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Elena practically flew forwards, her hand only just managing to stop the rest of her from slamming into the dashboard. She blinked once and slowly looked to her right.
"Are you joking?" she asked monotonously. "What the fuck was that?!"
"Don't blame me, blame the fucking pigeon on the road!" John pointed ahead of him, one hand gripping onto the steering wheel. Elena followed his pointed finger and sighed.
"Bon..." she began. "That's a fucking badger."
"Huh?" He squinted, struggling to see a thing through the persistent sun. "Gah!" he grunted, waving his hand relatively in the same direction of the sun as he started the car up again, continuing their drive. "El, will you pass me my sunnies from my bag?"
Elena looked at John as if he was speaking an unfounded language. "You're such a diva now," she huffed, but smirked to let him know she wasn't serious. Though she was certain he knew her enough to know she could never be snarky to him.
With an exaggerated sigh, she turned and stretched over in between the two car seats, reaching for John's bag. She pulled it over to her and got to unzipping it, just as he made quite a sharp turn, causing her to fall sideways into him.
"My God, get your arse out of my face."
"Stop making stupid driving decisions, then!"
"Why don't you bloody drive? You're old enough now."
"I'll end up killing someone, mate." Elena rummaged through his bag, looking for his sunglasses. She snorted when she came across handfuls upon handfuls of spare drumsticks. "You got enough sticks in here, Bon-Bon?" she asked rhetorically, finally finding his sunglasses and retrieving them.
"Here y'are," she plopped back down into the passenger seat, holding the shades out for John.
"Cheers," he thanked her, clumsily putting them on his face with one hand, poking his eye in the process. "We're almost there, by the way."
Elena nodded, taking in the more urban character of their surroundings. It was a contrast to where she and John had grown up and spent most of their time. Sure, they weren't all the way out in the countryside, but everything was within walking distance from each other. The closer into Birmingham you got, the more bus stops and taxi ports came into view, and the more reclusive passers-by seemed to be.
John had learned the ins and outs of Birmingham for the most part, ever since he started to pursue drumming full time and had to make these journeys in and out of the city. His recent endeavour, a band eccentrically named Crawling King Snakes, had inspired new confidence in him. The colourful landscape of musicians he had come across had never been more vibrant than the one he found himself in the middle of now. More than anything, hope was peeking over the horizon.
"So, what should I expect from your new bandmates?" Elena asked, resting her legs on the dashboard and tracing her finger across the grooves on her brown corduroy trousers.
