#I will need to study capsize like a bug for it though

[daretobeking]

Sometimes I think a little too hard about Tom and Tucker calling each other Tom and Jerry and I feel sick.

[jaredkleinmanisanerd]

ROAD TRIP AU (made with the help of @nonbinaryevanhansen, @thisiswhatmylifeamountsto, @dr-evn-hnsn, and other bros from the DEH discord chat)

The Gang™ decides to have a road trip--one last big hurrah--before they go their separate ways to their respective jobs/graduate programs. 

Alana is in charge of planning because she doesn’t mind phone calls, can be trusted to not spend more than they’ve budgeted, and is generally more responsible than the rest. She has a spreadsheet with every aspect of the trip planned--right down to what rest stops they can stop at for people to stretch their legs or use the restroom. She has a color coded binder containing the menus of the restaurants they’re going to eat at, the brochures for the tourist destinations they’re stopping at, and the receipts for all of their reservations; she also has a copy of the itinerary for everyone. Two copies for Jared because...he’s Jared.

 Zoe is the deejay. While she’s procrastinating from studying for finals, because Zoe has senioritis even though she’s not even technically in her last year of college yet, she makes dozens of playlists that are specific for every different road trip mood. One is named “For When Connor Starts Being an Asshole and We Need to Drown Him Out” and another is aptly titled “Weird Tree Noises to Calm Evan Down.” She’s the only one allowed to use the aux chord and she has to keep a close eye on it because Jared’s constantly looking for an opportunity to rick roll the caravan.

Connor is the driver. Not because he’s a particularly good driver, but because he’s pulled enough all nighters in his day that he doesn’t mind driving through the night as Alana requires for some parts of the trip. Even when he gets sleepy, he just has to put on Zoe’s “Please Don’t Fall Asleep at the Wheel and Kill Us All” mix and he’s good to go for another six hours. When Jared tries to call shotgun, Connor tells him “if I have to sit beside you all day, I’m going to drive us off a bridge.”

Evan gets shotgun. He spends most of the time playing eye spy with Connor-- “I spy with my little eye something green” “Evan could you please pick something that isn’t a tree for the love of God”--or reading wikipedia articles on the various trees they come across. He doles out the caprisuns and individual bags of doritos and lays potato chips that they stock up on whenever they find a Wal-Mart that’s reasonably close to the interstate. When they make stops, he’s the one wearing the fanny pack with the tiny fan, travel-sized sunscreen, bug spray wipes, and extra bandaids in it.

Jared is...well, Jared. He’s relegated to the back seat with Alana and Zoe and he’s bored as hell. Alana spends their car time going over the itinerary and reading guide books and Zoe alternates between staring out the window while listening to music on her phone and playing Candy Crush on her phone. Jared tries to help her out by telling her what to do, but she mostly ignores him, much to his distress. At one point, he swipes her phone because “Zoe you’ve been at it for an hour this is getting embarrassing” and nearly gets mauled by Zoe in her attempts to get her phone back. Alana is the only thing between him and certain death at that point. He also smuggles a lot of contraband snacks on board in his backpack and suitcase and refuses to share despite having more chips and soda than any single person could/should consume. 

They end up using Jared’s minivan because it’s the only vehicle they have among them that’ll fit them all. Evan spends the week before the trip helping his friend wash the caked on dirt off the outside of the vehicle and clear out the many discarded fast food wrappers littering the car floor. Connor tags along and does nothing besides throw trash at Jared and write “wash me pls god” on the back of the window before Jared can hose it down.

In all honesty, Jared has a lot riding on this trip. All of his friends are going off to do new and better things and all he’s got on the horizon is some boring IT job in the hell that is corporate America. Plus, he knows that if someone’s going to be left out of the friend group, it’s him. Connor and Evan have been a thing since their senior year of high school and they dropped the on-again, off-again bullshit back in sophomore year of college. Zoe and Alana are definitely a thing, he thinks, even if he hasn’t seen them kiss or hold hands. If they aren’t together yet, it’s only a matter of time. And Zoe and Connor are siblings, so they’re stuck with each other. Jared’s the odd man out. Like always. So this is the last time he’s going to be an integral part of the friend group, and there’s no way he’s going to waste it.

At their first hotel stop, Jared spots a sign behind the front desk when he’s checking in with Alana (because Connor and Zoe kicked him out of the car while they went to find a parking spot with Evan) that says that the maximum occupancy for each room is four people. Alana makes them sneak up in groups--her and Zoe first, then Connor and Evan, and finally Jared bringing up the rear, all by his lonesome. He asks Alana what her plan is if someone comes to check on them and kick someone out because “they have security cameras, you know.” Alana informs him that they’ll just hide him under the bed and, when he asks why it has to be him, Zoe pipes in with “because if we were going to make someone sleep in the car, Jared, it would be you.” So Jared just sleeps under one of the beds, acting like he’s taking the joke too far, but in reality, he’d rather be stuck under the bed Connor and Evan are sharing than be in the car all night by himself.

At one of the gas stations, Connor, being the dick that Connor is, has everyone load up and leave without Jared. Alana and Zoe don’t realize he’s gone until they’ve been driving for thirty minutes. Evan had been napping since before they stopped at the gas station. They return to find Jared surrounded by empty and unopened chip bags and cans of Mountain Dew. He flips off Connor when he starts laughing, yelling “joke’s on you, asshole, I used your credit card!” Connor says having Jared out of his hair for an hour was the best eighty dollars he’s ever spent.

Alana forces them to stay at a campground for one of their stops because the nearby hotels were too expensive and they have a big tent and a small, one-person tent. Jared is (obviously) sent to sleep in the one-person tent by himself. He drags it as close as he can get it to the big tent, periodically scratching on the outside of the big tent throughout the night to freak them out, which ends in Evan not being able to sleep and Connor yelling at him. Not exactly the outcome he was hoping for. The next night, he slips into the big tent when everyone’s asleep, burrowing himself into the warm space between Connor and Evan.

Connor wakes up to find half of Jared on him and half of Jared on Evan. Feeling pissed that a) Jared climbed on Evan without asking Evan’s permission despite knowing how Evan gets when people touch him a lot and b) Jared’s snoring woke him up from some of the best sleep he’s gotten on the trip so far, Connor carries Jared out of the tent and dumps him on the other side of the camp fire before returning to the tent to cuddle with his boyfriend.

That’s the last straw for Jared. It’s obvious that none of his so-called friends want him there, and he’s not the type of guy to stick around when he’s clearly not wanted, so he gets the idea to walk back to civilization and catch a bus back home. Alana, Zoe, and Evan are freaking out when they wake up to find Jared missing--Alana’s two seconds away from dialing 911 and Evan’s about to have a panic attack--so Connor promises to find Jared and ends up driving slowly beside him on the interstate, trying to convince Jared to come back to camp with him.

Jared eventually agrees to come back to camp and they all have to have a serious discussion about what’s been going on. Jared acts like an asshole for a while, saying that he knows when he’s not welcome and it’s not like he wants to be stuck with any of them either, but eventually admits that he feels unappreciated and like everyone’s going to abandon him once the trip is over. Everyone assures them that that’s not the case--even Connor, although that takes more than a few bony elbows thrown his way by Evan and Zoe. 

The trip continues on with everyone being a bit nicer to Jared. Well, everyone except Connor, but Connor is even a dick to Evan, so Jared didn’t expect much from him. Connor threatens to throw him off a cliff at the Grand Canyon and nearly drowns him in one of the pools at the hotel’s they’re staying at. The fact that Jared doesn’t actually come to any bodily harm is probably Connor’s attempt at appreciating Jared more.

At one of the hotels that has a whole freakin’ water park in it, Zoe and Evan go in the lazy river together, floating beside each other in their inner tubes, holding onto each other’s handles so they don’t get split up. Alana is swimming laps in one of the pools while Connor and Jared fight over who gets to go down a water slide first, terrifying the nearby children and annoying the hell out of the aforementioned children’s parents. Jared slips and ends up taking Connor down the slide with him and, of course at that exact moment Evan and Zoe are coming around the bend of the lazy river and see the boys sliding down together. Zoe cups her hands around her mouth and yells “GAY” while Evan laughs so hard he nearly capsizes.

That hotel decides to actually enforce the rule about there being only four people to each room, so Jared is stuck sleeping in the car. Evan shows up right before Jared’s about to fall asleep, a few towels and extra sheets in hand. They put down the backseat and make up a little bed, using the towels as pillows and the sheets as, well, sheets and share a package of cookies Jared swiped from one of Zoe’s bags before she went inside. They’re watching the Bee Movie on Evan’s phone when Connor shows up, scaring the hell out of them when he knocks on the window, face obscured by his hoodie.

Jared’s about to give up his backseat nest with Evan to the two lovebirds when Connor shoves Jared over so he’s squished between the two of them, claiming the rest of the cookies and offering nothing but sarcastic commentary in return. Jared’s a little confused about the whole thing, but he’s not about to pass up a redo of what he’d attempted back when they were camping, especially when Connor and Evan are two (conscious) willing cuddle buddies. 

They have a Serious Talk in the morning and things just kind of go from there. Jared wasn’t expecting to get one (1) boyfriend on this trip, let alone two. He’s a little afraid that things are going to be awkward at first, but that fear goes right away when Evan and Connor join Alana and Zoe in ganging up on him the next day, attacking him with pool noodles until a manager or someone comes out and tells them they have to stop because they’re disrupting the other guests.

It’s not long after that when Alana sends the three of them off to an arcade at one of their stops, thrusting a twenty dollar bill at them and telling them to stay away for at least four hours. Jared and Connor are out the door before she can even finish her sentence, but Evan stays behind knowing what’s coming.

“It’s going to go great, ’Lana. Don’t worry.”

“I know.”

“Mmhm. Well, good luck.”

Meaningful shoulder touch. “Thanks, Evan.”

Evan continues to send his encouragement as Alana leads Zoe to a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant that she exhaustively researched many months prior, claiming them the best table that she reserved back in January. The restaurant doesn’t even take reservations, but Alana managed to sweet talk them into make an exception for this momentous occasion.

She asks Zoe to be her girlfriend between performances by amateur artists because it’s open mic night, and Alana couldn’t have planned that extra perfect touch that gives the night if she tried.

Zoe says yes, of course. Was Alana even worried?

Alana shows her (new!) girlfriend the plethora of texts Evan’s been sending her, telling her that everything’s going to be a-okay, that Zoe’s going to say yes, that they’re going to make an adorable couple. There’s also a few “pls hurry up and save me from these two, they’re competing over a claw game now” and a picture of the unicorn stuffie Jared won him, which make them laugh.

As much as they love Evan, they take their sweet time finishing dinner.

The road trip continues as plan without a hitch. Well, much of a hitch. Evan has a panic attack at one of the stops and locks himself in the bathroom. While Jared, Connor, and Zoe try to coax him out, Alana goes to get the manager and has him open the door with his key, rescuing Evan from the bathroom and helping him back to the minivan, telling him that he’s okay, everything’s okay, and offering him water. Evan apologizes for making them fall behind, but Alana tell him it’s fine, the schedule can wait.

The schedule only waits for Evan and Zoe though, so Alana makes up for lost time by forcing Jared to forego peeing at a rest stop and yelling at Connor to run red lights and go off road when they’re stuck in traffic. She even pesters a museum tour guide to hurry up to try to make up a few minutes.

Everyone’s exhausted when they get back. Jared, Connor, and Evan all pile into Evan’s bed, barely saying hi to Heidi and handing over the bag of souvenirs Evan’s been accumulating for her before they’re down for the count. Alana and Zoe don’t even make it to Zoe’s bed--Connor finds them passed out on the couch of Connor and Zoe’s shared apartment the next morning.

While the gang doesn’t split up--not in the next year, not in the next five years, not ever--the trip was one of the last times all of them were able to spend an extended amount of time together. Even Connor smiles when they flip through the scrapbook Alana and Evan made, filled with ticket stubs and awkward pictures from the trip, including one of Jared when Zoe and Connor drew dicks all over his face in Sharpie. Whether he smiles because the trip was one of the best times of his life or because it was one of the few times he’s gotten to draw dicks on his boyfriend’s face is unknown, but Jared and Evan prefer to believe its the former. It is the trip that (finally) got them together after all.

But Connor is a dick, so it’s probably the latter.