It may be 1am here in California, but I’m sure it’s still September 26 somewhere!
Anyway, here’s a nearly 3,000 word and also completely unbeta’d fanfic inspired by Sera’s comment from earlier!
Happy Birthday, F!! 🎂 🎁 ✨
“It’s…it’s nice,” Nate says.
“You hesitated,” Mason says between puffs.
“No I—it was…it was from the surprise,” Nate replies. “That’s all.”
“They have an onsite brewery!!” Felix screams from over a kilometer away, startling passerbys with the force of his voice. “And there’s a Polish Festival going on! And Polish people get a free beer! Nate, am I Polish!?”
At that moment, Adam comes up behind him and clamps his hand over Felix’s mouth, dragging him into the festival tent.
Nate frowns when Mason chuckles darkly.
“Oh man, you’re right Nate, Felix’s birthday is going to be fun.”
“Oh, god, it’s a buffet,” Mason groans.
“It’s just so we can get beer,” Nate assures him. “We’ll leave as soon as we’re done drinking.”
He leads them toward where Felix is flagging them down. Nate attempts to step past groups of people who scowl at him.
“We’re going to meet our friends. We’re a single group,” he says in his most sincere but sympathetic voice, but scoffs when he notices the crowd parting for Mason as he shoves past. His frowns deepens when he caves in and starts walking past the rest of the line without comment.
“That shouldn’t have worked,” he mutters.
Mason shrugs. “It’s New Jersey, what’d you expect?”
“Nate, where’s my passport?” Felix shouts, trying to speak louder than the background chatter. Before Nate can answer, Felix begins sticking his hands into Nate’s jacket pockets.
“You don’t have a passport,” he explains, then begins pulling Felix’s hands away when he isn’t sure he heard him over the din of the tent.
“But how am I gonna prove I’m Polish?”
Adam sighs behind him, rubbing his temples. “For the last time, you’re not Polish,” he says loudly, enough for people to turn around to stare.
Felix shushes him harshly, but continues to shout. “They don’t have to know that!”
Adam rolls his eyes and turns away to greet the hostess with four raised fingers. “Four please,” he says loudly.
Felix sticks his head between Adam’s arms. “And I’m Po—!”
“—ositively excited to be here!” Nate interrupts with nervous laughter, making Felix pout.
The teenaged hostess merely smiles nervously as she hands the group their tickets. When she turns, the group notices bright pink earplugs.
“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Adam mutters loudly enough to be heard. “I can already feel a headache coming on from all this…” he gestures toward the excited chattering of people before him and scowls.
“I’ll go find a table,” Mason says, and saunters off to intimidate a group of middle schoolers from their corner booth.
Adam’s eyes widen when he notices Mason’s trajectory. “Careful, Mason, middle schoolers don’t fear death!” He jogs after him.
Nate nudges Felix’s arm. “Come on, maybe they’ll have authentic Polish food we can try.”
Felix’s pout disappears at that, and his mouth splits into a grin when he notices the array of food. “I didn’t know brownies were Polish!”
Nate frowns, taken aback. “They’re not.”
He looks over the buffet table. Besides the Polish sausage, everything else is American food.
Felix gasps, then runs off before Nate can catch him, chanting, “ Self-serve ice-cream! ” all the way to his destination.
Nate groans, decides to grab the least objectionable looking sausage and leaves only to find Mason growling at a group of unfazed middle schoolers.
“I said scram,” Mason growls, slamming his hands on the flimsy fold-out table.
Nate surges forward, dropping his sausage onto the floor, then puts a calming hand upon Mason’s shoulder.
“What my associate means to say,” he says, “is that there’s plenty of room for eight people, if you would be so kind as to move.”
The kids stare at them blankly.
“Perhaps they couldn’t hear over the noise?” Adam offers.
Then the children laugh and begin to whisper among themselves, and Mason’s growl deepens.
“Guysssssss check out my tower of ice-cream!!”
Felix sneaks up behind them, balancing a two foot tall glob of ice-cream that has already begun to melt and run down his tray.
“And they told me that we can just go up and ask for beer!” He adds, then takes a spoon out to eat a mouthful. He shakes his head as the flavors hit him all at once. “Oh man, I don’t think I can finish this. Hey, do you kids want this?”
At that the children perk up, murmuring amongst themselves, and make room for Felix and his monstrosity.
Adam sighs behind them. “I’m going to get some alcohol.”
Mason scoffs. “I’ll go with you.”
Nate runs after them before they can cause another scene. “I’m going as well,” he says, scowling at the both of them.
“Wait! Me too!” Felix shouts as he catches up with them.
“But the table—” Nate protests.
“Oh, it’ll be fine, those kids said they’d save our seats! Isn’t that nice of them?”
Adam speaks up, catching the bartender’s attention, before Mason can say something rude, much to Nate’s relief.
“Excuse me, what kind of drink options do you have at this park?”
“Um…” the teenager’s eyes dart around at the beer signs hanging around him, then down at the beer steins he holds in his hands. “…beer?”
Adam frowns. “What about wine?”
“Four beers. Free,” Mason says gruffly, coming up behind him.
“Yeah, we’re Polish!” Felix adds.
The teenager’s shoulders slacken. “Four beers, comin’ right up.”
“But I don’t want beer, I want wine,” Adam whines. “Where’s your supervisor? Perhaps they can explain the difference to you.”
“I know what they are, man,” the teenager replies with a scoff as he tops up a stein. “We just don’t carry wine, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t wine!” Adam barks back.
“Adam!”
“Sorry! I just…” he shakes his head. “This whole experience is giving me a headache.”
Almost on cue, there’s an upswell to the background chatter that has Nate squinting in pain.
Adam turns to Mason in sympathy. “I don’t know how you’ve managed thus far.”
“I haven’t, I’m dying,” Mason replies gruffly. “All for you, you little shit.”
Felix gently gasps, “ Thank you! ”
“Four beers!” the teenager announces as he sets the last stein on the table.
“Look!” Adam points at the exit. “People can walk out with their beers.”
“Oh thank god,” Mason says, grabbing his stein, and then power walks out of the tent.
Their shoulders sag in relief the moment they step out of the tent and into the relative quiet of the park itself, sipping their drinks.
“This is shit,” Mason says.
“Maybe so, but it’s better than being in that tent,” Adam says.
Nate places a gentle hand on Felix’s shoulder. “So, where do you want to go next?”
“Gogurt Racing!” Felix replies immediately, sloshing alcohol everywhere.
“Go-Kart Racing?” Nate corrects.
“Yeah, that! I heard some of the other agents talking about it, it sounded like fun!”
Nate looks over at the other two who seem to frown among themselves.
“Well,” Adam begins, “perhaps we can see if they have…earplugs or something else that can ease the sounds.”
Felix jumps up, whooping. “Yeah! Let’s gooooo!”
“Hi, I’m Tiffany! Welcome to the Go-Go Karts! It’s five bucks for ten minutes, ten for fifteen!”
“Maybe we should start with ten minutes, just to see if we can handle it,” Nate suggests.
“What is that about a half-hour option?” Adam asks, pointing at the sign behind the go-kart girl.
“Oh, for thirty dollars, you get the track to yourself to race against your friends for a full half hour!”
“We’ll take that one,” Adam blurts out immediately and Felix throws his arms around him.
“Are you serious? Thank you Adam!”
Adam shakes his head, as though coming out of a trance. “I uh…of course. For your…birthday.”
Nate sighs and Mason scoffs while Felix begins chattering excitedly.
Soon after, the group is fitted for helmets—
“You’re lucky they have noise-cancelling headphones,” Mason mutters to Adam, who merely shrugs.
—and are then led to the track, where four karts await them.
Adam rushes over to the blue kart before anyone can grab it, Felix jumps at the purple one, Mason plops down onto the red one, and Nate takes a seat on the green one.
“Wait, how does this work?” Felix asks.
“It’s just like driving,” Nate says and Felix sinks into his seat.
“Oh man, maybe this wasn’t—”
“Green light!” Adam shouts and hits the gas as hard as he can.
Almost three seconds later and he very nearly tops out at five miles per hour.
Felix keeps hitting the gas on his kart, as though it will go faster, while Adam leans forward, as though attempting to will the kart to run faster.
“This sucks,” Mason shouts behind them.
“I don’t think so,” Nate says with a smile, “I rather like it. It’s not nearly as dangerous as actual vehicles.”
“That’s why it sucks.”
Ahead of them, Adam begins to reach ten miles an hour. When he looks back to see how far behind everyone else is, he grins.
“Hurry up, slowpokes! It’s not much of a race if you don’t try!”
“I’m trying!!” Felix sobs into the steering wheel and he keeps stomping on the gas pedal, but all he succeeds in doing is jerking himself forward and backward very, very gently.
Mason scoffs and gets up from his go-kart. “I’m gonna go smoke. Have fun.”
“Wait, there’s a race in progress!” Nate shouts. “It’s too dangerous to walk on the track!”
Mason stares at Nate directly in his eyes, then walks backward, easily overtaking Nate’s go-kart, then Felix’s sobbing mess, and finally, he walks right past Adam who is nearing twelve miles per hour. Once he reaches the chain-link fence, he merely shrugs at Nate.
A teenager walks up behind Mason, and gently taps the chain-link fence. “Uh, hey man. Technically you’re not allowed to walk on the track.”
“So what?”
The teenager shrugs. “Nothing, I’m just obligated to tell you or I get fired—oh shit, hand me one dude,” he says, gesturing to Mason’s cigarettes.
Mason scoffs and turns to stare at the racing track where the rest of the group has crawled nearly halfway through the course. Then he notices skid marks on the track itself and he frowns.
“Hey, kid!” he shouts at the retreating teen, and dangles a fresh cigarette through the fence. “How do you make the go-karts go faster?”
The teen turns around, grinning. “Hell yeah, dude!”
Felix groans into his steering wheel. “How many minutes have we wasted?”
“Two and a half,” Nate says.
“Oh god, we’ve still got a half hour left.”
“Twenty seven and a half minutes.”
“That’s like a half hour, isn’t it?”
“…yes, it is, but it’s not so bad!”
“But it’s not fun, either,” Felix says with a pout.
“ I’m having fun,” Nate points out. “But you’re not,” he says softly.
“I mean…” Felix sighs, “…kind of? What I really wanted was for all of us to have fun.”
Nate frowns. “It doesn’t really matter how we feel about this, what we want is for you to have fun. It’s your birthday, after all.”
Felix nods glumly and gives Nate a small smile. “I know and thank you for even coming with me, but…I just have the most fun when we all do—hey! Mason!”
“Be careful! This isn’t bumper cars!” Nate admonishes him.
Mason ignores them, and punches a tennis ball into Felix’s kart’s exhaust pipe.
“What’s that? What did you do?” Nate asks, panicking. “Take it out! You can’t do that! That’s dangerous!”
“Just trust me!” Mason says with a grin, tosses tennis balls to Nate and Felix each, and then steps on his gas, zooming past the pair.
Eyes alight, Felix steps on his gas pedal, only to be forced back into his seat.
“YESSS!” Felix screams, rushing past Nate and gaining onto Adam on his right.
Adam, who has managed to crawl up to twenty, frowns aghast. “How did you manage that?”
To his left, Mason cackles as he revvs past.
“Is that…a tennis ball? That’s cheating!”
“Yeah, but it’s fun!” Mason shouts back.
“It won’t count if you reach the finish line because it’s cheating!”
“Whatever!”
“Come on, Adam,” Felix says, holding the tennis ball Mason gave him in front of him. “Don’t you wanna be in first place?”
Adam scoffs. “I will win according to the rules!”
“Yeah, but don’t you wanna be first? ” Felix says, gesturing at Mason who’s nearing the finish line.
“I—that doesn’t count!”
Felix shrugs, tossing him the tennis ball. “Suit yourself!”
Nate, finally moving twenty miles an hour, reaches him. “Don’t do it, Adam! It’s dangerous!”
Adam pouts, slamming the brakes on his kart. “It’s not like I’d win anyway. By the time the kart reaches the same speed, Mason will have won.” Adam crosses his arms. “It’s not fair.”
“It doesn’t matter if Mason wins none of us should be enhancing the speed of the karts beyond what’s natural regardless, it’s dangerous!”
“Natural…” Adam whispers to himself.
“Wait, what are you—?”
“Nate you’re a genius! I can still win by the spirit of the rules!”
“What?” Nate shakes his head, “Wait, that’s not what I meant at all, we have to stop them!”
“Yes, by beating them!”
“WHAT?”
Adam jumps out of his kart, and begins to pushing it, running faster and faster until the odometer goes past its measurable limit of sixty miles. Within moments he has overtaken Mason. He then jumps back in and skids to the finish.
“YES! YES! I WIN! IN YOUR FACE YOU CHEATING CHEATER!” Adam shouts, throwing the tennis ball at Mason, who catches it easily. “And I did it without performance enhancers!”
“ADAM WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Nate screams from across the track.
“I’ve won!!” Adam yells.
“Uh, Adam?” Felix says, trying to grab the triumphant leader’s attention.
“But, now that we’ve established that cheating doesn’t work, I will, in fact, put the tennis ball in my exhaust, if only to prove to you both that cheating still won’t get you anywhere in life,” Adam says, shoving the ball up the exhaust. “At least not without measurable skill to back it up.”
“Adam!” Mason shouts and points behind him.
“What? What are you all on about?” Adam asks, then turns to where Mason is pointing behind him.
On the other side of the chain-link fence is a swath of spectators, and above them is the instant replay showing Adam running over sixty miles an hour.
“Oh shit.”
“Thank you,” Nate says with a grateful sigh, and adjusts the thermal blanket around his shoulders.
“In my defense,” Adam begins, “none of this would have happened if Mason hadn’t cheated.”
Mason growls. “None of this would have happened if the stupid go-karts weren’t so slow!”
“It’s how they were designed!”
“It’s a stupid design!”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you had to cheat! ”
“Boys!” Rebecca shouts, grabbing the team’s attention.
“What matters is that I won,” Adam mutters, covering his words by unfurling his thermal blanket.
“Yes, of course you won, Adam,” Rebecca starts, her arms and face crossed in frustration. “ Everyone was witness to that.”
“ Good,” Adam says quietly and Nate shoots him a look that finally shuts his mouth. “Well, no, not good but…”
“Does this mean I can’t birthdays anymore?” Felix asks sadly.
Whatever Rebecca was about to say leaves with her gasp. She frowns and squeezes her fist to maintain her professionalism and keep from laying a gentle hand upon Felix’s shoulders.
“What it means,” she says, “Is that you all have to be more careful. This was a first offense, but next time the Agency might not be so lenient. Birthday or no.”
“Perhaps next year we can go somewhere different,” Nate offers.
Felix nods. “Like the beach?”
Nate pulls his blanket tighter but nods. “Yes, like the beach.”
Felix then turns to Rebecca. “Can we at least go back when it’s done? My birthday isn’t even over yet and I still wanted to try out the wave pool.”
“Unfortunately no, the park is permanently closed now,” Rebecca says and Felix gasps in shock. “Felix, that park was allowing minors to serve alcohol.”
“That’s true, I thought was odd but I didn’t know how to point it out in a way that didn’t ruin your birthday,” Adam says.
“I also saw numerous minors with beer,” Nate says, “And I even saw one of the teenagers working at the go-kart smoking on the job!”
Mason coughs on his cigarette.
“I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised,” Felix says. “After all, Agents Ruan and Muller were explaining how they almost drowned in the wave pool as kids.”
“And you thought this place would be fun?” Rebecca asks.
“They said it was the happiest place on Earth!”
Rebecca sighs and rubs her temples. “That’s Disneyland.”
“Disneywhat?”