Chapter Text
The long expanse of empty highway bored into Min-gi’s eyes, the end of which vanished into a point on the horizon. He had been driving for 6 hours now in the sweltering desert heat of Arizona. Unfortunately, the van’s air conditioning had conked out around 75 miles ago in the middle of an empty stretch of road. Even if there was a place they could take the van in for a fixup, it’s not like they could spare the cash for it.
“What’s a bit of heat? We’ve rocked under stage lights for like hours, it’ll be fine,” Ryan assured Min-gi. Of course, he was the one unconscious right now in the front passenger seat, stripped down to his underwear and a white tank.
Min-gi wiped the sweat off his forehead and considered taking his own shirt off. He could after all. No one was around for miles.
Being a Canadian in temperament, when the temperature rose above 20 degrees, Ryan would start complaining about the heat and fling off his shirt. Not that Min-gi cared. He’d seen Ryan’s body many times over the years. Since they were wee-lads doing their shows for their families in the Akagi’s backyard to when Ryan somehow convinced him to go skinny-dipping in the eponymous Powell Lake in their freshman year of highschool. Not to mention the time in the party car when Ryan was so eager to change back into his normal duds that he began stripping in a room of strangers. When he had called him his “main man” and tugged on his ear with mischievous affection.
Min-gi felt his face warm at the memory. Must be the heat again. He was halfway drifting off when Min-gi heard a groan to his right.
“Ahmm ugh, how long was I asleep?” Ryan rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes.
“Around an hour, princess. You haven’t missed much, just a lot of dirt and brush,” Min-gi glances over to see Ryan readjusting his seat belt around his torso.
“Aww, dirt AND brush? You should have woken me up!” Ryan pouts and glares at Min-gi without any real malice.
“Yeah, yeah. Anyways, we should probably find a place to stay tonight—I don’t want to sleep in the van without heat or A/C,” Min-gi grimaces remembering the night they parked somewhere out in Missouri and almost froze to death if not for... well that’s in the past now.
“Yo! Look!” Ryan shouts and points toward an exit sign. The white text was oddly crisp and bright against the green of the board.
LAKE POWELL 2 Miles
Ryan turns to Min-gi wide-eyed, his eyes sparkling. Min-gi was all too familiar with that look.
“Dude! We have to go! That’s our town! Maybe we’ll find our American doppelgangers there,” Ryan gives Min-gi a sly grin that featured all of his teeth.
“If they were really our doppelgangers, shouldn’t they be gigging in Canada or something?” Min-gi asks deliriously. Maybe the long drive was getting to him.
“Come on, you’ve been driving for hours now. You gotta either let me drive or we can just find a motel at the next exit,” Ryan’s eyes were glimmering with excitement. It was hard for Min-gi to say no when he got like this.
Min-gi grimaced thinking about the last time Ryan drove down the interstate. “Okay fine, let’s turn in. I’m tired and sweaty. I need a shower that doesn’t come from a bucket,” Min-gi flipped his signal for the next exit.