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“So.” Eponine’s voice crackles through Enjolras’s crappy speakerphone, almost inaudible over the groans and shifts of all seven boys in the backseat. Combeferre holds the phone up with one hand and gives them the middle finger with his other. Everyone shuts up as much as humanly possible, but the car still isn’t very quiet. Joly attempts to lean closer to the phone, but Courfeyrac serves as an effective wall.
Enjolras sighs, never taking his eyes from the road. “Yes?”
There’s a pause, as if she’s unsure if he said anything or perhaps she’s just unsure what exactly is going on. “You’re lost.”
A giggle bursts from Joly first, but within seconds, the entire backseat is in hysterics. Jehan has his face buried in Joly’s shoulder and Feuilly is attempting to not snort and jab Jehan in the ribs as he laughs. Bahorel bangs his head against the window as his shoulders convulse. Grantaire has his head thrown back, his face stretched into (for once) a genuine grin, while Bossuet gasps for air, accidentally knocking his nose on his knee in the process. Courfeyrac is simply attempting to not fall off of everyone’s laps.
Even Combeferre seems to be holding back a chuckle.
Enjolras, on the other hand, does not seem amused. Joly can see his bright red face in the mirror as he splutters and stammers for words. If the situation wasn’t so hilarious, Joly might be concerned that their fearless leader is going to hyperventilate.
(And he is a little concerned about that, but with the mess of legs and elbows and heads in the back, he’s more preoccupied with the possibility of double concussions and fractured noses.)
Eventually, the laughter dies down and Eponine’s crackling voice returns. “Well?”
“We aren’t lost,” Enjolras finally manages to say, sounding far calmer than he looks. “We’re simply…” He glances out the window and nods, his usual pallor returning with a self-assured smile. “We’re misguided.”
There’s a pause over the phone. “You were driving from Grantaire’s apartment to Starbucks.”
Enjolras turns red again. “We’re not lost!”
Fueilly hides a laugh by sticking his fist in his mouth, and then disguises it as a cough. Joly wrestles hand sanitizer out of his jeans pocket (which happens to be both underneath Courfeyrac and wedged between him and Jehan, so it’s a far more difficult task than usual) and passes it across the backseat.
Eponine doesn’t sound convinced. “What happened?”
Grantaire leans up on his elbows and shouts to the phone. “He started talking about consumerism and Apple products!”
“And global warming and the importance of carpooling!” Jehan adds so loudly that Joly thinks his eardrum may be slightly damaged due to proximity and decibels.
He decides to test it out. “And pollution!” he yells out, even though that had only been a five minute rant on Enjolras’s part. His hearing definitely sounds muted. He’ll have to see a doctor later.
If, of course, they ever get out of the damn car.
It’s beginning to occur to Joly that his circulation is most definitely getting cut off and their chances of getting back to civilization while Enjolras is driving is slim to none because, great leader or not, the man is dismal with directions, when Combeferre tries to take control of the situation.
“He got a little distracted. That’s all.”
Bahorel snorts. “Can someone distract me from the fact that we’re in the middle of nowhere?”
Eponine’s sigh sounds like a plastic candy wrapper, but Joly can hear the dismay in it. “Just get here quickly, okay? I can only handle the lovebirds for so long.” She makes a vomiting noise that sounds like more plastic. “They’re sickeningly cute.”
And then the phone goes dead and Combeferre drops it in his lap. Everyone is still for a silent moment, before Feuilly shifts and accidentally kicks Grantaire in the thigh.
“Douche,” Grantaire mutters under his breath and tries to move away. “I’d take lovesick Marius any day over you fuckers.”
Joly can’t help but agree.
Joly wishes he could explain how they fit in Grantaire’s tiny 2003 Jetta, but it clearly defies the laws of physics.
They’d started out in an orderly fashion. Enjolras was in the driver’s seat only because he suspected Grantaire slightly tipsy and refused to let him drive all of the Amis to their deaths. Grantaire had grudgingly handed over the keys after a minor argument where everyone backed up Enjolras. Combeferre took the passenger’s seat to handle directions.
Somehow, the backseat had become a state of anarchy.
Bahorel, Joly, Jehan, and Feuilly are crammed shoulder to shoulder in a seat clearly meant for three people, elbows and ribs colliding frequently with any exceptionally large intake of breath from any of them. Originally, Bossuet had been seated comfortably on Joly’s lap – but by the first turn, he’d been deposited on the floor by means of gravity, momentum, and bad luck. By his own judgment, he stayed there.
Grantaire had begun the journey on Feuilly’s lap in already sour spirits, having had his hip flask confiscated by Joly upon entering the car. Every few minutes, Joly considers giving it back in the selfish hope that maybe he’ll drink himself to sleep and shut up – but then he gets nervous that he might drink too much or maybe he’ll throw up on everyone, which quickly changes his mind. The flask is cold and hard and digging into his leg, but it’s stuck between him and Bahorel anyway, so there’s little he can do to move it.
About three minutes into the car ride, Grantaire made one surly comment too many and was shoved to the floor in one fluid motion. Sniggering, Courfeyrac (who was on Bahorel’s lap) had decided that he would take advantage of a human bed and stretched out over the four seated boys with a yawn and a promise to nap.
That had been an hour ago.
Jehan fidgets restlessly and fiddles with the marker he had stuck behind his ear as they left Grantaire’s apartment, craning his entire body to see out the foggy window that Grantaire probably hadn’t cleaned since he bought the car. “Though it is a beautiful day…” he begins with a tentative glance toward Enjolras, as if gauging his mood. “And the, ah… scenic route we’ve chosen has exposed me to, um, several poem ideas,” and now his hand twitches to the marker again and Joly pulls his own sleeves down before Jehan decides to use him as a human notepad. Jehan manages to refrain as he continues to speak. “We really should try to figure out where we are.”
Joly watches Enjolras raise his eyebrows through the mirror. “I know exactly where we are,” the blond says as if they haven’t spent forty minutes driving past farmland.
Grantaire snorts from his huddled spot on the floor amidst McDonald’s wrappers. “Oh yeah? Where?”
Enjolras doesn’t have a response. Grantaire smirks knowingly and rests his head on his arms for what seems like a quick nap.
“Guys, I have to pee,” Bossuet announces five minutes of farmland later.
Combeferre twists around in his seat, exasperation flying behind his stern glasses. “Laigle! You went before we left!” He groans and settles back into his seat, dragging a hand over his face. “And I’ve become my father. Dear Lord, save me.”
“Actually,” Courfeyrac says, leaning up on his elbows which happen to be digging into Joly’s thigh. “You’re turning into my father. Except, you know, we drove a van and not a Jetta when we had seven in the backseat.”
Grantaire lifts his head and glares. “I don’t usually take passengers in here! You can’t complain - none of you have cars at all.”
“I do,” Enjolras says indignantly.
There’s a pause before anyone dares to speak up.
“Bossuet crashed it last week,” Combeferre reminds him gently, with a soft reassuring tone that reminds Joly of the time his mother had to explain that his fish was dead.
Of course, Enjolras had mourned his smart car perhaps more intensely than seven year old Joly mourned Mo the Goldfish, so it was only fair.
Bossuet, meanwhile, turns beet red and points an accusing finger at Bahorel though the (lucky) front seaters can’t see. “After he broke a window because Feuilly locked the keys inside!”
Feuilly blanches. Courfeyrac has himself contorted over the backseat quite comfortably, his head resting on Bahorel’s lap and his legs folded over Feuilly, so the man takes the advantage and pulls him closer as a shield. “It was an honest mistake! And – and we delivered the posters!”
Grantaire clears his throat loudly as he tugs one of Courfeyrac’s legs away from Feuilly, unintentionally hitting himself in the face. “First – none of you are ever touching Martini. Ever.”
Jehan smirks and whispers, “Except Enjolras. He can touch anything,” to Feuilly, but it’s loud enough that Joly is sure everyone heard.
Feuilly ignores him, frowning. “You named your car Martini?”
Joly can’t help but think that Martini isn’t the proper name for a car whose air conditioning only works during the winter and has a sun roof that opens on its own accord, not to mention likes to make huge jolting movements whenever the gas is pressed and sometimes refuses to start at all, but he won’t argue with Grantaire’s sentimental side.
Grantaire shrugs, also ignoring Jehan’s comment save for a glance at Enjolras, whose gaze hasn’t wavered from the road. “Sounds classier than Tequila or Beer,” he explains. His back cracks loudly as he moves to reach under Combeferre’s seat and grab a discarded water bottle; Joly flinches at the sound. “Anyway,” Grantaire continues after taking a swig. “I have an announcement – I found a Cause.”
Joly doesn’t think that sort of announcement is good for anyone’s health, because Enjolras nearly stops the car in shock and everyone – including Combeferre, who looks quite comfortable up front – nearly slides off their seat, clutching onto something in terror.
“Really?” Enjolras asks, parking on the side of the road and turning to watch Grantaire curiously. “What Cause? Equal rights? End police brutality?” Enjolras is beaming, alight with passion, and for a second, Joly can understand why their resident drunk likes to call him Apollo.
Grantaire only glares. “No. Make Enjolras use MapQuest.”
Bahorel lets out a string of vague threats at both Enjolras and Grantaire that everyone knows he’ll never carry out.
With a roll of his eyes, Enjolras puts the car in drive and they jolt forward with the movement as Martini rolls over rural road.
The next five minutes are mostly silent, its only disturbances the occasional crackle from Grantaire’s broken stereo and Jehan attempting to engage Feuilly in a conversation about the multiple cows they can spot through the window.
“Guys.” Bossuet reaches up to tug on one of Enjolras’s curls, but manages to hit his elbow on the door instead. He cringes and rubs his arm. “I still have to pee.”
A half hour and three desperate phone calls from Eponine and the Lovebirds later, the passengers finally convinced Enjolras to stop at the side of the road so they could strategize and stretch their legs. He pulls over on a relatively abandoned stretch of road that looks exactly like every other abandoned stretch of road and it’s suddenly a gladiator match for who can get out the left back door first.
(Grantaire claims the right door opens when he uses it, but refuses to test the theory with an audience, so Joly can only assume he lied.)
Bossuet manages to trip out before anyone else, rushing to the patch of trees nearby without any heed for Joly’s shouted warning about ticks (though the danger of an exploding bladder is just as impending, so he tries not to worry himself too much). Grantaire is last out, moving slowly. His water bottle is empty.
“That wasn’t water, was it?” Joly mutters to Bahorel, who is busy shaking a cramp out of his leg.
Grantaire falls in his attempt to lie on the hood.
“Nope.” Bahorel pops his jaw and groans. “God, I wish he shared.”
It takes another ten minutes to round everyone up after Combeferre convinces Enjolras to use the GPS Grantaire has stashed in the trunk. (Nobody could convince Enjolras to let someone else drive; he’s far too stubborn.)
Bossuet stumbles out of the woods, slightly concerned about poison ivy but no longer worrying Joly with possible bladder explosions. He takes the floor again, citing that he’ll fall anyway and prefers avoiding bruises.
Feuilly, who refused to go more than three feet from the car at all times, claims the passenger seat and sends Combeferre to the back in the name of “experiencing the plight of the less fortunate.”
Jehan manages to pull Grantaire off the car and into it, and Courfeyrac quickly slides in after them, all three claiming seats beside Combeferre. Bahorel takes the floor immediately in the interest of not accidentally crushing anybody (and because, he points out, Courfeyrac wasn’t as considerate). Joly, sighing, climbs in last, winds up on Grantaire’s lap, the vodka-and-cigarette-smoke scent probably poisoning his insides.
Oh well. Joly thinks he’s had worse days.
Maybe.
“Turn left in three hundred yards.”
Joly swears that Enjolras is going to break the steering wheel if he grips it any tighter.
Even the blond’s curls shake with rage as he turns his legendary glare on the GPS system, snarling as if anything he says to the machine will make a difference. Somehow – miraculously – the car stays on course.
“You said that three hundred yards ago!” Enjolras shouts. “Grantaire!”
Grantaire, who had been lazily leaning his face into Joly’s back in a futile attempt to take a nap since hour three had hit, sits up straight and peers at the front seat with a measured amusement. “Yes?”
Enjolras pries the GPS off the window and shakes it. “Is this thing broken?”
Grantaire rests his chin on Joly’s shoulder. “Possibly,” he finally decides.
“Turn left in one hundred yards.”
“Maybe,” Combeferre says, leaning to the front as much as he can, “we should listen to it.”
“Yeah,” Bahorel chimes in, pushing Combeferre back before the man falls on him. “Then we can – and I know this sounds crazy, but – maybe the GPS will get us somewhere that we won’t be lost.”
Joly swears that he hears Enjolras growl.
“We – are – not – lost!” Enjolras punctuates every word with a glare at Feuilly, who rolls his eyes and catches the GPS in his lap when Enjolras throws it.
“Turn left now.”
Enjolras drives past the recommended left. Everyone groans.
“We aren’t lost,” Enjolras insists again. Joly exchanges a nervous look with Jehan, wondering if they ought to consult a psychology textbook this time. He thinks Enjolras may be in the middle of a mental breakdown.
And for once, he’s not the only one convinced.
Jehan shrugs and goes back to writing poetry on people’s skin with his marker. Initially, Joly had lectured him about ink poisoning. Forty-five minutes later, he’s so bored that he’s consented to having Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice written on his stomach.
Clearly, Frost hadn’t considered a car ride to be worthy of apocalyptic recognition. Jehan’s extra three verses about hell in the Jetta more than make up for it.
“Rerouting for destination.”
Enjolras doesn’t notice their concern. “We aren’t,” he says again, picking up passion where his knowledge in location is lacking. He grows bolder with each exclamation, channeling the fervor he usually has for his Causes. “We’re not lost. We’re misguided. We are traveling through the great unknown! We are searching! We are – Prouvaire, some help with words?” He pauses, looking through the rearview mirror at Jehan with an expectant smile.
Jehan is in the middle of trying to draw butterflies up the sides of Joly’s ribs as Grantaire takes every possible chance to mess him up. He halts, marker poised above Joly’s skin, and thinks for a moment. “We’re fucking lost.”
Enjolras frowns and directs his eyes back on the road. “Not exactly the words I was looking for, but thank you, Jehan,” he says diplomatically.
The car is stonily silent for an indeterminable amount of time before Enjolras heaves a great sigh and pulls over. “All right,” he concedes, curls falling in his face as he hangs his head in defeat. “Who wants to drive?”
It takes them twenty minutes to arrive at Starbucks after Grantaire takes the wheel. Everyone had been hesitant to let him drive, especially since he had managed to liberate his hip flask from Joly, but desperation prevailed.
“How the hell do you get lost from R’s apartment to here?” Eponine launches herself at the boys before the car even comes to a full halt and perches herself on the hood. “Ten minutes, tops! His apartment is ten minutes away and you took almost four hours! We went to dinner! We had three coffees each! We went to Best Buy!”
Marius and Cosette, who had been sitting by Eponine’s car eating ice cream, rush over as the cramped backseaters tumble onto the asphalt.
“We thought you died,” Cosette adds as she helps Bossuet to his feet and brushes dirt from his shirt. “Are you all okay?”
“We are perfectly fine,” Enjolras says before Joly can begin talking about bladder explosions and dislocated limbs and misaligned spines and poison ivy and inhalation and ink poisoning. “I swear.”
Marius observes his friends keenly for a moment before shrugging. “Whatever you say.”
Enjolras storms into Starbucks, mumbling about faulty GPS systems and the need to renovate the local roadways and how they certainly weren’t lost at all.
Grantaire locks Martini and climbs onto the hood more successfully this time, nudging Eponine with a wicked grin. “How long until he remembers that he hates Starbucks with a burning passion?”
It only takes Enjolras thirty seconds to find his way back to the parking lot.