Room 43// An Inanimate Insanity College AU

10- Roadtrip Shenanigans; Part 1

Paintbrush hummed along quietly to the song playing through their headphones, leaning their head against the trailer window as beams of yellow-white light shifted through the pane of glass. The car was mostly quiet, everyone focusing on doing their own thing for the time being.

The song playing ended with the soft playing of a piano, fading out until the music playing switched from piano to acoustic guitars, a female musician humming as an opening to her song. Paintbrush rummaged in their pocket for their phone, skipping the song with a swipe of their finger. They continued with this for a few moments, skipping a variety of different songs, before sighing in frustration and clicking off Spotify.

"Hey," Lightbulb said. "Back to the world of the living?" she chuckled, hands holding onto the trailer wheel loosely, the road ahead completely straight. Lightbulb didn't take her eyes off the road, however, fierce concentration in her driving.

Paintbrush laughed breathily, looking out the window to be met with rows of yellow and green grass, the angle of the sun making the outside world look almost ethereal. "Guess so," they said with an indifferent shrug.

Test Tube had big over-ear headphones on, her phone lying in her lap connected to the headphones by the earphone jack, looking out the window almost wistfully. Fan was writing in a leather journal with earbuds in, catching his lip with his teeth as he scribbled out another word, replacing it with one more satisfactory. The two of them seemed to gravitate towards each other, leaning on the others shoulder as they went about their separate activities.

Altogether, the atmosphere of the journey was quite nice. "We should've brought along the fairy lights. It'd be nice for the atmosphere," Paintbrush mused, looking up to the rather empty ceiling of the campervan.

"Yeah! Maybe we'll do this again one day and we can bring them another time!" Lightbulb said, words laced with excitement. Paintbrush doubted they'd ever be doing this again; looking at everything Lightbulb brought with them, it had to be expensive. Then again...

"Maybe," they said.

"I love trips like these," Lightbulb said breezily, taking one hand off the wheel to brush her bangs away from her face in an upwards motion. "Road trips, camping and all that. Hitchhiking, occasionally."

Paintbrush shook their head. "You are never taking me hitchhiking. I'm not doing that. Camping? Maybe if I'm in a good mood. But hitchhiking? God, no."

Lightbulb laughed, grinning with that million-dollar smile of hers, her eyes squeezed shut. Her hands were still steady on the wheel regardless. She seemed to be a lot more casual about driving the more she talked, which Paintbrush appreciated but was also kind of apprehensive about. "I'm glad we discussed your strong opinions on hitchhiking," she said.

"I hate it," Paintbrush said. "Vehemently."

"I don't know what that word means," Lightbulb said sunnily. "Test Tube!"

Test Tube took off her headphones, looking up at Lightbulb in questioning.

"What does vehemently mean?"

"Vigorously. Fervently. Heatedly," Test Tube said, looking away from Lightbulb and going back to staring out the window absentmindedly, pulling her headphones back around her ears.

Lightbulb nodded, her stare as blank as her mind. "I don't know what any of those words mean, either," she said.

"It basically means you're very passionate about the topic," Paintbrush summarized.

Lightbulb hummed. "So I'd be vehement about how ducks are better than bunnies."

"Yeah! You got that- wait, no," Paintbrush said, feeling offended. "Bunnies are so much better than ducks."