TW// Anxiety, panic attacks, homophobia.

*Brendon's POV* (2k+ words)
       

Today is the day!

We're going on a road trip from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, all the swimming team because we won the nationals!

I know it's not a big deal, Salt Lake City it's like around the corner. And it's my swimming team I'm coming with, and sometimes that isn't the best idea ever.

Besides for the fact that my beautiful boyfriend is in the team with me. That's exactly the reason why I'm super excited.

This is gonna be our first trip together since we started dating, that being a little over half a year now.

"Bren, we're running late, they're gonna leave without us, everything's gonna go wrong, what if-." Ryan starts rambling things, pacing back and forth in my room at a quickly pace, and he's shaking a little.

He deals with anxiety and has panic attacks once a while. It's kind of normal for him to overthink things and he always pictures the worst of scenarios.

I might not understand perfectly why he always thinks like that, but I'm not questioning him. I'm here if he needs me, whatever and whenever he needs it.

I lead my way towards him, stop him in his tracks. Taking a hold of his hands with mine and I squeeze tight, looking at him in the eyes and speaking with the softest voice, smiling reassuringly, "Babe, we're not gonna be late, everything's ready...C'mon let's go now."

"But what if-?" Ryan starts saying, but I cut him off with a gentle kiss on the lips, wrapping my arms around him tightly. He returns both of the gestures, kissing back shyly, and the hug as tight as he can.

"Ry, stop worrying. I'll be with you the whole time, everything's gonna be just fine. Trust me." He buries his head in the crook of my neck and sighs contentedly.

"Ok, ok. But promise me you'll stay with me the whole time, please." he mumbles against my neck and the sound of his voice it's a little muffled, but I can understand it fully.

I pull away from the hug, not wanting to, but I need him to look at me so he knows that I mean it, that I'm really gonna be there the whole time with him.

I lift his chin with a finger, "Babe, I promise, I'll stay by your side the entire time no matter what." This didn't mean to be only for the trip, it's for longer than that, for all times — I hope he gets the hint. "And now, if we don't wanna be late, we should get going, c'mon."

"Thanks Bren, really." Ryan says with a soft shy voice, looking at his feet.

I cup his cheeks with my hands and I peck his lips once more, he's smiling in the kiss and that's the best feeling ever. My stomach does that flip thing and I blush a dark red.

"You don't have to thank me, you know that." I hug him again —maybe attempting to hide the blush on my face... nah, it's because I love hugging my lovely boyfriend— before leaving my house to meet with the rest of the team.

{~\\ • 🥥 • //~}

We've been on the bus on our way for nearly two hours, and it's been pretty much the same.

I've been keeping Ryan's mind somewhere else, to avoid him for having crazy thoughts, and it's been working.

We're just talking, cuddling with each other on the back of the bus —that's exactly why I chose this seat, so we could be together and free from homophobe comments or disgusted looks. Here in the back, at nighttime, it's more easy to be cuddly with your pretty pretty boyfriend and not be bothered.

Ok, it was working until now.

"B, I'm gonna get sick, I can't with this. I feel something bad is gonna happen and we're gonna die, yeah that's definitely what'll happen." He trembles in my embrace and then gets closer to me — if that's even possible.

"Baby, I told you everything's gonna be fine, ok?" I reassure him and he shifts on my lap, burying his face even more in the crook of my neck — he loves doing that and I love it when he does that. I wrap my arms tightly around him and my left hand fiddles with soft, light brown locks of Ryan's hair.

"I know, I know. But it's just that I don't know why I am like this." I hear him sob slightly on my shoulder. I quickly kiss his hair and murmur sweet nothings in his ear to calm him down.

And after a few minutes we both fall asleep, wrapped in each other arms, glued together.

{~\\ • 🥥 • //~}

"Guys, we're finally here! Get ready, we'll arrive at the hotel in 15 minutes." Mr. Wentz announces, waking all of us up. Everyone except for Ry, he's a heavy sleeper.

I rub my eyes and stretch a bit, we practically slept all over each other. And somehow, we changed places — I was half-leaning against the bus wall and half-laying on the seat, whereas he, was lying on top of me, now I'm on top of him.

"Peanut, we're here, c'mon wake up." I say as I'm trailing kisses all over his face, neck and lips, staying a little more time there.

He half opens his eyes and sees me softly kissing his cheek, he giggles. "Morning baby." his voice raspy for just waking up.

"Morning! How was your sleep?" I get off of Ryan, sitting the right way, he does the same.

"I could say terrible, because my back aches like shit. But also, I could say amazing because I was with you." he giggles and rests his head on my shoulder, his cheeks a shade of red.

"Me too, and don't worry about your back, we're sleeping in a proper bed today." I fiddle with his hair getting it the right way, squeezing his cheeks at moments.

"Are we sleeping in the same room? You know how the others are, about us. I'm sure they'd try to give us separate rooms." He starts shaking a bit, and I hold him by his shoulders.

"Don't worry about that, darling. I told Mr. Wentz we'll sleep in the same room and he was totally ok with it. So babe, no matter what the other assholes say, we're gonna stay together, all right?" He nods shyly but launches himself at me, attacking my lips on a passionate kiss.

{~\\ • 🥥 • //~}

We got at the hotel and Mr. Wentz check all of us in and then, he comes back with the keys of everyone's room.

They were mostly rooms for 2 or 3 people, individual beds for each. None wanting to sleep with someone else. Except for us, of course.

We were the only ones staying in a room with a double bed. That clearly caused disgusted looks towards us and a lot of murmuring.

Ryan flinched at all of that. And letting go of my hand, he ran out of the hotel. "Holy shit, Ry!"

I instantly start running out of the hotel too, following him close behind. He didn't run too much and I catch up with him sitting in a bench at some park only a block away. "Ry, babe, what happened?" I say breathing heavily because, I might be good at swimming — that's the reason where here anyways — but running the fastest you can because your boy just ran out scared, that's something I can't handle pretty well.

His eyes are watering when his gaze finds mine, and he's shaking. "No no, Ry, it's fine. You're safe now, don't worry, I'm with you, nothing bad will happen." I let out in the softest voice I can, opening my arms for him and he gives in, nuzzling my neck and I rub circles in his back.

He's full on crying right now, sobbing awfully on my shoulder. "B-But Bren, they were lo-looking at us, judging, and I couldn't s-stand there, the o-only thing I thought was to ru-run away. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, Ryro. It's ok now, we're just us here, nobody will judge. And if they do, they can fuck off." I continue to pet his hair and whispering sweet things to him until he has calmed down.

It looks like he's already asleep, but he's not because he just opened his eyes. They're still a bit red and puffy, and it breaks my heart seeing him like this so often. I always try my best to see him happy and not like this, but sometimes it's just impossible.

"Do you wanna go for ice cream?" I ask him and he nods, we stand up.

"Where is the ice cream parlor anyway?" Ryan asks confused, and I'm too, I just said going for ice cream, but didn't know where to buy it.

"Dunno, but I think there has to be one around here." I shrug and grab his hand to start waking around the city, searching for an ice cream shop or whatever where we can buy damn ice cream for my little peanut.

{~\\ • 🥥 • //~}

Apparently here nobody likes ice cream, or we're blind and we didn't see any ice cream.

I'm being serious, we've been walking around for almost half an hour and none ice cream at sight. We're already too far from the hotel.

"Bren, don't you think we should go back? I mean, we haven't found any ice cream and we're just walking in circles." He says matter of factly, and I roll my eyes.

"Nooo, I want my ice cream!" I whisper yell at him and he laughs at me. I just grin and lean it to peck his lips.

"Babe seriously, your phone has been ringing a hell of a lot, Mr. Wentz most probably. And we should be in the hotel right now and look where we are, we don't even k-know." He stutters on the last word and his eyes widen all of a sudden, his hand shakes a bit in my hold.

"Hey hey, what's wrong, what happened?" I hold his other hand too and he looks like he just saw a ghost.

"We don't k-know where w-we are."

"No no no, we'll get in a cab and just go back to the hotel, nothing's gonna happen. Ry, calm down, you're not alone." I smile reassuringly, and maybe a tad apologetic, I dunno.

He takes deep breaths with me, while we wait for a cab to go back. And it's not a long wait, only two minutes and a cab is already driving past us.

We both get in and he rests his head on my shoulder, still holding my hand.

"Hi, where are you guys going?" The driver asks us and, fuck, what's the name of the hotel?

"Wait a minute, sir." I pull my phone out searching for Pete's —Mr. Wentz first name—contact. When I find it, I call him.

"Mr. Wentz! Hey, sorry for running away, we just went for a walk, you know, stretch the legs after the road." I laugh, a fake laugh "Anyway, what's the name of the hotel?"

"Shit, Brendon — both of you have me nearly shitting my pants. Don't ever do that again, I really thought we would be leaving without you, huh. Also, did you really forget the name of the hotel? It's literally called 'Salt Lake City', you dummy. Come here as soon as possible, ok?"

"Ok, jeez, I get it. We're on our way." I hang up and tell the driver to drop us at the hotel named exactly like the city — oh well, how creative.

"See Ry? Even when we got lost, nothing bad happened."

"Hm, if you say so." Ryan says, voice still shaken up.

I kiss Ryan's cheek, to hopefully shush his worries away, and we continue on our way back to the hotel, cuddled in the backseat of the cab.

———————————————————————
This is so bad, oh my-
Anyway, hope you liked it! Bye<3
-Love you lots, N💕💖