Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 45: Melbourne

A/N: Gratuitous Australian/Melbourne references in this one because I, for one part of my life, lived in Melbourne (although I don't any more). But also I've seen some of the Smoshstralia content on YouTube and a lot of what I've written is either nabbed from that or intentionally not real but building plot.

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"Oh, wow, you can literally see the coast and-" Courtney points out the window, Shayne pressing close to her to see beside her, her statement falling to an end when she realises that she can tell all the ground below them as the plane crosses over onto the Australian continent is burnt.

"Jesus," Shayne replies, with a heavy sigh, "I guess even though we stopped talking about it in the US – it's still going to be like that for a long time."

"Yeah," she replies, before they both fall back into Shayne's seat, not looking out the window any further. Courtney has to reluctantly return to her own seat an hour before they land, when breakfast is served and before they start to descend into Melbourne. Still, she twists her head to watch out Shayne's window as they seemingly fly straight across Melbourne before landing at the airport.

"We're in Australia!" Sarah enthuses, when they all group together after piling off the plane.

"Yeah, but can we get through security and shit before we get excited?" Ian responds, the others brushing off his grumpiness as they follow the crowd through the airport towards security.

"Well, this'll be fun," Shayne comments, flipping open his passport and holding it out in front of himself so the others can see it too, "they got the face recognition scanners, I wonder if it can handle my dark-ass emo hair from when I was 22?"

It doesn't, predictably, and he has to move through to an actual human service counter. He throws an apologetic wave at the others waiting for him on the other side as he lines up, before stepping up to the stoic looking man.

"Hi, reason for travel?" he asks.

"Work, temporary entertainment visa," Shayne confirms, handing over his passport with the relevant documents included.

The man types away at his computer for a second, before taking the passport open on the photo page and holding it up, glancing between Shayne and the document.

"Alright, just one thing," the customs officers starts, seriously, "you're my favourite pizza place."

He nods his head and gives half a smile as he hands the documents back over, Shayne openly laughing and giving him a rushed thanks as he is waved through to go over to the others, immediately telling them what had happened.

They find all their luggage with ease and are soon in the car taking them to their hotel in central Melbourne, and it kind of helps get the enthusiasm going.

"I saw a kangaroo like right beside this freeway last time I was here for VidCon," Ian explains, gesturing outside the window as they drive away from the airport.

"Oh my god, kangaroos!" Courtney squeals, not twenty seconds later, and they all look over to the side of the road to see a group of kangaroos calmly sitting beside the road, eating at the grass.

"Oh my god my ear," Damien jokes, leaning away from her, but she simply brushes him off as they continue to look out the window at everything they pass.

They head out into the city after they briefly settle into their hotel, finding a relaxed café for lunch and a bunch of cool vintage stores to poke around. Matt brings along a vlog camera, but they barely use it, instead simply wandering around to kill the afternoon and fight off the jet lag threatening to take on all of them. Still, they don't push their bodies too far, instead having dinner early at their hotel and all returning to their rooms before 9pm local.