Whitebeard's POV
His awareness slowly took hold, forming a painful blurred image as he opened his eyes. Newgate knew this awful thumping headache all too well, it wasn't really a headache and more of an agonizing migraine.
He was hungover.
A distinct taste lingered in his mouth, making the man want to gag. In a slow deliberate movement he lifted his face from his pillow, which honestly didn't help much, it still felt too fast.
As soon as he had his head up a wave of nausea hit him, the bile at the back of his throat was disgusting. Propping himself up on an elbow which was followed up with a deep steadying breath, it didn't help the nausea much, there was some comfort in knowing that he hadn't thrown up. Yet.
His other arm seemed to be trapped by something silky, his instincts told him to freeze, it left him wondering what it was for a moment until a soft sleepy murmur came from it, one he recognized well.
Relaxing immediately, it was Whitey, he ran his thumb over her head or what he thought was hers, however their hair didn't feel like smooth silk, it was much tougher, coarse even. Dreadlocks. Rakuyo was there as well, his sister seemed to be using him as a pillow, which was causing him to snore.
Newgate gingerly moving her off, poor boy probably couldn't breathe. He set her down on the mattress, then picked off her brother as well, freeing his forearm.
They were sound asleep and they didn't take up much of the bed. So they weren't a bother, so he left them be.
It wasn't like these two would mind that much anyway, it would be a different story if it had been someone like Fossa or Andre, neither of them would have been happy. They didn't like physical contact all that much, they were more emotionally unavailable and this sort of thing would have really bothered them.
While Rakuyo was so laidback, he always had his arm draped around someone's shoulder or he would be joking good naturally. The Yonko could pick up the kid, within ten minutes he would be asleep or in a little world of his own. He was from a very poor background, he used to be an angry teenager, always getting into fights. His family had forced him to work for a farmer as a work hand, the boy was paid an abysmal amount and his parents took every cent of it. It would have been fine if his mother and father worked, but they didn't, they sat on their fat asses all day, living off the money their then 15-year old son was making. And half the time they wouldn't even feed Rakuyo enough, when Newgate had come across the boy, he had been nothing but skin and bones. The Yonko had taken pity on him, brought him something to eat for dinner, suddenly this angry grumpy teenager vanished and was replaced with a cheerful thankful kid and that was that. Rakuyo never left Newgate again.
Whitey, despite her often-annoyed aloof exterior, she was actually rather clingy, needing affection almost constantly, she was insecure and more than a little fragile. Newgate had met her when she was still a young teenager, she'd had a rough start in life and when he had taken her away from the awful place she lived in, she had been so distrustful and scared that she had tried to kill him on several occasions. The blonde man finally got through to her eventually, it had taken a lot of work but it was all worth it. These day, the girl was often glued to his side, she would follow Newgate around in a uncaring manner, which was rather funny. She was too embarrassed to actually ask for some attention, when he did give her some, she never complained.
He pushed them away from him, he was starting to feel sick again, the last thing he wanted to was- Well he didn't want to think about it.
He wasn't sure why they were here.
This is why he hated getting drunk, one he always had the worse hangovers and two he could never remember much afterwards...
Just like now, he had no clue as to what had happened, well that wasn't entirely true he could remember the first half of the evening, which ended up dissolving in to a hazy mist the later the evening went on.
He was pretty sure he had made a nuisance of himself, at the beginning of the evening he remembered his 'chat' with Dragon, then the kid had a had some kind of meltdown and run off.
Newgate felt awful. He had tried to make him feel better, but the trouble was that the Yonko had actually no idea what to do with him. He would normally give them a hug, say something comforting, or at the very least sat down next to them and listen. However Dragon was a difficult one, he didn't take well to those things.
When the kid had finally told him something, Newgate had wanted get something, anything out of him. Suddenly the man regretted pushing him.
He had been so set on getting to the bottom of the problem, he completely overlooked the problem and ended up making it worse.
After that he had taken to drinking, he hadn't meant to get wasted, at first he just did it as something to do, to take his mind off the huge mess he had made.
At that point Newgate had every intention to go and find Dragon, the more he thought about it, the worse he got. He didn't want to make him feel even more awful.
Yet as the evening went on, the more alcohol he consumed, the simpler the problem became.
Until the man was finally utterly plastered.
He had a vague recollection of Marco and Luffy being there, also Darius and Gloria too. Then that was when his memory started to fail.
Newgate wasn't entirely sure how the rest of the evening played out, there was bits and pieces that floated to the surface if he thought hard enough. Since he had such a terrible migraine, he didn't really enjoy thinking at all, it felt like someone was hitting his skull with a sledgehammer repeatedly.
He lay down once again, he's skin was itchy, he must have been sweating while he was asleep. The Yonko had a problem, mainly being that he was always hot, even a slightly raised temperature and he would sweat buckets. But at least he never felt cold, though he suspected that had something to do with his devil fruit, if he started shivering it would cause his whole body to tremor. That was probably what kept him warm, however it definitely didn't help in hot climates. He really hated being hot...
After a moment's deliberation, he decided to ditch his coat and boots. Pulled them off and dropped them on the floor loudly, which send a sharp pain through his head.
God his head was sensitive.
He had to admit he felt pretty gross, for moment the thought of having a bath seemed inviting, then the water that went with the bath popped into his mind, suddenly it didn't sound so nice. He already felt like shit, the water would sap every last bit of energy he had.
He decided he didn't care that much about being gross. He would have one in the morning.
Actually that was a point what time was it?
It felt late at night; however Newgate's room didn't have any windows so it was rather hard to tell the time.
He sat down on the edge of his mattress, grabbing the match box on the crate next to his bed, pulled out a single candle and lit it. A small flame flickered to life, even a tiny little glow in the darkness, caused him wince.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, once they had he flashed the candle next to the clock, reading the time.
3:45 am
He sighed heavily, shaking the flame out. Three-ish hours before he had to get up, oh wonderful...
Newgate sat there in silence for a while, all he could feel was his throbbing brain, he tried rubbing his temples but that just seemed to make it worse.
In the end going back to sleep in his bed ended the debate with himself, he had considered just getting up regardless of what time it was and going to sit in chair on deck for a while. However, he really couldn't be asked, the fresh sea air may have done his head some good, though for some reason he was incredibly reluctant.
His gut was telling him he didn't want to deal with something and at this moment, he could not agree more. He would deal with whatever the issue was tomorrow, actually no, it was today now.
Newgate sank back into his mattress, burying his burning face into his pillow once more. He was mindful of Whitey and Rakuyo, not wanting to disturb them, thankfully they didn't rouse.
Though after a short while they had found their back to his arm, trapping it once more. The Yonko didn't have the heart to move them again, even if his limb would be stiff and full of pins and needles by the morning.
He settled into a light sleep, with his pounding mind ebbing away into the background and his nausea fading ever so slightly.
He had a feeling that he was going to have a shock in the morning.