I blinked wearily under the light my phone was spitting onto my face and yawned with the back of my hand against my lips. It was only seven o' clock but I'd woken up early this morning for some reason and the rest of the bus was still dead silent, everybody was sleeping. My only entertainment came from my phone at the moment, and it was kind of lonely.
Any one of the lads would strap me to a chair and pluck out my fingernails if I tried to wake them up, and when I told them that the reason why was because I was bored, they'd rip my head off.
I couldn't get back to sleep, so I just had to wait it out. The problem was, we were going to be on the road until after midday so there was actually a chance to sleep in for once, and the rest of the band were definitely going to be taking advantage of it.
There was a brief rustle of sheets from underneath me and I paused, hoping that Liam was awake. I sat up on my elbow as the curtain was wrenched open loudly and hurriedly, followed by fast footsteps taking off down the bus.
I opened my own curtain a little and peered out. I couldn't see much, it was still dark with all the blinds drawn but I could see that the bathroom light was on even though the door was pulled most of the way.
I shimmied forward a little on my stomach, trying to see past the wall. Liam's shadow was dark against the light, and it looked like he was on his knees.
I shifted forward a little more, craning my neck, and then with one last little twitch I tumbled over the side of the bunk and fell the short distance to the floor with a shocked squeak.
Harry grunted sleepily from his bunk just across from Liam's and Louis' curtain moved a little but neither of them made any move to see what was going on. It was probably a good thing, because they'd both give me so much shit for managing to topple out of my bunk.
I picked myself up off the ground, rubbing my arm where it had tried to soften my fall. There was definitely going to be a bruise there later.
A low whine came from the bathroom and I crept forward, finally realising what could be wrong.
Sickness was the worst thing possible when it came to touring. There wasn't time to have a break, we couldn't just stop when we wanted to.
Liam was probably going have a shitty next few days with management on his arse 24/7.
"Hey Li. . ." I said slowly, not wanting to give him a fright. Standing in the doorway I could see him crouched down in the claustrophobic space, right in front of the loo. His forearms were resting on the seat, unhygienic but what can you do?
Liam glanced back at me quickly before setting his stare back on the water in the bottom of the toilet, "sorry, I uh, I didn't mean to w-wake you, Ni."
"You didn't, don't worry about that. You feeling sick?" I asked, although it was fairly obvious.
"Kinda nauseous-all of a sudden," Liam replied, gaps in between each word. It was as if he'd only been speaking English for a year.
I strode further into the room, "you don't mind if I-"
He nodded his head soundlessly and I laid a careful hand on his forehead. I winced. I'd had a little hope that maybe he was just over tired or stressed but the heat coming off him told me otherwise.
"You're definitely feverish, some bug's managed to get it's hands on you," I said sympathetically, picking a facecloth out of the draw.
Liam huffed as I wet the cloth under the tap, "I hate being sick."
I placed it on the back of his neck with a amused chuckle, "nobody likes being sick, but you know how it works around here don't you? The remainder of us are gonna get you back on your feet in no time, well, when they get out of bed."
"Filming later?" Liam leaned over the toilet a bit more while he whispered and I instinctively put a hand on his back. He was talking about the music video we were filming at two this afternoon. We'd already done most of it, today was just the very end and a few retakes but if Liam was still like he was now he was going to have a tough time getting through it.
I smiled, trying to be assuring, "you'll be a bit better by then, it'll be fine."
I didn't know what Liam was sick with though, and I couldn't help but feel guilty. It felt like I was lying to him.
"I hope s- oh god-"
He let out a forceful cough as all the colour drained from his face.
"Get it over with Li," I murmured, knowing that the sooner he finished the sooner he could head back to bed.
"That's it. . ." I rubbed his back rhythmically as it arched under my hand and throw up poured from Liam's mouth and into the tinny little toilet.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn't at all disgusted by the sight of it, the things the human body does sometimes is just-ugh, but I forced all those thoughts to the back of my mind and instead just sat with him until he'd decided he was ready to go back to his bunk.
He only vomited once, which made things easier on him, but it took him a while to stop the breathless gasping and spitting out large amounts of saliva. He was shaking, either from exertion or fever.
"Hmmm, I'll take s-some of the stomach r-relaxers and try to go back to sleep I think," he whispered after a while. He started to get up onto his feet and I grabbed onto onto of his elbows, just to keep him steady.
He smiled a little, thankfully, and slowly dug the box of pills out of the back of the cupboard. It had been a while since anyone had had to use them. The sheet Liam pulled out was full apart from two empty slots.
He swallowed them dry and squeezed past me back into the short hallway.
I made sure he was okay in his bunk and then pulled his curtain shut. I checked the time. 7:30.
Still a good couple of hours before Harry or Louis got up. Great.
***
"Morning," Harry greeted with a yawn as he walked into the main room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. I jumped up excitedly, spilling the glass of water that had been in my hand.
"Finally!" I let out a triumphant yell and tackled Harry to the ground. Harry laughed as I rolled off him with a cheery grin. I was the most impatient person to live, and had spent the last two hours staring at a spot on the wall. The time had passed painfully slowly, and seeing another awake person was the biggest relief. I was beginning to go crazy.
Harry sat up with a raised brow, "that's one way to greet someone."
"I've been awake since six a clock," I stated, as if it was a reasonable explanation.
"Wow! All by yourself?" Harry beamed, sarcasm pouring off him in waves.
"Shut up, and actually, no." I wagged a finger at him, remembering the half hour I had spent with Liam in the bathroom with a grimace, "Liam's sick."
Harry sighed as he got back onto his feet, "You're kidding me." He knew as well as I did how getting sick on tour worked out for us.
"Unfortunately, no. He threw up this morning, fever and all," I explained, rubbing the back of my neck.
Harry got to work on his toast, "Damn it, I was hoping we wouldn't have to go through this again this time around."
"You jinxed it." I grinned playfully, "good one."
During this tour, only Louis had been sick and let me tell you, it was chaos. Strep was what he had, which totally sucked for him and for the rest of us. And now it was Liam's turn and all I could really do was hope that it wouldn't be so terrible.
"I did not jinx it," Harry scoffed, just as Louis sauntered into the room, tugging up his sweats and dragging his feet.
"You bloody loud yaks woke me up," he complained, pinching a bit of Harry's jam toast as he flitted by.
"Oi!" Harry snatched his breakfast back, "make your own!"
Louis laughed, swiping the other half and throwing himself across the couch, "you shouldn't have woken me up then, grumpy!"
Harry rolled his eyes but didn't fight Louis about the toast, instead simply putting another piece into the toaster.
"Where's Mr Payne on this fine morning?" Louis asked with a mouth full of toast. I grimaced as a small piece flew out and landed on the carpet.
"He's asleep still, he threw up this morning," Harry answered. He glanced over at me, "did you give him the sick bucket?"
"Crap, no, I didn't even think about that."
Louis held out the disgustingly familiar sick bucket, "go give him this now then, so he doesn't have to go all the way to the bathroom."
It had been used on many occasions, all as gross as the last. Bus sickness, flu, food poisoning, hangovers, this bucket had seen it all. We kept it clean, but I still grabbed it by the handle with my nose screwed up.
It was silent and still behind Liam's curtain when I lowered the bucket to the carpet just beside where his head would be. I figured he was sleeping, but I wanted to tell him that the bucket was there in case he tried to get to the bathroom, not knowing that it was there, and tripped over the damn thing.
I wasn't sure if I ahould wake him though, knowing there would be an eighty percent chance he'd be feeling catastrophically awful. I mean, there was a little chance that it was just a random spike of illness and he'd be totally okay by now but I wasn't overly confident.
It was ten o' clock now anyway, and I sighed while looking at the time on my phone. Might as well wake him up. He might just go straight back to sleep afterwards anyway.
I gently tugged open the curtain and shook his back gently, seeing that he was facing the wall. He shifted a little with a low whine and then pulled right away from my hand, pressing himself up against the wall.
"Are you awake Li?" I whispered.
"Kind of."
"I've put the sick bucket below you, if you need it. How are you feeling?"
"Like I wanna sleep until the world ends," came a croaky reply, which did zilch to assure me that I could keep to my promise and get him better by the time we had to film this afternoon.
"But do you feel like you need the bucket?"
"Not right now," Liam replied, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes with one hand. My guess was that his other hand was holding his stomach but I couldn't see under the blanket.
I scanned his pale face worriedly, "That's good. Are you hungry? Do you want to come out for breakfast? I'll check your fever for you and you can take some more medication while we're out there."
I'd offered breakfast with the hope that it'd give him some colour back and resuscitate his lifeless eyes. His hair was a mess, something that resembled a tangled pile of Christmas lights with fluff from the sheets sticking out every now and again and there were sagging purple bags under his eyes.
"I guess," he replied, but by the sounds of it he only did so that he wouldn't disappoint me. I felt bad dragging him out of bed but we needed to see if he could hold food down and make sure that his fever wasn't so high that his brain was melting.
I offered him a hand and he took it in his own sweaty one. After getting him up and out of bed I watched him carefully as he made his way down the short hall. He was stumbling every now and then and his steps were shorter than usual but he got there without any major slip ups and Harry assisted him in getting to the couch.
I shared a glance with Louis when I followed Liam in, his face pretty much read 'holy hell, he's dying.'
Liam started shivering a bit and Harry chucked a blanket over him as Louis joined me behind the counter.
"How does a piece of toast sound?" I called.
"Fine," Liam replied from behind me.
"I'll make it." Louis nudged me, "all good."
I thanked him and reached up to grab the thermometer from its usual place.
"He looks terrible Ni," Louis uttered to me quietly as he got a plate out of the cupboard, his voice low enough that only I could hear, "what are we gonna do this afternoon?"
"Honestly, I don't know," I replied truthfully, catching a glimpse of Liam shaking on the couch as I lowered back down onto the flats of my feet, thermometer in hand, "the only thing we can really do is try get him feeling at least a bit better by then so that he can get through it."
Louis didn't look confident.
I strode over to take Liam's temperature while we waited for the toast to pop. Harry was tucked under the blanket beside him now, letting the older lad press into his side with his head resting on his shoulder.
"Here we go Li, arm up a little."
I slid the instrument into his arm pit and closed his arm around it, seeing as he didn't make any move to do it himself.
It beeped a few seconds later, and the toast popped at exactly the same time.
"101.9," I read aloud, switching it off and placing it on the shelf.
"That's not too bad." Harry held his hand against Liam's forehead, "but you're still feeling crappy aren't you?"
"My stomach hurts," Liam groaned, tucking his head down into Harry's shoulder.
Louis came over with the plate in his hand, and he passed it to Harry. On it was the piece of toast with a thin layer of butter cut into triangles, "maybe having something to eat will help settle it mate, here."
Harry passed him a piece and he munched on the crust slowly, staring at a spot on the carpet.
"How is it?" I asked.
Liam shrugged, "tastes like nothing."
He got through three of the triangles before rejecting the last bit and sagging back into the cushions.
We were all sitting around him now, littered across the floor whispering quietly about whatever came to mind. Liam fell asleep within minutes of having taken his last bite and nobody wanted to wake him up.
It went well for about ten minutes and just when I was thinking that he was holding down the toast just fine he wrenched awake suddenly and curled over himself before puking on the carpet with a cry.
Harry held him on the couch and rubbed his back and Louis ran off to grab the bucket from the bunks. I wasn't quite sure what to do apart from move out of the splash zone.
Liam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand when he was done and closed his eyes, "fuck, I'm so sorry. . ."
"Don't worry about it, are you okay?" Louis moved the bucket aside a bit and rested a hand on Liam's shoulder, which I could see was trembling. The toast had done the exact opposite of what I hoped it would and somehow his face had lost even more colour and he looked even worse than he did before.
Liam grabbed the bucket again and set it in front of him.
"I'll go grab a glass of water, maybe liquid is a better option," Louis decided and then off he went.
Liam coughed and spat into the bucket, squirming in his seat uncomfortably and clinging onto his stomach.
"Do you think you're gonna be sick again? Or do you want to lay down and sleep here?"
"It smells," Liam rasped, gaining a dry chuckle out of the rest of us.
Harry poked his shoulder teasingly, "well, it is your insides that are scattered around on the floor."
He was trying to lighten the mood, but he looked uneasy.
"I'll clean it up, just lay down."
Soon enough the mess was cleaned up and Liam was snoring quietly on the couch, still shivering slightly. My hands smelled of sick no matter how hard I scrubbed them and Liam's fever had gone up a couple of points despite the medication we'd managed to get into him before he went to sleep.
"I think we should try talking to management," Harry said.
He had the right idea, it was definitely worth the shot. Management sucked though, the chance that they would actually let him out of filming was slight.
"It's useless," Louis scoffed, "there's no way."
"Still." I nodded to Harry, "worth a shot. You should do it though, they like you."
Harry made a sound, "no they don't."
"I'll do it," Louis volunteered.
Harry and I watched him intently while he made the call, and within the first twenty seconds I could tell that it wasn't working. Louis was getting louder and louder and Liam stirred awake to listen too just as Louis chucked the phone across the room weakly so that it wouldn't smash.
Liam broke the silence in a dry voice, "nice try, Lou."
"Sorry mate, they're stubborn little shits. But oh well, we're not gonna go anyway. Don't worry about it, we'll sort it all out, you're not going anywhere today," Louis said and once again I caught his gaze, silently asking him how the hell we were going to do this.
He ignored me, "go back to sleep, Li."
"Happily. . ." Liam trailed off, shutting his eyes again.
Later that afternoon at two o' clock there was a loud knock on the door. We'd stopped moving half an hour ago and been sitting and waiting for the inevitable since. We weren't letting Liam go through four hours of filming like he was and we weren't leaving him alone, which meant we weren't leaving, full stop.
And we expected to have to put up a good fight about it.
A strict American accent rang through the bus, "you guys should be out here already, you're late!"
"We already told you, Liam's sick, we can't work today!" Harry yelled back. Liam was awake on his lap, blinking tiredly. His temperature was up to 103.1 now according the the thermometer and he'd had a tough few hours.
"And we already told you, you're god damn working anyway!"
A key twisted in the lock and there was a click. I stood up, ready to argue.
A stout brunette lady stomped her way inside, followed by a few other semi familiar looking people, none of which looked very happy.
She got right up in our faces without any hesitation, teetering on the tips of her toes. "Move it," she growled.
Liam sat upright and before I could warn this lady he promptly vomited all over her feet. She stood still in shock while he spewed up a second round and then shrieked and dodged the third, tears running down her face.
Maybe I was a bit sadistic, but I would be lying if I sad I didn't enjoy it at least a little bit.
Liam pulled himself back together pretty quickly and even he laughed as she floundered about, ordering people to find her a towel. Nobody even said anything to us four, they just panicked for a few minutes and then left, as if they had forgotten what they came in for.
"As nasty as that was Li, it was fucking awesome," Louis laughed.
"Agreed," I chuckled, grinning triumphantly. We were out. We won.
Alrighty,there we are! Sorry for the slow update, I've been away for the last week so I haven't been able to write anything! It sucked ! But anyway, here's this to make up for it :)
So, we're almost up to 85 thousand reads guys. 85 THOUSAND. I don't even know how to express how much that means to me, how happy it makes me. I really wanna do something for you guys, as a massive thank you for making me so happy and I was thinking about doing a review book. All you aspiring writers out there with your own unnoticed, or very noticed, books can send me the title and I'll read it, vote and stuff, and then try help you out! I reckon it'll be so much fun and as I said earlier, I really want to give you guys something back for everything.
If this is something you think you'd want to try then please please please leave a comment and if there's enough interest I'll get the new book going as soon as soon as possible and we can get into this! All good if you think it's a dumb idea, let me know!
Thank you so much!