You’ve got the keys,
Now shut up and drive.
Start Destination: Oberhausen, Germany
End Destination: Berlin, Germany
Via: /
07:36AM (GMT) / 8:36AM (Local Time)
The next day we get off to an early start, nobody except Levi seems to be happy with this decision.
I was right with my prediction that he would wake me up, although it was not intentional on his part the noise he made walking into the room was enough to wake all of us up and so he was met by three very disgruntled teenage girls when he turned his bedside lamp on. And then to make it up to us he somehow decided it would be a good idea to tell us all about what he got up to.
And so none of us are impressed and in fact I think all three of us girls are more or less ready to sleep. Which is why it is a good job Levi is driving.
After a small argument – and a round of rock, paper, scissors to settle it – Elise and I make our way into the back seats and with a huff Rosie settles down on the passenger seat. As soon as she looks at Levi disapprovingly I can see exactly how this journey is going to go.
She slumps down into her seat and sends Levi a glare when he begins to hum a song which I faintly recognise. Luckily – or unluckily depending on how you view it – Levi does not notice and carries on. I watch as Rosie’s hands clench into fists, it is a well known fact that she does not cope well with a lack of sleep and as she blames Levi for her tiredness, he is likely to be her first target when she inevitably gets annoyed.
I watch on, slightly – and justifiably – nervous as Rosie rubs her temples.
Levi’s humming gets louder.
Rosie whirls around to face him, he still doesn’t notice.
Levi’s song reaches its crescendo and Levi adjusts his volume to fit the moment, unluckily for him Rosie seems to reach her breaking point just about them and punches him on the arm. It looks to be hard.
“Ow,” he whines, “what was that for?”
“Your humming,” Rosie replies.
“So what, I’m not allowed to hum anymore? I’m pretty sure that that is an infringement on my personal rights.”
Rosie replies by rolling her eyes at him and she seriously looks so done with his shit. Judging by Elise’s expression she is not the only one. Levi’s other arm may be hurting just as much soon; it says something that I am more worried about it affecting his driving than anything else.
“Levi I would stop talking if I was you,” I warn.
I am only trying to help and yet Levi seems to take offence at my statement, he acts as if the three of us are ganging up on him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll just shut up for the rest of the trip shall I.”
“That’d be nice,” Rosie whispers under her breath.
Levi hears her though and turns to her with an extremely pissed off expression. Things seem to have escalated surprisingly quickly.
“I want you to shut up on a daily basis but I don’t tend to mention it,” he points out.
“Well next time feel free,” she retorts.
The two of them lock glazes and glare at each other, neither of them saying a word. The tension in the air is palpable and Elise gulps loudly. The two siblings whip around to look at her and she mumbles an apology.
“Jesus Christ,” Rosie says eventually, “I don’t even know why you came on this trip; it would have been a hell of a lot easier for you to just get a flight.”
“You know I’m starting to wonder why I came too,” Levi replies.
“Well you could just go get a flight now,” Rosie suggests.
“No I can’t,” Levi tells her, “because some bitch made me pay for this fucking trip upfront and so I am now pretty much broke.”
“Fucking hell,” I interrupt, “will you two just shut up and drive, I’d like to reach Berlin at some point today please.”
They are about to argue back but I raise a single eyebrow at them and they get the message.
Finally, the car shudders to life, the whole process took far too long and at this point I’m about ready to shout at Levi and Rosie if they so much as disagree over where to go for tea, only because I know that could lead to a full blown argument if left unwatched.
The car is filled with silence and so to relive some of the awkwardness I lean forward and turn on the radio. Nobody says a word; the five hour drive already feels like it has taken weeks and at this moment in time I can only see it getting worse.
8:19AM (GMT) / 9:19AM (Local Time)
Just over half an hour into the journey, Elise finally begins to talk; finally there is another noise in the car other than the terrible music on the radio.
“Look at this,” she says, handing me her phone.
She is – unsurprisingly – on tumblr, scrolling through her dashboard. However her finger is pointing towards some exceptionally well drawn Malec fan art and I feel my heart spasm in a strange way.
“That’s cute,” I reply.
“Everything about them is cute,” Elise replies, “Malec is by far the cutest gay ship.”
“I nearly cried at the ending of the fifth book,” I admit.
“Tell me about it, and then book six, I really thought that was going to be the end of my OTP.”
“Your OTP,” I say, “really? I’m more of a Phan girl myself.”
“Is it weird that most of my ships are gay?”
“There is absolutely no problem with that El,” I assure her, “how can you resist Johnlock and Stucky and wow, there is a lot of gay ships aren’t there?”
“Destiel is, and forever will be, the best gay ship,” Rosie interrupts.
Elise and I turn to her with disbelieving looks.
“You only think they’re not because you’re both Dean girls,” Rosie says accusingly.
“I think they’re a great ship,” I reply, “I just don’t think they’re the number one ship out there.”
“Why do you guys keep talking about boats?” Levi asks confused.
It takes me a few moments to muffle my laughter before replying, you would have thought he might understand, what with his sister and ex-girlfriend being the ones talking about this.
“No reason,” I tell him hastily.
“Is it some kind of codeword?” he persists.
“Something like that.”
“Anyway,” Rosie says, trying to regain my attention, “even if we’re agreeing to disagree at least we can all admit that Thorki is wrong.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever known anything worse than Thorki,” El agrees shuddering slightly.
“What the hell is Thorki?” Levi asks.
This time his tone is desperate, it appears that he really does not like being out of the loop of this conversation. I have a feeling though that he is going to regret asking that question in a few minutes.
“Thorki is like the idea of Thor and Loki being in a romantic relationship,” Rosie explains slowly.
Levi thinks it over for a few moments before letting out a sound of disgust.
“Ew,” he exclaims, “that’s absolutely disgusting. Aren’t they brothers anyway?”
“Technically not,” El replies.
“But still,” Levi says, “they think of each other as brothers and so that is just plain weird. Why?”
I can’t help but let out a bit of laughter at Levi’s disgust, I’d love to see him respond to the entirety of Tumblr and fan fiction, although he might be mentally scarred in the process.
“Why are you laughing?” Levi asks me, “This shit is beyond weird.”
“There’s a lot of weird ships,” I respond diplomatically.
“Seriously, can someone please explain to me what the hell a ship is?”
“It’s a really big boat,” Rosie says dryly.
“You know what I mean!” Levi exclaims.
“It’s where you want two people to be in a relationship either sexually of platonically,” I explain.
Levi lets out a sound of understanding before turning to me with raised eyebrows.
“So what’s an OTP then,” he asks.
“An OTP is the ship you ship above all other ships,” I reply, “it stands for one true pairing. And then if your ship becomes real, like they actually get together, then your ship is canon.”
“Can I ask why there is so many nautical terms for this stuff?” Levi says.
“You can,” El tells him, “but none of us know the answer.”
Levi sits in silence for a few moments, processing all the information we have just bestowed upon him. He still looks slightly horrified about some of it but overall his level of understanding is higher than I might have anticipated.
“And you have a lot of gay ships?”he asks finally.
“Yeah,” Rosie tells him, “there just seems to be lots of sexual tension between the guys on TV.”
Levi nods, although I’m still not entirely sure he completely understands.
“So Thor and Loki’s ship name is Thorki. So what was mine and Jess’s?”
The car falls silent for a few moments; none of us really want to admit that a lot of thought went into deciding on a suitable ship name.
“Who says we shipped you two?” Rosie says.
“Well I just presumed,” Levi replies slightly flustered, “it just seemed like the sort of think you three would do.”
“We were Jevi,” I tell him, “it was either that or Less.”
“I don’t know,” Levi says, “I kind of like Less.”
“It doesn’t really matter anyway,” Rosie points out, “that ship has long since sunk.”
“Yeah and now Lemma is cannon,” El agrees.
“Lemma is a terrible ship name,” is all Levi can seem to say in response.
“There are worse ones,” I assure him automatically.
We fall silent once again and Levi turns around quickly to offer me a grin before turning back to focus on the road. Unlike before this silence is comfortable, created more out of having nothing to say than us being annoyed at each other.
For a few moments, as I sit in silence in the back of a car on the way to Berlin, I let the whole overwhelming thought of what we are currently doing sink in. I had been focusing on it in small steps, as more of a day by day affair but right now, as the radio is finally switched off by Levi, I start to see and think about all the amazing things I have done so far. And I almost feel like I need a few more moments to take everything in.
It is almost like when you finally realise that in ten years time everything is going to be different, a slight panic, a racing heart and the rest of the world just going on as normal. As if something monumental has not just happened.
And it is strange. But I kind of like it at the same time.
1:47PM (GMT) / 2:47PM (Local Time)
Luckily we are in a better mood when we reach Berlin.
Rosie has put on a random playlist with some actually decent songs on and that had of course led to a whole car sing along. Even Levi had joined in. That, combined with the packets of sweets that Elise has stashed in her handbag, led to us arriving at the hostel in quite a giddy mood. Rosie always goes surprisingly hyper when she has had sugar in any form, and today is no exception, I have no doubt that her giggling and high-pitched chatter can be heard from the other side of Berlin.
We attract strange looks in reception and I start to worry as I realise that this is becoming a regular occurrence. None the less Elise remains confident and marches up to the reception desk. Within five minutes we are in our room.
It cannot be more than a minute later that Levi bounds into our room, full of barely contained excitement.
“What do you want to do then?” he asks us all.
“Sleep,” Rosie and El say in unison.
The three of them all look at me. Rosie and Elise seem to be fairly confident that I am going to agree with them, I am exhausted after all but I also do not want to waste the short time we have here sleeping, especially when it seems like there is so many better things to be doing.
“I don’t mind,” I reply honestly.
“Do you lot want to go for a walk around then?” Levi continues.
“No,” Rosie tells us quickly, “I mean you two can do whatever the hell you want but me and this bed are about to get acquainted.”
“I second that thought,” Elise says, “although I must admit it could sound quite inappropriate.”
Rosie looks at El with an appalled expression before shaking her head and making her way over to her bed. It does not take long before Elise follows her and then Levi and I are left standing near the doorway, without any plans and suddenly everything seems surprisingly awkward.
“Do you want to go then?”
“Sure, let’s get moving,” I reply.
As we begin to walk down a fairly busy street, Levi starts to rattle off the history of the city. The rhythm of his words the same as that of our steps.
He talks in tales, some of which are centuries old. He talks of the city surviving what seems like a dozen wars, of the Berlin wall and what is signified and for some reason he seems to view the 2006 World Cup as some sort of major point in the history of the city. I am not sure that I agree with him on that one.
Eventually we pull to a stop in front of a large building; it is lavish and screams importance. It has a domed roof and several German flags are flying outside it.
“That’s the Reichstag,” Levi tells me,
“Didn’t that burn down, helping Hitler with his rise to power?”
As Levi nods I continue.
“See,” I say, “you’re not the only one who listened in history lessons.”
“It was renovated when the government moved back here in 1998,” Levi explains.
“I swear you’re like a walking guidebook.”
“I just find this stuff interesting.”
“I can tell.”
“Sorry,” Levi apologises, “just tell me if you get bored of me droning on about the place.”
“You’re okay for now.”
“Good. There’s so much more to tell you.”
“And as much as I want to hear it, maybe we could take a little break right now.”
Levi looks ever so slightly disappointed but he nods in agreement none the less leading me to a small street vendor who looks to be selling an assortment of snacks.
After that we wander into a little bookshop. Levi happy to lose himself – ironically – in the guidebook section and me weaving my way through the store until I find the teenage section. It is difficult to locate books that have actually been translated into English but I do, and my feet instantly carry me towards the till where I spend the day’s money. It probably wasn’t the wisest decision, but right now I don’t care, I have books.
Levi shakes his head at me when he sees the plastic bag in my hand and before I realised what is happening he is pulling out a camera and snapping a photo of my embarrassed face.
Instantly I run towards him, trying to delete the picture before he can do anything with it.
Levi pulls it away from me though and before I can have a go at him he suggests that we begin to head back to the hotel.
I want to argue with him, demand that he gets rid of the picture but right now everything is going okay. The awkwardness has dissipated, the conversation is flowing easily and the smile that I remember clearly back from the happier days we spend together is returning.
In this moment I am happy, and I plan on making it stay that way.