Years Will Go By

Car Ride

Summary:
Cove and Riley ride in the same car together for the first time. Riley has major anxiety in the car and it comes with some weird quirks that he fears Cove will find annoying. (Takes place during Step 1, so they are both 8 years old.)

Notes:
Riley uses He/Him pronouns here.

Warning(s): Anxiety and a break down because of it, not edited for mistakes

Word Count: 1164

"Okay! You two ready to go?" Cove's dad turned to Riley and Cove. The Adams and Holden families decided to go on a small day trip together. Across the street at Riley's house, the rest of his family got ready to get into his moms' car. Riley had asked to ride with Cove, which meant riding in his dad's car. While Riley's moms' had and still were worried, he was certain that he wanted to ride with his new friend.

"Yeah let's go," Cove said, no emotion behind it, he seemed bored to still be standing around. He got in the car first as his dad chuckled.

Riley nodded and muttered a small "yeah" and followed Cove into the car. Cove's dad almost got into the driver's seat before stopping; Mommy rushed across the street and called out to him. "Sorry Mr. Holden, Riley seems to have forgotten this." Mommy handed over a Game Boy to him.

"Ah, no problem, I'll hand it to him when I get in," Cove's dad chuckled and exchanged a few more short sentences with Mommy. "See you there!" He said before finally getting into the car.... One quick glance at Cove and Riley knew his friend was ready to drag his dad into the car. "Here you go, Riley. Your mom said you left in the car." He passed back the Game Boy for Riley to grab carefully.

"Oh yeah. I put it in there before asking to switch cars." Riley shifted in his seat and tugged at the seat belt.

"Can we go now?" Cove asked as his dad buckled up.

"Yes, of course bud. We're going now. Hopefully we haven't forgotten anything else!" Cove's dad probably used the last as a final reminder, or so Riley thought. After he got no response, Cove's dad started the car— the trip officially began.

It took less than 15 minutes down the road for the foot tapping to begin. For as long as Riley could remember, he nervously tapped his foot in the car; no matter how long or short the ride was. His moms were used to it and Lizzie tolerated it. When they were both younger, Lizzie used to make comments and get Riley to stop it if she was in a particularly bad mood. The few times their moms did immediately get on to her about talking to her sibling like, it turned out worse than just letting the tapping continue. However they were the only people who knew about Riley's car anxiety.

Riley saw Cove steal a quick glance at him over the tapping, but didn't question it, yet. Mr. Holden seemed to ignore it as long as he could. "You two good back there?" Cove's dad gave into subtly asking about it. Cove muttered a yeah, still looking at the car window, and Riley gave an unsteady hum in agreement. "Alright–" Cove's dad sounded hesitant to drop it, but did.

Riley started up his Game Boy to try and refocus on... something else; not the moving car. It didn't stop his tapping leg and it was starting to get to him. The foot tapping could be rather distracting and annoying and Riley worried the Holdens would get upset at him. So he readjusted, turning off his game, and placed his hands on both of his knees. The general weight on his right leg stopped the tapping, but the position was uncomfortable. He felt tense and worried; worried about being in the car, scared how his new friend would think of his weird anxious stims, terrified Mr. Holden wouldn't want to drive him anywhere again.

Riley's bottom lip trembled and he closed his eyes tightly. Why was he like this? Ran around in his head, he never could be "normal" in the car. His thoughts filled with all the worst scenarios and he didn't notice the tears rolling down his pale cheeks. Not until there was a hand brushing them away, or at least on the right side of his face. "Riley?" Cove called him out of those bad thoughts.

Riley hummed in response, wiping the tears away with the back of his hands. Soon the foot tapping started again without the weight on the leg. All Riley's work to get rid of the tear ruined in an instant as he started openly crying again. "A-ah, I'm s-sorry Cove–!" He managed to say that was actually audible to the other passenger.

"Sorry? For what? Are you okay, Riley?" Cove asked, clearly worried. Briefly, he glanced over at his dad.

"My f-foot ta-tapping is so annoying!" Riley said through pure sobs, not remotely noticing Mr. Holden pulled into a gas station; Cove knew his dad filled up the tank yesterday. They were barely parked and Cove unbuckled his seat belt and scooched over to Riley's seat. "I-I can't stop it! I'm so so sorry..." Riley muttered out apology after apology, salty tears still rolling down his face.

"It's not annoying, Riley." Cove tried to reason. He wanted to make Riley feel better... admittedly he wasn't always good at that. Riley was far better at comforting him than the other way around.

"Hey, kiddo–" Cove's dad, now turned around in his seat to look at the children, called out to Riley. "–neither Cove nor I think it is annoying. Look, your moms mentioned it to me already. If that's what you need to do to get through the car ride, then do that. We aren't going to kick you out of the car because of it." Cove nodded at his dad's words, for once agreeing with them easily.

"Yeah so don't worry about it so much... please?" Cove gently touched Riley's arm as some way of reassuring him. It got him to look up at Cove with teary eyes, eventually nodding with a small smile. If there was one thing Riley knew for sure about Cove it was how sincere he always was.

"Okay... thank you. I just thought you would find it weird and annoying. Even Shiloh has given me weird looks over it and Lizzie can only tolerate it so much some days..." Riley confessed looking down at his hand, anxiously rubbing them.

"Well I don't!" Cove exclaimed, getting a laugh and giggle out of his dad and friend. "Because you're not annoying Riley," Cove stated. A more genuine smile made it onto Riley's face.

Mr. Holden gave the kids a few more minutes to talk a bit and settle down. "Alright, ready to get on the road?" He asked. Cove got back into his seat and buckled up and gave a good nod. Riley took a sharp inhale and then also nodded. The car would need to move again so they could get to their destination. Maybe now he wouldn't worry for the rest of the trip and get to enjoy riding in the same car as his friend. After all, Riley wanted to show Cove some of the games of his Game Boy.