Thanks Teeloganroryflan and Ostrich on a Rampage for highly-appreciated reviews, and also for all the follows/faves from last chapter!

Also, advance apologies are necessary for only knowing vines from like 2015.

…

Jack quickly learned that he hated backtracking. It took ten more minutes to find a place to turn around with his giant van, and by the time they got back to the rest stop, Crutchie had all but given up hope that they were coming back for him. "Dumb crip's just too damn slow," Jack mumbled under his breath as they pulled up in front of him. But once a shaken Crutchie was safely buckled in, Les whispered to Davey that it was time for a bathroom break again. Except Les wasn't very good at whispering, so everyone heard and Jack gave them another ten minutes.

"Okay, fellas," he said as everyone got back in their seats, "We're doing roll call. Yell your name if you're here."

That didn't work, since they all screamed back at once. Katherine took over for roll call after that.

"Hey, where's my cigars?" Race yelled from the back. Jack looked over at Katherine and grinned, and she punched his shoulder for being so obvious.

"I DO NOT HAVE YOUR CIGARS RACE," Albert was protesting, and then Jack heard some vaguely terrifying sounds of violence from the back. The boys in the back row were kneeling on the seats to look behind them, and were cheering on the fight. Jack also swore he could hear Spot Conlon screaming (he had a very distinctive scream), which convinced him even more that he wasn't going to last even the rest of Day 1.

Jojo stopped cheering on the fight long enough to point out some more cows.

Jack gripped the steering wheel, tried to focus on driving while Katherine tried to get them to put their seatbelts back on via yelling at Davey, who was still trying to read War and Peace, and sighed loudly if anyone talked to him. Specs was still between him and Les, slouched over, oblivious to the fight in the back. "You're gonna learn today!" he said.

"Hey, wasn't there a rule about not fighting or something?" Jack was pretty sure they were breaking all of his rules at once. When no one reacted, he made a mental note to stop at Wal-Mart and get a bullhorn or something.

It took ten more minutes to convince Race that Albert did not, in fact, have his cigars. Jack casually said he'd probably misplaced them. And then he was relegated to sitting in the time-out seat, between Jack and Katherine. That didn't last very long, because a nicotine-deprived Race was not a fun Race. Jack felt kind of bad about stealing the cigars, but Race had broken one of the rules.

He tried to get Specs to go sit in the back with Albert so he could put Race in the row behind him, but Specs was too wrapped up in whatever vine he was watching to even hear Jack. He wasn't about to put Les back there, and Davey just sighed dramatically and turned the page of his book rather than answering.

So Race ended up back in the trunk with Albert, and apparently they forgave each other because within five minutes they were yelling One Direction, which caused the entire van (minus Specs and Davey) to join in. Jack hadn't realized that he wasn't the only one who pretty much knew all the words. Crutchie was giving an all-in diva performance, and so was Les, which scared Jack a little bit.

Everything was actually going somewhat well until Jack looked at his fuel gauge.

"OH CRAP, we're almost out of gas!" he yelled without thinking. That caused mass panic from the back. Everyone screamed, and started freaking out.

"We're going to die!" Elmer was yelling. Henry was hiding under the seat, as if that would help at all. Romeo scrambled up the front, hopped over the back of the front seat, and was currently clinging to Katherine in terror.

"We'll be stranded on the side of the road, and have to walk back to Manhattan," Finch said. Buttons was frantically trying to find all of his stuff, "just in case the car blows up…" Katherine was trying to find the next gas station on the map, Race was still singing while Albert was trying to figure out what was going on.

Davey was making a stoic effort not to stop reading, but that was getting progressively more difficult because Les had launched himself across Specs to get to Davey and was having a meltdown.

Everyone shut up when the emergency gas light came on, and the next twenty minutes were spent in dead silence (minus some muffled crying from an unknown source) as they coasted on fumes, looking for the next exit.

"Why does Pennsylvania have gas stations so far apart?" Crutchie whispered.

When they did finally make it to a somewhat sketchy gas station out in the middle of nowhere, the boys were so freaked out that they were now starving, and wiped out the snack selection inside.

Armed with a ridiculous amount of chips, candy and drinks, they piled back into the van. Race returned with five bags of Doritos, and apparently they had needed Jojo's ridiculously big suitcase, since he was wheeling it out. Crutchie had bought two gallons of chocolate milk and some cups, and they were passing cups around and saying, "Bottom's up!" Romeo came back with a pack of chocolate-chip cookies, and Jack wondered if he should be concerned that Romeo was apparently obsessed with them. Specs now had a bag of only-watermelon jolly ranchers, and yelled, "Watermel-oonne!" from time to time.

But then Davey lost his cool. "HEY, I'm trying to read here! CAN I GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET, PLEASE?" It went on for several minutes with some decidedly Les-inappropriate language, the rest of them just staring in shock.

Even after he finished ranting, it was a good ten seconds before anyone said anything. "Sure, Dave, you wanna sit in the trunk? You can't hear nothing back there," said Race, who had managed to find room in the last row of seats to sit.

Much scrambling and climbing ensued, since Jack wasn't stopping for seat changes. Race and Albert switched seats with Davey and Les (who refused to be parted from his brother since the gas incident). They'd also lugged the giant suitcase into the front row with them. Jack was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

"Why do you need that, Racer?"

Race fixed him with a glare, complete with some watery eyes. "I can't have my cigars, and now I can't have this?" If someone else had stolen the cigars, Jack wouldn't have felt bad, but he did, so he let it go.

Something landed on his shoulder a few minutes later. "What the heck!" Jack yelled, looking up at the ceiling, convinced it was a spider. There was a barrage of laughter from behind him, and then an errant pretzel slid from his shoulder to his lap.

"No putting snacks on the driver!" Jack said, making Katherine laugh.

Three m&ms and a dorito chip followed the pretzel before Katherine made him switch drivers with her. "You get cranky in the afternoons, Jack. Take a nap or something." She fixed Albert and Race with a glare.

Jack woke up an hour later to utter chaos and Katherine yelling, "I will turn this car around, boys, I will turn this car around!"

"Ace? Wha—" before he could finish, he realized he was completely covered in various snacks, courtesy of Race and Albert.

Jack drove after that.

He decided that the only place they would all agree to eat dinner was Golden Corral, so that's where they were going. Romeo, though, wanted to go back to McDonalds. He shut up when Jack told him that they probably had unlimited cookies at Golden Corral.

"I've never been to a buffet before," said Jojo, as they were walking in.

"I'm going to eat everything!" Elmer said.

Jack smacked the back of his head, "No, you're not."

Specs still wasn't talking to anyone, but Jack had made him leave his phone in the car. Davey was sticking close to Jack and Katherine, since the rest of the boys were practically jumping up and down from excitement.

Within moments of arrival, the three of them had lost everyone else to the buffet. It took twenty minutes for everyone to show up at the group of tables pushed together.

Each boy had at least two plates, and not even of normal food. Or maybe it was, but they'd gotten so much stuff Jack couldn't tell what it was anymore. Only Crutchie had gone on the food adventure and come back with a halfway normal meal. He was currently staring with shock at the monstrosity that was Les's plate. Davey face-palmed and went back to reading. Katherine was giving him a look, but as usual, he couldn't interpret it.

"Hey, where's Romeo?" he asked, after doing a headcount. He'd left his food and his cookies, but he was nowhere to be seen. Finch shrugged.
Buttons turned around. "Check the waitress stand. Last I saw him he was making a move."

Jack stood up to get a better view. "Oh, there he is…" he narrowed his eyes.

Was that…?

Jack sat back down, heart pounding. He nudged Katherine. "Tell me, am I loosing it or is that Spot Conlon over there with Romeo flirting with the waitresses?"

Race, sitting next to him, overheard. He stopped, fried chicken wing halfway to his mouth. He looked towards the waitress stand and dropped the wing. He looked weirdly uneasy. "Um, nope. Definitely not. Nope," he shook his head, forced a laugh, "you're just loosing it, Jackie. Hey, guys, Jack thinks he saw Spot Conlon."

"Whhaaatt, Jack, what would Spot be doing here?" Albert said, louder than usual. Jojo was looking nervously toward the waitress stand.

"You're crazy, Jack!" Crutchie protested.

"But what about—" Les said, before he was cut off by Finch.

"Hey, Les, have you checked out the ice cream machine yet? Let's go check it out," he grabbed Les by the arm and practically dragged him away.

Okay, weird.

"ICE CREAM?" Jojo shouted, dropping his corn-on-the-cob. He ran after Henry and Les, whooping.

Katherine shrugged. "I don't see anyone who looks like him, and Romeo's coming back."

He could tell she was starting to get annoyed by the boys, so he put his arm around her. "Sorry, Ace, I'm just tired, I guess. Thanks for not calling me crazy."

"PDA!" Race screamed, pointing. "Not in front of the kids!"

Katherine gave him the look. Race sat back down and guiltily picked up his wings. Jack reminded himself to kill Race later.

Several trips to the buffet and ice cream machine later, plus two spilled drinks and a pummeling when Elmer put salt in Spec's soda, Jack herded them back into the van. They'd left a giant tip for the waitress because she was pretty, and because their table looked like a war zone.

He apprehended Race before he could sneak off to buy some replacement cigars. It took three trips back inside to get everyone from either the bathroom or the dessert table. By that time, Jack was starting to lose his patience. He locked the doors. "Listen up everybody. We're trying to make it to Kentucky tonight, and then we'll stop. A couple more hours. Keep it together, don't break any more rules."

"And put on your seatbelts!" Katherine added.

They were back in their regular seats, by now it was too dark for Davey to read. Crutchie, now back in the front, was playing his "road trip playlist" which turned into all of the boys yelling along to whatever song he was playing. Except Race, who was still freaking out because he had by now realized that he hadn't just misplaced his cigars. Jack was tempted to throw one of Race's cigars (still safely under his seat) back there at him, since he was yelling his head off about how unjust it was to take his stuff, and blaming them all.

Specs, too, was yelling, since apparently he'd used all of his phone data up watching vines. That was also everyone else's fault.

Then, Jojo and Elmer somehow ended up having a tickle fight, which led to the entire back two rows trying to tickle one another. It quickly stemmed forward, leaving Davey to fend off the hoards with his hardback novel and Crutchie less-successfully trying to do the same with his crutch.

Jack was afraid to look back there because of the sheer amount of screaming they were doing.

Twenty minutes after they left the restaurant, Romeo climbed over the back of the front seat in between Jack and Katherine.

"CAN'T GET ME UP HERE, LOOSERS!" he yelled into the chaotic back, having successfully escaped the threat of being tickled.

Jack let him stay so long as he promised to be quiet, and tried not to think about how many rules had just been broken, or that they were still 200 miles outside of Kentucky.

It was war back there, and Jack still had to drive. He gripped the steering wheel, focused, and went into battle mode.

Katherine nudged him to get his attention after a while. She gestured to the back, and Jack realized that the car was quiet again. He risked a glance in the back. Crutchie and Les were asleep, both of them leaning on Davey, who had found a penlight and was still reading. Race was sleeping on the floor next to the door. The boys in the back two rows, with Albert in Romeo's vacated spot, were asleep practically on top of one another. But it was kind of hard to tell, since they were underneath blankets and various sweatshirts, with random arms and legs poking out every which way. It looked severely uncomfortable, but they were all sound asleep.

Romeo had fallen asleep with his head on Katherine's shoulder. Jack looked at her and they both smiled. Sure, the boys had gone insane the entire day, but it wasn't so bad now.

And he did have to admit they were making at least more interesting. Once again, he found himself thinking that this might not be so bad.

He was wrong.