change your mind / human disneyland au

[RED]

[align=center][div style="text-align:justify;width:55%;font-family:verdana;"]The fact that they’d all made it in one piece was a miracle in itself. The traffic was a suicide mission, sure - but Selby’s stifled rage, bordering on a vicious mania, was far more lethal. That hadn’t stopped Beck and Red from chanting McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds! from the trunk, though, and by the time they’d pulled out of the drive-through, Selby could do little more than watch the road with a thousand-yard stare. He gripped the wheel with white knuckles, and nearly rear ended somebody as he pulled up to the light. He might’ve cried in the bathroom a little bit, Red thinks.

(Didn’t matter, because he had two orders of large fries and a couple of those nasty little apple pies to split with Beck for the last hour of the ride. It wasn’t a fair split. Red was kind of a big guy.)

Around the half-hour-to-ground-zero point, someone had passed the aux cord back in his direction, and before Worm could snatch it up for another round of Chopin to knock everybody out, Red had snagged the wire. Twenty minutes of Kesha’s Tik Tok ensued - that is, until Selby pulled over and demanded their two trunk passengers got out of the car. They spent a good chunk of time arguing in a gas station parking lot (that’s precious time, Selby had almost screeched, and you wasted it on deciding between hashbrowns or fries,) before Crow finally held an intervention. From that point on, nobody was talking. The radio was set to some scratchy weather channel until further notice. Red didn’t even dare to petulantly chuck a french fry at Selby’s head, though the urge remained ever-present.

Now they were in a parking garage, Worm and V looking rather blanched as Red clamored out of the car and gestured for Beck to come with. It immediately hits him that California is much, much hotter than their air conditioned minivan, and somehow louder than their exchanges inside the car. He ran hot, sure, but this place reeked of sweat and sunscreen in a way he'd never seen (or smelled) before. No wonder everybody looked so exhausted, a line of zombies with strollers shuffling towards the entrance. He’d loaded up on caffeine that morning, though, and popped a few pain relievers for good measure - he could barely feel the effects of the hotel bar he’d taken a visit to the previous night. It’d take a damn freight train to stop him now. Or heatstroke, maybe.

“You’re looking a little pale, buddy, you alright?” Red aims to clap Worm on the shoulder, maybe a little harder than necessary, just to make sure he’s all the way there. They couldn’t have anyone dying, now, could they? He didn't think Selby had worked that possibility into their schedule. He leans against the back of the van with the lot of them, resting a heel on the bumper as he waited for the rest of the group - it wasn’t hard to keep count, with the matching TANGLEWOOD SUMMER VACATION 2019 tee shirts Selby had insisted they all wear, “just in case they got separated”. Red had added a cheesy, plastic sun visor to the outfit, if only to complete the Look. Beck might've stolen the fanny pack somewhere between rest stops to pick up dead lizards off the road. Rapping his knuckles against the back window, Red calls over to the others, “Come on, guys, we don’t have all day! Selby only delegated five minutes to getting out of the parking garage!”

If Selby wanted to make this trip a living hell, Red would make him sorry for it.