TWDG One-Shots

The Drifter

Louis rented a Kombi van.

It was a very Louis thing to do. All through high school, he would talk about taking a hypothetical road trip after they graduated.
He, Violet, Brody, Marlon, Mitch, Sophie, Ruby and Asim would drive all across the country, visiting every monument in every state they could.
Well now, after the end of their senior year, they finally decided to do it. Louis naturally offered to front the bill for most of the trip.
His family were rich, ludicrously so. It was a wonder he turned out as normal and kind as he did, having been born into the lap of luxury.

Violet had no such luck in her upbringing. Her father was a cruel drunk who would take every opportunity to remind her how much he hated her.
Her mother was kind in her own way, but working multiple minimum wage jobs never left her with enough energy to do anything but sleep when she got home.
Neither of them were too concerned with Violet.

Most of her time as a child was spent at her grandma's house.
Violet loved her grandma, she was one of the only family members that acted like she cared.
Her grandma would cook for her, tell her stories, take her out to the park. All the things her parents could never be bothered to do.
The one thing her grandma was always insistent on was the bible. Growing up in the south, Violet had a very religious upbringing.
Every Sunday with grandma inevitably included going to mass in the morning and bible study.
Violet was never really religious, she never prayed and quite often tuned out what the preacher said.
She found it a little funny that despite her religious upbringing, she had always known that she liked girls.

She stopped going entirely when her grandma passed away.
It was the saddest she'd been in her life. What's more, she was stuck staying in her family's trailer with her parents.
High school would probably have been intolerable for her if it weren't for her amazing group of friends. They were the most supportive people she'd ever met, despite many of them having their own problems.
When Violet was sixteen, she was terrified of coming out, even to her friends. She didn't know what to expect, but when she told the group, her then-friend, Minerva, replied with 'same'.

What happened in high school didn't matter anymore, though. They were all finally done with it and were going to go on their first real vacation together.
Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly as Louis had always imagined.
Ruby and Asim had been offered scholarships for college, as much as they wanted to come, they prioritised their future. The two of them moved to California together, promising to meet the rest of their friends when they reached them on their trip.
Louis didn't let that dampen his spirits, and so everybody who was left packed their bags, scrounged together what money they had, and hopped into Louis' newly rented van.

***

"Yo, Vi! I see you smoking back there, this is a smoke free zone." Louis said, looking into the rear view mirror at her.

Violet blew cigarette smoke out of the open window and rolled her eyes at him.

"Come on, Lou. What's it matter? Nobody's around for miles." She replied.

"One: I don't smoke, so I don't want your second hand smoke. Two: this is a rental, if you leave ash all over the place, I have to clean it before I give it back."

Violet groaned and rolled the window down even more. She tossed the cigarette butt straight down onto the road, seeing it spark before it blurred away.

"Hey! Shit like that is why the environment's all screwed up." Brody snapped, annoyed.

There were a select few things that could spark Brody's temper, people disrespecting the environment was on the top of that list.