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There was more than one reason why Alan slept on the floor instead of his bed. Most people would put it down to him being a teenager, staying up all night to play video games and sleeping on the floor because that’s just where he happened to fall asleep. And they wouldn’t be wrong, that is just where Alan happened to fall asleep, on the floor where he was playing his video games. But he had been sleeping on the floor long before he had even discovered video games. For as long as Alan could remember, actually, but his brothers could pinpoint it to the time he came home from the hospital after their mother had been lost in the avalanche. Alan just would not stay in his bed. For the first few months, he was very clingy, constantly wanting to be holding onto someone, or being held, and with dad out of action as he grieved their mom, those people ended up being his older brothers, and his grandma, screaming bloody murder if he was left alone for even a second.
He gradually got better, staying in his own room at night, as long as he had his nightlight on and the door ever so slightly cracked, but he wouldn’t stay in his bed very often, usually only if he had been carried there by someone else when he was already asleep. However, the rest of the Tracy brothers and their grandmother had all quickly learned not to approach Alan to wake him on the odd occasion that he was asleep in his bed. One time, Alan hadn’t heard Scott come in, and when he was woken to the sight of Scott hovering over him, he had had such a fright that he had flailed and whacked Scott in the face as he screeched in terror. After that, without fail, every morning, Alan would be curled up under his blanket on the floor, waking up at the first sign of someone coming in to wake him.
The floor was comforting to Alan in a way his bed just….wasn’t. When he was asleep on the floor, he could hear someone coming in to wake him, he would feel the vibrations of their footsteps underneath his cheek and be awake by the time they had crossed the room to get to him. When he was younger, his grandmother had taken him to the doctors, she had been worried about what negative effects sleeping on the floor could have on him, and when he tried to explain to the doctor why he slept on the floor, they had come away with very different diagnosis than what his grandmother thought they would, though it should have been expected. Trauma response, the doctor had said. Sometimes, kids who have been through trauma often sleep on the floor, as it offers security to them and they can hear any potential danger coming, hence Alan’s severe reaction when he was sleeping in his bed and didn’t hear Scott come in to wake him. He should grow out of it with time, the doctor had said, and Alan had, to some degree. Until they lost their father. That set him back a lot, and meant that even now, years on and in his teens, Alan still felt safer sleeping on the floor.
It had grown to have a different purpose now though. It wasn’t so much now that he could hear danger coming in, since he knew he was very safe on the island, with all of his family here to protect him along with the island's defences, but more of a comfort thing. He was comfortable on the floor, it kept him connected to the present when he was having a bad day and just needed reminding he was okay. When he was anxious about something, like potentially failing a mission, or a test, or disappointing his brothers or grandmother, or feeling overwhelmed at the fact he was a part of International Rescue and flew a rocket, and therefore had a lot of expectations to meet, he laid down and took some deep breaths, just grounding himself for a while until he felt ready to face the issue at hand, calming himself down enough to think rationally through his problems. The floor was a constant, something that could be relied on, something that was familiar to him, to keep him centred. He didn’t know how else to explain it, not to himself, and certainly not to his brothers who had long since given up trying to get him to sleep in a proper bed and didn’t even bring it up anymore, because it got them nowhere. As long as he was actually getting sleep, they didn’t mind that he slept on the floor.
With that information in mind, he was unable to explain why he was waking up in a bed now, to the sounds of being fussed over. He didn’t like it. It felt too foreign to him, he felt trapped, the weight of the blankets pressing him into the memory foam mattress making him feel like he was sinking and he couldn’t get out. He blinked blearily, trying to focus his eyes on the figures above him.
“Alan? Can you hear me?”
A pitiful whine was all Alan could muster up.
“Hey kiddo, it’s alright.” A voice accompanied by what he presumed was meant to be a comforting pat on his ankle. Who was that… Gordon? It sounded like Gordon. But the figure right in front of him didn’t look like Gordon. No… they were tall… blue eyes… Scott…. Which meant Virgil was close by somewhere, surely. How? How were they all here? How had Alan not noticed them all coming into his room? It was then he realised he felt like he was burning up from the inside and he kicked out weakly.
“Hot…..” Alan whined, trying to shimmy off the blankets, only for them to be held there and the panic started to well up. Why couldn’t he move, why wouldn’t they let him move?! He was trapped, the pressure was increasing in his chest, it was too hot, he was sinking, could he breathe, it felt like he couldn’t breathe!
“Woah, Alan, shh, it’s alright, you have a fever, sprout, you need to keep the blanket on.”
“N..no… no, please, sinking, trapped!” Alan gasped, struggling harder against the blankets and the bed and the brother trying to push him back down.
“Virgil!”
“I’m on it!”
“Wait!” A new voice rang out, and Alan managed to escape the grasp of whichever brother was holding him due to their surprise and fought with the covers.
“He’s working himself up, John, we-”
“He’s panicking and you’re all crowding him, move back.” John shooed the brothers around the bed away, and pulled the covers off of Alan, who immediately gasped and breathed as though a huge weight had been lifted off of him, and he stopped struggling. “There we go, Al,” John crooned softly as Alan relaxed, even as he shivered against the cold air of his room. “Better?”
Alan’s fever bright eyes focused on his space brother and tears welled up in his eyes. He didn’t feel trapped anymore, but he still didn’t feel at ease. He didn’t feel safe. “I don’t like it….” He whispered, trying to edge closer to the side of the bed, hoping he wouldn’t be dragged back by a brother thinking that they were helping.
“What don’t you like, sprout?”
“’m sinking… I’m sinking and I’m gonna be trapped…. I don’t wanna be trapped, not again, please, not again….”
“Sinking….” Understanding dawned on John’s face and he stepped back, laying a blanket on the rug of the floor before picking Alan up and settling him on the blanket. Almost immediately, Alan’s body went limp as the last of the panic left his body, the familiarity of the floor soothing him into a sense of security. “There…. There we go, that’s better, hm?”
Alan could feel the vibrations of his brother moving around through his cheek and sighed in relief. “Floor…. Safe…. Thank you…”
“You’re welcome, sprout…” John gestured for Gordon to hand him another blanket, which he settled over Alan carefully, before Scott sat at the other side of them, pressing a cold cloth to Alan’s forehead whilst Virgil scanned him again. The little energy Alan had awoken with had been used up trying to fight against his blankets and he was tired, so very very tired. So with his brothers surrounding him, murmuring softly above him, and the comforting feeling of the floor beneath him, he fell back asleep, content in the fact that he was safe and his brothers had him.