Dream's arm and another at his back, tugging him up and away from the mattress. His body sways when upright but instinct takes over with a hand pressing to his mouth and feet tripping in the direction of the hotel room's bathroom. Sapnap's grip on his arm is tight, pushing him unsteadily and ultimately helping him, but Dream doesn't make it to the toilet and retches over the sink instead.
"Okay, you - okay," Sapnap stumbles, hands fluttering awkwardly at Dream's arm and then shoulder, and Dream is too busy gripping the edge of the cabinet to care about his friend's uncertainty. His stomach clenches painfully, forcing up water and sour vomit which spatters a disgusting mess into the sink. Sapnap's hand moves to his back and rubs stuttering circles through Dream's sweat-damp shirt.
He bends over the sink until his knuckles are white, legs shaking, heaving three more times before it subsides to one more empty gag and then stops.
Tears are dripping down his face, sweat pooling in the folds of his hoodie, and he is staring at a sink full of vomit that has ended up on his hands as well as the counter. Sapnap coughs behind him, but he hasn't stopping rubbing between Dream's shoulder blades as if the movement will somehow stop the situation from being so awful.
"Oh, god." Dream coughs. His voice is rough and his mouth is sour and terrible; he spits before the taste can bend him back over the bowl. "Oh my god."
He hates vomiting. It's worse still to be standing here in the wrong part of the bathroom with his clearly anxious best friend behind him. Dream closes his eyes against the bright bathroom light, unwilling to face the situation at this moment when his breath is still hitched and painful, head still swimming with vertigo. Sapnap's petting slows, and then the body behind him shifts, a hand brushing past his arm, and the tap switches on to run water into the messy sink.
"Sorry," Dream whispers.
"It's cool," Sapnap replies, but it's obvious he is trying hard to sound like he means it. Fingers pry Dream's hand off the edge of the cabinet and guide them under the water. He shakily responds, washing them slowly with the soap pressed into his palm and allows Sapnap to take over the spray, watching the splash of water rinsing down the porcelain until it's mostly clean.
"Come on," Sapnap says quietly. He nudges Dream toward the door and back to the bed, where Dream sits and wishes that the room could be cooler against his now overheated body.
Sapnap stands in front of him at the edge of the bed, and Dream watches him heavily, apologies on his tongue, wanting nothing more than to fall into the blankets and sleep until this nightmare is over. He doesn’t expect the way Sapnap grabs the hem of his hoodie and tugs, pulling the fabric off while Dream is too tired and confused to do anything but let himself be manhandled. "What -" he manages, as Sapnap yanks the sweater over his head.
"You got puke on your hoodie, dude." Sapnap explains, and then - "ugh, you are covered in sweat."
"Uh-huh." Sitting down and clad in less clothing, Dream feels less restricted and dizzy and notices for the first time that Sapnap is alone and has been handling Dream himself this whole time. "Where's George...?"
"He went out to get you some meds and stuff." Sapnap shrugs. "He'll be back in like, half an hour."
"Didn't have to do that." Dream mumbles. Sapnap scoffs.
"You just proved that he did. You're sick as hell."
"M'fine," Dream says, then meets Sapnap's worried and unimpressed gaze. "I - not fine, but..." he sighs, pressing a hand into his face and feeling the heat there that still muddled his thoughts. "I hate this."
"Yeah, I know."
Dream sighs. Sapnap throws the soiled hoodie into a corner and grabs the water bottle from earlier, handing it to Dream who takes it in slightly shaky hands.
The water rinses the last taste of sick from his mouth and soothes his throat, if just a little, but Dream's stomach still feels uneasy enough that he takes each sip slower than before. It makes Sapnap visibly relax when Dream drains the rest at a reasonable pace and lies back on the bed atop the covers, Sapnap taking the bottle from his hands and tossing it into the bin.
"You good?" Sapnap asks. Dream nods but shuffles his arm over his eyes against the light shining on his face from the ceiling. His head still hurts, and he feels like he has exchanged the unbearable cold and nausea from earlier with sweat and dizziness and a throbbing pulse behind his eyes.
"Can you turn the lights down?" Dream asks. It comes out sounding pathetic, half a whine, but Sapnap just walks across the room and even through the crack around his arm Dream can see a blessed darkness washing over the room. "Thanks."
"No prob. You feeling any better?" The lights dimmed, Sapnap's voice comes close again and the bed dips with his weight. As Dream lifts his arm away and relishes in the dark, he sees Sapnap scooch across the bed until he is lying right next to Dream. "It's good that you're sweating, right?"
"Yeah," Dream answers to both questions. He stares at the ceiling. "God, I still feel so tired."
"Go back to sleep, then. I'll wake you up in a bit when George gets back."
Dream doesn't need much persuasion. He rolls onto his side, facing Sapnap, and curls himself comfortably against the pillow. "Thanks," he mumbles into the fabric, and Sapnap hums a casual affirmation. The light of his phone screen briefly illuminates his face before it turns away, leaving Dream in peace.
-
He doesn't sleep after all, lying awake and restless between the time he lay down with Sapnap and the moment when George's return rattles the doorknob outside and he comes into the darkened room with a rustling of bags and a huff of relief.
"Don't turn on the lights," Sapnap calls out softly.
"He asleep?" George asks, equally as quiet, and Dream rolls over with a sigh.
"No," he answers before Sapnap can say a word. He sees their faces turn to him in surprise. "Hi, George."
"Hey," George sets down the plastic grocery bag. "Feeling any better?"
Dream shrugs. "No. Not really." He makes a face when Sapnap reaches over and touches his forehead unprompted, shying away from the touch against his sweat-soaked skin. It makes him shiver and he gives Sapnap an unimpressed look when his friend wipes the wetness from his hand on the bedsheets.
For a while Dream had been hot, sweating through his shirt while his pulse slowed down and the dizziness faded to a low buzz. His headache is still there, but without light and any significant movement, it's bearable. He looks blearily across the dim room to the table where George is rummaging through his purchases.
"I got Panadol and Nurofen because I wasn't sure which you usually use," George rambles, "and -"
"We have no idea what those are," Sapnap interrupts, apparently needing to be argumentative. "Do you not have regular old Advil?"
George gives him a look. "That's what Nurofen is. It's the same medicine."
"Gimme," Dream says, pushing himself onto one elbow and reaching with grabbing hands. Sapnap snickers.
"I also got some sports drink, and ginger ale, and tea. And a thermometer. Maybe I should have picked up some Dramamine but I didn't think of it..."
"Gogy," Dream groans. "Please. Advil."
"Alright, alright." George spends too long fiddling with the packaging for Dream's liking, something that shouldn't take so long to open but Dream is irritable with sickness and a chill coming over him again. He vaguely recognizes the feeling of the fever trying to return, and wants to lay his face in the pillow and cry until it goes away for good.
"Ginger ale or water?"
George's hands offer both, but the cool green can is tempting to Dream's uneasy stomach and he sits up slowly to take it. He's unused to soda after all this time, and takes tiny sips hoping that the carbonation doesn't make him feel worse. It doesn't. He takes the pill with one more mouthful and lets George set the soda on the bedside table.
"Thanks," he sighs. George pats his arm.
"I thought that might help with the nausea," he admits. Dream nods slowly, feeling the bubbly drink settle in his stomach, then blinks.
"How'd you know…?"
"Sapnap texted me," and for some reason, in the dim light Dream can see the amused look George gives their youngest, but Dream is too tired to do anything but nod again. A shiver runs through him - the period of heat and sweat is over and his body feels cold once more. "Lie down," George offers softly. Dream does.
He wiggles his way slowly into the blankets as George and Sapnap move about the room. The mini-fridge door opens and shuts with a thump. Clothing shuffles. George disappears into the bathroom, and Sapnap slides into the bed next to Dream. Dream's head tilts in his direction.
"It's late," Sapnap murmurs. "Gonna sleep."
The bathroom light flicks off. In the quiet darkness George's light footsteps pad toward the bed and slide under the covers on Sapnap's other side.
"Wake us if you need anything, okay?" George says. "We're right here." Sapnap hums agreeably, and as if proving his point his friend shuffles closer, not quite cuddling, but very nearly so.
Dream sighs, and stares at the dark ceiling for a long minute. His brain is foggy, his thoughts unclear, head still hurting behind his eyelids. The medicine hasn't kicked in yet.
"G'night," he whispers, belatedly.
Sapnap, almost always one to fall asleep quickly, mumbles. George responds more clearly in kind.
Dream curls up on his side, pulling the blankets as close as he can. A chill makes him shiver until he can lie still under the covers. Eyes closed, he tries to focus on anything other than the sickly ache in his muscles. Despite the fatigue his body feels unwilling to sleep.
It's going to be a long night.