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"No, you have to angle it inward so it doesn't fall out," Kyle pointed out, arms folding across his chest as he watched Cartman stomp on the stake.
Stan perked up from the opposite side of the ten that the four were trying (and failing) to set up. It was a large lump of assorted fabrics and materials at this point, stretched atop the tender soil of the forest floor that the group were considering home for the proceeding week. Pine needles littered the ground, poking through Stan's socks (it was his fault for sporting Crocs on a camping trip) and scratching at his feet. It wasn't a painful sensation, but it was certainly growing irritating.
"Why don't you just do it then?" Cartman retorted, scowling back at Kyle. On the car drive to the campsite a lost bet between the two deemed Kyle free of all duties for the night other than preparing his own smores and any other snacks craved until the following day. Stan suspected as soon as they agreed to the stipulations that Cartman would find some way to weasel free from the consequences. If hatred didn't blind Kyle so much, Stan was sure his intelligence would smell the man's scheme before it even had the chance to brew, but alas rage was one hell of an inhibitor.
"Fine!" Kyle exclaimed, shoulders jumping with a muscle twitch before he unfolded his arms and bent down to take over the task.
"9 minutes," Kenny called out, looking up from his watch to meet Stan's gaze, "you owe me 10, Stan!"
"Damnit," Stan rolled his eyes, abandoning the task at hand in favor of digging through his pockets to procure a disastrously creased 10-dollar bill.
"Thank you~!" Kenny sang, snatching his prized earnings.
"What was that?" Kyle narrowed his eyes.
"I said it'd take less than 10 minutes for you to fold, Stan thought you'd hold out longer," Kenny shrugged, folding the bill with one hand and slipping it into the jacket of his parka.
Kyle redirected his glare to Stan.
"I had hope," he sighed, mourning the loss of his pocket change as well as his friend's weak will.
Lip twitching with irritation, Kyle crossed his arms over his chest once more, "I'm gonna collect firewood," he determined before turning on his heel and marching away. Cartman's protests rang out in the ever-growing gap between them as his hopes of a leisurely night quickly became dashed. Space was probably what Kyle needed most at the moment, and firewood was a worthwhile pursuit even if it did technically break the agreement for Kyle's completely responsibility-less night. Though, with the type of person Kyle was, Stan knew he would have wound up doing something anyway. He just couldn't sit still.
Blinking roughly, Stan attempted to refocus on the task at hand. Cartman and Kyle's spout had provided him a brief distraction from the idle discomfort brewing beneath the skin on his head, but without their bickering to focus on Stan grew increasingly aware of the rising pain. Massaging the bridge of his nose, he took a deep breath and willed the tortuous sensation to cease. Most likely it was the altitude change that was having such an effect on him, or perhaps his body was still readjusting itself after the lengthy drive down. In any case, with enough luck it would soon fade.
"I'm gonna get started on the second tent, you two got this," Kenny clapped a hand on Stan's shoulder, a silent way of acknowledging that this meant Stan would be left to his own devices. They each had their own experiences and training in Boy Scouts years prior and tent pitching was an extensively elaborated on topic but Cartman never was the best at the homesteading aspects of camping. He could make a mean s'more and track animals decently but he needed others to pick up his slack in any other department.
Rolling his shoulders back to alleviate the nagging tenseness, Stan did his best to fully delve into the set-up for this tent. With the proper direction, Cartman could be useful, but Stan wasn't depending on his exemplary aid to get through the important task.
Wordlessly, only because he couldn't find the energy within himself to willfully engage Cartman in conversation, Stan began working on the tent.
It was, as tents tended to be, frustrating work (only worsened by Cartman's "offers" of help) but with enough effort, both abodes were up and standing.
"Not too bad," Kenny walked over and clapped Stan's shoulder, shaking him slightly. The motion jarred him. Already he was breathless from the altitude and work and the added stimuli was far from something he could handle. Closing his eyes, Stan clenched his jaw and willed himself to nod.
"Been a while," he commented, hoping his voice came out without any strain. Kenny's hand remained on his shoulder, and despite the friendliness, Stan couldn't suppress the urge to shrivel under the touch.
"Easy peasy," Cartman stretched, arms crossed over his chest.
"Yea, 'cause you jus' watched," Kenny huffed a laugh, releasing Stan and moving over to Cartman, "we're bunk buddies, get your sleeping bag."
With that, Kenny scooped his bedding from the ground and slipped into his tent. With Cartman occupied with his own endeavors, Stan stepped away from their campsite.
He just needed a second to ground himself, a moment away from the sound for his head to settle and his body to stop feeling so... tense.
Breathing deeply, he crouched beside a tree and blinked roughly a few times. Focus escaped his eyes, pine needles and grass showing up blurry on the ground.
"Fuck," he groaned under his breath, swiping a hand down his face.
"Stan?"
Quickly his head jerked up.
"Hm? Yeah?"
"What's up?" Kyle walked out from behind a towering tree, sticks stacked in his arms, "Cartman didn't do something, did he?"
"No- nah," Stan shook his head as he stood up, only for his vision to black briefly. Trying to stay inconspicuous, he grasped the tree for support.
When his vision returned, he could see Kyle eyeing him with concern.
"Altitude adjustment," Stan brushed off.
Lip curling in suspicion, Kyle adjusted the sticks in his arms so that they remained supported while he reached out a hand toward Stan's forehead.
"You're warm."
"Fuck," Stan rolled his head back and leaned deeper into the tree, "probably my stupid dad's cold, this is bullshit."
Kyle's expression turned sympathetic, "symptoms?"
"Head's been killing me, kinda dizzy but I just thought that was 'cause the air," Stan took a second to swallow, wondering if he should add nausea to that list or if that was just a byproduct of the dread eating him up.
Kyle hummed in thought, hand returning to holding the stickers in a proper fashion, "try sleeping it off tonight. I think I packed some Ibuprofen if you want some."
"Please," his voice cracked, the promise of relief a desperate thing.
They returned to the campsite together, Stan doing his best to maintain appearances while Kyle dropped the sticks near the planned location for their campfire.
“'Bout time you stopped your hissy fit,” Cartman smiled at the return of their most reactionary friend.
Kyle rolled his eyes before addressing Stan, “I’ll be back, wait in the tent.”
“What, grabbing condoms?” Cartman called toward Kyle’s retreating back, the latter of whom flashed a middle finger without missing a step.
"Let's get the fire started, dude," Kenny nudged Cartman, picking up on something being up or otherwise a need for Cartman to be kept occupied. He gave Stan an inquisitive expression which was shrugged off. Kyle could explain it for him while he hid away from it all.
Without word, he stepped into the tent and half-zipped the door behind himself. It was chilly within the fabric confines, a strange staticness in the air from the friction generated from the initial setting up of the tent.
Sadly, he crawled into his sleeping bag and tried his best to get comfortable. Without distraction, the extent of his illness slowly became realized.
The pain in his head was throbbing, loud in his ears and absolutely unignorable. At the very least, the extremity of it seemed to lessen the ache in his throat (which he’d only become properly aware of at that moment, and wasn’t quite positive whether it had always been there or was another symptom to be disclosed).
Squeezing his eyes shut, Stan folded his pillow over his head, hoping the pressure could alleviate the unbearable ache that spiked sharply with every slight nudge. His sense of sound seemed piqued, ears latching onto even the softest shuffle of fabric to bring up to a roar within his apocalyptic mind.
Kyle unzipping the flap nearly made him cry out.
"Sit up," Kyle hushed as he closed the door behind him. Cartman made sure to voice his opinions on the matter in the form of an unsavory word that rhymed with rag.
"Dude," Stan groaned as he loosened the pillow and dragged himself up onto his elbow like a reanimated corpse exiting his grave, "it got way worse."
"Probably was always that bad," Kyle theorized as he shook out two pills, "you just pretended it wasn't."
Stan lacked to energy to figure out whether that made perfect sense or absolutely none. Intelligence was one of Kyle's stronger traits though, so Stan decided to go with it.
"You got your water bottle?"
Stan squinted his eyes as he glanced around the tent, motion a disorienting ordeal. He imagined the snail-looking thing in his ears from a diagram in one of the school's textbooks and the liquid inside. That was one of the tests he scored low on, but he remembered that being something that tied into vertigo. Or something.
"Yeah, here," he reached for the sticker-covered bottle, trying to push down the thoughts of misremembered ear anatomy.
Without Stan needing to ask, Kyle took the bottle and screwed the cap off before passing it back to its owner with a dose of medicine.
Humming his thanks, Stan threw back the pills and shuddered as the water carried them down. The texture was dreadful against his throat and he was acutely aware of the pills as they traveled down.
"You should feel better soon," Kyle offered a sympathetic look which Stan tried to allow to make him feel better. It was difficult though, the entire circumstance was-- to put it without eloquence-- shitty. The shittiest, really. Of all the time to get the plague of course it had to be when he was looking forward to a week of camping and tramping in the great outdoors, "try to sleep it off, maybe we can get you feeling better by day two."
Stan could tell Kyle wasn't really hopeful, but he was just delirious enough to be able to latch onto the possibility of burning through the worst of whatever his dad dragged home in time to enjoy at least one fishing trip.
"Well-" Kyle took a deep breath as he capped the pill bottle, "if you nee-"
"Wait," Stan reached out his non-load-bearing arm to grasp Kyle's wrist. He wasn't sure what he wanted Kyle to wait for, the interruption served to do utterly nothing more than stall his friend from the better things he could be doing.
"What?"
Stan let his grip loosen as he fell back onto his pillow.
"Nothin', I dunno."
Kyle narrowed his eyes at Stan, scrutinizing him. After a second, he seemed to find his answer.
"I'm just gonna grab us some food and I'll stay with you," he assured, recognizing the craving for company being the incentive for Stan's interjection.
Happy to have the subconscious wrong righted, Stan nodded and turned onto his side. Drowsiness appeared to be a side effect of whatever Kyle gave him. A deep, medicated sleep called toward him, morphing the thinly veiled forest floor beneath him into luxury memory foam.
He was out before he could hear the zipper open once more.