Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bryson was pretty sure he was carsick. He wasn't usually prone to motion sickness, but he wasn't usually in the back of a team bus winding through the Rocky mountains either, so he figured that could probably be it.

Either way, he did know two things for sure: 1) he had been feeling kind of awful since they'd gotten off the plane, dizzy and weak and queasy and tired, and 2) getting carsick as a grown man was kind of embarrassing, so he wasn't intending to make a very big deal out of it.

Instead, he curled up on the bus seat, twisting sideways and pulling his knees up to his chest and smushing his cheek against the back cushion. 

"Hey," Brandon said, next to him, interrupting Alec who was turned around in the row in front of them. Bryson didn't know how sitting backwards wasn't fucking with Alec, when he felt this bad facing forwards. "You okay, Stotter?" 

"Mhm," Bryson nodded, feeling his hair frizz up against the seat with the friction. "Got a headache." He pushed himself up slightly to point at Alec accusingly, because it really was weird that Alec could be fidgeting around, kneeling up, backwards on a bus seat when usually he was the one who got carsick, while Bryson was curled over and miserable. "Do you not feel kinda sick to your stomach?"

Alec blinked. "Do you? Because you just said you had a headache. That's a completely different thing." 

"Thanks, smartass," Bryson mumbled, curling back up and resting his head on his knees. He closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the dizziness that was making the edges of his vision blurry and making everything worse. 

Reaching over, Brandon jostled him softly, and Bryson knew it was just supposed to be an affectionate shove, but as his body rocked from side to side with the force of it, he swore he could feel his brain crashing against his skull on each side, and the contents of his stomach sloshing sickeningly. "Dude, for real," Brandon said, unaware of everything. "Don't worry about him. What's going on?" 

Still facing backwards, Alec made an exaggerated confused shrug, like he couldn't fathom what he'd done wrong. Brandon winked, and Bryson ignored both of them. "Just don't feel good," he admitted, face still pressed against his knees. "I think maybe I'm carsick." 

Brandon's eyes widened like he was about to shout Carsick?! disproportionately loud within the relatively small bus, so Bryson shushed him frantically. The last thing he wanted was everyone knowing that he felt like shit. Just these two was bad enough already.

"Carsick?" Brandon asked, at a noticeably intentionally appropriate volume. "Do you usually get carsick?" 

The bus continued climbing up a peak of some kind, nearly at a forty-five degree angle, and Bryson groaned quietly. He tried to settle his eyes on the horizon, which was supposed to help with carsickness, but it only made him dizzier, and he hid his face against his clothes again.

"No," he said, muffled. He didn't elaborate, because he the vague queasiness that had been sitting in the back of his throat the whole ride was morphing into genuine nausea, like someone had reached into his stomach and squeezed it in a giant fist. 

"Oookay..." Brandon must have crossed his arm over his body to reach his head, because Bryson couldn't see him from where he was laying his head, but he could feel Brandon's hand in his hair, messing with it gently. "Man gets carsick for the first time at twenty-six years old. Breaking news." 

"Probably not, like, first time ever," Alec piped in from his seat in the row in front of them. Even though he was still hiding his face against his knees, he could imagine the confused half-frown on Alec's face, and how sincere he would look if he could find the energy to open his eyes. "Like, everyone gets carsick sometimes." 

Brandon's voice: "Not me." 

Alec’s voice: “That’s cuz I always drive you places. I’m a very good driver.” 

Brandon’s voice again, loud and animated, as always: “No, it’s because I have an iron stomach.” He said it in a weird voice that indicated he’d definitely accompanied it with some kind of hand-motion flourish. 

“You don’t even,” Alec’s voice retorted, deadpan. “Last week you were crying because of how bad your stomach hurt after eating like, one bowl of ice cream.” 

Brushing against Bryson’s body, Brandon shifted, and he was probably blushing. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Let’s tell Topper and K-Long too while we’re at it.” 

Finally, Bryson squinted his eyes open to glare at them halfheartedly. He swatted at Brandon, sort of trying to get his attention, and missed. “Can you guys shut up,” he said. A wave of exhaustion crashed over him, and he let his eyes flutter shut before he was even finished speaking, dropping his head back down against his legs. “I’m tryna sleep.” 

He did sleep, sort of, in the kind of way where he didn’t really remember being asleep at any time, but when the bus jolted to a stop in the hotel parking lot, he couldn’t really remember having been awake either. His body felt stretched out of proportion, like his head was halfway to floating away and his stomach was so heavy and tight that it was crumpling up inside of him like a ball of aluminum foil. Pulling up to the front of the building, the bus lurched, stopped, started, finally braked to a halt. 

Bryson’s head throbbed with the movement, and he whimpered quietly, unfolding from his curled up position and trying to stretch out his aching legs. 

“Good morning,” Brandon said, despite the fact that the air outside the bus was dim with twilight. His voice was distorted and silly from the way he was stretching his entire body and reaching towards the bus ceiling. “Good nap?” 

Taking a deep breath, Bryson stood slowly, bracing himself on the row of seats in front of him. “Nope,” he said, mustering the last bit of energy to pop the end of the word with just enough life to divert suspicion from the rest of the team. Brandon frowned sympathetically, eyes wide like he was about to ask another question. But Bryson didn’t let him, turning to walk down the bus aisle with Brandon behind him. 

By the time they got to the hotel lobby, most of the team already heading for their hotel rooms and wandering through the hallways in search of their door number, Bryson had to take a break. He slumped against a half-wall in the lobby, doing his best to pretend he was just taking in the fancy chandelier hanging over the large room and the weird, orange sofas scattered over a weird, orange carpet. 

The walk from the bus to the hotel couldn’t have taken more than two minutes, but it felt like it had dragged on for hours. One step after the other, with his head spinning and his stomach churning, or maybe the other way around, or he didn’t really know. He’d figured that once he got off the shaky, jolting bus, he would start feeling better, but now he felt dizzier and shakier and more nauseous than he had all day. 

“Hey,” Alec said softly, coming up next to him, and he didn’t know when he’d gotten there or how. He was glad it was Alec talking though, because sometimes Brandon was the one who knew what to say, but Alec was the one who knew how to say it gently and quiet, and anything besides gentle and quiet would probably send him reeling to the floor. “Still feeling bad?” 

Bryson tried to nod but the movement made him so dizzy that he reached out to steady himself on the wall that he was leaning on.

“Yeah,” he tried verbally, this time. “I feel like crap.” 

There was an arm around his shoulder, and it must have been Brandon, because Alec was still in front of him, and the hand on his shoulder rubbed across his back firm and slow and Bryson would swear he almost fell asleep right there. He blinked sleepily, eyelashes fluttering tiredly, trying to focus on what his friends were saying. 

“Wanna come to dinner with us?” Brandon asked. His voice was dully hushed, like Alec had probably just reminded him. “Sometimes eating helps when you’re carsick.” 

Bryson tried to imagine eating something, anything, even like, toast and butter, and it didn’t make him gag exactly, but the back of his mouth felt thick and tight and he had to swallow to make the sensation go away. Absently, he wondered if he get to his hotel room and sit on the edge of the bathtub until whatever the hell this was wore off and he was certain he wouldn’t puke anywhere inconvenient.

But thinking about trying to keep upright all alone against the off-white tile under the harsh hotel bathroom lights was enough to make the back of his mouth feel weird again, and he was so tired. He wanted to sleep more than he could remember ever wanting anything. 

“No thanks,” he mumbled. His voice was barely audible, which wasn’t really his fault because Brandon was scratching lightly across his back and that always made him go terribly quiet. “‘m really freaking tired. Just gonna go to my room I think.” 

“Alright,” Alec said, and Brandon kind of lifted him up off the wall, using the arm that had been rubbing his back to grip his shoulders and push him upright. He let himself be handled until he was standing against Brandon’s chest and being practically walked through the hallways, because he was so dizzy that it was kind of scaring him. He wasn’t sure how Alec had gotten his keycard, but he didn’t really want to open his mouth to ask. 

Eventually, after a strange stretch of time that was somewhere in between a blink and an hour, they were in his hotel room, the same weird orange that the lobby had been. After being led to the bed, Bryson sank heavily onto it, flopping sideways to lay down on the untucked, burnt sunset sheets. They were a little scratchy, but they were crisp and cool and pressing his forehead against them made the throbbing recede just a little. 

“Can you bring me, like,” he fumbled for the word, exhausted, flopping his hand against the bed halfheartedly like it might indicate what he meant. “The-” He groaned and rolled over, so that he was facing Alec and Brandon, who were both staring at him expectantly. If he’d felt a little better, he might have had the good sense to feel embarrassed, but as it was he just wanted to fall asleep. “The trash can,” he got out finally. “Can you jus’ like, put it over here.” 

While Alec darted around the room searching for it, Brandon sat himself on the edge of the bed and starting running his hands up and down Bryson’s back like he’d been doing in the lobby. “Stomach still messed up, huh?” Brandon asked. 

Bryson nodded with a little whimper, because Brandon had said it so gently and worried, in the kind of voice that was so caring he could almost see himself through his friends’ eyes and realize how miserable this really was. 

“You sure you didn’t just pick up a bug or something?” Brandon added, after apparently having thought for a few moments. His hand on Bryson’s back had stilled while he was considering the possibility, and he resumed now that he’d gotten the thought out. “I feel like you wouldn’t still be carsick, dude.” 

“Don’t think so,” Bryson mumbled, his cheek smushed against the sheets and turning his voice even more childish than it already sounded, clumsy and tired and muffled. “‘’m too dizzy. Feel too weird.” 

Brandon hummed sympathetically, running his hands up Bryson’s neck and into his hair once before he moved to stand up. After placing the trash can by the edge of the bed, Alec tugged the comforter out from under Bryson’s legs and tucked it up to his chin. He wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted it there, because he was kind of sweaty and a little bit too hot, but he was too tired to say so and his head hurt too bad to justify fixing it for himself. 

“Try to sleep, okay?” Alec said quietly, patting his shoulder awkwardly like he didn’t quite want to leave but he wasn’t sure what to do. “You’ll probably feel better when you wake up.” 

Bryson woke up slowly to the sound of hushed whispers coming from the corner of his room. 

Decidedly, he did not feel better. For one thing, he was still tired - maybe even more tired than he’d been before falling asleep. The thick, hotel comforter was sticking to his body and damp with sweat, and while his headache had calmed down a little bit, his entire body felt achy and stiff and heavy, and his stomach was still turning uneasily. 

“‘s it morning?” he mumbled, his eyes still squeezed shut. 

“Hey bud,” Bryce’s voice said, instead of answering the question. He had no idea why Bryce was there, or who had let him in, or what they were all doing in his room. “We think we know what’s wrong.” 

Bryson opened his eyes slowly, squinting one open first and then the other, and Bryce was seating himself on the edge of the large bed. His body was radiating heat, but Bryson curled into him anyways. He propped himself up on his elbow and blinked slowly at Bryce. 

“Yeah?” he said, or tried to, instead letting out a sad little hum. 

Bryce understood, because he always did. “Y’ever hear of altitude sickness?” 

Bryson pushed himself up all the way, wrestling his own body into some sort of sitting position and leaning most of his weight onto Bryce’s side. “I don’t know.” It didn’t seem terribly hard to figure out, so he added, “Too high up?” 

From the other side of the room, Brandon snickered, probably affectionately, and Bryce squeezed Bryson’s shoulders gently. “Pretty much, kiddo. It shouldn’t last too much longer.” 

“It sucks,” Bryson pouted. “What the heck. Everyone else is fine?” Insecurity crept into the edge of his voice, because he knew that they were babying him a little bit - tucking him in and playing with his hair and calling him kiddo - and he didn’t mind that in itself but sometimes he got a little worried that he was the only baby. He didn’t think that would be super cool. He liked attention, but not that much of it. 

“I don’t know,” Bryce shrugged. “I wasn’t worried about the other guys, I was worried about you.” He turned his head to glare at Brandon and Alec. “Mostly because these two shitheads were freaked the fuck out, and it was kind of annoying, so I had to make sure you weren’t dying.” 

“No, we weren’t,” Brandon protested, at the same time as Bryson mumbled, “I wouldn’t die.” Alec bent over, covering his mouth and making a weird choked sound like he was trying really hard not to laugh. 

Clambering out of Bryce’s grasp, Bryson crawled backwards until his back hit the stack of pillows that lined the headboard of the bed. “Okay, well, sit in the bed with me,” he ordered, although he was pretty sure the reason all three of them instantly complied was because he looked incredibly sad and pathetic, and not because he’d mustered any degree of authority. 

“For what?” Alec asked, already mostly under the covers. Bryson leaned over to rest his head on Alec’s shoulder, because he always insisted that his was the coziest, despite Brandon’s attempts to win him over. 

“Shh.” Bryson reached out to try and shush Alec jokingly, but his arm bumped into Brandon the way up, who flailed over dramatically in a heap onto Bryce’s lap. Bryce shoved him off, mock-rough, and he tilted back into Bryson’s body. “Shut up,” Bryson tried to say, through giggles. “Just cuddle with me.”