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Chapter Text

December 5, 1977.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Actually, wait, no, it wasn't, it was really more along the lines of "slightly damp". As for dark, of course it was, it was three o'clock in the sodding morning. Not that anyone you'd ask, unless they were a rabid caffeine junkie, would refer to three A.M. as "morning".

In a smallish countryside-style manor called Snoughton which was, oddly enough, not in the countryside, and in fact somewhere near Blackpool, there were six people awake at this ungodly hour.

They were in the shed next to the drive, in which there was also a sleek-bodied racing car, open-wheeled and low enough to the ground to make an ant duck.

Next to it, the tertiary mechanic and Head Part Fetcher, Craig, who was very Irish, and as such, a ginger, was arguing with the secondary mechanic and assistant car designer, a shortish, olive-skinned man named Nico.

Next to them, the other two mechanics were bickering even more furiously. Nigel, who usually stooped to try and minimise his height, was making full use of it to loom over Terry, who was not intimidated. It was hard to be intimidated by Nigel, who had awkwardly darting eyes and long, greasy brown hair. His primary mode of communication seemed to be apologising profusely. Meanwhile, Terry was very hard to intimidate. He had a mane of hair the colour of a lion's, which was also generally the same shape if you included his beard.

"You lanky pillock," he nearly shouted, balling his hands at his sides. "If that car is as aerodynamic as it was yesterday, I'll eat my hat."

Nigel scowled. "W-well, it isn't, it's more aerodynamic."

Terry rolled his eyes heavily. "You've made that thing as streamlined as a soup plate, you great-"

They continued bickering as loudly as they pleased, which was very.

Casually watching the racket were two people off on the sidelines. One of them, Tony, the chief car designer, was leaning, though none too heavily, against a shelf piled with spare parts. He sighed, and turned to the young woman who was halfway sitting on the floor, halfway draped over the car, as if she'd fallen onto it and just hadn't bothered to move. "Are you going to attempt to organise those yobbos? You aren't called our 'Team Manager' for naught."

The young woman, who was unfortunately called Priscilla, groaned loudly. "It's too early for this," she muttered loudly.

"You're the one who arranged for this meeting," he responded. "Maybe you could've used some of those negotiation skills of yours to negotiate a time other than three A.M."

Priss sighed. "Well you see, I would've gotten us a different time if they would've allowed it. You're the one whose idea it was, anyhow."

Tony scoffed. "Well, if we're laying blame here, technically it was your fault no racing driver wanted to sign with us, ergo, why we are meeting at three a.m. to go to a warehouse."

She looked up at him sleepily. "How on earth is it my fault that my father sponsored our team?"

"You could've asked him not to. Or, if he insisted, you could've not plastered the MacLean logo all over our car and uniforms."

Priscilla pouted. "I figured we could use the advertising."

Tony glared heavily at her, which was a waste of a good glare, because she was starting glassily at the floor. "Maybe it would've done something for your father's profit margins, but no racing driver, self-respecting or otherwise, wants to be associated with a middling U.K.-only company that makes toilet paper. Not even in Formula three."

Priss looked up at him, frowning. "That isn't true."

He frowned back, incredulously. "Really."

"Yes," she said diplomatically. "We also make paper towels and sanitary napkins. And our products are being sold in Ireland as of three months ago."

He stared hard at her. "If anything, the bit about the sanitary napkins makes it worse. And you're being really pedantic and missing the point. I've never known you to be pedantic. You must be really sleep-deprived."

"I am not," she whined sleepily.

He threw his hands up. "Damn, now we're bickering too. Wouldn't want to lower ourselves to their level," he said, making a sweeping gesture to the rest of the team, although, at this point, Craig and Nico had stopped arguing and had found common ground in amicably making fun of Nigel.

Sighing again, Tony went over to the record player in the corner, about sixty percent of which was covered in dust particles and grease, picked up the record at the top of the stack adjacent to it, and set it on the turntable to play. He twisted the volume knob up as far as it would go, stepped back, and covered his ears, which made his hair look even more like the ears of a brown spaniel.

Everyone in the shed, besides Tony, started as a hammering, deafening organ riff burst into the shed like a man late to a meeting. Terry was the first to react, yanking the needle off the record as quickly as he could without damaging it.

"Look, man," he said, berating Tony, "You could've just shouted or something if you wanted our attention. I like King Crimson, just not that bloody loud."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I've tried that. The only way to get the attention of you yobs is through yob music."

Nico wiggled a finger in his ear. "Bloody English music," he muttered in his fairly thick Greek accent.

Priss snorted like one inebriated. For some reason, perhaps because everyone was looking for a reason, that broke the tension. Everyone gradually broke into laughter, even Tony.

"Ah," sighed Priss, after the laughter died down, "I need some coffee."

Chapter Text

It took a bit of herding to get the entire team into the kitchen of Snoughton, but they managed. They all sat in silence in the spare chairs, staring down at the yellow Formica table, or the counter, which was just as yellow and just as Formica.

For a place which was technically a manor, it wasn't very posh, or, well, manor-esque. The six team members had to squeeze into the kitchen. The only spacious bit of it was the field, which hadn't been mowed since 1946, and the only ancient thing in the place was the plumbing.

Priscilla's father, before she had moved out of their actual house, and here to the family home, had rented it out to tourists. They were people who thought a view with cows and grass was "lovely" and "pastoral", bought floral window-drapes, and ate loads of salad. Presently, though, it was occupied by five men and one woman with one common goal in mind: coffee.

Terry stood ministering to the ageing coffee maker, as it coughed its last into a yellowed glass urn. For the members of the team who were of a mind to get up early, as in the older ones (although none of them were very old at all), this was a bit of a ritual, although it usually took place three-and-a-bit hours later.

Priss sniffed the contents of her mug, which could dubiously be called "liquid", and looked up at Terry pleadingly. He put on a very false smile.

"Go on, miss. It isn't your usual Darjeeling or whatnot, but it'll wake you right up, that's for sure."

Nico piped up from his place in an old, toddler-sized wooden chair by the kitchen table. "Are you sure this isn't turpentine?"

Tony glared at him half-jokingly, sipping away at the contents of his own mug, insofar as you can sip a solid. "None of that. You aren't too good for our coffee."

Craig, who had been mostly silent, said, "Aye! It'll put hairs on your chest!"

Priscilla looked down and grimaced, and Nico muttered "It'll put hairs on my eyeballs," loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Nigel, having completely abandoned his abomination-in-a-cup, decided to let everyone know he was present in his own way, which, of course, was chiefly apologising. "Er, pardon, but could you tell me properly why I'm sitting in this particular kitchen, at this particular hour of the morning? I mean, Tony said it was something about a new driver, sorry if I'm too thick to understand."

"I don't know all the details," began Tony, resisting the urge to make a snide comment, "but a friend of mine works at Morgan. I met him when I interned there. He works on the test track, and apparently they have some kind of animal working as a test driver."

"Aye," Craig chimed in, "and that doesn't just mean he likes to go fast. I've heard of them, too. They're almost like humans, except they live to race, and none else. Some say," he said, lowering his voice, "that they don't even talk."

Priss frowned. "Some say? Who's 'some'?"

Craig looked pensive, then finally came up with, "Dunno, really. Mates of mine."

Tony eyed Craig dubiously. "Right. Well, Priscilla's used her amazing negotiating talent to get us a meeting with an 'independent breeder', whatever that means, at four A.M."

Nigel blinked, his eyes puffy from lack of sleep, and asked, "Why?" in an uncharacteristically straightforward way.

"Oh, I dunno," cut in Terry. "We're only buying a potentially dangerous animal that it's safe to assume most people don't know about, meeting with an 'independent breeder' in a sodding warehouse. D'you know, I think this might be the slightest bit illegal."

Nigel looked abashed. "Sorry," he muttered.

Tony checked his watch. "It's 3:30. We'd better be punctual."

Priss chimed in. "Yes, let's, now that everyone's had their coffee, and Nigel's back to his old self." She tipped a wink at their resident Professional Apologist, who let out an embarrassed laugh.

As the team filed out the door, Nico turned to Priss, and frowned. "Wait. A warehouse? I don't know that word, what is warehouse?"

Priss froze. The arc of her thinking tended towards optimism, in the same way that a fish tends to like the water, or dust tends toward the floor, or your antiques. Telling Nico this might be a bit of a letdown would be difficult.

She floundered helplessly for a moment, then eventually came up with, "It's, um, a building. Big and open, very airy and such."

The Greek mechanic nodded pensively. "I see."

Chapter Text

As it turned out, the warehouse wasn't big and open. It was big, but the MacLean racing team was circumscribed into a very small corner of it, in which even the atmosphere was very stifled.

Five of the team members were situated, with varying degrees of nervousness, in metal folding chairs. Priscilla was too, but the difference was that she was wearing a very fake smile, and had her hands folded in her lap. A man in a cheap suit, and a man in an expensive suit sat across from them.

You've heard of, say, a dirty blond, or a strawberry blond. The man in the cheap suit was an unfortunate blond. The top of his head had been bald for years, however, the rest of it obviously hadn't got the memo, and had gone off to join a band. He had the lower half of a wavy straw-coloured mullet, a cowlick, and a very aggressive pair of sideburns. The man in the expensive suit looked, well, exactly like his suit. Straitlaced, humourless, and mostly grey.

The silence was broken by the unfortunate blond, who straightened a stack of paper and coughed obtrusively. He gave Priss a brittle smile and an even more brittle handshake. "Miss Priscilla MacLean, I presume. Lovely to meet you. I'm Kurt Sweetleigh."

Priss gave a less terse smile and thought to herself, that's a bit of a silly name. "The feeling's mutual," she replied with just the right amount of chirp injected into her voice. "Now, are we just going to sit around, or are we going to make a deal?"

The unfortunately named Mr. Sweetleigh grinned tersely. "Well, ah, no, not as such. It isn't a given that a deal will be made."

Priscilla tilted her head deliberately, giving a bemused frown. "What do you mean?"

"Well, miss, one of these, er, drivers isn't an easy thing that just anyone can get."

She nodded, twisting a curl of yellow-blonde hair around her index finger.

"They need special care, and to even get to the point of having to care for them, there are certain requirements you have to meet, which, of course, is why you met with our contracted inspectors."

His hands drifted up, possibly of their own volition, and began gesturing vaguely. "First of all, except in rare cases, which, might I say, we have none of here, there needs to be a suitable match on your team. Now, you should have been given our questionnaire, am I right?"

Priss nodded. "Yes, er, would you like them back?"

"Yes, quite."

She glanced meaningfully at Tony, who produced six papers. Each one was filled with puzzlingly personal and seemingly irrelevant information about each member of the team. He passed them to Priss, who handed them to Sweetleigh, who gave them a cursory scan.

"Well, that's that, then. I'll give them to our medic. Now, on to the second matter. You have the form our inspector gave you, yes?"

Priss, trying not to feel nauseated with nerves, took another paper from Tony. As she handed it over, she breathed deeply. It isn't technically lying, she thought to herself. We do have the paper.

The unfortunate blond passed the form over to the secretary, a heretofore unforseen little old lady, who, after having accepted the papers, disappeared back to whatever burrow she'd been in previously. Coughing politely, Sweetleigh turned to the stern-suited man next to him. "This is our company attorney, Robert Damson. Mr. Damson, Ms. MacLean, Ms. MacLean, Mr. Damson," he said by way of induction, shuffling his hands about awkwardly.

Priss waved, then immediately regretted it. The lawyer picked up one of the stacks of paper on the cheap wood table next to him, straightened it, and, wordlessly, handed a sheet to each member of the team. Each one, to varying degrees, adopted a frown of concentration and started browsing the document, Nico most of all. Priss tried not to laugh at the fact that his tongue was poking out of his mouth, and that the look on his face resembled someone defusing a bomb.

"This is called a non-disclosure agreement," said the lawyer, in a droning voice that suited him like... well, a suit. Priss nodded dumbly, still smiling. Growing up working in and with business had given her a thorough knowledge of common legal documents, but there was absolutely no reason for her to play her hand.

"By signing this," he continued, "you waive any and all rights to disclose what you see here."

Sweetleigh interceded, giving them all a patronizing smile. "What he means is that, no matter if you get your driver or not, what you see and hear here is absolutely secret."

"We will pursue legal action if the terms of this agreement are violated," Damson interrupted indifferently, like a broken toy.

"Yes, that," clarified Sweetleigh with a dismissive wave. "So. What'll it be, gentlemen? And, er, lady?"

Despite his speech mishap, his smile was forceful and full of teeth.

Chapter Text

"Ah, Priss?" whispered Nico as they walked down the hallway, though "hallway" was much too generous a term. "Is this a warehouse?"

"Yes," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, "yes it is."

And indeed it was. The team shuffled single file in corridors between corrugated steel walls all around them, and the high ceiling was... what a surprise, corrugated steel.

The place was miserable, not that's there's any way you can make a shady animal breeder housed in a warehouse cheerful, but the smells reminded Priss of that one time her father had kept cows. That's never a good sign.

The place smelled vaguely of, alarmingly, fæces and dried blood, and, less alarmingly, of sweat. Strangest of all, though, was the noise. It was like someone had taken every variety of motor and engine in Europe and then some, and put them together in some kind of menagerie.

Priss frowned. Her team was all behind her, but, leading the way, there was the company medic. Mr. Sweetleigh had introduced him as Tiffney Keillor. He'd given a terse nod and wave, and hadn't spoken the whole time. Priscilla suspected very strongly, for whatever reason, that he wasn't doing a very good job of being a medic.

Eventually, the narrow path circumscribed by the walls widened into a little square clearing. The team awkwardly shuffled out to form a rough semicircle around Keillor.

"So I've been over your questionnaires," he began, in a very strong Northern accent, "and I've determined that there is one suitable match for one of your team members in our stock." Priss and Tony exchanged a worried glance.

"Nicola Stenopoulos," Keillor read off his questionnaire, "Would you come forward?"

Priss opened her mouth to protest, but Terry got to it first. "Now wait just a second, my good man," he began defensively, elbowing his way to the front of the group, "what, precisely do you mean by 'suitable match'?"

The medic stared at him levelly, like he was used to this sort of thing. "Do you not know?" Terry let out an exasperated laugh. "No! Why would I have been, since this is apparently such a bloody enormous secret?"

Keillor glared at Priss and Tony as if it was their fault, which, in his eyes, it was, since he'd been told they were the team captains. The medic lectured Terry in an almost singsong voice, as if he were reminding a very small child, for the umpteenth time, that upending its plate wasn't polite. "So there are these creatures, known as Racing Drivers, yes?"

Impatient, nearly the whole team nodded collectively. "Well, they are wild animals, and, if they are to be put to work, they need a handler. Hence, a match. Matches are the only people that these creatures will seem to listen to."

He indicated Nico. "A match, unless the team doesn't mind that their driver doesn't seem to interact with anyone, should resemble his Driver, although we think some psychological similarities would help. For a racing team like yourselves, it's obvious that match and Driver should be physically similar."

He pointed to a door at the end of the little square clearing, a mere cutout in the corrugated steel monolith. "That is the matching room. All we do in there is, we place the your team member in there, bring in the Driver, and remove its helmet. You," he said, pointing at Nico, "are to look into its eyes. We don't know what happens behind those walls, apart from that, and, to be frank, it isn't our business."

Terry straightened up, then backed away, glaring. On his way back, he grabbed Tony by the shoulder. Priss followed them to one of the back walls, where they were arguing animatedly.

"You're talking nonsense!" hissed Terry.

"I am not," whispered Tony in a brittle hush, "I don't like this any more than you do."

"Really. Because if you didn't, you wouldn't let our lad into a room with that... thing. They aren't even human!"

"Be careful who you call a lad, Terry. As young as he is, you're not a wise head on wise shoulders yourself, at twenty-six."

"Speak for yourself! You're thirty-two, and yet you talk as if you know everything there is to know!"

Tony sighed. "Maybe, just maybe, then, you shouldn't treat me like I have all the answers, when you're desperate for some."

"That's neither here nor there! The bottom line is, I trust those wankers about far as I could throw your car."

"Language."

"Only you, at a time like this..." he spat, struggling for words, eventually landing on, "I don't believe you, Anthony!" and storming off.

Tony looked sadly at Priss, who had been standing there the whole time, and it showed on her expression. "Do you want to get to the Championship, Priss?"

"Well, yes," she said hurriedly, "but if it means Nico might be in danger, we can-"

He held up a hand to cut her off. "I don't think he will be. I knew someone who was matched to a racing driver, once."

Priscilla frowned. "That's good, but why didn't you tell us this before?"

He grimaced. "Our relationship wasn't.... Well, it didn't end well. I'd have liked to forget about him."

"Oh," she replied, a little unsure.

"Anyways, that's immaterial. He was matched to one of MG's test drivers, and it didn't seem to affect him. I didn't even know about it until we, er, had a falling out."

"So you think Nico'll be safe?"

Tony hesitated, then nodded. "More or less. I hope, at least, for his sake and mine."

"Ah, good," said a mild, boyish voice a little to the left of them. They both whirled around. It was Nico, wearing his broadest smile. "So you will let me match?"

"In the end, it's your choice," said Tony, "but I think so."

Priscilla started to say, "It's absolutely fine if you don't want to," but was only halfway through "absolutely" before he cut her off.

"Priscilla," he assured, "it's what I want. I want us to race." He flashed a winning smile.

It was then they realised that the entire team had been watching them, including the medic, who was looking quite bored. Craig, on the other hand, looked like he was a few seconds away from going to find some popcorn.

"Well, that's settled that, then," said Keillor, loping languidly towards Nico. "Come along."

"Wait." Tony held his hand up.

The medic glared at him. "What is it now?"

"This is our teammate. If it's at all possible, we need to accompany him."

"Please?" added Priss, putting on her best "dumb, innocent blonde girl" face.

Keillor glared so heavily they thought the floor might crack. "The room is too small," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Stay."

Nico waved and smiled as he followed the medic through the rough doorway. Nearly anyone would have thought it was an inordinately confident smile, but all present knew him. They knew it was fear.

Chapter Text

"How do you think he's doing in there?" asked Nigel, worriedly poking his birdlike nose into Terry's personal space. Terry glared at him murderously.

"Is this a bad time?" squeaked their resident anorak, fleeing.

Priscilla put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "He's fine, Nigel. Nico's always fine. Remember when we let him test the old car?"

Craig, who was about a meter from the both of them, threw back his head and snorted at the memory of the Mediterranean mechanic grinning sheepishly behind the wheel of their smashed first attempt at a racing car. The derisive sound echoed in the room, bouncing around with all the strange revving, growling and bellowing noises.

Suddenly, they could hear the clacking of expensive shoes on the concrete, quickly coming near. They all whipped around, hair-trigger alert. They listened hard.

The footsteps were joined by two or three more people, who, worryingly enough, seemed to be wearing steel-toed boots. "I hope they're just here to welcome us?" squeaked Priss through a tight-toothed smile.

Unfortunately, that probably wasn't the case. Two guards, which was what they unmistakably were, filed in, headed by Kurt Sweetleigh. Whilst the guards looked cool as the proverbial cucumber, Sweetleigh did not.

His cowlick was hanging down into his face, and he was breathing like a bellows. He was obviously not pleased at having had to run. And the crumpled-up wad of paper in his right hand told the other reason he wasn't very happy.

He gestured one of the guards over to the matching room. The team watched, hearts in throats (figuratively, of course- no one was performing any major surgeries here), as the side-of-beef-in-a-suit practically chucked down the door, shouted something incomprehensible, and dragged out a very, very shaken-looking Nico. He was released, practically thrown, in fact, and stumbled in the direction of his teammates, where he stuck the landing.

A guilty lump welled in their collective throats, especially Tony. The poor boy had a look in his eyes like he'd just stared into the void, and it had stared back. Either that, or had seen a Member of Parliament in the nude.

After this display was finished, Sweetleigh waved the paper in the team's general direction. "Do you know what this is?" Everyone exchanged nervous glances, except for poor Nico, who just received them. "This is the inspector's form you gave us."

He walked slowly forwards Priscilla, until his bulbous nose was nearly level with hers. Nearly. She was taller than him. "Miss MacLean, I am very disappointed in you. We called our inspecting contractor, and, as it turns out, they've never inspected the MacLean residence or garage."

Priss gulped, and tried very hard to look the very picture of innocent concern. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked. "They sent over a man called, er, Benoit or something. He took a look around our manor, looked at our track and car, and then handed me a signed sheet and said we were fit to keep a Racing Driver."

"As much as I'd love to believe it was just a misunderstanding," he said, uncrumpling the paper in question, "Scott Benoit is a desk attendant for our inspectors. And the handwriting on this signature isn't his. I'm afraid you've lied to us."

Terry came pushing in front of Priscilla. "Well, what did you expect us to do? We talked to your damn inspectors, and they wouldn't so much as give us the time of day after we told them we'd never kept one of these creatures before. You say you sell these things to independents, and yet the only way your inspection scheme will work is if you're selling to a company. We need experience to get approval, but we need approval to get experience. As far as I'm concerned, you can shove your sodding papers up your-" He was interrupted by a security guard grabbing him by the arm.

"Please remove them from the premises," droned Sweetleigh in an almost tired tone. As the guards herded the rest of the team towards the exit, the unfortunate blond addressed Priss. "It's a pity about your teammate, but a connection that brief will fade, in time. Meanwhile, we're going to have to put down one of our strongest stallions. We can't sell one that's already been matched, you know."

He patted her on the shoulder. "Enjoy life, Miss MacLean. I suggest that it should never involve us again."

Chapter Text

No one called a team meeting. No one put their hands on their hips and said, "Well! What shall we do now?" There was no event coordinator. No one had planned this.

They'd all gone to the warehouse in Tony's car, which was, embarrassingly enough, incredibly beat-up, large, and French. It could, in spite of those flaws, fit the whole team. Funnily enough, no one seemed to want to cram into it now.

Craig and Nigel excused themselves to walk back to their respective apartments, which were quite nearby. Terry had also opted to walk, but had less excused himself and more stormed off. Tony had tried to convince him to accept a lift, but he'd shouted something Priss couldn't make out and continued walking.

Priss sat in the back seat, cradling Nico's head, a deep frown creasing her brow. He was sleeping, oddly enough, and peacefully at that. She wanted so badly to ask him, to know what the hell happened.

Halfway to Snoughton, she opened her mouth to say something to Tony, when she noticed how he was gripping the steering wheel. A bit of sweat seeped out from under his hands, and his fingernails dug little half-moon shapes into the cheap plastic. She could see his face in the mirror. It was grim, set.

They got back to the manor in compete silence. Priss knew they couldn't avoid talking forever. For all intents and purposes, Tony lived there. The car, the team, everything- it was his life.

For the time being, however, she slipped an arm under Nico's shoulder and lugged him inside. He muttered something as she set him down on the couch. She went back outside to try to catch a glimpse of Tony, but he had disappeared, presumably upstairs to the study. He had a bedroom of his own in the house, but he practically ate, slept, and lived behind his desk.

Priss went to go back up to her room, but her guilty gaze caught sight of Nico's slumped form. An idea occurred to her. She went into the kitchen, and a pang of guilt startled her at the sight of six coffee cups, some still half-full, littering the various surfaces.

Trying not to think about it, she rinsed them out and set them on the drying rack. The only sound in the house was the rush of water into a kettle, and the clatter of her setting it on the stovetop. A little mist welled up in her eyes as she struck a match and tossed it into the belly of the ancient, pig-iron thing. The only sound was the crackling of the flames, which she was painfully aware of. The house seemed stiflingly empty.

A high-pitched sob made it out of Priscilla's throat. "Today was going to be the day," she murmured. "Everything was supposed to go right. We'd get our driver, and have until next season to prepare."

Her hands shaking, she pulled the tea-box from the cabinet. She nearly dropped it. "It's all gone so, so wrong!" Head bent down, she let herself cry for a little. She'd read, in some magazine, it was better for your health to let it all out.

After a while, the kettle let out its shrill scream. Calmly, Priss dried her tears on the edge of her shirt, and took the kettle off the heat. She set bags of Darjeeling into two mugs and let the hot water turn amber. And, since she considered it a basic human right, she included a generous helping of sugar, and set some biscuits on a tray.

Hands still trembling a little, she brought the two cups and the tray into the sitting room. Pensively, she just sat there on the floor in front of Nico, leaning her back against the coffee table, dipping a biscuit into her tea. She reached out and stroked his forehead. It was feverishly warm.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," she chirped. "Otherwise I'll eat all the biscuits before you can get at them." Miraculously, perhaps through the supernatural power of biscuits she invoked, this worked. Nico's eyes slid lazily open.

Chapter Text

Priscilla smiled, surprised. She hadn't actually expected the biscuit ploy to work, if she was being totally honest. "Hallo there."

"Good morning," Nico muttered sleepily.

She paused and looked at the clock on the wall. "Actually, yes, it is morning. Six twenty-three, to be exact."

He rubbed his head. "What did I miss?"

Her smile turned a bit brittle. "About that. What's the last thing you remember?"

He frowned vaguely. "Why, what's wrong?"

She thought for a moment, and decided withholding information wouldn't do any good. "Well, you went in that room. To be matched. Then, er, some bloody huge goons in suits came. They'd found out about our paperwork."

He grimaced. " Oh." The forgery had been no secret. They'd tried everything they could with the inspection office, they really had, but eventually, they weren't left with many options.

"Anyway", continued Priss, "They dragged you out of that room. You looked... poorly. I mean really poorly, Nico, like your eyes were about to roll up into the back of your head. They threw us out of the warehouse and you, uh, sort of fainted."

He frowned. "I don't remember the dragging," he mused, "and I don't remember the fainting." Priss nodded, a serious expression on her face. "But there was something else I remember. They put me in that room, and they led the creature in through a door on the other side. It was in red overalls and a helmet, but they had its hands and legs chained."

He motioned vaguely in the air, as if to suggest the contours of the odd scene. "Then they, they took off its helmet. It was struggling the whole time, like a wild beast, but it was bellowing just like a Mustang V8." She blinked, rapt.

"It looked... perfectly human, though. Its skin and hair was all dirty, but it looked like me, a little. Same colored skin and hair." His brow crinkled, and he shaded his eyes as he just stared into space, as if the sun had suddenly appeared in the sitting room. "I looked into its eyes, like they told me. They were dark brown, but..."

He shook his head, overwhelmed. "I don't know how to say. It's not that my English isn't good. I don't think I'd be able to say in Greek, either. I don't know."

Priss bit into a biscuit, not caring that the crumbs were getting on her second-favorite skirt. "It must've been ever so strange! Could you, uh, try to tell us, though?"

His face wrinkled in concentration. "It was like one of those books Nigel loves to read. He lended me one, once. It was called something like 'Invasion of the Mind-Probes'. The man in the story, John Goldstein, he gets, ah, abducted by these aliens. They read his mind, did some tests on him, to know more about humans. But the instant one if the aliens tried to read his mind, be hit more than he asked for. He felt what John felt, knew what he thought and why. That's what happened. They put me in this room, they pull his helmet off, and then I feel his anger, his frustration, his, his grief, his hunger. He wanted..."

Nico's eyes had gone unfocused. "He wants..."

He blinked, shaking his head. "Sorry. I-I don't know. I don't think I'm very well."

Priss gave him a concerned look. "Of course. It sounds like you've just had a very strange experience."

He picked up one of the mugs of tea, and took a sip. "Maybe. I just feel... strange, like I have bruises all over. I know I don't, but I feel... how do you say..."

"Battered?" supplied Priss.

"Isn't that what you do to fish? For, uh, fish and chips?"

She giggled. "It's got two meanings, silly. I'm guessing you meant 'hurt' and not 'covered in batter'."

"Yes, that's more what I meant." He was smiling, but his attention was obviously far away, anywhere between Neptune and the pub on the corner.

Priscilla quietly got up and cleared away the dishes. "I'm going to go fetch Tony," she said from the kitchen. "I know he'd never say it to our faces, but he's obviously worried sick about you. I mean," she added, "so's everyone else, but I think it hit him the hardest."

Nico rubbed his forehead, trying to shoo away a headache that wasn't quite there. "Where is he? Where is everyone, actually?"

Priss finished rinsing the mugs, and put them in the drying rack. "Tony's holed himself up in the study. I haven't bothered him, but, knowing him, he's probably furiously drawing Astons and listening to Bach records. Or Camel, I think he secretly likes them. As for everyone else, they've, uh, gone home. They all seemed in a bit of a bad way, especially Terry."

Nico looked a bit confused. "In a bad way? What do you mean?"

She pondered a bit. "I don't, just... guilty, I suppose. I mean, Terry just seemed angry, but I think he must've felt guilty, too."

She addressed his bemused frown. "You're an important member of the team, Nico. I mean, we're all important, considering there's only six of us, but you... I can't read minds, but I think some of us think of you as a son. Not me, of course, I'm only a year older than you, but I could name... er, at least two of us who do."

A smile twisted onto his face. "Ah. I think I know which two you are talking about."

He tried to get up from off the couch, and ended up holding his head in his hands. "Ah!"

Priss rushed over to him. "Gosh! Nico, are you alright?"

He laid gingerly back down. "I am, I am. Just, ah, a small headache." She bit her lip habitually, concerned. "Um... a-OK, then. I'll fetch the rest of the team. They'll be relieved to see you."

As she dialed numbers into the telephone, she looked back at Nico, spread-eagled on the couch. His eyes were darting around under their lids looking at scenes that weren't there. Odd.

Chapter Text

"We need to be quiet," whispered Priss. "He's asleep. Again."

Craig scoffed as softly as he could. "That lad's slept through engine tests. Besides, we're not even in the same room as him."

It was true. They were seated in the dining room, even though most of them hated the plastic-covered antique chairs.

"No," Tony cut in, "we're basically in the same room. The sitting room's right next to us, and there's no door to separate them. Be considerate."

Terry rolled his eyes. "Give it a rest, you great pedant. Whose fault is this mess, anyhow?"

Priss could see the gears turning in Tony's head, trying to come up with a retort, but, eventually, he just settled for a nice glare.

"Thought so," muttered Terry under his breath.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Priss. "Not cool!"

Tony put up a hand. "Leave it, Priscilla. He's right."

The Cockney mechanic stood up, looking pointedly down on his older teammate. "I can't believe it took one of our teammates having his brain skewered, or, or something to make you admit you should've been sensible."

Tony glared up at him. "You're gloating. And you've just said I'm the one being insensible."

"Don't try to guilt me, you insensitive pillock!"

Craig, Nigel, and Priss just watched this exchange, which was quite like a match of verbal table tennis, except in table tennis there's generally less that of violence. Depending on where you live.

Nigel whispered, "Er, could you maybe keep it down?" softly enough so as to be as effective as shouting into an Altoid tin and throwing it off an overpass.

A strained look started to manifest on Priss' face. Suddenly, but unsurprisingly, she leapt up, shouting, "Alright, you two!"

They both froze. "If you want to blame someone, blame it on all of us! Every single one of us had something to contribute to Nico going into that room, including him. Now, can we please stop bickering?"

She sat down shakily, turning the words over and over in her head. She hadn't the first clue whether or not that was good advice. She wasn't a sodding orator, she was a nineteen-year-old girl, who, if she was to be frank, was getting very, very impatient with the people around her. She wanted things to go right. She wanted to race, and win, at that. She wanted their names to have been in lights already.

Suddenly, the five of them whipped around collectively at the sound of a thump and a loud groan from the sitting room.

"I tried to tell you," whispered Nigel as softly as humanly possible.

"Never mind that," hissed Terry, "let's just see if he's alright, it's what we came here to do. Bollocks if we woke him, he's been napping for most of the day."

As quietly as five moderately clumsy people could, they crept into the sitting room. Before any of them breathed any sighs of relief, though, they noticed the state Nico was in.

He had quite obviously fallen off the sofa, and was laying on the shag carpeting, though laying was a charitable word. His limbs had spilled everywhere indiscriminately, and were twitching, making suggestions of kicking and battering movement.

Possibly most concerningly of all, depending on your priorities, he was muttering. He seemed a bit upset, in much the same way that a man suffering from the black plague feels a bit under the weather.

"What's he saying?" asked Craig.

"Well, I could tell you, if you'd just close your mouth and let us listen," hissed Tony.

They listened to the muttering and groaning for a bit, before Craig concluded, "I think he's talking Greek. None of us know Greek, do we?"

"No," retorted Tony flatly.

They listened a while longer.

"Hang on," interjected Terry, "I think he's just said 'trying'."

"Yeah," agreed Priss. Tony shushed them angrily.

"He's repeating himself," mused Nigel after a bit more time.

Terry cut him off with a, "Yeah, thanks, we got that."

"Eínai tóso... dark in here..." breathed Nico.

The entire team leaned in, with incredibly conspicuous rustling noises.

"Xenó... what they do with tous állous..." His breath sped up considerably, hissing in and out between clenched teeth. "Akrivís like what happened to Ílio Afxanómeno Chrysó... prókeitai to kill me."

The room went deathly silent. Not that it had been a hub of conversation before, but even the birds seemed to have gotten the memo.

Nico's body shook with either tears or laughter, no one could tell. "It's eínai díkaio, den eínai fair, den not díkaio, IT'S NOT FAIR!"

He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, hands locked into a death grip around handfuls of the carpet. He looked around like a frightened deer at the crowd of faces around him, which looked alternately very concerned, and frightened.

His expression melted into a frown. "I... I must have fallen asleep again." His eyes flickered back and forth, unsure. "I had the strangest dream, just then."

Terry was the first to come down from the shock. "Nico, me lad," he said, helping the young man up, "I think we need to talk."

Chapter Text

"It's like... it's like I was in his skin, thinking what he thought," began Nico.

He was on the couch again, this time furnished by a fuzzy quilt, a steaming mug of tea, and yet more biscuits, all of which went untouched. Oh, well. It was the thought that counted.

The rest of the team stared at him expectantly. "'He' being the, er, Racing Driver, yes?" asked Tony gently.

The youngest of them nodded. "He was so scared and confused. They... held him down. Held something close to his neck, I think it was a needle. They tried to kill him."

He trailed off, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry. My head hurts. But he didn't let them." Priss noticed Nico's hands balling into fists, although she doubted he was conscious of it. "He bit, he tore at them, used his claws."

The team exchanged concerned glances. "Sorry," he corrected, with a twitch of his face. "I mean nails. English is strange, yes?"

Priss breathed a sigh of relief. She had been wondering for a while exactly how human these things were.

"So then this mind-reading thing is ongoing?"

Nico shuddered. "Yes. But I hope not forever."

He looked up at them, pleadingly, but plainly not on purpose. Nevertheless, it just twisted the knife. "It's terrible in there. They took him away from light and sound. They put him in a dark room with rough walls and a rough floor. But they aren't letting him out to exercise."

Nico's muscles twitched spasmodically just thinking about it. "I want to race." He frowned, blinked. "Sorry. He does. I," he proclaimed proudly, "am fine."

"Alright. Well, er, you stay there. Rest up," said Priss, patting him on the shoulder. She mouthed "out there, now" urgently, whilst indicating towards the hallway.

It was a small miracle that Nico didn't notice this, because it was carried out with all the subtlety of a crashing dragster. The team left him to sort of lie on the couch and mull things over, while they crammed into the guest bedroom.

Terry flopped onto the bed, as casually as the circumstances would allow. He stayed there sometimes, when working on the car became more important than going home. Which was often.

The rest of the team sort of settled on various cushy flat bits throughout the room, whether that meant the various mouldering armchairs, a bit of the bed not taken up by Terry, or, in Nigel's case, the floor.

"So let me get straight to the point," began Terry, leaning forwards. "What in the name of Satan's great red arsehole are we meant to do now?" No one spoke, perhaps because everyone was taking a moment to fully appreciate Terry's frankly brilliant imagery.

"We'll call a doctor," suggested Nigel.

"Forget that," interrupted Craig, "call a priest!"

Terry shot then both a very strong look. "Are you out of your ruddy minds? We call a doctor, and tell him what? 'Terribly sorry to bother you, but we've got a lad who's been psychically bonded to a creature that's sick and paranoid because it can't race'? And Craig, come on, man, you're just taking the piss."

"Maybe we should just wait?" suggested the lanky man meekly.

"Chesterton, have you lost the few brain cells you were originally allotted?" Terry retorted cuttingly.

"Well, Nigel does have a point," cut in Priscilla. "As he was, uh, escorting us out the door, Mr. Sweetleigh did tell me that the connection would fade, eventually."

"And you believed him?" Terry shook his head. "Priscilla, love, you've got too much faith in his ilk."

It was then that Tony decided to speak up. "Well, if Priss is naïve, Nigel's an idiot, Craig hasn't said anything worth a care, and I'm sure I'm a clot of some sort, what are we to do? Not that you're capable of being wrong, of course."

Terry snorted. "Well, you are a grade-A clot, but it was lovely of you to ask me. What we need to do is break into their warehouse, and take what's ours."

There was a very heavy silence, which was eventually broken by Tony.

"We shall all be killed. Don't worry, I'll stay out of it, so I can make sure it says on your gravestone: Terrence Rose Macmillan, he died a thoroughly idiotic death."

Terry sprang up off the bed. "For God's sake, man, is it so hard to take this seriously? It's either we break in and take the driver, or we let Nico suffer. Unless, that is, you've got some sort of miracle to pull out of your arse."

Tony massaged the bridge of his nose quite hard. "We're being serious, then, fine, I was. Why is everything a superlative with you? There's no proof that the connection won't fade."

Terry crossed his arms. "There's no proof that it will, either, besides the word of a crook with godawful hair."

Suddenly, but not so unexpectedly, Priss cleared her throat very loudly and very purposefully. Tony and Terry immediately became aware again that they weren't the only people in the room.

"I hate to interrupt, but, er, aren't we a team?" she asked, trying her best to sound genuinely curious and not frustrated.

"Aye, and she's the manager!" seconded Craig.

"Er, yeah!" agreed Nigel lamely.

Tony pursed his lips. "Yes, I suppose we should have listened to you all. Sorry."

"You don't sound very sorry," remarked Terry.

He sighed. "Well, it's just that I know none of you will agree with me."

"That's not an excuse!" remarked the Cockney mechanic.

"I agree with him," squeaked Nigel tentatively.

Terry rolled his eyes. "Of course you do."

Tony, ignoring this exchange, continued. "I'm not being stubborn because you all won't agree with me. I'm not nearly as obtuse as a certain blond wazzock would have you believe."

"Oi!" interjected Terry.

"It's because there's a high chance of you getting hurt, killed, even, because you don't agree with me. I know you, all of you. I know what option you'll choose. You'll all want to storm into that warehouse and stage some sort of stupid action-movie rescue. But that won't end well at all."

Priss furrowed her brow. It wasn't what Tony was saying that got to her, really, it was how worked-up he looked. He continued.

"You saw the guards they had there. Pure muscle. And armed, too. They're already running a largely illegal business, they don't care about gun laws."

He sighed deeply. "Look, I know that it wouldn't exactly be ideal, leaving the poor creature to die, but we could redouble our efforts. You know, try harder to find a human driver. Avoid this mess altogether. I have faith that Nico will recover."

Priss was fully upset by now. "You really think that's best?"

He nodded, biting his lip a bit. "I do. You know, this sounds odd, but this brings me back to that time we went to see that rally last year, you know, when we camped in the, er, surrounding forest."

Craig nodded. "Yeah, the bit with the river?"

Terry smirked. "I really thought you'd gone absolutely doolally when you dove into that river, fully clothed, to save a drowning mole."

Priss smiled, despite herself. "I did save it."

"You did," agreed Tony. "But what if there had been a pikefish in that river?"

The room was silent, except for the metaphorical noise of the metaphorical cogs turning in everyone's heads. Metaphorically.

Tony broke the literal silence with a proposition. "Look, I'm not saying you absolutely can't do what you want. I'm not your mum. Go back home, or stay here, if you like. But all I'm asking is you at least sleep on this, because I really, really don't want you to die."

Chapter Text

Priscilla MacLean couldn't sleep.

Neither could anyone else, for that matter.

Craig had gone home. It seems that all this talk of breaking and entering and killing and dying had made him very nervous. Nigel had also gone back to his apartment, although nervousness was his default state, so he had more fled to go bury his head in the sand. 

No one had really talked to the each other, except when Priss had gone downstairs from her room and found Tony getting a glass of water from the kitchen. He seemed quite tense and melancholic. He noticed that Priss was there, and hurriedly explained that he was going out to go get dinner. About an hour later, she helped herself to a pastie cooling silently in its wrapper on the dining room table.

She'd then home back to her room and organized her closet and jewellery box first by type, then by colour, in rainbow order. After attempting to draw a VW Beetle, because she thought it would cheer Tony up (she knew he'd just love ranting for the umpteenth time about its stupid gormless design), she eventually gave up and went to sleep.

Or at least tried to. She just sort of lay in her bed, occasionally shifting to a different position. The feeling of restlessness was present throughout the rest of the house, permeating like a gas leak that had been going for quite a bit.

Up in the study, Tony was beginning to feel quite listless as well. The carved walnut desk he sat in front of was piled with drawings; concept cars, supercars, sports cars, sedans, even the odd hatchback or mundane family car. They were all nearly stacked, of course. He reasoned that even though his world was messy, his desk needn't be.

He lay back in the armchair in front of the desk, staring at the ceiling. He held the nib of a pen in his mouth, ink dark like the bags under his eyes. He looked outside, into the field. Out in the garden, the moon seemed very bright.

On the hill overlooking the drive, an unnecessarily loud, driving guitar riff, backed by, oddly enough, a flute, shouted out of the shed and into the night. Inside, Terry was furiously but somehow carefully using a mallet to pound at a detached body panel. He muttered something fairly unintelligible, but which sounded like a muddle of at least three words which were less than family-friendly.

Nico was restless, too, although in a bigger way than any of them. Before the rest of the team mostly dispersed, they had sort of herded him into one of the secondary bedrooms, and, to add insult to injury, tucked him in. At least, Terry had, muttering something about him needing his rest.

Nico vehemently disagreed with that. He'd been sleeping for most of the day. He felt like he was wound as tight as a spring, although that wasn't the expression that sprung to mind. His knowledge of the English language had grown up in the same house as his knowledge of cars, so he felt more packed with horsepower he would shake himself apart trying to put down.

Everything felt uncomfortable, the bed, the blankets, even the carpet, where he had eventually settled in an effort to try to keep cool. It all felt like the touch of fevered skin on a rough concrete floor. He whimpered a little bit.

It was very, very hard to separate his own thoughts from the great big sludge of grief, rage, fear, and discomfort that stewed around in someone else's mind. He was sure the creature was talking to him, although he didn't think of it as a creature. Its feelings were so human, but its thoughts were so alien.

It had a way to refer to itself, but it was more a concept, the impression of an engine spitting, barking, backfiring. It carried with it overtones of regret, the image of lashing out in error, the biting of the hand that fed you.

Especially in this, er, state, putting his match's name into words was neither feasible, nor a priority. It, he, it made no difference, was consumed with the overwhelming drive to, well, drive. It made his heart beat too fast, made him sensitive and overstimulated. It did for both of them.

Chapter Text

"Hey!" whispered Priss insistently. "Wake up, if you wouldn't mind."

Tony's eyes came slowly open. "Priscilla, you needn't be so loud."

She frowned, confused. "I-I'm not," she whispered, even quieter.

He picked his head off the desk, where it had settled against his will the previous night. "Ah, that smarts," he hissed, massaging his temples. He then attempted to work out the massive kink in his neck. "That also smarts."

"Are you alright?" asked Priss, growing concerned.

"Well, I don't know, I've just sat here all night, hunched over this desk, and I ended up drinking all of that."

He pointed to his left without looking to see what was there, because it was obviously an empty bottle of merlot. An inordinately large wine glass lay sideways on the desk. "I must look a mess," he mused.

Priss, diplomatic as almost always, peered at him and said, "Hmmm... you look fine. Good, really."

He blinked at her. "Really. Because, unless I'm desperately wrong, I have bags under my eyes the size of actual shopping totes, an indentation in my face where the seam of that desktop was, and I'm really in need of a shave."

He caught his own reflection in the overturned wine glass. "Hm. So I do." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "How's our Mediterranean marvel of a man?"

Priscilla's expression fell. "He's not in a good way. I know he wasn't exactly hunky dory yesterday, but he's even worse now. Trust me, I came in this morning to check on him, and he was on the floor, about half a metre from the bed. I tried to say hello, but he sort of whimpered at me and rolled over."

Tony grimaced, either from the implications of this, or his headache. "Go and telephone the others. I shall fetch Terry." He strode out into the hallway.

Priss tagged along. "Wait, does that mean you've got a plan? Does that mean you've approved ours, for that matter?"

He brushed her off. "Frankly, I don't know what I'm planning, yet. All I know is that we need to be together for it, now, go and call those two defectors."

A couple phone calls, a bump on the head, and a short walk later, the team was together, doing what any smooth-running racing team should be doing: sitting crammed into a guest bedroom, drinking mostly coffee with a few instances of tea.

They were all seated in a sort of unplanned semicircle around Nico, who was still on the floor. He was trying to put a brave face on things, which, despite his best efforts, was more like a severely constipated face.

Terry was closest to him, and had, as such, volunteered to do the talking. "How're you feeling?" he began, softly and cautiously.

Nico tried to laugh, although it came out quite manic. "Just the best, no?"

Tony cut in, gently but impatiently. "I know it may be hard, but we're going to need you to be serious, alright?" Nico nodded distractedly.

Tony and Terry locked eyes for a moment, worriedly. "Alright, so, really, how are you feeling?"

His eyes squinched shut for a moment. "I feel... too hot, for one, just unbearably hot. And the tension, I know it's not coming from me, but it's shaking me apart." Priss frowned, even more deeply than she had been before.

"And what would this, er, tension be?" asked Tony.

Nico groaned. "I told you. Told you yesterday. If I... if he cannot race, cannot compete, he cannot prove his worth. If he can't prove it, he has none. He lives to race. All his energy goes into it. But they locked him up, and now his gears are spinning so hard they've jammed and fallen off."

Priss came up next to him, tentatively laying a hand on his arm. It felt very feverish. "Well, uh, tell him to be strong," she said, regardless.

Nico took a shallow breath. "He knows. He is strong."

"Well, tell him he won't have to hold out for much longer," said Terry, standing up abruptly.

"Hold on!" interjected Tony. "That isn't your decision to make."

Terry rounded on him. "Really? Because what I see here is a young lad who is very sick, and the only cure is locked away in that warehouse. The decision, as far as I'm concerned, has already been made."

A small but rousing cheer went up from everyone besides Tony. (Yes, including Nigel, the traitor.) Although, in Nico's case it was more a surprised cry of "What decision? What aren't you telling me?"

Terry turned back to him. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier. A certain buzzkill didn't want you to get your hopes up, but we're going to break into the warehouse and get ourselves a Racing Driver."

Chapter Text

"Absolutely not," snapped Tony.

Nico held up a hand for mercy. "Please, listen. I'm the only one on the team who knows where he's being kept. He showed me when they threw him in there. You need to take me along."

"He's right, you know," cut in Terry.

"No, he isn't! I still think this is a terrible plan and we shall all be killed, but I had hoped that 'all' wouldn't include him," persisted Tony.

"Well, why not, eh?"

"Because he's ill, you blithering idiot, and also because he's young, he's got his whole life ahead of him, and we've already ruined enough of it. You were saying it was my fault that he was the one who got matched improperly. Where's all that blame gone now?"

Terry rolled his eyes. "That blame's still squarely on your head, mate, because we had a choice then. Now, we don't, not that I think it's the best option in the world."

Tony scoffed. "Don't give me that. There's no situation in this life where you well and truly have no choice. There are choices where choosing one will make things go wrong, but now is not one of those times. It's never do or die. Think, be clever, use what's inside your thick skull to come up with something different."

Terry was quiet for a moment, a rare occurrence, before turning to Nico and asking, "Could you, say, write down directions to where this cell is? Maybe draw a map?"

The youngest mechanic concentrated for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's... very hard to explain. But I'll know it when I see it."

"And you will see it," piped up Priss. "We'll get him out of there."

Tony pulled a bitter face. "I still don't like this."

Terry shot him a dirty look. "Yeah, we get that."

He got up off the couch, and cast about in the coffee table drawer, eventually emerging with a pen and paper. "Right. We need to figure this out, though. First of all, transport. The only vehicle that'll fit all of us is your godawful Renault, Tony, but we'll need to get away quickly, and that thing's about as mobile as a brick."

The older man snorted."Yes, and about the same shape."

Priss smiled. "Is this the only thing you two agree on?"

"Yes," they replied in unison.

"Anyhow," cut in Terry, "I suggest we take my Sprint."

Tony frowned. "I think not. First of all, I'm guessing the reason you've been walking here from your house is not, in fact, for your health, but because your beloved Dolly is in the garage, leaking some sort of fluid. Again. Second of all, you'll have to shove at least two people into the boot to fit us all. It's mad."

The blond mechanic waved his hand dismissively. "It isn't. It's nice and sporty, so it'll be good for a fast getaway. I'll fix it meself, and secondly, do you honestly think Nigel and Craig are coming along? Nigel's made it clear he's chickening out, and, let's be honest, our resident Irishman's never been keen on a lot of our stunts. I'll ask them anyhow, but believe you me, this definitely is a stunt"

The room was a bit silent. Terry clapped his hands together, saying, "Right! The biggest question in all of this is, when? The only ones out of us lot that've got jobs are Craig and Nigel, and Craig's got weekends off, not that either of them are coming."

"It's Friday," remarked Priss.

"Yeah," he affirmed.

She leaned over to Nico. "Hey, uh, this might seem a bit grim, but... do you know how long he'll last?"

Nico frowned deeply. "Talk to your friend, ask him," she elaborated. He closed his eyes, although whether it was out of necessity or just appearances was unknown.

"Hmm," he mused eventually, "If I am honest, I would like this to be as soon as possible. They're not giving him and food, water, or exercise. If we don't go tomorrow, he might tear himself apart, you know? But I don't know this for a fact. He won't give me a straight answer, keeps repeating, "I am strong" over and over. Keeps telling me he's never going to die."

Priss patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sure he is. Tell him to stay strong, because we're coming to take him home."

Chapter Text

On the corner of two streets in seemingly the middle of nowhere, in the middle of some hills, there was a dilapidated warehouse with a sign on it that read "Granbury Farms", and had a picture of a smiling cartoon sheaf of wheat on it. Absolutely nothing was happening in there.

However, across the street, there was another warehouse, labeled much more plainly as "McMinn Holdings". And in there, things were indeed hotting up.

The weather had gotten the memo, and decided to act the part, so it was indeed a dark and stormy night. Lightning would occasionally come down, turn on the lights to see what was going on, then scamper back upstairs. It cut the thick, dark night, revealing things that might've been otherwise concealed.

Which was unfortunate for the four people in a Dolomite Sprint the colour of a slice of cheddar cheese. Not exactly the best idea where stealth was concerned.

Inside, Terry drummed his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the falling of the rain. A small rivulet poured down onto his head, coursing down his face, which remained unfazed in its expression.

"Are you ever going to regret not taking my Renault?" asked Tony, fiddling with a loose bit of trim on the passenger seat door.

"No," he deadpanned.

"Uh, guys, we've got a leak," came a slightly whiny voice from the back.

"I know, Priscilla, we've got one too," replied Tony.

Terry elbowed him. "The reason we didn't take your car was because if we had, we wouldn't be here until the sun was up again. Now," he said, pulling into the parking lot behind the farm warehouse, "we already are."

As he parked, which wasn't difficult in an empty lot, Priss whispered, "So what's the plan?"

"We drew up a plan, remember?" replied the blond mechanic.

"That's different. We were just talking about it. Now, we're actually here. It's like the difference between a map and the actual land. So what do we do?"

Terry wiped the small stream of water off his forehead. "Well, just get out, and we'll cross the street and sneak round back. Just like we planned."

"But it's raining," groaned Nico, who might not have had his priorities straight.

"Then we shall get wet," stated Tony flatly, stepping out onto the pavement.

Covering their heads with their hands as if it would help somehow, they darted across the soaked asphalt, and around the back of the warehouse across the street.

A few metres from the back of the building, there was a slowly sloping hill, with a little copse of trees. The team took the opportunity to hide behind the copse, peering between the trees.

They were there faced with a bit of an odd sight. Rather stupidly, and they were aware that it was, they hadn't really planned for the security guards, other than a general, "We'll just gang up on them if they try anything" mentality.

However, it was made clear that even that vague planning wasn't really needed. There were several little alcoves built into the side of the building, although only four were visible to the team. Each one had a security guard in it, facing outwards into the storm. The lot of them were slumped against the wall, bundled into navy-blue raincoats.

Nico broke the silence, whispering, "What do we do now?" as quietly as humanly possible.

"You see that guard, next to the doorway?" said Terry, pointing.

Priss and Nico nodded. "He's asleep."

"How do you know he is?" asked Tony.

"Because he's slumping against the wall, and because his bloody eyes are shut. I'd bet you a fiver that, if we were any closer, we'd hear him snoring. Besides, he's an old man, he won't be much trouble."

Tony gave him a worried look. "Terry! We're not going to accost an old man."

He looked away, rolling his eyes. "It was a joke, you stuffy old clot. Dunno how he hasn't lost his job yet. They must not be too worried about break-ins here."

Tony looked as if he was going to say something rash, but Priss threw up her hands before a row could really get into gear. "Guys, guys, please! Is this really the issue here?"

Tony sighed, his soaked hair making him look a bit like a dark brown spaniel that's none too pleased about being bathed. "For your information, I was going to agree with him. Their biggest worry must be runaways. They've probably never even had a break-in."

"It's wet out here. Let's just go in already," groaned Nico.

Terry got up into a tense crouch, and motioned for the others to do the same. "Right. That doorway, on the right. Be as fast as possible, but for God's sake, do be quiet. Right. Three... Two... One."

The crack stealth team of four shot out from the undergrowth, rather noisily, but they realised quickly that no one was noticing.

The security guard closest to them was indeed snoring, but all the others that they could see were slumped at their posts, likely dreaming of the days before they got put on the night shift, when they could sleep at night and spend the day with their kids.

Recessed into the doorway was a heavy fire door, which Terry got open with little difficulty.

Casting a backwards glance, Tony shepherded Priss and Nico inside, making sure the door shut softly behind them.

Chapter Text

Everyone took a moment to catch their breath. It was a quiet moment, but far from silent.

The corrugated steel walls stretched, twisted, and turned to the sides of them, like they'd just entered a maze made of sharp, looming metal. Past a certain point, or any corners, for that matter, everything became shrouded in shadows.

In front of them was the eerie sight of an empty go-kart track. It was sort of like a pool, Priss reflected. You'd normally see it bustling with activity, but seeing it empty just made everything look menacing. The thin crescents of light that caught the edges of the karts made the rickety things look like they were leering nastily.

The sound of the team softly catching their breath was overwhelmed, the farther out you got, by mechanical-sounding droning, snapping, shouting, wailing. It was the sound you'd get if engines could suffer like humans did.

It went past creepy, straight into overtly, horror-movie scary. And it was the sort without any cheesy costumes or cliches, the sort that whispered to the primordial monkey bits in your brain stem, and actually scared you.

In their little corner of dull moonlight, Terry looked down to Nico and whispered, "Son, it's all on you right now."

He nodded a bit, closed his eyes, and, after a beat, opened them. "To our right."

So, accordingly, they set off down the hallway on their right. It followed the actual wall of the warehouse, which was lit by faint lightbulbs placed at intervals. They bled their light out into the darkness of the stables.

"Do you know where we should stop, or turn?" asked Tony delicately, after a bit.

"I'll know it when I see it," growled Nico through clenched teeth. The procession came to a sudden halt.

"What was that?" asked Tony, eyebrow raised.

Nico's expression melted into concerned confusion. "I... I'm sorry. He's really, really, ah, agitated. I think, it's just... we're getting close."

Terry patted him on the shoulder. "Right. Just tell him to keep a handle on it for now, because we've got to get out of here quickly and quietly, d'you understand? Quickly and quietly."

The younger man nodded. "We turn here," he whispered.

They made their way into the dark hall. Priss tried to keep her attention on what was ahead, but, whenever she tried, something to behind the panels to the left or right would do something.

She heard a sort of intermittent low rumble behind one bit of the wall, and a strange, mechanical keening noise, like the zipping of a little engine at its breaking point, behind another. She shivered. This place is bad news, she thought.

They turned down another corridor, then another, then another. There was almost a rhythm to their movement at this point, lulling Priss dangerously close to sleep. It was late, and they had all been up since very early. But the sheer tension of the situation kept her footsteps soft, her breath bated, and her eyes open.

After a bit, Nico stopped very suddenly and without warning, essentially brake-checking the entire team. Everyone went everywhere. Terry tried to stay himself, and in the process, trod on Priscilla's foot, causing her to back into Tony. She held back an instinctive "Oi!".

In the dark silence, with everyone trying desperately to stay still, Nico whispered, "He's in here."

Terry leaned over to him. "Are you sure?"

The youngest of them turned to him. "He doesn't remember wrong."

Terry stepped in front of him, hands outstretched. The light was barely enough for him to see that there was a wall. He tugged on its edge. It swung open. Everyone filed in. There was a very dim lightbulb in a socket on the ceiling, bright enough for them to just reach one conclusion.

"There's nothing in here," said Terry somewhat indignantly.

"Very astute," noted Tony, pacing around the small room.

Before the beginnings of an argument could coalesce, Nico shook his head. "No. The floor opened, it's an, uh, a trapdoor."

"Where?" asked Terry, immediately dropping to his knees and scrabbling around on the concrete floor for any signs of a seam.

Nico squinched his eyes shut. "Don't know."

"Right," announced Tony, still trying to keep it quiet, "it's got to be somewhere in here."

They all got down to assist in the search, groping about on the floor. Priss tried not to think about how filthy it likely was. Her hands skipped across the grimy, rough concrete, until suddenly she came across a smooth, straight crack in the surface.

"Guys!" she exclaimed. "I think I've found the trapdoor."

They straightened up, crowding around her. "Let me see," said Terry, trying to look to find it. "Damn! The light's too low."

He fumbled around in his pockets, eventually surfacing with a lighter, which he flicked on. A quavering orange flame lit up the room, causing everyone to squint. "Ah, there were are."

Terry dropped to the ground, and, as everyone could see, he grabbed ahold of a previously invisible sturdy steel handle. He tried to use it to open the hatch, but he couldn't seem to, no matter how much he strained.

Tony raised an eyebrow at him coolly. "Do you need my help?"

Terry glared at him. "Yes! Stop being such a cock about it and shift this thing!"

Together, they managed to lift the trapdoor, which was no more than a concrete slab on hinges.

"Good god, this is heavy," remarked Terry. "He must have been a real troublemaker to get put in here."

"Is it still trouble if he was right?" muttered Nico, too indistinct for anyone to hear.

Eventually, they got it fully open, and they carefully let it slam down onto the floor, handle-first. Everyone craned down, trying to see what it was they'd come all this way for.

In the cell, it was as black as a bucket of pitch with a blindfold on in the depths of the darkest night in winter, so Terry tried to angle his lighter to shine down into it.

And then, they saw a curled-up figure in grimy, torn red racing overalls and a scuffed helmet, curled up and shivering in a puddle of dim light.

It sat up slowly, turning its tinted, cracked visor up towards the team. Through it, they saw a patch of light brown skin, now sickly pale, surrounding a mad, singular eye.

Chapter Text

Isn't it funny, thought Priss, when you really, really want something to happen, but when it happens, you don't really know what to make of it?

She took a moment to take in what was happening. She and Nico were presently supporting their new Racing Driver between them. Its closeness bothered her, not that she'd admit it. It had been a lot easier to feel sorry for a poor, neglected animal from afar, but distinctly less so when it was leaning part of its feverishly hot, sweaty body weight on her.

She knew she should be sympathetic, but it made her nervous. And it smelled. Nico was eyeing it worriedly, conversing, no doubt, on some kind of psychic wavelength only they were tuned into.

The group was moving fast, with Terry leading them and Tony bringing up the rear. Priss, Nico, and the Driver were basically a six-legged race, two-thirds of which were colossally knackered. The situation was precarious; someone was just begging to trip. Then suddenly they stopped.

She saw Terry looking this way and that, beginning to look quite worried. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I don't mean to alarm you, but do you remember which way we came?"

"N-no," she responded. "All the hallways look the same."

Tony pushed his way to the front of the group. "Why aren't we moving?"

Terry sighed, tapping his foot impatiently. "They needed a breather."

"You're lost, aren't you?"

Terry scoffed. "Am not. Let's pick up the pace again."

Tony again retreated to the back of the line, eyeing him suspiciously.

Priss returned again to help the Racing Driver along. Her stomach was churning with cold fear. She became nervous any time she broke any rules, and this entire operation was breaking them by the pound. And now it had taken a wrong turn, literally. They zigged and zagged through unfamiliar shadowy hallways, her heart fluttering like a butterfly with chronic anxiety.

Eventually, thankfully, they came to one of the outer wall, taller, brighter lit, and distinctly more reassuring than any of the others. A sigh of relief was breathed, but it was difficult to pinpoint which ones of them it came from, it was more a general sigh. But it didn't last long.

"Terry, you muppet!" hissed Tony. "I knew you were lost!"

"Why's that, then?" he challenged.

"Look!" the older man said, pointing for emphasis. "When we took a turn into the inner hallways, there wasn't a corner there, it kept going. So either a corner has magically appeared where there was none previously, or you've gotten us lost."

"Fine!" he nearly shouted, "We are. What could you have done about it, eh?"

"That's not the important bit, you know it isn't!" Tony took a deep breath.

"Right," he began, addressing the Racing Driver Support Squad, "what we need to do now is find the nearest door, and get out of here as fast as possible."

"That's the most sensible thing you've said all week," said Terry, quickly scouting forwards in the corridor, motioning them all along.

Their collective panic was palpable, vibrating the air. They hadn't overstayed their welcome, per se, because they hadn't been welcome to begin with, but the novelty, the element of surprise had begun to wear off. Priss was shaking, despite the fevered warmth slung across her shoulders, by the time they reached a door. It was just like the one they'd entered through, a heavy, blocky fire door.

Terry stood poised against the bar, ready to open it. "Right," he whispered, tense as a spring, "I'm going to open this on the count of three. When I do, I want you to run to the car, fast as you can. Got it?"

Priss nodded. "Alright. One... two... three."

He leaned all his weight against the door, swinging it open with a loud clang. Priss and Nico hobbled as fast as they could out into the pre-dawn light, the Racing Driver's feet dragging weakly on the wet grass. Tony and Terry bolted out behind them. The door slammed with a very loud clang.

Then, in one terrible moment, Priss realised why they'd had to run. The door they'd exited through was different than the one the entered through, and probably had a different, likely more alert guard around it. Besides, no security guard, no matter how old and addled, could have slept through that.

And then she heard it: "Oi! What's going on here?" Then the clanging of a bell, ringing loudly and jarringly. Then came heavy footsteps, and more shouting, including a flurry of "Stop right there!"s. She tried to crane her head, to look back and see what's going on. "Don't look back, just run!" she heard Terry shout.

There was hope; they were almost at the street now. One guard, however, was getting bold. "Stop right now, and put your hands behind your head!" he shouted. "Stop running or I will shoot! I will, I'm warning you!"

Do they really have guns? she thought. She craned her head to see. Five guards were some two metres away from them and closing. And they had shotguns. Oh, god. They could actually shoot us, she realised.

Her feet hit the wet tarmac, picking up traction quickly. "Hurry!" yelled Terry. And they did hurry, all the way to the other side of the street. They were headed for the carpark round back, but first they had to get across the small lawn out front.

It wouldn't be much of a problem, except for the fact that they were being pursued, which meant that every bit of time counted. And while they were cutting across the little patch of grass, the guard who had been shouting at them stopped, shouted, "You have been warned, I will shoot!", aimed and fired.

He had meant to fire off a warning shot, close enough to scare them into stopping, but not close enough to actually hit anyone. But maybe he didn't have nearly enough weapons training, maybe his gun was too old and inaccurate. Maybe his eyesight was going. Maybe his hands slipped. Who knows?

All the MacLean team heard was a loud bang, echoing percussively from across the street, and then they saw Nico's body jerk forwards, a bullet in his back.

Chapter Text

Nico's knees buckled and he sank down to the ground, his face a mask of pain. Priss, shocked, backed away, bending under the Racing Driver's weight.

They heard a quiet "Oh my god" from across the street, and turned to look. One of the guards was standing there, mouth agape and cap off and held at his side. He was a vaguely porcine old man, quite harmless-looking, except for the old shotgun that slipped slowly from his nerveless grasp.

Terry began to shake with rage. "You!" he growled, beginning to stalk his way across the street.

Before he could, Tony grabbed him by the shoulder. "Terrence!" he hissed emphatically. "I know how you feel, god do I ever, but not now, alright? Not now. We need to get him medical attention, is what we need, yeah?"

His face fell into quiet rage. "Right. Alright."

He knelt down by Nico, and tried to slip his arms under the young man. The movement, coupled with the rapid fading of the adrenaline, caused the full brunt of the wound to come down on him at once. He screamed, dark blood leaking out of the wound in his back. Gingerly, Terry lifted him into his arms.

Tony quickly rushed to the car, saying, "There's no way to call an ambulance out here, besides, especially at this hour, it'd take far too long. I know where the nearest hospital is, don't worry, I shall drive." Terry nodded stoically.

Tony slung himself into the driver's seat of the Sprint, and instructed Priss to get into the passenger seat, and bring the Racing Driver with her. She obeyed, sort of manoeuvring it into half-sharing the seat, half-sitting on her lap. She felt like it was almost crushing her. After all, she didn't have the sturdiest of frames, but she was too stunned and nauseous with nerves to really question the order.

Tony turned the key in the ignition, and they were off. The journey was one of the most singularly uncomfortable things Priss had ever experienced. It was too cold out. She had to shift her weight tightly every time they turned a corner, or went remotely sideways, to avoid letting their new charge fall off the seat.

Not that she was happy about it. She'd wanted to get it, to at once save a poor neglected animal from unfortunate circumstances, and to have a means to get to the championship, and win, at that. But it hadn't been worth... that.

She closed her eyes and tried to tune out the sound of Nico groaning loudly from the backseat, and the sound of Terry whispering unintelligible comforting things.

Nothing would be worth that.

A gunshot wound, she pondered. That must hurt so much more than I could ever know.

She noticed the scenery was starting to look more familiar, more urban. Fairly soon, they pulled up in front of a vaguely church-like building, with lots of white concrete and red bricks. A sign on it read, "Sister Doris Aching Memorial Hospital".

Terry got out, quickly followed by Tony. Priss craned to see them having a brief, rather frantic conversation, with lots of animated hand-waving.

She opened up her door, managing to get a leg free. "What's going on out there?" she shouted, because they were on the opposite side of the car.

Tony came round to talk to her, as Terry went into the building carrying a distressingly limp olive-skinned figure. "Terry's just told me to take the two of you back to Snoughton. Get in the backseat, and take it with you."

"But-"

"I'm sorry," he said, cutting her off, "but we've got more than just Nico to take care of now."

"There has to be more than that!" she insisted, lugging the Racing Driver with her into the backseat. Not that it noticed. It seemed a bit far gone.

Tony settled into the driver's seat, sighing deeply. "He said..." his voice hitched. "He said he didn't want us to see him like this, and that he wanted us to finish what we started."

The bottom dropped out of Priscilla's stomach. "Nico did?"

Tony nodded, barely. "Let's go home, alright?" he said, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

He'll be alright, Priss said to herself. He's practically just an eighteen-year-old ball of sheer luck, chutzpah, and a distractingly thick accent. He could so much as smile at god, and god would smile on him.

She looked out the window. The grey light of a stodgy British dawn was beginning to assert itself across the landscape, elbowing into dark rooms and doing an awful lot of what's-all-this-ing, like a bunch of policemen. Unconsciously, she picked at the fibres that were poking out from a hole in the leather of the bench.

It was hard to imagine that all of this had actually happened, it seemed so unreal, like a movie. She didn't feel like she was in a movie, though. She was sore all over, covered in a cold sweat, and her favourite black sweater was all grimy.

She looked over to the Racing Driver. It looked unresponsive, dead, almost. She frowned, her stomach dropping somehow further. Nico suffered when it suffered, it probably went both ways. Did the shock kill it, or something of the kind? After all they'd gone through to get it?

She moved closer, and prodded it, cautiously. Its head lolled into a different position, trailing a sound you'd hear on a muscle car that had recently been in a nasty accident, and could barely move under its own power.

She breathed a sigh of relief, though uneasily, and shifted back to her side of the car.

Chapter Text

Priscilla was nearly asleep by the time the bright yellow-orange Dolomite Sprint pulled into the drive of Snoughton Manor. Despite her uneasiness, the bulk of the adrenaline had worn off, and she hadn't slept properly in... well, it had been three days at this point.

She was startled into full wakefulness by the slam of the driver door, and Tony's equally sharp, "Right. Let's do what we set out to do, shall we?"

Blinking sleep out of her eyes, Priss followed Tony into the shed. He stood there, looking pensively, but with an indifferent expression, at their car. It was the team's pride and joy, but nothing is exclusively sunshine and rainbows, especially in motorsport.

It was also their anger and frustration, their sadness and ennui, their hopes, dreams, blood, sweat, and tears. Of course, to fully reflect that rich, laden history, they'd called it the Flower.

It was Priscilla's idea, she recalled with a slight, peripheral flash of smugness. Most of the team had objected strongly, but eventually figured, what the hell, it was a bit of a laugh. They'd occasionally fasten bundles of wildflowers to the bonnet as a sort of hood ornament, when they'd go out to the local track to test it.

Tony stared down at it, dispassionately. It hadn't been his finest work, in fact, it looked little more than a jumped-up go-kart, but he had done his best with the little thing.

"Well, are we going to take this thing out or not?" asked Priss impatiently.

Tony nodded his assent, issuing a couple grunts as they dragged the thing onto its transport trailer. Which, was really an old trailer for farm equipment with a little ramp flap added on afterwards. The Sprint didn't have a hitch, so they ended up having to secure the trailer to the car using more of the bungee cords they used to make sure the Flower didn't fall off.

Priss got in the back seat. She saw the Racing Driver stir a little. Somehow, she thought, it knew that a car was nearby, and that it was going to get to drive. She really didn't care. She really wasn't in the mood for this. It was part of the plan, but, things hadn't really gone according to plan, and, besides, she was very tired. It all felt a bit pointless. She was worried sick about Nico, and, from Tony's expression and posture, he was too.

They set off down the winding roads in silence. Priss noticed that it was shaping up to be a grey, miserable day outside; the sun had barely risen and already loads of fog had come to spoil the party.

Eventually, after a considerable bit of B-roads, a banner sprang out of the mist at them. It read, in surprisingly restrained lettering, "Leslie Stone Pollard Motorsports".

Neither of them gave a damn who Leslie Stone Pollard was, but they used the track fairly often. The co-owner of the place, a bloke called Peter Tawney, was a nervous-looking man, slightly overweight, probably about forty. He gave the MacLean team permission to take their vehicles round at pretty much all hours the place was open, and then some.

It wasn't open now. None of them had wanted anyone to see this. The impression anyone affiliated with Racing Drivers gave off was that secrecy was of paramount importance, and, well, maybe there was a reason for that.

There wasn't any security on the little shed that housed all the control panels; there wasn't anything there worth taking. Priss slipped quite easily into there, illuminating the tarmac suddenly and unexpectedly with the floodlights.

Tony, meanwhile, was wrangling the Flower off of the trailer. Priss came to rejoin him. He had maneuvered the little Formula car in full view of the Sprint's left rear door, which was cleverly positioned near the starting line. There was a silence.

"Um. I, uh, don't have the foggiest clue what to do," she admitted, turning to Tony.

A crease had appeared in his brow. "I don't quite know what to do, either."

Priss looked at it again, then back at him. "You've... never seen these things in action? Haven't you, though?"

Tony's eyes flitted upwards, then back down. "Well, I have, but I'm not sure... I'm not sure if what they did will work here."

Priss stood, displaying her "listening attentively" face on full.

Tony continued. "It was in '67, when I was working at TVR. They let me come along to the test track one day. I saw the man who was supposedly the test-driver go into a small building by the side of the track. He came out shortly after, accompanied by a man who looked almost exactly like him. One wore normal clothes, the other wore racing overalls, but, I could see they had the same face and stature. I was sitting at the edge of the track, meant to be taking notes, but trust me, it was obvious. I don't think they cared that I saw, though. I was only twenty-two; who would believe me?"

Priss stood for a moment, taking this in. "So... what did they do?"

"They dangled the keys in front of it. It was... quite comical, in a way. It, it practically dove into the car when they tossed it onto the driver's seat."

She considered this. "Well... go to the shed, then," she said quite reasonably. "Get the keys."

He shrugged. "Alright."

She stood for a moment, Northern December winds pulling at her sweater and black cotton pants. She looked through the car window at the Racing Driver. It still made her very nervous. From what she'd heard from Nico, it was very keen on fighting back. So why wasn't it?

Actually, it was more a question of when, rather than if. It looked packed full of a violent energy. From where she stood, it was a time bomb, without so much as a tick to let you know it was counting down.

Tony came back, presently, key in hand. It was a door key they'd bought from the local hardware store. Still, it was better than hot-wiring it every time they wanted to start it. He turned to hand it to Priss.

"Ready?" he whispered.

"Ready," she answered. She palmed the key nervously, then opened the Sprint's door.

The Racing Driver was already more alert than she had ever seen, dragging itself across the seats before stumbling weakly out of the car. It had an air of being incredibly desperate, like a fish flopping towards the edge of the boat in hopes of getting just a drop of life-giving water.

Almost completely unsure about what she was supposed to do, she let the glimmering key dangle from her hand like a cat toy. "Hey... you, uh, you see this?"

Its one visible eye stabbed hard and precisely at her, with its direct line of sight. Her hands now shaking quite badly, Priss threw the key into the form-hugging seat of the Flower. Which is to say, she attempted it. It hit the other side, pinged off, and landed next to the seat.

Immediately, the creature went for it. It got straight in, fastening the harness in a blur. It sat there, staring straight ahead, hunched and intent.

Priss' gaze flicked to Tony, and then back towards the car. "What's wrong with it, why won't it go?"

Tony looked at her like he was starting to lose his patience. "Well, how would you tell a normal driver to set off?" he said eventually.

She frowned at him for a bit, before her face lit up, and she went, "Ohhh." She stepped in front of the Flower, although a safe distance to the side. Loudly and clearly, she counted out: "Three... Two... One... Go!"

Evidently, it didn't need to be told twice. It was off the line like a bullet from a gun, an arrow from a bow. They stood there, watching its progress with expressions of mild worry. The track wasn't long, and the little car powered through the straights and zipped around the corners aggressively. It blew past them like a bracing breeze, sending their hair for a bit of a ride.

Tony had ducked. "Crikey," he breathed.

Despite herself, Priss began to feel a bit of a rush. They'd done it! They were in the game now, and at what expense? Nico would pull through. He always did. She didn't need to think about him, not now. She traced their driver's progress around the track. He blew past the line, again and again and again, each lap's lines becoming tidier, less desperate, less aggressive.

Suddenly, she heard a worrying undertone creep into the engine noise. It had been pushed too far at once. Tony, being slightly more closely familiar with the car, heard it, and, before Priss could react, ducked into the control shed.

The red light, more plain and obvious than any hand signal, blinked into life. Without even having to look, she felt a petrol-scented wind blow past her, and heard its producer settle to a stop beside her.

"Well, that's done, then," proclaimed Tony, walking towards the car.

"Do you think it needs to be helped out?" the heiress wondered aloud.

"Well, see for yourself," he responded.

She looked down. It was undoing its harness with a fair efficiency. It got out of the car, moving like its feet were tangled up in something. It stumbled forwards a bit, the key falling from its gloved hands. Even though its face wasn't largely visible, Priss could tell it was panting heavily.

It took a few steps. Priss took a few steps backwards. Its one visible eye looked dangerously unfocused. Oh, god, she thought. Is this when it kills me? Tony eyed it judiciously, a firm frown creasing his face. The tension was so thick you could've cut it with a knife.

Then, they didn't really have to worry about that, because the creature promptly collapsed.

Chapter Text

There were two sheds at Snoughton Manor, the car one, and the one that used to be filled with rakes and trowels and such, but, as of recently, those had been replaced with some old blankets and one unconscious, nearly human creature.

Priscilla closed the door to the garden shed and fastened the padlock. She loped slowly towards the house, exhausted. She knew there should probably be someone to look after the driver, but, at this point, almost nothing could to stop her going to the hospital. Or taking a small rest.

When she got inside, Tony was making coffee. He looked up from his work, briefly. "Oh, there you are."

"Yes, here I am," she mumbled indistinctly.

He began to pour it out into mugs. "I know you're probably quite tired, so I made enough for the both of us."

She came into the kitchen, and he handed her one of the mugs. She sat down hard in one of the chairs, eyes closed. A rather primal "Uuuuuurgh" trailed from her partially open mouth.

Tony leant against the counter. He smirked down into his coffee. "Mm. You said it."

Suddenly, from upstairs, the phone rang. "That'll be Terry," he announced, to no one in particular.

Priss remained sitting, her face upturned and her eyes closed. She wanted quite badly to go and see how Nico was doing, but her limbs felt like lead. Tony might have to pick her up and put her in the car, at this rate. She sat for a while, slowly drifting deeper and deeper into the dark of dreamland.

"Priss!" shouted Tony, rather close to her ear. Her eyes snapped open. "Priscilla! I know you're tired, but this is very, very important," he said, exasperatedly.

She looked up at him, worried in a very earnest way. "What's wrong? Is Nico alright? Oh, please say he is!"

Tony didn't. Instead, he pursed his lips, looked down, then looked back up again. "That," he began, "was the local constabulary. Apparently, in the hour or so we were apart from him, our dear Terrence managed to get himself arrested."

Priss' mouth fell open. After a moment, she managed a, "Sorry, what?"

Tony was wasting no time, already making straight for the coat rack. "We need to be down there."

Priss rushed to join him, making a break for her coat. "Why? What's happened?"

Tony turned towards her, face drawn and serious. "He had to be removed from the Sister Doris Aching Memorial Hospital after committing getting into an altercation. They said he was sitting in a cell at the local police station. Crying."

Chapter Text

Tony was not, by anyone's standards, a reckless driver. He was, indeed, the man who would wait out a red light at a completely empty intersection, and, if he were to take anything road-legal around a track, its indicators would be on in the corners.

Anyone who saw him in this moment, however, would get a very different idea of his driving habits. Priss' head slammed into the roof of the car. Out of what was probably force of habit rather than willingness, they'd set off in Tony's Renault Four. The body roll was quite bad.

As if to accentuate this point, they plowed round another corner. Priss screamed a little, sliding to the other side of the bench. Vaguely, she regretted not fastening her seatbelt. Tony ignored her, not out of malice, but out of a very intense focus on just getting there.

They came into town, narrowly avoiding a barrage of honking cars with incredibly startled drivers. He ran three red lights, at one point nearly t-boning a Land Rover.

At this point, they were in the town centre. Terrified pedestrians got quickly out of the way as the dented brown Renault barreled into the carpark of the local police station and situated itself diagonally across three spaces. Tony punched open the door, and ran off into the station without bothering to close it.

Priss realised he'd committed several major traffic code violations right under the coppers' noses, and figured she'd better tidy up before anyone noticed. Climbing into the driver's seat, she quickly parked it in a semi-neat way, at least, one that only took up one space. She got out and closed the door.

Priss had never been in the Giggleswick police station before. Some part of her brain that wasn't sick with worry decided then and there that she wouldn't be in there again, given the choice. The dusty linoleum floor was in some of the worst colours imaginable, and the water pipes passing above were exposed to full view.

Tony was standing in front of a beige metal desk, talking to the old lady behind the desk. She was every inch an aged receptionist, from her gaudy false nails to the smoldering cigarette clutched between her fingers. Tony's hand was tapping nervously against his leg, and he was nodding tersely at what she had to say. Priss stepped behind him.

The receptionist noticed her. "Who's this, dear?" she droned in a raspy voice.

"Family friend. She's here to see him as well."

She eyed Priss for an uncomfortable few moments. "Alright," she said eventually, "you can go in. Pete's got the key. Pete!" she shouted, surprisingly loudly. "These two are here to visit, show them the cells."

Priss and Tony turned to see a pale beanpole of a young man, draped in a police uniform, emerge from a hallway to their left. "H-hello," he stuttered, "It's, er, to the right."

Tony affirmed this with a tense "Alright."

They followed the officer down a hallway, equally as unpleasant as the first, until they reached a row of three doors, with bars in.

"He's in the first one on y-your left," the copper informed them quietly, unlocking the door and quickly retreating.

Tony pushed it inwards. Terry was sitting on the bench inside with his head in his hands. His knuckles, and some other bits of his hands besides, were bloodied and slowly turning black and blue. He didn't seem to notice that the door was open.

"Terry!" hissed Tony insistently.

He lifted his head up slowly. He had indeed been crying. The skin around his eyes was ruddy, swollen, and probably slightly sticky.

Tony looked at him, wearing a look of plainly not knowing what to do. "Terry, what in god's name happened?

"What the hell do you think?" He didn't look up. His voice sounded as if it was being pulled across a rough surface. 

The older man stepped a bit closer, growing steadily more concerned. "Listen, I know it's hard for you, but you need to tell us what happened. We need to get you out of jail, how'd you get in here?"

Terry sprang up, roughly and unexpectedly. His face was inches away from Tony, who, despite the height difference, still looked somewhere in the vicinity of terrified.

"No, you don't bloody well know that it's hard for me! When, in your entire life, have you tried to empathise with anyone? He's dead, our boy is dead, why have you got to make me say it?" Rasping sobs made their way out of his throat.

"D'you know who was at hospital to comfort me? Robert bloody Damson." He seemed much angrier than he did sad. "Apparently, there was a little something in that contract we signed. We can't press charges, we can't so much as touch them. And before you ask, Priss, it was legally binding. I was talking with some of these coppers earlier. We can't do a damn thing."

He was physically shaking with rage at this point. "I wish I could've broken more than just his nose."

Tony and Priss stood there, shocked. "I-I'm sorry, I-" stuttered the brunet.

"You're sorry about what?" spat Terry. "Sorry for speaking like that to me? Sorry you're an unfeeling bastard?"

Tony's face hardened into a scowl. "I'll have you know that was thoroughly uncalled for."

Terry's eyes widened, then narrowed angrily. "You see, this, this is your problem, Anthony. This is why you can't keep a damn job. Because you just don't know when to shut up."

Tony opened his mouth to issue a retort, but he became distracted, briefly.

Priss was crying. Not that anyone would know, but she made sure they saw it. Not, of course, to say that she wasn't crying for a reason. The world had come crashing down around her, with the very distinct noise of an avalanche. She let herself sink down into the floodwaters.

Her face was radiating heat, and it was already streaked with, unpleasantly enough, tears, sweat, and bogeys. She felt like a mess, and there was a fair amount of truth to that.

It didn't matter. The Nico who always volunteered for everything, who laughed at jokes he didn't really get, just because they sounded funny, who had an odd semi-obsession with putting ice cream in different sodas, was gone. Just... gone. Like that.

With another wave of nausea, she remembered that he was a year younger than her. Eighteen. They'd taken him to a local pub on his birthday for his first legal drink.

Unfortunately, it had been a beer which still had twigs in. He'd tried so hard to stop spluttering into his pint of "good British tradition" before anyone noticed. But the damage had been done, they'd all laughed helplessly that night.

Priss felt like she was going to vomit. Nothing like that night was ever going to happen, ever again. That was it. It was the sense of finality that hit her the hardest. Nicola Stenopoulous was never going to turn nineteen, and it wasn't bloody well fair.

Suddenly, she felt a stocky pair of arms scoop her up. She opened her eyes. Terry was giving her a hug. After a moment, she squirmed out of it, without a lot of resistance.

Tony looked down at her with sad eyes, and handed her a handkerchief. "You needn't be miserable. I'm sorry we are, but we're adults, we're like that anyways."

She let out a hiccuping snort of sorts. "I'm an adult, too, I'm nineteen."

Terry chuckled grimly. "Don't be pedantic, it's his thing." Priss laughed a little bit, although it was less laughing, and more soggy giggling.

"Let's get out of here," Tony sighed. "I'll pay your bail. We can be back in town for the trial."

Terry gingerly flexed a bruised finger. "Actually, you won't have to. Damson said he wasn't going to press charges."

Priss frowned. This was the slightest bit unusual. "What? That's, uh, un-lawyerly of him."

Tony frowned as well, thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Right. That makes sense. If you were tried for hitting him, I suppose you'd have to mention why you hit him. Which would be a violation of that horrid contract, which, if you're right, testifying against him or his company would be illegal because of. For that matter, something tells me he'll pull strings to keep you out of court."

Terry's hands, despite their injured state, balled up into fists.

Tony looked down for a moment, then back up again. "Well, I suppose you're home free, for now." He went back towards the front desk, probably to get things sorted on that front.

Priscilla and Terry stood there, in the doorway of the old cell. After a while, Terry spoke up. "Life doesn't go the way you, or anymore, really, wanted it to, most of the time. But no matter what, it goes. It goes on."

She nodded. Tears were starting to well up again.

Chapter Text

The door to the garden shed slid open with a loud rasp of wood against wood. Priscilla stood in the doorway, outlined in the grey light of a properly miserable foggy British noon. It was drizzling outside.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. She had a job to do, now. She had given herself a little rest and let herself cry, and she would've stayed there, but she felt a sense of responsibility. Besides, there was an old adage that said work was the best distraction.

Although Priscilla didn't care much for old adages, she needed something. At least she thought she did. Somehow, she'd gotten into her subconscious an idea that could have only been consciously conceived by a deranged optimist, and that was if she could somehow get through to the Racing Driver, everything would be alright. Well, not everything, and not alright. Things are rarely all right. Especially not now. Some things could at least more more right.

But she was certainly nervous about trying for it, because the Racing Driver was an unknown. It was an animal, and it had already been made clear to them that it could and would fight, if provoked. The thing was, she didn't have the first clue what would count as provocation. And how to talk to it to begin with? Could it send its thoughts out to everybody, or just certain people? Could she send hers back?

She looked back over her shoulder. Tony gave her a thin smile from his place a few feet to her right. She returned it, trying to feel reassured. She took a couple steps into the shed, her heartbeat getting steadily more obtrusive. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, or, rather, the lack of it, she could make out the form of the Racing Driver, curled into a foetal position in the corner. Next to it was a stack of old blankets, still completely untouched.

Trying to be quiet as the proverbial churchmouse, Priss tiptoed towards it. Its head shot up, facing towards her. She must have jumped about a metre, panic lancing rapidly through her. A moment passed. It wasn't asleep anymore, at least, not after she had come in. The one eye visible through the crack in its visor, was open, though hooded and fairly angry. It was making a noise like an idling Mustang, but with an undertone of tension something inorganic couldn't have produced.

Pulse pounding through her jugular, Priss took another tentative step forward. Its shoulders tensed up, and it got up onto what Priss would call, a bit dramatically, its haunches. The low "idling" sound ramped up into a definite V8 growl.

At this point, Priss felt like she should say something, although, "Good boy, please don't hurt me," would definitely be inviting trouble. She didn't quite know how to talk to it, though. How do you calm down something that looks like a human, at least, from what you can see, acts somewhat like a dog, and sounds like a car?

"Er, hello," she began.

Alright, good start, she thought shakily.

"I know you're probably a bit upset right now. Trust me, I am too."

It tensed even more, slowly rising into a sort of standing crouch. The noises coming from it could only be described as "dazed, confused, and willing to lash out", if ever a car could've expressed such a thing.

Not only that, but it was sort of... gesturing. Not rude gestures, although they couldn't be sure. It looked like it was using some sort of sign language, not that anyone present knew British Sign Language to know that it wasn't that.

Priss looked back. Tony was very close behind her, looking very, very worried.

"Tony!" she hissed at him. "I really don't think it's pleased about having two people in here.

His frown deepened. "Are you sure?"

She looked at the Racing Driver again. Its gaze was flickering rapidly between the two of them. It still looked angry and bewildered, but this time with a touch more terror.

"Yes!" she squeaked. "But please don't go too far."

"You won't have to worry about that," he whispered. "Please, please be careful."

He backed out slowly, until he was hovering just outside the doorway. Priss turned back to face the Driver.

"Sorry about that," she said to it, quite quietly. "He really means best, but I know you probably don't like to have company. Don't worry, you're doing just fine with me, right now."

She tried to keep her tone conversational, but her voice kept on shaking. The thing wasn't calming down, not even close. It obviously had no idea what she was saying, which just further confused and enraged it.

"Alright," she began, "we can try something different, if you'd like." This was said with all the desperate diplomacy of a preschool teacher breaking up a squabble between two murderous tots. Making sure to not take her eyes off the red-suited figure, Priss backed up, whispering, "Plan B, plan B!"

Tony didn't need to be told. He had seen the way things were going, and had already gotten the requisite item. He  handed her the record player behind her back. She shuffled her grip around to try to compensate for its slightly unexpected heaviness. The Racing Driver was looking at her very intently. It still looked mad, in both senses of the word, and terrified like only a cornered animal could be, but some measure of curiosity had crept into its behaviour.

Priss knelt down by the outlet built into the side of the shed. It was a bit of an unusual feature, especially in such a place, but Priss' granddad, Fergus MacLean, had been in charge of getting the place up to snuff. No one knew whose decision putting him in charge of modernisation had been, though, since he had been going a bit senile at the time. It had made for terrific drama, one Thanksgiving.

Priss jammed the plug into the outlet, cringing at the scraping of rust against the tines. The fact of the outlet's location had made it decidedly susceptible to the elements. She skittered backwards across the concrete floor, praying she wouldn't be electrocuted. A single brown eye followed her, its gaze becoming gradually less angry.

Priss went back to the entrance of the shed and retrieved a flat, black disc from Tony, who wasn't crossing the threshold like it was some kind of cursed ley line. Said disc was not, in fact, the bottom of a cast-iron frying pan, but a record.

While she was there, she directed a whispered, "Should I talk to it? I sort of want to," backwards.

Tony thought a bit, then whispered back, "I don't see it helping, but, if you want to, it won't do any harm."

The Racing Driver followed what she was doing as closely as it wanted, which was very. As she gingerly lowered the record onto the turntable, and reached for the needle, she wasn't looking at what she was doing. Her eyes were in a very uncomfortable state of limbo between returning that mad brown-eyed stare, and avoiding doing exactly that. It was hard not to. It was trying to read her body language, plainly, so she thought it only fair to read its.

Finally, she looked down, fumbling for the buttons and knobs. "Right," she half-mumbled, "I'm going to play you some music."

It was hard to tell, what with the helmet, but it lifted its chin, standing a little straighter, a little more poised. Her heart made itself known again, because she rather hoped it wasn't poised to strike, or leap, or any other nonsense.

"T-this song's called Entangled. It's, uh, by a band called Genesis," she stuttered, backtracking a bit. She didn't know why she felt the need to give it background; it's not like it could understand.

She set the needle in the groove and hit play. 

Chapter Text

Priss wasn't quite sure what she expected to happen after that. She'd made this plan because of the old saying, "Music soothes the savage breast." Or "beast". She could never remember.

But old sayings were pretty rubbish. Even though that thing probably had a one hell of a savage breast, whatever that meant, who was Priss to say whether it'd be soothed by some guitar plunking?

Anyhow, the song started. A delicate, swaying melody lit into the dull surroundings, each note like a firefly in a sleepy summer's evening. Priss watched, fascinated.

The Racing Driver was transfixed. It occurred to her that it had probably rarely ever heard music. Why would it have? It's not like its keepers had shown signs of caring about it. And certainly not music like this.

Its eyes started to drift to a faraway place. She found herself wishing, oddly, for it to be able to understand the lyrics. "When you're asleep they may show you aerial views of the ground. Freudian slumber empty of sound."

It leaned against the wall, its head still angled towards her, but its posture distinctly less wound-up. Priss sat cross-legged on the floor, watching it, just as fascinated as it was.

The song picked up into the chorus, a lively, sunny waltz. "Well! If we can help you we will. You're looking tired and ill. As I count backwards, your eyes become heavier still."

And her eyes were indeed becoming heavier. Every hour she'd stayed up where she'd normally be sleeping counted towards another lead weight piled onto her eyelids. I can't fall asleep now! she thought. I've got a job to do.

So she watched the Racing Driver. It was hard to tell what was

happening, but it was definitely more relaxed than it had been before. "Sentenced to drift far away now, nothing is quite what it seems. Sometimes entangled in your own dreams."

Priss let a little smile creep onto her lips, despite quite literally almost everything. She loved that song. She'd thought it would work. And it had. She stood up. Maybe it would be more cooperative when it was distracted? She was going to have to get its helmet off someone, why not now?

She looked it dead in the eye, bolstered by the subtle menace in the song's chorus. She mimed taking a helmet off. Amazingly, it did. It reached up, and pulled off its much-abused crash helmet.

Priss got chills. It was the music. It must have been. The otherworldly choir singing over the delicate guitar picking and powerful bass pedal provided a more than over-the-top setting for what was, objectively, just a face.

It was framed by badly matted dark hair, and it was noticeably very, very gaunt. Apart from that, it looked like a teenager on the older side of things, from somewhere vaguely exotic, like Spain,  Italy, or, well, Greece. It had tan skin and a medium-strong kind of nose, and, very telling of the teenager bit, some spots.

Still, there was something about it. It was so transfixed, so transported, Priss couldn't help look at its eyes. The music had been building, the ethereal keyboard solo building to a head- until it hit a note, different somehow, evoking the sense of a realisation that something had gone terribly... different. Not wrong, just different.

And on that, it looked straight at her. Chills cascaded down her spine. They just stood there, seemingly forever, eyes locked tight, like. And then, suddenly, its looked somewhere else, not anywhere in particular. It began to sink to its knees. It was... crying.

Priss was suddenly flooded with sadness, like a levy had burst. It wasn't really directed anywhere in particular, just more a sort of all-purpose sadness. A portion of it, though, definitely had Nico's name written somewhere on it, though it felt more like emptiness than all the other bits.

As the last strains of the song faded out into the gloom of the garden shed, there was no sound left but the Racing Driver's sobbing. Priss felt a deep jab of sympathy. How was it that it sounded exactly like a machine, before, and now, so painfully human? She dropped down into a crouch to match it. It was slumped against the wall.

"You poor thing," she muttered. Silently, solemnly, she resolved to never call him an it ever again. It had been slightly excusable before. She'd had no idea what was behind the mask. Now, though? She saw that he was a crying boy, couldn't have been much older than her.

For god's sake, he had spots on his forehead. If that wasn't close enough to home, she didn't know what was. He might not have been human, but he was human enough, as far as Priscilla was concerned.

She reached out an awkward hand to try to touch his shoulder or something, frankly, she didn't really have the first clue how to go about working with the... creature? Man? Boy? Her hand was about a millimetre from him when he recoiled about as fast as, well, nearly anything from fire.

And then the strangest thing happened. A... feeling, if it could be called that, poured into the forefront of her mind. No, it wasn't so much a feeling as an intent, a meaning. And it meant that she should get the hell away.

Startled, she recoiled, too. Understandably. She stared at him with wide, alarmed eyes. Both of them were breathing heavily. She looked back. Tony was about a foot behind her, a deep frown creasing his brow.

She turned to face forwards again, the absolute picture of bewilderment. "What?"

Some more thoughts popped into her head, this time solidifying into words. Namely "what" and "how". 

"I'm... sorry?" She didn't quite know why she said that. It just seemed right. Well, less wrong than anything else.

He looked just as confused, but his thoughts were loud and clear this time. 'Stop making those noises and say what you mean.'

She blinked hard. 'I'm sorry,' she thought. She send the thought out the way someone very patronising would talk to a foreigner, as in very loudly, slowly, and clearly. She practically sent a stream of apologeticness in his direction, although it took along with it a fair amount of the fear that was running around in her head, screaming, in large quantities.

'You're not. I scare you,' he responded. He growled a deep V8 growl.

'Well, you do scare me,' admitted Priss. The growling wasn't helping.

'Good,' he thought, snarling. 'You should be afraid. I could hurt you, I could hurt anyone. I have before.'

"Priscilla, what's going on?" asked Tony, who was less becoming frightened, and more just staying in the same bit of fright he'd been stewing in previously.

The Racing Driver revved angrily in his direction. 'Stop making noises I can't understand! I knew it! This is just more of the stables, and you're going to try to finish me off.'

He stepped emphatically forwards, until he was just millimetres in front of Priss. He glared down at her. He was too close to her again, his shivering, growling bulk, and she liked it even less than their previous close encounter.

'I won't let you,' he thought, a mixture of anger and smugness. 'I won't let you kill me. They tried once, I fought them. They found new people, took my real match from me, but I'll fight you too. I will.'

Tony leaned down and muttered, "It looks like he's threatening you. What, exactly, is going on here?"

The red-suited man's gaze turned on him like a police searchlight that happened to be quite angry. 'When is it going to happen? If you're not going to kill me now, why are you here?'

Priss found herself doing the mental equivalent of gabbling, 'No, you don't understand, we're not going to-'

He glared at her again. 'Stop lying to me! Everyone's lying to me!' He took in great, suffering breaths. 'He said it would all be fine. But it's not! He told me I could trust you, too. But you could've done something.'

Engine noise screamed in her face.

'Why didn't you do anything?'

Priscilla blinked, stunned. She felt Tony's hand on her arm. She landed heavily back in the land of reality, with the realisation that she was basically being dragged out of the shed.

Chapter Text

"W-wait, no! I have to talk to him!" Priss protested.

Tony let her go, bewildered. "Priscilla, what are you on about?"

She took a deep breath. "He was talking to me, in my head. You know, like..." She trailed off, waving her arms about.

"Go on," prompted Tony.

"Yeah. Anyways, he was obviously frightened of us. He thought this was just another way the breeders were trying to kill him. He thought..." Breath shivered out from between her teeth. "I could feel it. He knew who I was. He thought it was our fault, my fault-"

A lump in her throat intruded into the conversation, making it too painful to speak. "Our fault about Nico," she finished.

Tony let out a long, shuddering sigh. "Let me be clear. This is not your fault."

She sniffled, eyes swimming with tears. "But what if it is?"

He laid a firm hand on her shoulder, pulling her into an equally firm look. "It isn't. Just... take that as gospel, please."

Slightly dazed, she wiped her nose on her sweater sleeve.

"If you must talk to it, I want you to let it know the same thing, do you understand?"

She nodded tearfully, and started back towards the entrance.

"Wait," interjected Tony. He didn't say it very urgently. "I'll let you talk to him," he explained, "but I should like to be very close by."

She nodded her assent, not bothering to turn around. Walking back into the shed, she reached for the... feeling, sort of, of sending her thoughts out to the red-suited young man who was huddled in the corner, eyeing her resentfully.

After casting about in the darkened bit-between-the-seat-cushions of her brain, she finally found a thought that was the right, er, shape. Or something.

She found that intersection where his thoughts had come through, and found it not only empty, but tightly and stubbornly sealed. Frowning, Priss crouched down by him.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" she asked aloud. "I'm not going to hurt you, not at all. I feel like you should know that."

He revved threateningly at her, curling tighter into the corner. Backing away, she turned to Tony.

"What did it say to you?" he asked anxiously. She shook her head. "He didn't say anything. I think he's closed his mind off to me or something."

Tony nodded. "That does make sense, in a way, although I'd have opted for a more open dialogue."

Despite everything, Priss rolled her eyes a bit. "Yes, thank you for your input."

They both looked at the Racing Driver, then back, vaguely, in each other's direction. "So what do we do now?"

Tony sighed, and ran a hand though his hair. Despite being, by nearly anyone's standards, very young, a couple of grey hairs had decided to manifest themselves near his temples. "Well, that is the question, isn't it?"

She nodded. "I think we should play him another record," she said after a while. "It's how we got through to him in the first place."

Tony considered this. "What would you want to play to him?"

She shrugged. "Anything, really. I don't know. Just grab the first record you can find."

"Right." He loped back to the car shed, which was where their rather precarious stack of records was stored.

Meanwhile, Priss crept back towards the Racing Driver. She peered at him pensively. "Why would we want to kill you? We're not part of the stable. Most things aren't, you know. There's more to life than the men who hurt you."

Even though she knew she was basically speaking into the void, the curious looks he was giving her made her feel a little better. Suddenly, he tensed again.

Priss' brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" She looked around for an answer to her own question. And she found it.

Tony, clutching an album, cautiously backed out of the shed. "Should I stay out here, then?" he asked.

Priss shook her head. "No, come in, it's alright."

The soles of his two-inch-heeled loafers clicked slowly and deliberately on the concrete floor. With each step, it sounded like someone was revving an engine more and more aggressively.

Priss tried to give the Racing Driver a comforting look, which was difficult, considering he was practically plastered to the wall. "He won't hurt you. Truly and honestly. He's just bringing us some more music."

Tony kneeled down by the record player, looking at Priss awkwardly, his mind not quite full of questions, but still pretty damn puzzled.

"Do you want to tell us what you've got?" She sat behind a neutral smile, the very picture of politeness.

A bit thrown at her frankly robotic expression, he scrabbled wildly on the cliffs of conversation. "Well, er, yes. Sorry. We've got, er, a disc, an album."

Priss nodded, in the universal symbol for "go on".

"It's called The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," he continued, finally gaining purchase. "You seemed to like 'Entangled', so I figured you should like some more of the sort. You know. Genesis."

He finished off the sentence with a very small, very distinctly fake smile. Tony didn't smile often; nearly everyone agreed it didn't suit him.

"Right," said Priss. "Put it on, then."

Tony slid the disc out of its sleeve, and slowly lowered it onto the turntable, without taking his eyes off the Racing Driver. He set the needle in the groove, as if giving a demonstration to a small child.

Record crackling mixed with cold air in the large, dark shed. Then the song started. Piano notes bustled back and forth across a busy street, in fast-forward. An insect's buzzing gave rise to a drumroll.

Priss looked over at the Racing Driver. Again, he was nearly hypnotised. It was like the song was a world he'd immersed himself in, and every new sound was a piece of scenery. His ears didn't physically perk up, but they gave the impression.

The song settled into a stroll, sprung with nervous energy. Tony was sitting cross-legged, unconsciously tapping his finger on the floor in time to the music.

"Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid, steps into the daylight, spraygun hid," proclaimed the speakers.

Priss chose, well, not chose to, but in any case, she did zone out. Her chest had a sort of hollow feeling, it reminded her that she had been crying. She didn't mind remembering that. She just didn't want to remember why.

Floating back into reality, she heard "-cabman's velvet glove sounds the horn, and the sawdust king spits out his scorn. 'Wonder women, you can draw your blind. Don't look at me, I'm not your kind! I'm Rael!'"

It was more than likely just her imagination, but she thought the Racing Driver was mouthing the words. She could easily picture it, at least, the sentiment seemed to match up with how he talked. He was a bit of an angry bastard, indeed, but she was almost sure it wasn't his fault.

The music faded out. Before the next song could play, Tony reached out and tapped the pause button. Priss sat up, somewhat startled.

"What'd you do that for?" she demanded, sort of indignantly. The Racing Driver looked up at the both of them, probably sharing her sentiment, if a bit less politely.

Tony stood up, and sighed. "Priscilla," he began impatiently, "It's twelve o'clock. I'd rather not starve."

She stared at him in disbelief. "Tony, he needs me!"

"Really. Because it seems to have decided it doesn't need you."

Priss, open-mouthed, looked to him, the Racing Driver, and then him again. Then, more out of stress and lack of sleep than anything else, her lip began to tremble, and a flush cascaded down her face. Don't cry, you idiot, her brain shouted. Why are you crying now?

Awkwardly, Tony patted her on the shoulder. "There, there. You can stay here, if you like. I shall cook."

Faced with a bit of guilt, the prospect of Tony's cookery notwithstanding, she shook her head weakly. "N-no, you're right. It wouldn't do much good."

A pair of weary, confused brown eyes watched the pair exit, and the door trundle shut behind them.

Chapter Text

Priscilla picked at her cheese toastie disinterestedly. Despite the fact that she hadn't had a thing to eat since about midnight, her appetite had yet to voice any objections.

She looked at the kitchen ceiling. The disgustingly yellowed plaster seemed very interesting, all of a sudden. A little spider skittered across it. Normally, she would have squealed for it to be squashed, but she really wasn't in the mood for squashing. Maybe it was a spider mum.

"Are you quite alright?" asked Tony.

"No," the young blonde whined. "Have you heard from Terry?" she asked, still staring blankly upwards.

The brunet, not wanting to speak with his mouth full, shook his head. Priss sat up a bit. "D'you think they'll come back?"

Tony looked down and sighed, in the universal sign of an exasperated adult. "I don't know," he admitted. "Frankly, Priscilla, I'd be surprised if even Terry came back, let alone Craig or Nigel."

Her lower lip wobbled precariously. "I wouldn't blame them. I'm wondering if it's even worth it anymore."

He massaged the bridge of his nose. "Do stop that sort of talk. I'm not leaving."

"You aren't?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

He shook his head. "I've been hired, and subsequently fired, from nearly every car manufacturer in Britain. Even the ones that are just blokes in sheds. Even some in France. The only place I've got left, really, is Detroit." He smirked ruefully. "Can you imagine that? Me, in America?"

Priss smiled slightly, sadly, at him. "You'd do amazingly, I'm sure. If Ford takes you on, please do try to make the Cortina less terrible. My grandad had one, and he complained about it all the time. T-then again, he was a Scot, through and through..." She trailed off, not laughing and crying at the same time, but definitely doing something between the two.

He shook with small, dry laughter, as well. "I wish I could share in your optimism on that front. Priscilla, I'm not going to America. I'm staying. Here. I can't guarantee the others, but you'll always have me."

He looked around at where he was, which was the kitchen table. It was a round slab of Formica that was about six years older than Priscilla, and looking a lot worse for it. The whole house was a bit of grating to be around, but it had its dusty, "stuck with you" sort of charm, like a nagging old baggage that you happened to be married to. Anthony was married to his work, and his work was his team and their car. His home was Snoughton Manor, North and East a bit from Giggleswick. It had been that way for a longer time than he'd like to admit.

Priss got up, her chair making a horrendous noise on the linoleum. Tony sat up. "What are you doing? You've not touched your lunch."

She smiled a small sliver, getting a frying pan out of its cupboard. "I'm doing all I can."

About twenty minutes later, the door to the garden shed opened to let in the light of noon. Priscilla MacLean took a few steps inside. They were, however, rocket-propelled steps.

She'd cleaned up, both mentally and physically. She'd showered, brushed her hair, and changed into a pair of bell-bottomed jeans and, despite the cold, an aggressively blousy top. She was always the sort to reason that looking good was worth freezing, even if you had no one to impress.

With waitressly stability, her right hand supported a plate of assorted sandwiches. The Racing Driver had been glaring at her with trepidation for about fifteen seconds at that point. She took another step forward, and stood there for a while, looking with a determined indifference into his eyes. "You know, we're not going get anywhere like this."

He continued glaring, since she could have easily said his mother was a complete pillock, and he wouldn't have been able to tell. "I'm going out on a limb, and assuming that it was your decision not to talk to me. Think, rather. You know, I should just say communicate, make it easy."

She looked down, then back up again. She had to draw on all the crime dramas she'd ever watched for this. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way, yeah?" He started revving in quiet suspicion, possibly detecting an element of threat in her tone.

"I've got food," she stated levelly. "Loads of sandwiches. Toasties. They're not precisely gourmet, but they're good anyhow. We've also got some leftover vegetable soup," she elaborated. "You're probably hungry. Starving, I'd guess." Damn. Should've said that first, she thought.

"A-anyhow, here's the deal. You, uh, communicate with me, and you get all the food we have to offer. You can come into the nice, warm house, and, uh, maybe change out of that jumpsuit. But not if you don't want to," she backtracked.

Slowly, not breaking contact with those suspicious, angry, terrified brown orbs, Priss sat down, sliding the plate behind her like a small child's attempt at deception. She shivered violently. Denim was no defence against a cold cement floor.

The Racing Driver hunkered down in front of her. "But if you want to stay stony, you know, it's your choice..." They sat there for an uncomfortably long time, just staring. Priss tried to muster her powers of command, and send them out by way of her eyes. She just ended up with a headache. A breeze blew through the gaps in the ancient timbers.

Eventually, she felt a grudging touch in the back of her brain. 'What do you want?'

She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in. 'I want you to talk to me.'

He narrowed his eyes. 'Why?'

She paused. Finding just one or two reasons was... difficult. So, naturally, she defaulted to something a bit more familiar. 'Because... because you're our only hope.'

His brow furrowed, likely because he didn't quite understand the mental image that accompanied it. He blinked, shook his head. 'What?'

Priss blushed a little. 'Sorry. What I mean is, we're a racing team, and we've got no driver. We might not even have mechanics, now.' She tried to keep a sense of hopelessness at arm's length. 'That's why we wanted you. We came to get you in the stables, but they took you away from us. For... unfair reasons'.

She tried to send him her memories of the day, but all the could concentrate on were a few images and impressions. A deep sadness radiated from him, and a burning anger. Priss tried to keep her thoughts bright and determined. It was important to make the right impression.

'So we came for you again. Because we needed you.' She was very, very careful not to think of olive skin, or a daredevil smile, or mild, boyish laughter. There was a silence.

'So what do you want to do?' asked Priscilla, who never knew how to deal with silences. 'I guess if you say no, we could just give you some clothes, send you on your way. Or,' she offered, very unsubtly, 'you could race.'

'You say I have a choice,' the Racing Driver sulked. 'And you try so hard to convince me you're honest.'

Priss sighed. He was right, but she really wasn't in the mood for it. 'Yeah,' she admitted, 'you're right. There's not much choice. I suppose it'd be a little hard to find a place to live. We could take care of you, maybe. Racing doesn't have to enter into it.'

He looked at her like she'd just suggested he take a garden implement and do something remarkably specific and incredibly graphic with it. His response could only really be described as a flat "what", but to the power of ten.

Priss, catching his meaning as only a complete non-oblivious non-moron could, kind of bit her lip awkwardly. 'You know,' she sent, even though he clearly didn't, 'there does happen to be more to life than hooning around in a little car with a big engine.'

His next message didn't pour into her mind. It flooded in. And it wasn't a message. It was a life. The thrill, the rush, the singular triumph and pleasure of racing, the excited, fluttery feeling that came from finally getting his line just right, the feeling, substantial and brassy like gold, of overtaking.

And there was something else, too; the rage, the bottomless indignance at how she'd just told him that so much could just be nothing. The message was clear: racing is life.

There was a very pointedly awkward silence. The Racing Driver was breathing quite hard. Priscilla didn't notice, but he had been bellowing loudly at her during his mental diatribe.

She swallowed hard. 'Well. Ok. Even if you don't want to race for us, we'll find a way.'

Confusion jabbed out at her. 'You brought me here. These are your stables. How... Why would I race for another team?'

It wasn't so much a question as him simply being psychologically unable to get his head around what she was saying. It was like trying to put a dodecahedronal peg in a round hole.

She looked at him sympathetically. 'You're free. We can't force you to do anything.'

He looked at her suspiciously. 'If I don't want to race for you, I don't have to,' he repeated, handling the notion like a rather interesting, if possibly venomous insect.

She nodded. 'That's right.'

'But if I don't, I will be on my own. You'll abandon me, just like that.'

'No, no!' Priss insisted. 'We'll give you a place to live, but you're your own man. You're going to have to do some things for yourself.'

She was starting to get a bit frustrated. It wasn't his fault he didn't understand, but it was still just as much of a roadblock as if it had been. She felt a mounting frustration from him, too. He just sat there, doing something between giving her a suspicious look, and glaring.

'You make no sense,' he said finally. 'Your world is all wrong. Next you'll be telling me that up is down, left is right, accelerating is stopping.' A muscle in his face twitched. 'But I will race for your team.'

Priss didn't physically breathe a sigh of relief, but a happy lack of tension spread through her body. 'Thank you,' she sent. She mustered as much tired gratitude as she could, trying to filter out the frustration. 'Thank you.'

He sent her a reminder, a nagging impression of hunger. Not the sort of hunger faced by people like us, who, eventually, have places to rest and things to eat. He'd been cold, hungry, sick, and grieving. He ached.

She felt a wave of nauseous guilt. She'd forgotten the sandwiches. She'd been so engrossed in trying to understand him, she hadn't stopped to consider one of the reasons he was just so frustrated. Despite the cold, she felt a guilty flush pervade her face.

She slid the plate forwards, radiating apologies in his direction. He picked up one of the toasties, which the wind had sucked all the toastiness out of, looked at it up and down, and took a quarter of it out in one bite. The rest quickly followed. She pushed the plate towards him, shuffling slightly backwards. He finished the rest off in an alarmingly short amount of time.

No gratitude came from him, just a flat demand: 'You said there was more.'

Priss raised her eyebrows slightly. 'Yes, there is. Doesn't look like there'll be for much longer, though.'

Ignoring her, he asked, 'Where?'

'Inside the house. Just one thing, though,' she sent, standing up. 'What's your name?'

She extended a hand, to help him up. He ignored it completely, as if he didn't know what it was for. Actually, he probably didn't. He drew himself up to full height, and imperiously looked her in the eye. Then he told her.

It wasn't really a name, per se. "Name" wasn't a word that really translated. So he told her who she was, a story of anger, and rebellion, strength and regret, a tale of occasionally doing the right thing, but most often doing it wrong.

A sliver of a grin crept onto her face. "Oh. Hello, Rael. I'm Priscilla."

Even though she said it aloud, he got her meaning.

Chapter Text

The frost-frozen grass crunched under Rael's ill-fitting, dirty sneakers. He looked at it suspiciously, took another tentative step, and was rewarded with another crunch.

Priss wrapped her arms around herself, loose white sleeves flapping in the wind. 'Aren't you cold?' she asked, looking back at him.

'Yes,' he sent distractedly. Negotiating the terrain was definitely a more interesting activity. The few times he had walked on grass, it had just been sort of... there. It had squelched, occasionally, but certainly had never crunched at him.

It felt so odd to be without his helmet, especially outside. He didn't like it. The feeling of wind lifting up his hair and tucking it behind his ears reminded him distinctly of his dam. Which was something he didn't want to remember.

His feet hit the concrete right outside of the house. He just sort of stared at the manor's wall. He'd seen some of these places from far away, between being herded into windowless sheds and transport vans.

"Hey!" He heard a noise to his right. Priscilla was standing just outside a doorway. Buttery yellow light and warmth radiated out of it, pulled along by the wind. "The kitchen's in here. You know. Just thought you'd be interested."

Rael picked up on a rather muddled blob of meaning. She meant for him to follow her. Trudging towards her, he sent his mounting annoyance: 'Say what you mean. Making noises will not help.'

He cut his thoughts up as if he was feeding them to a baby. An apology floated back. He decided to just accept it and move on, an odd choice for him, but she did seem to be his meal ticket.

The inside of the house had so much going on inside. The room he'd entered was more of a corridor, filled with dust and small chairs. Every available surface was made of a yellow and white material in a pattern that hurt his eyes to look at. And on those surfaces, there was something on almost every inch of it, although, besides the dishes, he had no idea what most of them were.

Despite his uncertainty, the sleepy warmth put some slack into his high-strung mood. So did the mouthwatering smell of some sort of food. It was clearly coming from a kind of small bucket. Little flames poked out from under it. The other human, the one whose body language exuded suspicion and fear, was stirring the hearty stuff inside.

He looked at Rael, the tense line of his mouth twitching slightly. "Aren't you going to introduce me?" he deadpanned.

"Oh! Uh,"  Priscilla began, realising that saying something actually would be a good idea, "you've met before, I know, but, uh, Tony, meet Rael."

Tony smirked softly. " You called it Rael?"

"Yes," she responded defensively. "Is there any problem with that?"

He shook his head. "Oh, none at all. I suppose you both want lunch, then."

"He certainly does. But I'm not very hungry."

He ladled out soup into two bowls, handing them both to her. "You've not had anything since last night. Just try, would you?"

If she'd had a free hand, she would've waved dismissively. "Alright, I'll try."

He leaned in closer to her, whispering, "Priscilla, I know you probably don't want me hanging around, but let me just put my foot down on this one thing: while you're still in the kitchen, I'll be here. If you two go into another room, I shan't be far behind. Do you get that?"

She nodded grudgingly. It probably wouldn't be conducive to building a rapport if every time she tried to reach out to Rael, Tony would be poking his head out around the wall, but she understood why. The less potential danger anyone could be in, the better.

She set both bowls down on the kitchen table, motioning Rael over. That was one of the confusing things, to him. She used a few gestures, but clearly didn't understand his.

He sat down. She started nattering at Tony, indistinct intent drifting out of her mind. Rael wasn't paying attention in the slightest, instead staring at his bowl of soup. It was mostly liquid, so, logically, you drank it, but then what was that metal stick for?

His "match" called out to him. Tentatively, she asked if he needed help. He flatly refused. Her eyes went sort of wide as he cupped the bowl in his hands, and took a massive swig. She laughed, sending a feeling of unintentionally smug amusement he was distinctly not pleased with.

'No, no, she corrected. You're supposed to use your spoon.' She took it in her fingers, and, very deliberately, took some of the soup in the little dip at the end.

He very pointedly didn't emulate her. Even though his body was relaxing quite a lot, his brain was having none of it and was beginning to get quite irritated. He drank some more of the broth. It sent warmth smoothly branching out into his frozen body. His eyelids felt heavy. Which he promptly ignored, and looked Priscilla dead in the eye.

'This is your track, but I will master it with my own lines,' he sent very clearly to her. 'Besides, that's a stupid way to drink anything.'

Her mouth was slightly open. 'I don't get it.'

He sighed, and it sounded like a turbo. 'You're very confused in the way that you explain things; you want me to follow your rules, but "not if I don't want to". And then you think of me like a stupid little  colt when I don't.'

She frowned. 'I do not!' she sent indignantly.

He revved at her. 'You completely do! You laugh at me, you pity me.'

She shook her head. 'I'm sorry. I don't mean to.'

He rumbled. 'That's a lie, too. When you say things to me, it's so obvious what you want to try to hide.'

Her face crumpled oddly. 'I'm trying my best!' This was less a defence, and more like giving up. 'I've never talked to someone in my head before. I've never so much as considered that I would.'

He sighed again, feeling like he was sinking. 'I never thought I'd be matched to a filly. Everything about this is wrong. Even the fact that I can tell you that is impossible.'

She frowned. 'Whatever do you mean by that?' She could feel the shape of ideas churning around in his head before he finally settled on one.

'It's... impossible. It just is. No one can be bonded to two people, not unless they have the strength of champions.'

She leaned in, even more curious than she'd been before he answered. 'Then I guess you have the strength of champions, because-'

'I don't!' He revved loudly and suddenly, pulling at his hair. 'I am nowhere near them! I have one match. When someone's match is gone, they usually die before or with them.'

He swallowed a growing lump in his throat. 'It's not fair, it's so wrong!' He gave Priscilla a look like burning coals. 'Our bond is an abomination.'

This didn't register very deeply with her. She just tried not to think of Nico. She failed, desperately. Just as suddenly as it had sprung up, the cheerful facade fell, with a nearly-audible thud.

Her face rumpled into a sob. 'Nico was my friend. He was...' She stuttered for a different descriptor. Eventually, she just sent him an impression, a memory. It was when Terry had finally proclaimed the Flower nearly finished. Naturally, they'd gone to the pub to celebrate. She didn't want to feel any detail besides that. She didn't want to touch the memory. She just wanted to pass it along.

A hollow, midnight-blue feeling seeped into her head in response. 'You mattered to him, too. He told me I could trust you. I shouldn't have doubted that. I only knew him for days,' sent Rael, idling softly, 'but I'd known him forever.'

His expression hardened. 'How dare they. They put a hole in him, in my head, in your life. How dare they.'

Chapter Text

A deep silence pervaded the kitchen.

Priscilla, who never knew how to deal with a deep silence, said "Well."

Rael glared at her. 'Don't suddenly start talking in a language I can't understand.'

'Sorry,' she sent. 'I've spoken in English all my life.'

'And don't say things you clearly don't mean,' he added.

She nearly rolled her eyes, an outburst by her standards. 'I'm trying. Is there anything about me that doesn't irritate you?'

He picked deliberately at his nails. 'No.'

'But we've only talked for, what, an hour?' If she'd said it aloud, it would've sounded more than a bit whiny. 'Always give people a chance!'

He looked heavily at her. 'Unless giving you a chance will make you change, one hour is enough.'

She stared at him in disbelief. 'Why did you even agree to race for us?' she asked, after a while of just being speechless.

'Don't know,' he fumed.

There was another silence, obviously. Rael was sort of rocking back and forth, picking at his hair and revving quietly. Priscilla realised she'd been frowning rather intensely at him, maybe even entering the vicinity of glaring.

Immediately, she felt another jab of guilt, and relaxed her expression. Of course he was on edge. She was, too. This whole affair had obviously been rather hard on him.

'Are you quite alright?' she sent him tentatively.

'No!' came the frantic response. He floundered with a tangle of words, feelings, and a dizzying array of unfamiliar memories. 'Everything has gone so, so wrong,' he repeated over and over.

Priscilla swallowed past a lump in her throat. 'If it's any consolation, I understand what you're going through.'

'No, you don't understand!' Rael lashed out. 'Every colt in the stables has two dreams: to be the very first, the fastest, the best, and to have a match. A match is-'

He gave up mid-thought, rocking back and forth. 'You really can't understand. We wait all our lives hoping to bond, because a match means home. It means leaving the cages and having something to live for. You're supposed to be one Racing Driver in two bodies.'

He sent out a gut-wrenching burst of sadness, a memory. Unlike what Priss guessed her her memories were like, it was remarkably clear. It was the memory of him seeing Nico for the first time, accurate right down to the scratches on the sheet-metal walls, right down to the tightness of the lead round his neck, right down to the warm hope he felt from the knowledge that he'd be getting out of there, that he'd have kin. The sadness didn't come from the memory, no, it was a joyful, butterflies-in-stomach moment. The sorrow was in the retrospective.

Priss gnawed reflexively at her lip. 'I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.' She looked down into her lap. 'I lost a friend the same day you did,' she told him.

He blinked heavily. 'You lost a friend. I lost my match.' The word "match" was imbued with so much meaning it was quite nearly indescribable.

Priscilla slumped in her chair. Maybe he was right. Maybe he'd lost more than her. It was a back-of-the-head sort of niggle, and it would stay that way, because it was an utterly useless thing to dwell on.

She leaned forwards, laying her clasped hands near the middle of the table. Rael noticed and looked up. She took advantage of that to look him in the eyes as earnestly as she could possibly muster. 'I want you to understand that if you think racing is life, you're in good company.'

She tried to send him memories, impressions of all her teammates. Yes, they dithered, argued, split up, and occasionally got piss-drunk for little-to-no reason, but they had petrol in their veins and pistons in their hearts. She hoped Rael got that.

'I know I wasn't what you wanted. But I'm what you've got,' she sent. 'And I'll do what I can for you.'

He seemed to sigh. 'If you want to do something for me, then just let me rest.' He pushed his bowl of soup away, now pathetically lukewarm. A feeling of tired, hollow satisfaction radiated off of him.

'Alright,' agreed Priscilla. 'I'm quite tired as well.' She paused for a moment. 'Wait, what do you mean by "rest"? Do you want to sleep? Do you even need to sleep at all?'

'Maybe I'll sleep,' he answered blankly. 'But I just need rest.'

She nodded. 'Yes, right. Do you, uh, sleep in a bed...?'

He looked confusedly at her for a moment, before just sending her a memory of stepping into what was basically a little cupboard. To Priscilla, it was an odd sort of cruelty. To Rael, a dark, unpadded alcove felt like peace. Sleep was one of his biggest comforts.

She took a moment to think this over. 'You sleep in a cupboard?'

'I sleep anywhere,' was the flat reply.

'Good,' she sent, 'because I'm not sticking you in a cupboard. It just wouldn't be right.' She stepped out into the dining room, gesturing for him to follow.

'You could take the couch, up in the sitting room,' she suggested offhandedly. 'Or you could take the guest room over there, but Terry might be wanting that.'

Rael wasn't paying too close attention to what she was telling him. He was taking in everything he could about the rooms he was quickly passing through. They soon came to the stairs, which were a bit of a puzzle for Rael. He'd gone up stairs before, obviously, but he'd never seen any covered in shag carpeting, which he interpreted to be some sort of grass.

Priss felt a tickle of amusement at how carefully he was stepping on each stair, but a bit of pity at how his filthy and obviously falling-to-bits shoes were leaving smudges. 'You need some new clothes,' she half-told him, half-realised for herself.

'Why?' he shot back. 'I am fine like I am.'

She frowned. How on earth did he not care at all about this? 'Your suit is filthy! You'll... You'll catch a disease from that thing.' They were in the middle of a dim, low-ceilinged hallway, which was lined with black-and-white photos of various and sundry MacLeans, most of which Priss had never even heard of.

Rael stopped, and turned around. 'Fine.' He started undoing the collar of his overalls.

Priss' eyes went wide. "No, no, no! What are you doing?" she squeaked aloud.

He got her point, and paused. 'You wanted me to change my clothes. I was going to.'

She flapped her hands around like the wings of a budgie that still hadn't gotten that they were clipped. 'Not right here you're not!'

He gave her what could only be described as a look. 'Why not? Do you want me to "catch a disease"?'

'Of course not. It's just-' She floundered for a moment. 'Just don't. It's, it wouldn't be right. Propriety and all. You know.'

He looked slightly suspicious for some reason. 'No, I don't.'

'Never mind. By the way', she mentioned, on the heels of a realisation, 'there's another spare room next to my bedroom. Would you be alright staying there?' He didn't seem to get what she was asking. She thought for a moment. He probably wasn't at all used to being given a choice.

She pointed at the room down the hall. 'You'll be sleeping there.' He blinked. 'I-if you like,' she added. He walked towards the doorway she had been indicating, slowly, the weak-willed floorboards making creaking noises of complaint under his feet.

He peered into the room. It was so... busy. No one was in there, of course, but every surface in the room was occupied. The place didn't look like it had been disturbed in years. He took a few steps inside. Priss was a bit behind him. She pulled a chain dangling from the ceiling, which was installed before light switches really became standard. The sudden rush of light startled Rael.

At least he could see, though, and there was a lot to see. The room itself was tiny, practically, Priss noted with no small measure of irony, a cupboard. A fussily ornate wooden dresser took up about a quarter of the room. It was covered in quite nearly every sort of curio, trinket, gewgaw, trifle, gimcrack, whatnot, and bauble you could find in the entirety of the British Isles. Next to it was a small, off-white cot held up by loose springs.

Rael advanced to the edge of the little rectangle of floorboards that was left uncluttered. Idling curiously, he brushed a cautious finger across one of the ten-odd china shepherdesses.

'What is it?' He less asked it than said it curiously.

'It's a figurine,' she answered.

He frowned a little. 'What's it for?'

She thought hard about it for a moment. 'Dunno. Just decorative.'

Slowly, he put it down, making sure not to put it anywhere besides the little outline it left in the dust. For a bit, the only noise was the rather suspect buzzing noise provided by the light fixture.

Rael took another look around. 'I will stay here.'

Priss smiled a bit, relieved. 'Good. I don't know where else I'd put you.'

Chapter Text

There were two shocked gasps from the side nearest the kitchen of the dining room table. A stunned silence followed quickly, stumbling in through the door.

"The poor lad," muttered Craig.

Nigel just sniffled into his handkerchief. It was the only sound in the room for quite a bit, besides a nearly inaudible buzzing from the single lightbulb hanging above them, which was sheathed in a glass lampshade decorated with pictures of fruit. The rest of the room, and the rest of the house, for that matter, was dark.

Craig coughed. "The Lord lays out a path for us all. You know. It was his time."

"It bloody well wasn't," objected Terry, "and you know that, Craig." He buried his head in his hands, muttering things that were thankfully unintelligible.

Tony pushed a tissue-box towards him. He pushed it back. It skidded over to Nigel, who, without missing a beat, swapped his handkerchief for a tissue and continued blubbering.

Priscilla picked restlessly at a seam on her jeans. She wasn't done crying, but she wanted to be. The fact that everyone else was at least upset wasn't helping. Besides the one time at the police station, she hadn't let the reality sink in. It was starting to catch up to her now, more than ever. She felt sick, and she wanted it to stop.

"Priscilla?" She looked up.

Tony was looking at her, concerned. "Are you quite alright?"

She blinked rapidly. "What? Oh. Yes. Just..." She waved a hand distractedly. "You know." He grimaced faintly.

Craig gnawed at his thumbnail. "So have you... done anything? Called his mum?"

Tony nodded, stubbornly looking down. His eyes could've been magnetically drawn to the Celtic knot patterns inlaid in the tabletop, for all it was worth. "I did."

"Poor woman," sighed Terry.

Ignoring him, Tony continued, attention fully focused on cleaning his fingernails. "I'll spare you the details. She wants to hold his funeral in Greece, naturally, but she thinks we should have a memorial service for him, here." He mumbled this without emotion, like he was telling an uninteresting story about something that happened to someone else.

"Oh," said Nigel, although it wasn't clear if he was indicating something, or if he was just sobbing some more.

"Does my father know?" asked Priscilla, almost whispering.

Tony nodded numbly. "Yes. He says he'll be over here from Edinburgh by tomorrow."

"Ok," she responded in a tiny voice.

Tony continued to stare at his hands, clasped in front of him. "Gentlemen, where do we go from here." There was no question mark implied. He said it like it was the title of a play.

Terry gave him a good glare. "How can you say that? It hasn't even been a day, you insensitive-"

Craig interrupted him. "I hate to say it, but Tony's got a point."

Terry rounded on him. "Oh, don't you go siding with him, you ginger-haired waster."

"No, think about it," he countered. "We don't know what's going to happen to us." Everyone went quiet. Craig continued. "I mean, we've lost a lot here. Some of us, you know, might want to get away from it. I mean, is racing even worth it anymore?"

Tony shrugged weakly. "To me it is. I'm staying. But don't let that sway you."

Nigel fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well, I'd like to stay. I-if that's alright with everyone."

Craig shrugged. "Yeah. Can't think of anything else I'd do."

The lamp swayed slightly overhead, for no discernible reason. And then Terry started laughing. It wasn't your average sort of laugh. It was definitively of the strained persuasion, veering, slightly, into very minor insanity. Everyone stared at him with varying degrees of concern.

"Terry?" ventured Tony eventually. "Are you quite alright?"

The blond fully ignored him. "Ohhh... Look at you lot."

Nigel fiddled with his grubby handkerchief. "Y-you're starting to scare me."

Terry wasn't chortling anymore, but he was grinning like he was the only one who got the joke. Which he was. "D'you know, if Nico was here, I can guarantee he'd be sorely disappointed. He'd want us to finish what he started, and you know it."

Nigel spoke up to that, surprisingly. "I may have missed something here, but we have agreed that we wanted to keep racing, a-am I right? Is there something else he started that we need to finish?"

Terry chortled at them, which was a bit disconcerting. "Look at yourselves. You're all just moping about like a great bunch of soggy loganberries. He wouldn't have liked that at all, no."

Tony have him a look of utter confusion. "Loganberries?"

He chuckled. "Loganberries are beside the point, Tony!"

"Then what is the point?"

Terry's smile faded. "Look. I'm not saying you lot can't mourn for Nico. That'd just be... a horrible thing to say. But we shouldn't give up."

Priscilla decided, then and there, that she was going to speak up. She'd been largely silent, mostly because she'd had a lot to sort out. She'd been listening to what everyone was saying, and taking it into consideration.

She stood up, quite suddenly and without so much as a warning. "Uh... excuse me. What I think Terry is saying is that, if Nico were here, he wouldn't want it to stop us from doing what we love, which, if I've read the room correctly, is racing."

She looked around. She was seeing a lot of blank faces. "If you want to back out, you still can. I mean, of course."

There was a flurry of head-shaking.

"'Course I'm staying."

"I already told you, I'm not leaving."

"N-no, me neither!"

"You won't get any disagreement from me."

Priss smiled a bit. She wasn't really in a smiling mood, but she'd heard that a good, determined smile could do wonders, and if Executive Monthly said it would, it was good enough for her.

"Thank you so, so much. I mean, this team wouldn't exist if you all didn't want it to. And Nico, too. Terry's right. He wouldn't want our work to end here." There were various grunts and other utterances of affirmation.

It was quickly spoiled by Craig. "Wait a mo'," he cut in. "I'm all on board, but what about the Racing Driver?"

"Yes, what about it?" asked Tony. "I know you two had a... conversation, or whatever you might call it."

Everyone looked taken aback.

"You what?" exclaimed Terry.

"She's the one handling it?" inquired Craig suspiciously. "That's not right. Lass could get hurt, with an animal like that."

Priss, very understandably, began to feel quite defensive. "First of all, he's a him, not an it. And I can handle myself, thank you. He isn't going to hurt me."

Nigel looked particularly nervous. "B-but what if he's dangerous? A-a-and where is he now?"

She got slightly more frustrated. They really weren't getting the message, were they? "Look, you all!"

They were stunned into silence. Priss never shouted.

"He isn't dangerous! He won't hurt us, not unless we hurt him! He's called Rael, and he's not a damn animal!"

She looked around. Everyone's eyes had gone wide.

"I mean, I guess he is, technically, it's not like he's a vegetable or mineral, heh," she backtracked. "But he's not, you know, stupid."

The floor was suddenly starting to look rather interesting. "He's, uh. He's in the upstairs spare room. Next to mine."

"Well. Er, I'm sorry if we made you feel insulted," said Tony after a while.

"You didn't insult me," she said firmly, "but you weren't being particularly nice about him."

Still looking down at the table, his eyebrows jumped upwards, then decided they wanted back down. "Well then. I shall try to respect... him, er, in the future."

She narrowed her eyes. "You aren't taking me seriously, are you?"

Craig scratched his head casually. "Well, no, to be honest. It's sort of hard to, you know, this whole thing is..."

Air sputtered out of his mouth like it was a deflating balloon. "It's just so crazy. You have a psychic, not-quite-human, racing-fixated... person, um, in the spare room upstairs. On top of, you know, everything, it's a bit much."

Priscilla nodded, sort of abashed. "Yeah. I can see how it'd be that way."

Nigel decided to speak up. "Er, maybe it would help if you explained him to us? You know, how he talks to you, what he said."

He waved his hands about near his head, as if trying, ineffectually, to shoo off ideas. "Sorry. It's probably a desperately stupid idea, I know."

She leaned over and laid a hand on his shoulder. He jumped about half a metre. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Nigel. I-"

Suddenly, her expression collapsed. Slowly, she put a hand on her stomach. "Ugh."

Terry gave her a very concerned look. "Priscilla? Love? You alright?" She shook her head, eyes screwed shut.

"Ate something bad for supper?" he suggested.

She opened her eyes, looking earnest. "No. I-it's Rael."

Chapter Text

Craig cast a concerned look at Terry and Tony, who were still sitting next to each other at the table.

"Are you sure 'Rael' isn't code for something?" he whispered very conspicuously.

He subsequently wilted under the combined force of Tony and Terry's finest glares.

"They're sharing thoughts and sensations, you twit," snarked Terry. "Put two and two together."

"So let me get this straight," corrected the Irishman, "Not only do you and, um, Rael talk with your thoughts, but you also feel what he feels?"

Priscilla nodded, quickly and silently. "And right now he's got stomach cramps?"

She nodded again. "I should go to him," she groaned.

Tony sighed. "I'll go with you. This is my fault, anyhow. I should've warned you about giving large amounts of solid food to a starving person."

She did something in the general vicinity of yelping. "Wait, so it's my fault, then?"

"That's not what I said at all! It's my fault for-"

She cut him off by not-quite-shouting "Never mind, never mind, never mind! I'm going to try to talk to him; if you want to come too, you're welcome."

They watched the mildly lengthy process of her rolling off the couch, getting to her feet, and semi-storming upstairs.

Nigel shakily raised a hand. "S-should we follow-"

"Yes," answered Terry emphatically.

Meanwhile, Priss was already on her way upstairs. Rael wasn't actively reaching out for help, but he obviously hadn't shut himself off from her like before. He hadn't shut the door on her, just curled up into a ball. She rushed into the spare room. Apparently he'd curled up physically, too.

She broached their connection tentatively. 'Rael?'

He covered his face with his arms. 'Get away from me!' His thoughts were loud, but his voice was weak.

She inched closer. 'I'm sorry, I didn't know that-'

He growled. 'So this is how it ends? Poison?' He lurched. So did she. 'I was right. I shouldn't have trusted you.'

She felt a bolt of panic. 'You're not dying, you just ate too much. Right? Right?'

He didn't respond, opting for a retch instead. She looked out of the doorway. The entire team was standing just outside, sort of shuffling uncertainly from foot to foot.

Rael retched again. Recognising the urgency of the situation, the small crowd parted rather eagerly to clear the way to the lavatory, which was quite literally behind them, right across the hallway.

Priss was sending a barrage of thoughts that were all basically variations on "Please don't be sick on the carpet." He growled at her. He obviously didn't want to move.

'Look!' she sent exasperatedly. 'I know you're determined to think I'm untrustworthy, but please, please, trust me just this once. I didn't poison you. Now please go and be sick in the toilet.'

Glaring murderously, Rael stood up slowly. He lurched to the other side of the hall, and through the doorway. Four pairs of eyes immediately trained themselves on Priscilla.

Terry was the first to rush over to her. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Numbly, she shooed him away. She could try to tune out the nausea, but it was like standing on the opposite corner of a largish room as someone who's being sick; you can still hear them.

Rael wasn't actively trying to project his thoughts to her, he wasn't hiding them, either, he was probably too distracted. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Being sick secondhand was almost enough to make her experience it firsthand.

She felt Terry's hand on her shoulder. "You alright, love?"

She nodded. "Fine. Yeah." She got shakily to her feet. "Just got to, you know. Deal with the aftermath."

She shuffled across the hall, fully aware of everyone's eyes on her. She flicked on the light switch. There was one light that was always on in that restroom, but it was a bit dim. Rael was hunched over the toilet, legs splayed out on the floor behind him.

'Not dead?' she asked gently.

'Unfortunately,' was the reply. 'If you didn't poison me, then what was that?'

She felt a guilty pang. 'I should've known this, but apparently you shouldn't give starving people very much food.'

He revved softly. 'I needed that food.'

'I'm terribly sorry, but it'll have to be less from now on. Well, not from now on. Apparently you'll have to work your way up.'

He raised his head up and looked at her balefully. She cringed, fairly hard. Apparently no one had told him you were supposed to hold your hair out of the way. There was sick on his collar, too.

"Well, that's going in the laundry," she muttered.

'What did you say?' he asked defensively.

'Nothing! Just, you know, we're going to have to clean you up.'

She got a washcloth from its rail and wetted it. 'Come here.' She wasn't at all sure how he'd respond.

Surprisingly, he actually did step forward. He angled his chin upwards. Awkwardly, she started wiping his face with the cloth. It came away caked in dirt.

She stopped and thought for a moment. 'Have you got, you know... anything on under those overalls?'

His eyes narrowed slightly. 'Yes. Why?'

Priss tapped her fingers together awkwardly. 'Well, could you...' She mimed taking off clothing, though not in too much detail.

She studied the ceiling as if she'd suddenly decided to get a Ph.D. in mouldering green plaster. Directly asking a strange young man standing in her bathroom to disrobe, no matter the circumstances, was something with which she was not exactly comfortable.

After a while, she looked back down. Rael was beginning to look quite impatient- she really had been looking away for a while- but that barely registered. What did register was a lot of things at once.

First of all, he was emaciated. Which is a very dramatic term, but it was warranted. The outline of every bone was very clearly visible through his tan skin, poking at angles. He had middling broad shoulders, somewhat like an athlete, but the yellowed cloth that was probably once a t-shirt and boxers sagged inwards, like it couldn't be bothered to deal with someone so bloody thin.

The second thing she noticed was the sheer level of filth on him. A film of dirt covered his skin, to the extent that she couldn't actually tell what colour it was. For all she knew, he could've been an albino under that lot.

Another thing was the markings. She could only see his arms, legs, and head, but between them they had what would be an entire year's worth of cuts and bruises to a reasonable person, and the amount of scars you might expect to see on a particularly clumsy farmhand, picked out in pale tissue.

Along his neck, though, there was the most striking feature in this whole mess: a string of alphanumeric gibberish tattooed there in bold, black type. 

Priss stepped forward delicately. She had no words.

Suddenly, she was snapped out of it by a message very insistently trying to reach her head.  Rael revved angrily at her. 'I said, stop staring at me!'

She looked abashed. 'Sorry.' She didn't quite know what to do at this point.

She opened the door, just enough to poke her head out. Unsurprisingly, the team had taken her absence as an opportunity to bicker.

She cleared her throat as obtrusively as she possibly could. Four faces snapped to look at her, all caught in various stages of disagreeing very pointedly with each other.

She took a very deep breath. "Would any of you be willing to wash him?"

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

She blinked awkwardly. "You know. Rael. He needs a wash, quite badly, I should think."

Tony massaged the bridge of his nose. "Priscilla, a few hours ago, he was growling at me for being within a metre of him. And now you want me to bathe him?"

She hadn't thought about that part. "But he's a man," she whined. "You know. It just wouldn't be..."

The edge of the door was starting to leave an indentation on her face. "You know!" she eventually ended with, because, unlike most times people substitute reasoning with "you know", he actually did know.

Terry sighed. "I'll do it."

She gave him a tight smile. "Thanks." He shuffled inside rather awkwardly.

Rael was still standing there, looking quite awkward himself. He was clearly unhappy at his state of vulnerability, compounded by the fact that someone else had entered the room.

He looked like he was trying to back away without actually moving his feet. 'Who is he? Why is he here?'

It then occurred to Priscilla that Rael had never so much as seen Terry. Maybe this wasn't the best of ideas.

Naturally, she opted for the "let's all just get along" angle.

"Terry, meet Rael." He gave a short wave.

'Rael, this is Terry.' She tried to send impressions, memories. She wanted Rael to know that this wasn't just some random bloke with a beard, this was one of the most compassionate, trustworthy people she knew. Rael didn't wave back.

'He's going to help you get cleaned up,' she sent. 'Is that alright?'

He shrank back. 'No! Why would it be?'

She adopted a pleading look. 'Not even a little bit?'

He revved at her. His look said, "What is wrong with you?" What he actually sent her was, 'He's not my match. You're barely my match! Why would I let him touch me?'

"What's he saying?" whispered Terry worriedly.

"He isn't too keen on it. I think I might have to do this myself."

He frowned confusedly. "So do you want me to leave, then?"

"Think so, yeah. Sorry."

"Right then. I'll, er, just pop out." He slipped out about as stealthily as a cutlery drawer falling down the stairs. Rael stared at him the entire time.

He folded his arms. 'If you're going to speak a language I don't understand, at least have the decency to not act like I don't exist.'

Her brow furrowed. How was she supposed to talk to her teammates if he got angry whenever she spoke English? How would he even know if she was talking about him? She looked down at the floor. 'Sorry.'

Priss paused for a minute and considered the situation she was in. She was shut in a small room with a frustrated, grubby young man. Who she was going to have to bathe. She sighed. Oh, joy.

Chapter Text

Rael stared dispassionately at the water flowing from the showerhead. 'It's hot.'

Priss leaned down to adjust the taps. 'Too hot?'

'Obviously.'

She stuck a hand under the stream. It was only lukewarm. 'No it isn't.'

He just stood there, arms crossed. 'Yes it is! You bathe in hot water?'

She thought about this for a moment. 'Well, more warm than hot, but basically, yes.'

He looked like she'd just told him that eating cockroaches for tea was also something humans did. 'No.'

Priss did something that was basically trying to roll her eyes without actually rolling them. 'Alright then.' She stuck her hand under the stream. From her perspective, it was so cold it might as well have been a blizzard. 'Better?'

He nodded slightly. 'It's adequate.'

And then Priss didn't really see much of what happened next, because her eyes immediately trained themselves on the ceiling, getting their cue from the sight of a little too much skin. She started to feel her cheeks radiating heat. She didn't consider herself a prude, or old-fashioned, but, understandably, she wasn't in the least bit comfortable.

Hands on the side of her face, unintentionally a bit like horse blinkers, she glanced out of the corner of her eye. Rael, distinctly oblivious to her discomfort, was standing under the stream, face turned up into it. Dirt was getting caught in the stream and running off his body like debris in a flood.

Still looking away, she asked him, 'Are you sure you aren't good here?' He sent back confusion.

'You know!' she clarified desperately. 'Like, do you actually need me around for this?'

He seemed to rummage around in his mind for a bit, eventually surfacing with what seemed to be a memory. Rael was being prodded along a corridor. He didn't bother looking back at the humans behind him, or the other Racing Drivers flanking him, rumbling uncomfortably.

They were all herded into a big, brightly lit room, lined with smooth white. It was a familiar setup, but different from the old, small one, where his dam had taken him. The handlers, tired-looking men with dead eyes, switched on the taps. Several others squealed at the sudden cold. Rael just stood, and shivered.

Priscilla blinked, almost completely disoriented. "You have got to stop doing that," she muttered.

'You're doing it again. The talking.' Rael was staring straight at her, as if there was absolutely nothing weird going on, he was just a little miffed, that's all.

She ignored this. 'So you're saying you've only ever been rinsed with soapy water? Like a barely-used baking tray?'

His eyes squinched up in confusion. 'I mean, you've never had a proper wash?'

With a fairly unwarranted air of stubbornness, he responded, 'It was good enough.'

Priss shook her head, diving after the one point she thought was salient. 'No, no, no, we're going to fix this. You're going to get cleaned up properly.' She grabbed a tea towel spontaneously. Then she looked around with an air of realisation.

She awkwardly handed it to Rael, entirely unsure of what to do. "Uuh. Here."

He looked down at the slowly soaking tea towel. 'What am I supposed to do with this?'

Carefully making sure her gaze didn't dip below waist level, Priscilla awkwardly mimed a sort of rubbing-down of the limbs. She stopped rather suddenly. 'Oh! Wait! There's also soap!'

She drew Rael's attention to a veritable spa's worth of bottles, sitting in a little rack on the wall.

His eyes narrowed. 'Which one?'

She inspected them like she was also seeing them for the first time. 'Well, the whole top row's stuff for hair, we'll get to that. But on the bottom row we've got lotion... more lotions... Ok, fifth from the left, that's vanilla body wash, lavender body wash, not quite sure what scent that one's got, also some shower gels, which are sandalwood, island cotton, and mango, respectively.'

Rael blinked hard, looking more perplexed than he had before the explanation.

Priss waved her hands like she was erasing an image in the air. 'Never mind. Just use the blue one, bottom row.'

Handling it like it could possibly be a grenade, Rael let some of the blue, viscous stuff drip out of the bottle and into his hand. He sniffed it suspiciously. 'It smells like chemicals.'

Priss almost giggled, unsure. 'Well, yes, it's soap.' He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She made the motion of rubbing her arm. 'Go on.'

Slowly, like someone who knows what they're doing but isn't sure why, he lathered the stuff into his skin. Usually, when Priss used it, the suds were white. Now they were slightly tan. Priss waited impatiently, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet, eyes firmly glued to the ceiling.

'Why do you feel the need for me to be clean?' he sent. 'Having dirt on you doesn't affect performance.'

Priss stopped her bouncing and rumpled her brow. That was such an odd question.

'Well... dirt is full of bacteria, and you can get sick from that. Plus, you know, it's just good to be looking your best, and smelling alright, and...' She trailed off. 'You know,' she finished lamely.

'Maybe I do.'

She looked over at him. 'I think we should get your hair now.'

'And I suppose I'll need the seventh bottle from the right for that.'

'Well, that'll do nicely, actually.'

He gave what was a snort of mild derision, but sounded like the stroke of an engine. Priss blinked. It was uncanny how that worked. In front of her was someone who was ostensibly human, bewildered by papaya-scented shampoo dripping into his hand from a papaya-shaped squeeze bottle.

But he sounded so absolutely mechanical, and had a truly singular focus on racing. She'd heard about kids who'd been raised by wolves doing wolf-y things, but being raised by... cars? Which, he obviously hadn't been. It seemed like no one had raised him, per se.

She checked on him again. He looked, for all the world, pretty clean. 'Alright, you can get out now.'

He reached down and turned off the water, operating it like he'd seen her do. She turned her back, grabbing a towel and holding it out for Rael. He took it, awkwardly patting himself dry. 'Wrap it around your waist,' she told him. He complied, knotting it in place.

After a moment, Priss turned back around. Rael was standing there, arms folded. She was trying not to look too close at him, but it was a little bit impossible. She'd never seen someone with so many scars. And that was saying something.

Most people in her life, including herself, worked with cars, and, as such, had sustained some damage. Terry, for one, had the remnants of a massive gash on his bicep, apparently from a rogue piece of sheet metal, and, even though no one knew where it was from, Nigel sometimes had trouble writing because of a spidery old wound on his left hand.

But Rael's torso was pocked with shiny, pink evidence of old burns, pale raised worms. The scars didn't cover every inch of his skin, but they were certainly notable. They contrasted with his skin, which seemed a lot more sickly pale after all the dirt had been washed off. Her hand flew to her mouth.

He glowered. 'Stop staring.'

She shook her head. "Sorry," 'sorry.'

She ran a hand through her hair. 'I'll go find you some clothes.' She flapped her hands about chaotically. 'You... You stay here.'

The door slammed shut behind her hurrying form. Rael sat down on the rim of the bathtub and rolled his eyes.

Chapter Text

Downstairs, a somewhat normal scene was playing out.

Craig and Tony were standing by the kitchen counter, taking intermittent sips from their coffee mugs. Nigel was busy hunched over a frying pan, demonstrating what the rest of the team would consider to be his only useful skill: cooking. All of them besides him were pretty rubbish in the culinary department, so most meals in his absence tended to involve white bread. Or ketchup. Or both.

To an outside observer, it would've seemed pretty uncanny that all three of the men at the counter were silent and wearing the same downcast expression.

Suddenly, Tony frowned. "Do any of you lot hear something?"

Nigel nodded faintly. "Yeah, I th-think it's footsteps."

Craig was the last to know what they were on about, because at that point, Priscilla blew into the room like a manic, curly-haired hurricane. Her gaze flitted from person to person, and she was muttering things, like, "Oh, wait, no, you're too tall, and you're too thin, and you wouldn't anyways..." She trailed off, breathing hard.

They all gawped at her. "Priscilla, have you gone mad?" demanded Tony.

She blinked wildly. "Yes! No! Maybe! Where's Terry?"

Craig looked up from his coffee. "In the guest room, remember? You let him move in."

She seemed to catch her breath a little. "Thanks." Then, as quickly as she'd come in, she left.

Craig smirked oddly, bewildered. "You're welcome."

Terry wasn't in the kitchen, obviously, he was in the spare room on the same floor. He'd made an important decision; evidence of it was spilling out of his suitcase. He shoved an enormous pile of clothes into the ancient mahogany chest-of-drawers, making it squeak loudly in protest. He was in it for the long haul now, he might as well get settled in.

He heard a hard rap on the door. He paused midway through jamming the a corner of a shirt back into the drawer. "You might as well come in. It's not even my room yet."

The door immediately flattened itself against the wall. Priscilla stood in the door, looking like she'd gotten into a row with a rainstorm. The blousy white sleeves of her shirt and bottoms of her light-wash jeans were weighed down with dark spots of water.

Terry raised an eyebrow. "Come to take this room back, have you?"

"What? No." She shook her head vigorously. "The room's all yours. But I, uh, I've got a favour to ask of you. Again. Sorry."

He sat down on the bed. His bed. "'S no trouble at all. Well," he chuckled, "depends on what it is, really."

She seemed to think about it for a bit. "Well... I'm going to need to borrow some clothes. Some of your clothes."

"You what?" He said it sort of as a reflex.

She immediately took it the wrong way and basically started babbling. "I-I'm really sorry, but Tony's taller than Rael, Nigel's way taller than him, and you know Craig, he wouldn't give up a stitch for this, and-"

Terry clapped his hand down on her shoulder. "Priscilla. Calm down." She paused, and took a few deep breaths. She felt the warm weight of his hand move off her shoulder. "Ok. Now, what were you trying to say."

She brushed a stray tendril of hair out of her face. "Well, I was wondering if you'd have some clothes you'd be willing to spare, you know, for Rael, 'cause his suit's all dirty."

Terry swung his legs off the bed. "Well, let's see what I've got." After rummaging in his suitcase a bit, he looked up and asked, "Well, what'd you have in mind?"

She considered this. "Dunno, really, just whatever you have to spare. Just, uh, try to be quick about it, he's probably quite cold."

Terry continued his dig. "Keep your hair on, love, I'll find something." One after the other, a pair of jeans, and a rather smock-like shirt with various and sundry dark stains drifted up onto the bed. Terry straightened up. "Now, keep in mind, I'm not loaning him any underthings."

Priss nodded quickly. "Yes, thank you, that's perfectly reasonable."

"And we'll have to go to a consignment store or something soon."

"Yeah." She scooped up the bundle of fabric, and ran upstairs at a reasonably fast pace. Fortunately, when she got back to the lavatory, Rael was still exactly where she'd left him, slouching, his arms crossed.

'I was wondering how long you'd leave me.'

'I didn't leave you,' she sent rather indignantly. She held the clothes out triumphantly. 'I got these for you, see?'

He took the jeans out of her hands, holding it by the cuff at arm's length. 'It smells like engine oil, soap, and a stranger.'

'Of course it does, Terry was kind enough to lend it to you.' He simply stared for a moment. 'Do you know how to put it on, or...'

He gave her a withering glare. She backed off. 'Right, alright. I'll just, uh, turn around here. Let me know when you're done.'

After a fair amount of time, and a very large amount of rustling, she felt a grudging tap at the back of her mind. She turned back around. It wasn't a transformation, but he did look... different. More human.

The clothes didn't fit him well, but they wouldn't have fit anyone that thin. The jeans hung off his hips, and the shirt was so baggy, he might as well have been wearing a literal shopping tote. The plain beige cloth hung slack like a sail with no wind in it. He glowered at her out from under hooded lids. In short, he looked like pretty much any other sullen youth you could pull off the street.

He ran a finger under his collar. 'This is like a lead, it's choking me.'

'Just undo the top button, then.' He did exactly that. She was impressed he'd been familiar enough with buttons to do them up at all.

She clapped her hands together, startling him. 'Right! What to do now?'

The answer was as unwavering and just about as heavy as a monolith: 'Sleep.'

Priss nodded slowly, after stopping to skim over the thick volume of tiredness he had sent her. 'Oh. Right.' She turned out the light, and trudged across the small boundary of worn floorboards that separated the spare room and the lavatory. Rael followed. Light leaked from the hallway and into the spare room, casting a sleepy glow into the blue nighttime dark.

Rael lay down experimentally on the cot. Priss watched him shuffling his limbs uncomfortably around. 'I'll have to get you some pyjamas,' she half-joked.

'Pyjamas?' he echoed, confused.

'Yeah. You know, more comfortable clothes for you to sleep in.'

She heard a sort of stuttered sigh from him, like an exasperated laugh. 'Drinking something with a little little metal stick, bathing in warm water, and now this. Humans make no sense!"

Priss giggled a little to herself. 'I guess we're a little funny. You're not too normal yourself, mind you.'

He snorted. 'No, you're the weird ones.'

'Us? I beg to differ.'

He did something that could have been groaning, pulling the blanket up over his head. 'Go away, I'm tired.'

She laughed. 'I see how it is, then. Goodnight.' He didn't respond.

She closed the door behind her, shaking her head.

Chapter Text

At around nine-thirty A.M., Priscilla was woken up by some shouting.

It wasn't outside of the room, in fact, it was inside her head.

'Is it an acceptable human custom to sleep all day?' Rael was yelling. 'Your teammates are already awake. Get up!'

She pawed sleepily at her eyes. 'Jesus, Rael, I'm up, please stop shouting.'

He sent her an impression of impatience. She batted it away, rolling out of bed. The clock on the dresser told her that it was only eight forty-seven.

This might, indeed, seem a little late, but it was somewhat normal for her to sleep in till ten. She found herself wondering what sort of horrendous hours Rael was used to, if this constituted sleeping in all day.

'How did you sleep?' she asked rather perfunctorily, as she changed into the nearest sweater, which happened to be embarrassingly multicoloured. She didn't really care, right now; it was cold, even in the room.

'I barely slept at all,' Rael groused. 'Sleeping laying down. How do you manage?'

She shook her head, reaching for her hairbrush. 'Dunno, I just do.' She then proceeded to do something quite difficult, which was to beat last night's bed-head into submission. Her hair was naturally curly, but misguided. As soon as it was brushed, it would stay that way for quite a while, but it seemed to forget its place overnight.

As soon as she was looking, in her view, remotely presentable, she headed to the spare room, only to discover that Rael... wasn't. He stood inside the doorway, arms crossed. He looked like absolute hell, if she was being honest about it.

He'd slept in the only set of clothes she'd given him, naturally, so they were all rumpled. His hair, unbrushed and wet, had dried wild and almost matted. A string of dried drool trailed from the corner of his mouth. His stomach growled audibly.

"Well good morning to you too," quipped Priss. He made a noise like an engine barely managing to turn over.

'If you were so hungry, you could've just gone down to breakfast without me.' He looked at her like she'd just sprouted antlers.

'Never mind. I'll tell you what,' she amended. 'You go across the hall, do... whatever you need to do, wash your face like I showed you last night, and, uh, I'll get the hairbrush.'

He did something adjacent to grunting, and started shambling towards the lavatory. She, meanwhile, contemplated her options. There was quite a lot of potential here. A lot of films she watched had makeover scenes in, and she decided that this was one, or at least a chance to make him look like less of a tramp.

She fiddled with a few bottles on her vanity. She had lots of different oils and conditioners and what have you, largely because she kept thinking they'd work on her hair. They didn't.

She heard the lavatory door open, and turned around to see him shuffle out. 'Come here.'

'Why?'

'Just do. Please.'

Suspiciously, he shuffled across the floorboards and into her room. He seemed to be trying to take in every detail as soon as he could. She didn't really blame him, pale pink gauzy curtains, a carved walnut vanity and dresser, and enough baby-pink and fuzzy things to make a nursery cringe probably weren't things he saw every day.

Even Priss had to admit that her room was a little bit ridiculous, after all, she'd had a hand in the renovations at only age five.

She motioned him forwards, hairbrush akimbo. He eyed it suspiciously. 'What's that?'

'A hairbrush. You know. For brushing hair.'

Stiffly, he stepped towards the vanity like she'd indicated. Gingerly, she dragged the bristles across, not even through, his hair. Even then, it was snagged by more knots and tangles than you'd find in a spool of thread in a tornado.

Surprising absolutely no one, he flinched, hand flying to the back of his head. 'Are you trying to pull my hair out?'

She clutched the brush, startled. 'No! I'm just trying to get you to look presentable, that's all.'

He revved at her. 'You told me I'm free. So I'm going to look how I want.'

She shrugged. 'Alright. If you want the team's first impression of you to be that you're a loony, go right ahead.'

He scoffed, or at least, she could only assume that's what it was. 'Maybe I will. Why should I care what they think of me?'

Priss blinked flatly. 'Maybe because they're your teammates?'

She got only a glare back. 'I smell food. Show me where it is.'

'Remember, you can't eat very much this time.'

He revved. 'I know. Still hungry.'

They started down the hallway. Priss sniffed the air. 'I can't smell anything from here. How did you know breakfast was on?'

He looked a bit smug. 'Racing Drivers are more perceptive than humans. Better nose, better sight, better reaction times.'

Priscilla's eyes sort of widened and narrowed at the same time, creating a very odd effect. 'Really? I'm sure the difference isn't that big.'

His smug face got even smugger. 'It is.'

At the top of the stairs, she began to smell something savoury. 'Whatever.'

They made their way over to the dining room table, at which point things got a little awkward. It was so quiet, you could hear a spoon drop. Which it did, out of Nigel's hand, and onto his plate. He gawped up at Rael like he'd just seen his own great-uncle. Who happened to be dead.

"Crikey," remarked Terry mildly, sipping his coffee.

"Good morning, all," said Priss with an awkward wave. "This is Rael."

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I shan't say anything."

Craig put down his mug. "I will, then. Priscilla, this... man looks like a zombie. A Rastafarian one, since 'e's halfway to having dreadlocks."

"He wouldn't let me brush his hair," she muttered defensively.

"I don't care, Priscilla, he looks like death. Is he honestly supposed to be racing for us?"

Rael was growling dangerously. 'Whatever he's saying about me, I don't like it.'

She tried to assuage him. 'That's just Craig. He can be a bit of an arse.' He looked suspicious, but decided just to leave it. She turned back to the waiting faces of her team.

"What'd he say?" asked Craig lazily.

"He was growling! No, idling!" marvelled Nigel.

"Thank you for your input," she said, ignoring them both, "but Rael and I need breakfast.' Without another word, she disappeared into the kitchen. Rael followed her, but stopped abruptly as soon as she did. She just stood there, face flickering between different emotions.

The man standing in front of her, a short, grey-headed man in a paddy cap and horrendously unfashionable cardigan, smiled broadly.

"Priscilla!" he exclaimed, stretching his arms out to embrace her. "Me little girl! 'Ow 'ave you been?"

She hugged him back, settling on a smile. "You wouldn't believe it, Da."

Chapter Text

Rael stood in the entrance to the kitchen, eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'Who is this?'

The question nudged intrusively into Priscilla's mind. She let go of her father. "Oh. Right. Da, this is Rael. He's the, the um. You know. You've been getting Tony's letters, right?" He nodded.

'Rael, this is my dad.' She instinctively went into "polite and bubbly" mode, smiling and indicating with her hands.

Rael, meanwhile, still looked suspicious. 'This is your sire?'

Her face slipped a bit. 'My father, yes.' She looked oddly at him. 'What, do you... not have those?' She couldn't help but feel an internal tickle of laughter. How else would they reproduce? Mitosis?

Rael looked stony serious. 'Of course I have a sire. But you know yours? Talk to him, even?'  Priss' mouth hung open, slightly horrified.

Her father coughed. "Is, uh, something wrong?"

She shook her head profusely. "No. Uh, no. Have we got any soup? Rael's, uh, eager for some breakfast."

He shrugged. "Eh, dunno if there's any soup, but far be it for me to get between a, well, anyone and their brekkers." He sidled out of the kitchen, looking a little bit on edge.

Priss sighed. 'Well. We should have something in here that won't make you sick.'

Meanwhile, out in the dining room, which was, for once, actually being used for dining, Priss' father sat down, shaking his head.

"I trust that the drive here wasn't too strenuous, Jock?" inquired Tony after a few moments of awkward silence.

He looked up. "Oh, aye, it was fine. Bit hard on the old Rover, though. Pile o' scrap hasn't been driven in quite a while. But, eh, the daily driver's up on a jack in me garage, so I didn't have much of a choice."

Tony nodded politely. "I see."

"Ach, it's fine," dismissed the grizzled Scotsman. "Nothing's too much to stop me from bein' there for Priscilla and for you lot, though I wish it was under better circumstances." A quiet murmur of agreement wafted up from around the room.

"Really have to hand it to you, Tony boy," Jock attested. "Putting together a service on such short notice." He frowned. "It's tomorrow, right?" Tony nodded silently.

Then, with very good timing, Priscilla emerged from the kitchen, Rael in tow. She sat down near the head of the table, and he followed suit in the adjacent chair. For whatever reason, Priss remembered that it was usually where her Granduncle Wilfred usually sat at Christmas, after all, Snoughton was the family home.

Looking about defensively, he picked up his bowl and slurped noisily at the warm broth that was left over from last week's vegetable soup. Nigel was well aware of the scarcity of decent food in the house, so when he cooked, he cooked.

Priss nibbled on her toast, feeling a bit guilty. He must be so very hungry, she thought to herself. I mean, dinner last night didn't really count. And that wasn't really that much, either. Well, it was quite a few sandwiches, so, a bit, but he needs more than broth. They must have really messed him up, he's so starved.

Terry's voice cut into her thoughts. "Priss? Love, I don't like the way he's looking at you."

"Aye, neither do I," agreed her father.

She looked up from her toast and eggs to see that Rael was glaring very pointedly at her. 'I can hear you.'

Her mouth fell open, though it was more of a reflex, since no sound needed to come out. 'I'm sorry,' she sent conciliatorily. 'It was just a stray thought.'

He snorted, which gave everyone else at the table a bit of an odd experience. 'If you can't control your thoughts, like a hyperactive little filly, then maybe you shouldn't insult me.'

She rolled her eyes. 'I didn't mean it as an insult. Not all of us are superhuman here. Most people are, you know, proper humans, and we aren't learning how to reign in our bloody psychic powers as soon as we're out of diapers!'

She then realised she'd said this last sentence or so aloud, as well as in her mind. She shrank back, cheeks warmer than a fresh-baked bun. In the Sahara. At midday.

The only sound in the dining room was of absolutely nothing. And then it was of Tony setting his butterknife down and then coughing diplomatically. "Er, Priscilla? Would you mind explaining to us precisely what just happened here?"

Priss scrambled to find something to say. It wasn't that she was confused, it was just that she was quite incredibly flustered. She ran her hands over her cheeks as if to cool them down, which, surprisingly worked a bit. She sat up in her seat. This was what some might call "presentation mode".

"Well," she began, "I suppose I'd have to introduce you to Rael, first. I know you know about him,"

"Aye, thanks to Tony's letters," cut in her dad.

She nodded. "Yes. But except for Terry, this is the first time you've really seen him."

Automatically, even though they'd already gawked at him quite a bit, they looked over towards Rael. He retaliated with a stare of his own, not seeming to realise he was outnumbered. 'You're talking about me. What are you saying?'

Feeling oddly scrutinized herself, Priss told him, 'I'm just telling them about you. Relax.' And he did seem to relax, although in a bit of a defensive way.

"Anyhow. You know who he is. He's our racing driver. Which, as you all know, are different than humans. I'm not sure precisely how different, other than that he's telepathic, and makes noises like a car instead of talking, but he's different, alright. His kind gets... treated poorly. He was raised in a stable, for god's sake. He was starved, and I'm not too sure about beaten, but he's got loads of scars, and they had to come from somewhere."

She took a deep breath, then continued. "He's going to be driving for us, driving our car. But that's not all he's for. He's going to live with us; he's part of the team." She looked around, getting nothing but impassive looks. "Well, alright, he can't understand English, but he's really perceptive. Just treat him like you'd treat anyone else, alright?"

Tony pursed his lips, releasing a bit of a sigh. "Frankly, Priscilla, we can get used to the, er, oddities, but he comes off a bit... angry, for lack of a better word.

"Well, yes," she said desperately, "he is a tad bit stubborn, but aren't we all?"

Jock laughed down into his cup of coffee, which, to a casual observer, would have resembled a delicate blend of treacle and motor oil. "Words of wisdom."

Rael, meanwhile, leaned back in his seat and whined like a supercharger. 'Do you humans just sit around all day? Where do you keep your car?'

Priss chewed on her thumbnail. "Oh. Right. That is the other thing. He needs to race. Like, daily."

Her father chuckled. "Or what? He gets cranky, eh?"

She smiled a grim smile. "Something like that, yeah. It's pretty bad, actually. It makes him really uncomfortable. It sort of made him sick once."

His expression got a bit more serious. "Ah. Alright. Well, what do we do, then?"

"Well," suggested Terry, entering the conversation suddenly, "we could ship him off to the Leslie Pollard circuit, or... dunno. That's the only track that's really near us."

Rael poked at Priss' mind. 'What are they talking about now?' She shot him a smile. 'They're talking about going to the track.' His resultant rev of minor triumph startled everyone in the room.

Chapter Text

Terry and Craig offloaded the Flower onto the mildly smooth tarmac of the circuit. Rael stalked around the little car, with its sleek March chassis, idling pensively. His hands were clasped behind his back.

Priscilla watched him carefully. 'Do you... remember it?' she asked cautiously.

'I don't remember it well, no.'

She nodded slightly. 'Right. Makes sense. You were, uh, not all there.'

He ignored her, and ran his hand over the little car's optimistically yellow contours. Priss eyed him. 'Any first impressions?'

He snorted. 'It's a bucket of bolts.'

Her mouth fell open rather undignifiedly. 'Hey!'

'And these tyres!' he continued, making noises that, in some circles, could be called laughing. 'Did you do nothing but burnouts in them?'

She pouted. 'You try finding the budget to get brand new tyres. We're not made of money.'

Rael continued his odd, jerky laughter, interspersed with popping noises.

"Uh, Priss?" She heard a voice from behind her. It was Terry. "What's he saying?"

She plastered a smile onto her face as rapidly as a bricklayer on fire. "Uh, it's good. He loves it."

Tony raised an eyebrow at her. "And why do I find that hard to believe?"

She blinked rapidly like one confused. "No, really. He says it's a, it's a fine machine. Like the horse to his rider." Now it was Tony's turn to look confused. "How would he know that? He hasn't so much as sat down in it in a good while, and I highly doubt the weight distribution was the first thing on his mind then."

Priss looked back at Rael, who was looking dubiously at some grime from the engine, then back to her team. "It's, um. It's his superhuman senses."

Terry scoffed slightly, shaking his head. "Well. You hear that, Tony?"

The older man rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Is he going to set off or not, then?"

They looked at Priss expectantly. She passed the look and the question along to Rael.

'Are you kidding?' he returned. 'These have no grip. No grip! And the front axle is bent. And the steering is numb. And-'

She held up her hand, grimacing. 'I get it! Just... Just try, would you? Please?'

He eyed the little car dubiously. The paint was coming off the bodywork, in patterns that looked suspiciously like the panels had been beaten with a hammer. And then back to Priscilla.

'Come on,' she urged. 'You managed it before. I think you can manage it now. That is... unless you can't.'

He let out a sharp burst of rumbling. 'Fine! Fine, I'll drive this, this length of steel piping!'

Priss tried to give him an encouraging smile. 'Great! Lovely. I'll just count you off, ok?'

'Hang on!' He held up his hand to slow her down. 'How do you expect me to start it?'

Priscilla's hand flew to her face. 'Right. Okay. Sorry.' Some faffery later, and Rael was situated in the car, its engine purring like an asthmatic cat. Priss stepped forwards to count him off. "Alright. Three, two, one!"

And then he was off the line. The humans of the team stood at what they'd determined to be a safe distance. Not that safety was first on their minds, seeing as it hadn't even occurred to them to give him his old helmet back.

Their eyes followed Rael, fascinated. He had an approach to cornering not usually seen in the world of professional motorsport, that is, because it wasn't really a good idea.

He didn't go round a corner so much as tackle it and wrestle it roughly to the ground. This resulted in wildly varying lines, although they tended to be rather wide. They were slightly awestruck, in a what-a-crazy-bastard sort of way.

"Crikey," muttered Priss' father. "He's not afraid of much, is he?" The only response was from Nigel, who nodded faintly.

Priss, meanwhile, blinked dizzily a few times in quick succession. She was starting to feel quite disoriented. He wanted to let it all out, to drive, to see what this little machine could do, except it was abundantly clear that the answer was "Not much."

Unconsciously, Priscilla was gritting her teeth. The car was fighting against Rael, making his line waver down the main straight. He rounded the corner, zig-zagging more than anyone would have thought safe.

He blew past the line, coming down hard on the brakes. He came to a halt. Eventually.

Priss tried to blink the disorientation away. Rael was doing what could only be described as storming towards them. Frustration radiated off of him like a red gas, heavier than air. He was glaring directly at Priscilla.

Terry tried to get in front of him, grabbing his shoulder and trying to tell him, "Steady on," but the Racing Driver swatted his hand away and revved at him. He recoiled, almost instinctively.

Everyone stared as he seemed to berate their team manager using a vocabulary of snarling revs punctuated with popping and crackling. 'What is your problem?' he yelled. 'I tried to warn you about that thing. It is useless! No, worse than useless, it tried to kill me!'

She blinked back the beginnings of tears. She hated being yelled at. 'I'm sorry!' she shot back. 'We tried our best, alright? We really did. This is our car. I know it's not perfect, but is it really that bad?'

'Yes!' He stood there, shoulders heaving.

Her father crept forwards slightly. "Priscilla, what in the name o' god did he just say to you?"

She took a deep breath. "Da... we got some work to do."

Chapter Text

Priscilla sighed deeply as she settled down on the couch. The past day had somehow managed to be both incredibly boring and much too eventful for her liking.

Since going to the track that morning, no one had really talked to each other. Nigel had cooked, and subsequently shoved in the freezer, enough decent food to make sure nobody starved, and then had gone back to his apartment.

Craig and Terry were out in the shed, contemplating where it had all gone wrong. Priss had tried to help them a bit, but all her mechanical skill really covered was minor repairs, and she'd ended up, pardon the pun, as a bit of a fifth wheel.

As for Tony, she had absolutely no clue as to where he'd gone. Probably buried in drawings in his study. He'd never said it outright, but it was obviously how he relaxed. As for her father...

"Ah, there you are," she said, brightening.

He held his arms out. "Here I am." He flopped down on the couch next to her. "Some day, eh?"

She shrugged. "I mean, we didn't really do much, besides go to the track and the consignment store." This was true. About an hour after the incident at the track, Terry had driven her out to possibly the greyest and most miserable little consignment store in all of existence. Even the little old lady running the cash register looked half-mummified. It sapped her mood even further, but Rael needed something decent to wear to the memorial service, and, besides, Terry wasn't going to share his clothes forever.

Her dad took his hat off, revealing the saucer-sized bald spot in his shaggy grey hair. "You know what I mean." He paused for a moment. "Priscilla, what on earth is it like?"

She let out a halfhearted puff of laughter. "Well, not like much at the moment. He isn't talking."

He seemed to consider this. "It's just so odd, to me, to think that you're talking to him in your 'ead." He seemed to look a bit melancholy, his wrinkled mouth turning down in the corners. "Tony's been keeping me up to date, but I really didn't think you not I would be caught up in all this... strangeness. Leastaways not so directly." He looked down for a moment. "You didn't want this, did you?"

She shook her head. "No! It was an accident! I just got him to take off his helmet, and..." She let her hands fall to her sides. "Augh. What a mess. It wasn't his fault either, he was surprised, too. Upset, even."

Her father nodded sagely, taking a pull from a beer bottle he'd materialised from nowhere. She propped her chin up on her hands, which were supported by her forearms, which were, in turn, supported by the coffee table. "He doesn't like me. And, I know it sounds terribly cruel, but I don't like him either! He's a prick! He hasn't reached out to me in hours just because he had a bad lap."

She squinted pensively. "He's not walled himself off from me. He's done that before, but not now. It's... It's so hard to describe. Every time I reach out to the place in my mind where his is, too, he just sort of... retreats. The car went wrong, and it scared him. Don't know why he has to take it out on me. But I don't say anything, because I'm a bloody doormat."

The room was silent, besides the humming of the lights and the faint fizz of bubbles in Jock's beer. "Hm. Last time I checked, you were a lass, not a doormat."

She rolled her eyes. "Da!" she groaned.

He shrugged. "What? I don't see anything that says 'welcome', I don't see any stubby bristly bits for muddy boots."

She sighed. "Da, you know what I mean. I just... ugh. He described to me what it was supposed to be like. Matches, that's what we are, are supposed to love each other."

She saw the look on his face, and snorted in laughter. "Not like that, Da! I mean like how we love each other. Like how I'd love a brother or sister if I had one." Unconsciously, she gnawed at her lower lip, pulling away winter-chapped threads of skin.

Jock took a deep draught of his beer. "I would've liked you to have a little brother or sister. Or both. You were fun when you were but a wee tyke."

Priss smirked. "Fun? How?" In her opinion, babies were a bit like potatoes: vaguely lumpy, and didn't really do much.

He smiled that smile that people only wear when they're remembering the good in life. "I used to let you crawl around near me toolbox. I remember you being so proud when you finally managed to lift one of my spanners."

She blushed unconsciously. It seemed to be some sort of unspoken rule of the universe that people would be embarrassed when their parents talked about them as little children.

"Those were good days. I remember your mum, too." Her ears pricked up. He must have already had a few drinks if he was talking about her mother.

"I thought she was the centre of the universe. Problem is, she bloody well thought that, too. She wasn't thinking of you, she wasn't thinking of me, she was just thinkin' of herself and her bank account."

Priss nodded intently. Instead of continuing, though, Jock set his bottle down, laid back, and looked wistfully at the ceiling. "Still, I suppose that's what you get when you start a family and then try to uproot them."

She shrugged. "Guess so." She was a tad bit disappointed. The fact that her mother had left when she was small wasn't a secret. It's just that every time he talked about her, she'd hoped her dad would talk a little more about before she left. Still. Them's the brakes.

"Do you miss home, Priscilla?"

She adjusted how she was laying, grunting slightly. "Bit, yeah. I miss... well, I miss helping you with the finances and the project cars. I miss the house. I miss Charlene, too. Have you seen her lately?"

Jock scratched his head. "Sure I have. Saw her outside the pub the other day. She asked about you, you know."

Priss smiled privately. Charlene Levin was one of her few friends, point-blank-period, but also one of her few friends who wasn't a man.

Growing up homeschooled and practically submerged in the worlds of cars and business, she didn't really have anyone who she could just... do girl things with, since her mum was out of the picture. Charlene had taught her fashion, and, in a way, how to laugh.

Priscilla and Charlene. Practically inseparable. But not entirely.

She sighed. It had been hard, leaving Edinburgh. But she'd been just so determined. Racing set her heart on fire. Figuratively, of course. So she'd left. 

But for what, now? The future was about as certain as the prospects of a narcoleptic tightrope walker traversing a pit of fire. What if someone changed their mind and quit? What if something else went horribly wrong? What if they weren't ready by April?

Priss sat up, groaning. "I'm not a very good leader, am I?"

Her father looked at her with eyes full of concern. "Don't say that."

"Well I'm just not, am I? I haven't led my team to do anything, really. Tony does everything, besides bits of paperwork. And most of the budgeting. But that's beside the point. I'm just not very assertive, is all. And when I am..."

She bowed her head, the building emotion taking over for the moment. “Oh god.” She could feel a pair of heavy hands guiding her to a familiar, be-cardiganed chest. “I just couldn't walk away from that stupid, stupid rescue mission, could I?” she managed between sobs. “Now he's gone, he's just gone …”

She sniffled into her father's shirt for a moment, which, in retrospect, she would find rather embarrassing, but in the moment, she couldn't have felt more like a child, staring up into the face of something she couldn't comprehend.

"Listen to me," he said, in a tone that suggested very strongly that she should. "I know what happened to that poor lad, and I know not a bit of it was your fault. You were doing what was right. You were giving freedom to someone who needed it. Now, seems to me that the man with the gun, that was his fault. He was doing what was wrong.”

She blinked, sort of blindsided. “And you are not a bad leader. D'you understand?" She opened her mouth to say something, she wasn't quite sure what, but was cut off.

"When I was your age, I didn't have a bloody clue. I would just go waltzing off with my mates, and we would drift me pa's tractor into a ditch. You've got your own racing team. And you're going to lead them to the podium. Don't say anything, because you will."

He clapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a sudden hug. "I'm bloody proud of you, alright? You're nineteen, and you're already doing so much, and doing it well. If you weren't good enough, or assertive enough, or whatever you think you are, you couldn't have managed that."

Quietly, with the rest of the house humming in the dark behind her, she nodded. What else could she do?

Chapter Text

'Rael?'

The man in question turned over in his bed, pulling the sheets over his head.

'Rael!'

The thought burrowed into his head no matter how hard he tried to run away from it. He had to hand it to the human girl on that front; even though she didn't realise it, she was a quick learner.

'You have to get up.'

He slid the pillow off from his face. She was standing in the doorway, eyebrows crumpled in concern like two blonde caterpillars in a collision.

She looked different than usual. She was draped in a simple black dress, and there was a little bit of black around her eyes.

'I don't have to,' he retorted. 'You just want me to.'

She sighed, and he could feel annoyance falling from her like a flurry of miffed snow. 'Yes, alright, technically. But you really should get up. We've got somewhere to go.'

He sat up slightly, eyes narrowing. 'Where?'

Her mood gained the raw edge that came from barely suppressed sadness. 'We're going to a ceremony. We've... got to remember Nico.'

At the very mention of the name, a pit opened up in Rael's stomach, one he'd been struggling to keep closed.

The sheets next to him crumpled quietly under the weight of black and white fabric, hanging from a little wooden triangle.

'Put these on, ok? I'll be... outside.'

He heard the door shut behind her. She was acting odd; her footsteps seemed much softer than usual. So did her thoughts. Was that how humans dealt with sadness? By becoming meek? It didn't really seem like a good strategy to him.

Sitting up fully, he began to try to puzzle out the clothes she'd left him. The white thing seemed to be a shirt, similar to the one he was already wearing, but the trousers had an odd double-fastening system that took him quite a bit.

He snarled to himself. Humans always had to make things so damn complicated, didn't they? After all that, the jacket was a breeze.

The door slammed open under his hand. Priss jumped. "Jesus! Don't do that!"

He responded with a glare.

'You can't go to the memorial looking like that,' she admonished him tenuously. She produced a comb from inside her jacket.

He stood there, silent, a glare locked on his face, bearing all the pulling and tugging. He let her stumble and struggle trying to untangle his nest of thick black hair, let her look like an idiot. Eventually, she seemed to just sort of shrink back and slowly give up.

She coughed awkwardly. 'Let's go.'

He sighed, and followed her down the hall.

Downstairs, it looked like some sort of diplomatic reception. Terry, Tony, and Jock were leaning against the living room walls, dressed in a mustard-yellow sport coat, clean black button-up shirt, and dark grey heavy wool sweater, respectively. They gave sombre nods of acknowledgement as Priss and Rael passed by.

Wordlessly, they all crammed into Tony's car. It wasn't that they didn't have anything to say, no, they had quite a lot on their minds. It was more like they couldn't figure out precisely how to say it. The mood was one of intensely painful silence.

This both frustrated and confused Rael. Normally, humans couldn't seem to stop talking. And they chose to stop now?

He squirmed in discomfort. He could feel everyone else's misery. Not an as acutely as Priscilla's, but the energy coming off of their thoughts, roiling around in corked-up bottles, would've been enough to notice for anything. To him, it was deafening. But to everyone else, the only noises were the rain, the road noise, and the occasional squeak from the suspension.

By the time they came to a stop, he was a hair away from trying to punch the door off. A bit of pent-up pressure seemed to sigh out when everyone disembarked.

The uncomfortable, scuffed, ill-fitting loafers Rael had managed to wedge onto his feet that morning squelched in the slurry of dirt and snow on the pavement. They were in the carpark of a building they'd only ever seen in passing, the Mount Moist Church of God. The name was very apt, although for extra accuracy, they could've tacked on “cold”, “too many trees”, or “peeling paint”.

Another car, this time a wheezing beige Ford Cortina, pulled in next to them, effectively eliminating another third of the available parking spaces. It was a small carpark.

The driver's side door opened, and Nigel stumbled out. He'd attempted to tame his hair, which just ended up making it look somehow greasier, and his “nice” shirt was even more in need of a wash than his usual. He also looked like he was trying to disappear. If they hadn't been outside, he probably would've hid in a corner.

Craig got out of the passenger side, looking similarly cowed. A forced smile gripped his face.

“‘Morning, all. Thanks for the lift, Nigel.”

The lanky brunet acknowledged him with a shaky look, almost embarrassed to be called out by the one person not keeping the silence. At least the ginger seemed to have attempted to un-frizz his mop of hair.

Silently, he opened one of the rear doors, and Priscilla's heart fell and splattered all over her patent leather shoes.

An olive-skinned woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, got out from the back of the car, the hem of her plain black dress catching for a moment on the door sill. Priscilla had never met her before, but there was only one person on the guest list she could be.

Terry was the first to walk over and greet her in a hushed tone. “Sophia. Glad you could make it after all.”

She gave him a sad smile. “And you must be Anthony?”

He shook his head. “No, Terry. Tony’s here, though.”

Indeed he was, although he seemed to be subtly trying to hide behind Terry. She approached him, whereupon he made eye contact with her for approximately one second, and in a nearly inaudible voice, muttered “So sorry for your loss.”

Whispers of attempted small talk flickered from person to person. Obligation pulling her inexorably forward, Priss went to go introduce herself as well. She approached the older woman with a distinct amount of trepidation, invisible weights keeping her eyes on the ground.

“Hi. I'm, uh, I'm Priscilla. Priscilla MacLean.”

Sophia just nodded patiently. “You miss him?” she eventually said, after a while of just Priscilla dithering and trying to come up with something, anything, to say.

The phrase “burst into tears” is an odd one. Generally, crying happens a lot more gradually than anything that could be qualified as bursting.

But, in that moment, Priscilla did quite genuinely burst into tears. She nodded tightly, trying to tamp down on rising sobs. Stuttering pieces of mangled apologies managed to get out from between her lips. Sophia reassured her softly, although it went in one ear and out the other.

Momentarily drifting out of his angry silence, Rael reached impatiently out to Priscilla, essentially a tap on the shoulder from behind.

‘Why are we here? And who is she? Is she Nico’s?’

‘She’s his sister,’ sent Priss in a subdued tone. Sniffing, she set about regaining her composure. ‘Come meet her. Don't worry, she knows.’

A bolt of panic shot through Rael. ‘Knows? Knows what? Knows what I am?’ A high whine escaped from between his teeth.

‘Well, yes!’ she sent indignantly. ‘She knows everything, Rael!’

His eyes went wide, and he made a noise like grinding gears. At this point, everyone was staring. Obviously.

‘She's not part of our team! She doesn't have clearance. You can't just go around telling people!’

‘That's not something you can lie about! That's her brother that got killed, and she deserved to know why.’

Rael shook his head. ‘You don't understand. If you tell someone without clearance, they're going to come after us.’

Priss turned her eyes skyward and prayed for patience. ‘They? You mean… what, the men at the stables? How on earth would they know?’

He made the gear-grinding noise again. ‘Don't know ! They just… they hurt people! Who knows why, who knows how?’

‘They can't get us out here, Rael! I thought I told you before. You're free. Now please… just go say hello, yeah? I'll translate.’

She looked around. Her face was practically a tomato what with how red it had gotten. Rael definitely knew how to make a scene.

He walked up to the rather confused-looking Sophia, and, in very clear gestures, said, [Hello. I am (Backfiring and Scorching the Hand). (Warmth of the Star in the Night) was my match. I am still very crashed and in pieces about what happened to him, and your face says that you are too. But I will continue the race in his honour, and if I ever get the chance, I swear I will scratch and burn the men who did it.]

Naturally, no one present understood a word.

Chapter Text

Priscilla flopped onto the couch, utterly, utterly exhausted. The entire day had been a trial, that is, the bits of it that had passed.

It was about five o'clock, and most of the hours previous had been an enormous slog. Actually, that was quite the understatement. To say that this had been just about the most trying day of her life would be accurate, to a point.

She'd sat through the memorial service, blubbing intermittently, which had taken a lot out of her. And then she'd had to manage Rael. She was sure she would've appreciated that he was learning about the world around him, except that she was quite exhausted, and he was just so damn curious .

In the sentence ‘The Reverend is now going up to the pulpit to read us a Psalm,’ there were at least three words that he had no bloody clue about. She'd had to find workarounds, of course, she hadn't actually sent him that sentence. If she had, she'd have probably gotten bogged down with attempting to explain what on Earth a “Bible” was, to someone who'd never heard of, met, smelled, or eaten a Lord God Almighty.

Not to mention he had a metric tonne of questions, and she had a kilo of two of answers. She couldn't really blame him for that, but he'd get angry if she didn't answer him well enough, which was definitely his fault.

And then there had been the brunch afterwards. Oh dear. It was a good job there had been virtually no one else in the restaurant to be mildly alarmed at the sight of a scruffy young man in a tuxedo eating a green salad by the fistful. Priss had been so tired by that point, she'd almost faceplanted into her steak and chips.

Her brain was a swirling cloudstorm of anything and everything at once, but a large portion of that everything swirled back around to Nico. Sophia hit the nail on the head earlier; she did miss him.

It was so odd, in a way. They'd all been so shocked at the blast, but after the dust had settled, he'd just… not been there anymore. No one had sat on the shed floor, fetched parts, and tried to tell jokes to the team while they worked on the car the day before. No one had raided the cabinet for biscuits last night.

It almost felt sacreligious that his things were still there. Not for long; his suitcase would be leaving for Greece in his sister's hands, but still, everything just felt so thoroughly turned on its head.

‘I found home. And then it was taken away,’ mused Rael out of not-quite-nowhere.

Priscilla managed to sit up. From her position of not having her face planted in the couch cushions, she could see that he was sprawled out in one of the armchairs opposite her, just staring.

She felt a deep exhaustion from him. No wonder he'd put up with so much; he hasn't the energy to fight back or question it.

‘Was he really like home to you? I'm genuinely quite curious, because, well, you only knew him for a couple days.’

He looked quite annoyed. ‘Bonds run deep, like you wouldn't understand.’

She shifted how she was sitting so that her chin was propped up on her hand. ‘Maybe I would understand. You keep saying I won't, but you never know until you try.’

He let out a huff. ‘I have tried. But you want me to try again? Fine.’

Quite suddenly, Priscilla was hit with a blast of emotion and memory: it was the night before the rescue attempt, that one horrible evening when everything had just been put on hold and strung out with tension.

Rael was shivering in the dark, cramped concrete cell he'd been dumped in to die. Whether they expected it to be of cold, starvation, infection, or just pure stress was completely unknown. Naturally, he felt a bit cack.

He was freezing cold, and yet blazing with a nauseous sort of heat. He was getting cramp in bits of his limbs he didn't know he could get cramp in. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest at any moment.

But he also felt a touch at the back of his mind. It obviously came from far away, but it was being propelled by some of the most genuine sentiment he'd ever felt. His match was telling him that everything was going to be alright, that he needed to stay strong.

That voice belonged to starlight, warm and gold, Rael decided. His mind had become so dark that he needed some stars in the night sky. And so he just lay there, clinging onto the hope, and waiting for the starlight to get closer.

Priscilla blinked tears out of her eyes. She hadn't realised she'd been crying.

“Crikey. He really was just that important to you, too,” she whispered.

He idled impatiently. ‘Are you going to talk sense, or just wait for me to guess?’

She shook her head. ‘I mean… I knew you missed him, but I didn't know precisely how or why…’ She let the thought lie there.

‘There were only two people who had shown me warmth like that before,’ he reflected bitterly.

Priscilla caught faint sensory impressions drifting out from his mind, the feeling of a soft-skinned hand stroking his face, the rustling sound of a bright yellow jumpsuit, the sight of bright blue eyes softly closing.

She didn't know where they came from, but they felt very personal. She concluded that he probably wouldn't have let her see those, if he'd been a little less knackered.

And then, unexpectedly, he didn't cry. He looked like he would, sitting there, shaking slightly, and staring into space, but he didn't actually end up crying.

‘I was always told that there would be only one for me. And it all lined up. It all seemed right. Until it didn't.’

Priscilla, still misty-eyed, nodded. Rael’s eyes squinched up in pain, and he let out a strained whine. He locked his hand around a few curls of his own hair, and keeled forwards.

‘Two racing drivers in one body. That's what we could have been. Think about all that means!’

A shuddering, gated breath escaped from him.

The room was silent for a bit.

Well, not entirely silent; there was the chirruping of crickets, the hum of the electric lights, the bang , crash , and tinkle of expensive car parts, and the aaargh of the sleepless mechanic, but, to a pair of conversing youth, it was silent enough.

‘Why not me?’ sent Priscilla.

Rael looked up abruptly. It was a simple, earnest thought, and it cut through the silence like real words. He frowned.

‘What?’

‘Why couldn't that happen with me?’ she clarified. She could feel him thinking.

‘I know you miss him. God, do I ever know. I don't know how we're going to get on without him. I think Terry and Tony will end up strangling each other, to be honest.’

A little “eep” of poorly managed cry-laughter came out of her throat. Rael didn't seem to get the joke, but waited until she stopped laughing.

‘I just mean that we're gonna have to work together, because we're all that we've got, you know?’

He looked away, like it was going to help somehow.

‘I don't want that to be true.’

Priss wiped away a warm tear. ‘But it is , isn't it? We've got this bond thing. I'm in your head, and you're in mine. I know we don't exactly see eye-to-eye, but I'd never leave you behind, or whatever it is you think I'll do; god help me, Rael, I'll help you .’

The silence hummed.

‘So I'll ask you again: why not me?’

Chapter Text

That night at Snoughton manor, everyone tried to sleep, with varying degrees of success.

Priscilla and Rael were exhausted. Having gotten themselves dinner, they practically fell asleep on their way up the stairs. Priss had tried vaguely to get him to change out of his formalwear, but he'd brushed her off, and was, hilariously, sleeping on his cot like a rockstar passed out drunk at a hotel party.

Meanwhile, after losing most of a fingernail to a rogue bonnet, Terry decided to go in for some coffee. Craig had called him a coward for it, probably jokingly. You never knew sometimes. He stepped out of the shed, rubbing his back. It hurt quite a lot. In retrospect, he probably should have chosen a different career, if for nothing else, than the sake of his bloody scoliosis.

He squinted. It was quite a lot darker than it had been when he'd gone out to work on the car. Still, it was always that way. Time flies when you're inventing new swear words.

He pushed open one of the doors that led into the house, specifically, the bit of it that was the living room. And then he heard a noise, coming from the kitchen. It sounded like… he didn't know what it sounded like. It was quiet, and probably human.

Slowly, he continued towards the kitchen. There was someone standing there. He got a little closer. It was Tony. He was still wearing the same black shirt and slacks he'd been wearing all day, except they'd gotten a lot mankier over the course of the day. A mug was sitting on the counter, with only a tea bag in it.

He'd taken the kettle off the heat, and it was just sitting there. It was a bit like a photograph, which, if it were put up in some kind of poncy art gallery, would be titled, “Just Ceased to Function”. Or something like that. His bony hands were locked around the mug in a death grip, and his head was bowed so that his dark, wavy hair obscured his face.

It took Terry a bit to figure out what he was seeing. Tony was crying. It was the sort of crying that involved a lot of shaking and quiet sobbing, but loud inhaling. It was the kind of blub you had by yourself. Terry was very conflicted as to if he should say something.

Eventually, in the tug-of-war, one side got something past, and he said, “Um.”

The older man whipped around, reacting like he'd been stabbed.

“Terrence!” he gasped. “Don't you know how to not sneak up on people?”

Almost on instinct, defensiveness took over. “I wasn't sneaking up on anyone. I was trying to get some coffee, is all.”

Tony tried to muster a suspicious look. “Doesn't look like it.”

Shakily, he picked up the kettle and poured some of the still-steaming water into his cup. Terry slowly turned away, and, still not quite sure of anything at all, fished around in one of the cabinets for the instant coffee.

And then he froze, because he heard nothing. Well, not nothing. It was the kind of nothing provided by the absence of something . This was the sound of someone very purposefully not moving.

He turned around just in time to stop Tony from dropping his mug. “Easy, man. Easy,’ he reassured, guiding the brunet’s shaking hands towards the counter. Then they just stayed like that for a moment.

The only sounds in the kitchen was Tony's hoarse, struggling sobs, and the dripping of spilt tea onto the floor. Terry shifted awkwardly. He had one hand on Tony's shoulder, the other on his wrist. It felt really, really odd to actually put a hand on him without it being swatted off in five milliseconds. It also felt just as wrong to see him cry.

Everyone cries. On principle, Terry knew that. He'd just never seen Anthony demonstrate the capability. Slightly stunned and rather sympathetically upset, yet still quite annoyed, he half-dragged, half-puppeted the taller man into a seat at the kitchen table.

“Come on. Here we go.” He say down in the adjacent chair.

“You alright there, mate?”

Tony looked at him through a red film of tears, still shaking like a leaf.

“Of course I'm not bloody well alright! Nothing's alright!”

He took a deep, rasping breath.

“Myrto Stenopoulos is going to go to sleep tonight knowing that her son isn't coming home. She's never going to hear his voice again. He has no future. And that will never change. Nico will never go home, or do anything, ever again, and what's more-”

His voice broke. He tried to take a deep breath, which ended up being three.

“What's more is,” he finished, “it's our fault.”

What few bits of composure he'd managed to regain, he immediately lost, devolving into more sniffling.

“He was our boy, Terry. Our boy. We were supposed to take care of him. His mum trusted us with him. She sent her son off into the great wide world so that he could build race cars, and he's never coming back. ”

Numbly, Terry reached out a hand to try to provide some semblance of comfort. It settled on Tony’s shoulder, whereupon he flicked it off with a rendition of his annoyed mantra, “Please don't touch me.”

The blond sighed. “Jesus, Tony. I really don't know what to do with you.”

The object of the complaint narrowed his eyes. “What in the living hell is that supposed to mean?”

Terry rubbed his eyes. They were getting quite dry. “Calm down, mate. I just mean that you really, really don't know what to do with your emotions.”

“Hmph. I didn't know you'd joined the be-yourself-to-free-yourself cult, Terrence.”

Largely ignoring that, he continued. “I just mean that you shouldn't just cut yourself off from feeling anything, and then just do it all in one go. You're going to hurt someone, someday. Probably yourself.”

Tony managed a semi-smile, though it was mostly composed of spite. “Oh, yes, like the man who picks fights in bars is the most emotionally healthy man in Britain. Jolly good for you.”

“I never said that, did I? What I mean is, if you'd stop self-flagellating for a moment, you'd see that maybe you shouldn't. We didn't kill Nico. You're making it sound like we did. Should we have let him come along? No. But he wouldn't hear of it. Now, should that guard have shot? God, no! Even from that far away, you could see he was just a kid.”

Terry's hand had curled itself into a fist. “They shouldn't have hired a bloody loony like that, see? Killing shouldn't be a tool in anyone's kit. Not even in the very back of that bottom drawer that just has grease and weird spanners and old candies in.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Make whatever excuses you want.”

Everything was quiet for a bit, properly quiet. “But you're still feeling a bit better, aren't you?” asked Terry, turning to look at Tony's face, slowly turning less red.

He shrugged listlessly. “Maybe.”

Chapter Text

The next morning came rather quickly. It had rushed to take the place of the night, who, hearing that everyone was having some very personal conversations, thought it would be a bit awkward if it stayed.

Priscilla woke up feeling more refreshed than she had in quite a while. This might have been because she got quite a lot off her chest the previous night, or, maybe, because, for once, it was light out. And I don't mean that it was day, I mean that it wasn't overcast. Of course, there was still snow on the ground. It was December, after all. But the snow wasn't currently being deposited by, or rained on by big, grey clouds.

Priss got out of bed, stretched, and got changed. Her hair was frizzy, even after she brushed it, and her shirt was too big, but she wasn't going out anywhere important today. She reached out for Rael. It was definitely a bit odd, that. She couldn't really describe sending. It was sort of like flexing a muscle you never knew you had; you could do it, but it was hard to replicate sometimes, and even harder to explain.

He sent her an acknowledgement that he was awake, though it was less “roger that”, and more, “nnghmawake”. He'd been up for a while, it's just that he'd never got past the muzzy and blinking stage.

She popped into his room, trying to look unnecessarily cheerful. ‘Good morning!’

He blinked at her. ‘How do you know that it will be?’

She looked at him sideways. ‘What?’

‘How do you know that the morning will be good?’

She shrugged. ‘I don't, but it never hurts to hope it'll be.’ She looked down at him, and couldn't suppress a little laugh.

He sat up, staring blearily. ‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing, we just need to get you some more clothes.’

He picked at his rumpled tuxedo. ‘Yes. This is very uncomfortable.’

Priss thought for a moment. ‘Well, Terry took his clothes back, and we didn't actually get any other clothes for you, sorry about that. Well, I guess we could go back to the consignment store.’

‘Where is that?’

Oh, right, thought Priss to herself. He probably needs an explanation. ‘It's in town, so, not too far. It's a store. That, uh, sells clothes. Used clothes, mind you, but all the shops that sell them new charge too much. They've got some pretty nice things, if you look hard enough. I go there a lot,’ she added.

He got out of bed, and yawned. Priss reeled back. “Crikey, I'll have to add a toothbrush to the shopping list.”

They had a quick breakfast, quite alone in the kitchen. On further inspection, it turned out that the rest of the team was out in the shed. Terry waved hello to her when she went in to check on them. “Morning, miss Team Manager and Owner.”

She smiled at him. “Morning, mister Head Mechanic. How’s the car?”

Terry sighed. “An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, blanketed in a mystery, or however that goes. I don't even know how the bloody axle got bent, certainly didn't happen on my watch. I can understand why Rael was angry.”

“Yeah, he gave me an earful, or, rather, a headful. What’re you drawing, Tony?”

The subject of her question looked up from his graph paper. “I'm sketching a few modifications to the wing. Rael tends to drive with, er, quite a lot of force, yes?”

Priss nodded with a private smile. “You could say that.”

“Right, well, the car will need to be quite planted.”

Nigel piped up, surprisingly. “We really will, y-you know. I'm thinking about d-d-doing some tuning.”

Priss smiled. “Mm. That's good. I suspect Rael will quite like that.” She turned around. Rael was loitering just outside the shed, taking everything in with sharp eyes. “Um, anyhow, I was going to take him to get some new clothes. He's still in his tuxedo.”

Terry laughed. “Right, yeah. Should I lend him something in the meantime?”

“I don't think so. No one’ll care, right?”

He shook his head. “Probably not.” He snapped his fingers suddenly, and his head jerked up a little. “Oh! Can't believe I forgot. Your father's leaving. He went out to his car a bit ago. I was going to tell you, but I figured you were asleep. Mind you, he's probably still trying to get it to start again.”

Priss nodded urgently. “Oh, alright. Thanks, Terry!” She dashed off in quite a hurry.

“You're welcome,” he shouted after her.

Priss ran down the gravel drive, snow and rough rocks crunching under her boots. Rael caught up to her. ‘What are you doing now?’ he asked, slightly annoyed.

‘I'm going to say goodbye to my dad. And possibly help him fix his car. He's going back home. Or at least trying.’

Trying turned out to be right. At the end of the drive, Jock’s old Land Rover was undergoing some impromptu repairs, and bearing witness to some rather salty Scottish epithets. He stopped, and looked up in surprise when he heard the crunching of gravel.

“There you are! Come to say goodbye to your old da, then?”

Priss smiled. “More like come to help you get the old rustbucket on its way. And that, too.”

Jock reached back into the engine bay, and there was a click. “Well, you're a bit late, I'm afraid. ‘Twas just a hose that came loose. I've got it back on, now.”

She looked slightly disappointed. “Oh.”

He patted her on the back with a hand coated in grease. “I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could stay and help, but I've got commitments back in Edinburgh. I'm having dinner with some blokes that might help us sell some more products.”

Priss nodded understandingly. “Of course.”

“But if you need anything, anything at all,” he emphasised, “you just give me a call, alright?”

“I'm sure I won't need anything.”

He laughed. “I don't doubt it. Just… hold the fort down. Make sure Terry and Tony don't wring each other’s necks. But don't try to do too much, alright?” He paused. “I don't know much about what this would mean, but don't let him ,” and with that, he pointed to Rael, “cause too much trouble. Ok?”

She snorted. “No promises there.”

Then, surprisingly, he turned to Rael. “I don't know you,” he began awkwardly, like someone had just asked him to deliver an entire soliloquy to a piece of toast. “I know you don't know me either. And you can't understand me. But you'll get to race soon, and I want you to do this team proud. And it won't hurt to try to be friends with them. It don't matter if you don't speak their language; one of me best drinking mates was a Frenchman, didn't speak a word of English. And, don't forget this, me lad: treat me daughter right.”

By then, he had conviction in his words; they were emphatic, and his expression was light, with just a hint of warning. Priss reached up and flicked him on the ear, which got his attention immediately.

“Oi, what was that for, missy?”

“I can handle him, I told you.”

The was the rustling sound of fabric as Jock pulled her into a hug. “I know you can,” he said quietly. Then there was a moment's silence.

Priss looked up at her father. “At this rate, you’ll miss your meeting.”

He sighed, although it wasn't heavy, or sad, it was more a blithe sigh, if such a thing existed. “Suppose you're right. Well, I shall be going.”

He gave Priscilla an exaggerated salute, which she returned with a smile. Then, he got in his newly-running Rover, and set off. Priscilla watched the bulky, beaten-up car trundle off through the snow.

Rael still stood behind her, watching the scene play out, with a mixture of curiosity, confusion, impatience, and a sort of hunger evident in his hooded eyes.

Chapter Text

Rael ran his hand over the right fender of the car. He regarded the canvas roof with a certain amount of what might be incredulity. It was totally alien to him. Not alien to anyone else, mind you, but at least it was little and green.

‘How many cars do you people need ?’ he marveled.

‘Not that many,’ Priscilla clarified. ‘Most people have one car per family, but this one's mine. It's called a Midget, ‘cause it's small, I guess.’

Rael frowned quite deeply. He'd been in road cars before, of course. But before his… surprise adoption, the only roadgoing cars he'd been in were transport vans. He didn't know what to make of normal road cars, least of all a convertible. So, naturally, he chose to insult it.

‘It looks slow.’

Priss scoffed. ‘Well everything's slow to you, isn't it? It's a fine car. Gets me where I want to go. Most of the time.’

‘Why is the roof made of fabric?’

Priss paused. ‘Because it's a convertible’ wasn't going to cut it. ‘So you can put it down, when the weather's nice,’ was what she eventually settled on. He seemed to accept that.

They got in, in a flurry of seat adjustment and weird squeaky leather noises. Priss stuck the key in the ignition and prayed for luck from the car gods. This was the first time she'd started it in a while, and in winter, no less. They sat there, stewing in some extra-strength awkwardness while the little thing coughed pathetically for a good minute. Finally, though, it started, taking them down the drive with a bump.

Rael couldn't help but look around in curiosity as they drove down the road. He'd been in road cars before, very recently, in fact, but he's hadn't really had time to think in them before. The world off the track had seemed at times like a sliver of a place, full of things that didn't matter and would never matter to him. Other times, he heard stories of it that unsettled him a lot more than he'd have liked to admit. Blatantly exaggerated scraps of memory were always passed around in the stables, stories of an infinite, twisting track lined with leering faces.

He looked out the window. The road was certainly twisting, and it might be infinite for all he knew, but all that was lining it was trees. A lot of trees, mind you, but just trees. The road noise permeated the cabin. It bothered Rael, just slightly, in the background of his mind. Eventually, buildings started popping up among the trees. He watched them go by, hands folded in his lap.

Priss looked over at him for a moment. ‘You alright?’

He looked at her oddly. ‘Why would I not be alright?’

She shrugged. ‘I don't know, you were just... giving off an odd feeling, for a moment.’ She turned her attention back to the road, and so did he.

After a bit, she felt like she should start some conversation. ‘Have you ever driven on the road before?’

Rael didn't take his eyes off the window. ‘No.’

‘Alright. Been driven anywhere, then?’

He gave her a look. ‘How do you think we get from place to place? The handlers don't parade us around.’

Priss sighed. She was beginning to get tired of this sort of response. ‘Well, I'm sorry I don't know everything about your life.’ It came out a bit sharper than she intended to. One of the downsides of telepathy was that there was less of a filter.

Rael let out a puff of air. He was quite distracted.

‘I'm sorry,’ she sent, tersely.

‘Why?’

She tried not to take her eyes off the road. ‘For speaking angrily to you. You see? That's something teammates shouldn't do, not really.’

He slung his gaze over towards her, dark irises filled with indifference. ‘I speak that way because that is how I feel. But if you want me to apologise, just ask . Honestly.’

‘Yes! I do! I've been trying to be accommodating to you, and you've given me nothing. I do realise the importance of patience, but I haven't gotten a single signal from you that you even tolerate me. And you were talking nonsense last night. I want to get along with you, and you just waffled about it being “different” because I'm a girl or whatever. I tried to understand, I really did, but please give me something to work with here!’ She let out a sharp huff of breath.

‘And I'm sorry for shouting!’ she added as an afterthought.

Rael looked back out the window. He was silent. Priss could feel the outlines of thoughts hopping around and coalescing in his head.

‘I don't hate you. You don't say it, but you think I do. It's under the skin of what you send. I tried to tell you, you're just not what I expected. None of this,’ he gestured broadly, ‘is what I expected.’

‘I get that.’

He ignored her. ‘But I will work with you. And you don't understand what I said. I didn't say that we can never get along as a team. I said that that's why it would take time. And you don't admit it, but I wasn't what you were expecting, either. I want us to be a unit quickly. I want to win. I want a real match.'

Priss nodded in a way that looked like her head was dipping smoothly over hills. ‘Right. Exactly.’ She giggled, even though she wasn't actually happy, or even neutral. ‘So we're agreeing now? Agreeing is in fashion?’

She could sense his face scrunching up in confusion. ‘What?’

She wasn't even sure what she'd meant. But she smiled anyhow. ‘That’s really quite good. Because I want to like you.’

‘Teammates should like each other, for peak performance.’

The houses and buildings were rolling by, one by one, and getting closer together. Priss maneuvered the little car into a parking lot to their left. She got out, and opened the passenger door for Rael. ‘We're here!’ she sent, with palpably fake enthusiasm.

He got out. He couldn't help but look around, definitely not in awe, but just at the sheer different-ness of all the things around him. There was a cluster of small, low houses by the roadside. Other houses and a few plain-looking buildings hunkered down in the wet grass.

The carpark they were in was a very small one, in front of what looked like a house, except it had a big window instead of a wall in the front. Rael had never seen anything like it. Mind you, he'd never seen much of anything, but still. Everything around him was both fascinating and aggravating in how alien it was.

Naturally, the little bell above the door startled the hell out of him when they walked into the old consignment store. Priscilla felt the shock secondhand, and turned around. Rael was eyeing everything like it was about to kill him, and he was about it kill it back.

This would be fun.

Chapter Text

There was only one employee at the old consignment store. No one was sure if the store had a name, and even fewer were sure if the owner did. She was just the little old lady who may have had cobwebs in her braid, but nobody wanted to be rude, so no one made snarky comments.

In a surprising display of movement, she waved to the newly arrived customers. “‘Ello, dearie.” The young lady waved back with a forced smile. The very disheveled young man looked like he'd been stabbed. Or seen a ghost. Or been stabbed by a ghost. Alright, that was a slight exaggeration, but he was on edge.

‘Rael, calm down, please. You’ve been in public before.’

He snapped out of it and growled quietly. ‘And I can do it again.’

‘See? That's the spirit.’

He glared subtly. ‘Don't patronise me.’

She went over to inspect a rack of blouses. ‘Why do you hate being out so much? It's quite alright if you don't want to answer, but I'm genuinely quite curious.’

He folded his arms instinctively. ‘Racing Drivers aren't supposed to be seen. Then people will know about us.’

She took a closer look at one of the frillier tops. ‘Why would that be so bad? I mean, I know there are people covering this up, but, inherently, what's so wrong with being seen?’

He shook his head slightly and almost spasmodically. ‘You don't understand. If you are seen, they will make you and your team disappear.’

Priss shook her head. ‘But that won't happen to us.’

He revved a little. The old lady didn't react in the slightest. She was probably mostly deaf.

‘You should hope it won't! I don't think it will, because you don't look like my match. It is specifically terrible for someone and his match to be seen together, because then the secrets are on display. There is two of one person who there should not be two of.’

Priss breathed both a slight laugh and a sigh of what could've been relief. ‘Well, we're safe, then, because we don't look like each other at all.’

‘No, we're not,’ he warned. ‘I am not human.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, but no one’ll know. Trust me. You look totally human. And the average person might hear you revving, which, if you could, please try not to do that in the future, and they'll just think there's a loud car outside. They won't immediately assume that there's a secret species of humanoids that sound like cars. Trust me. I'm a human. I know how we think, and that sounds crazy to us.’

He still seemed ill at ease, but at least he was something at ease.

‘Do you want to look for clothes, or should I just pick?’ she asked brightly.

‘No, don't pick. Give me that.’ He moved with an odd amount of alacrity, though not really aggressively, and plucked one of the blouses she was looking at out of her hands. She stood there, dissolving into helpless laughter, as he turned it over in his hands.

It was a very bold shade of red, with little tulle ruffles around the wide, v-shaped neckline. She didn't even know why she'd been looking at it; it looked more like the sort of thing a desperate, chain-smoking forty-year-old woman would wear.

Rael looked at it from different angles, idling curiously. He almost looked like a very pleased cat. He held it up to himself, trying to crane his neck in that practically-origami way people did when they wanted to see what an article of clothing would look like on them.

‘I will wear this,’ he announced. He paused, and looked down at her. ‘Why are you laughing?’ 

'You would wear that?’ Priscilla asked incredulously.

He folded his arms. ‘ Yes . And if that is odd to you, I will wear it with pride.’

‘Just a bit, yeah.’ A fresh laugh escaped her. ‘Rael, that's ladies’ clothing.’

He raised an eyebrow very pointedly at her. ‘What?’ He wasn't even posing a question. There was just a big, blank void of information, in which “-ladies’ clothing… -othing… -othing…” echoed and bounced around.

Priss took a deep breath. ‘Well…’ she began awkwardly, ‘There's typically a sort of clothes, like, um, trousers, I guess, that men wear, and then there's clothes that women wear, like dresses, and…’ She gestured to the red crushed velvet thing in his hands. ‘That.’

He continued to look at her oddly. ‘Why?’

She shook her head. ‘Honestly, I've no idea. It's just sort of the done thing.’

He let out a waste-gate puff of laughter. ‘Humans . Give them a good place for a straight and they make it a corner.’

Priss shrugged exaggeratedly. ‘If you like it, by all means, try it on. There's a changing room over there.’ She indicated a little plywood stall, partitioned from the world by a faded piece of fabric patterned with daisies. ‘Although I don't think it's going to fit very well…’ He flat-out ignored her, and pushed the daisies out of his way.

In no time at all, he’d happily made his way out of the rumpled white shirt and black vest, and slipped the red velvet top on. He stepped out, hands on hips. Priss giggled, hand covering her mouth delicately. ‘You look great.’

The way she thought it indicated she was about as serious as a clown dancing to polka records, but she sort of meant it. Rael looked outrageous. The blouse indeed did not fit him, in fact, due to the low neckline, his shoulders and the entire upper half of his bony chest was hanging out. And he was still wearing the shabby black slacks and loafers they'd gotten him yesterday. He looked like he was part of a band, and not a very good one. Either that, or a particularly flamboyant tramp. But the entirely serious look on his face was what sold the whole thing. It was a challenging look.

‘It’s lovely. Really. But it might not be your colour.’

He took surprising offense at this. ‘Not my colour? Are you blind ?’

‘Of course not. I just thought that you might look better in… dunno, black, or something. Dark red doesn't compliment your skin that well, if I'm honest.’

He shook his head. ‘I am a Red, not a Black. How it “compliments my skin” doesn't matter.’

Priss had to take a moment to decipher what he'd just sent to her. He'd said ‘Red’, but he hadn't just meant a colour. Red carried subtext with it in human society. There was a reason some say that the red ones go faster in regards to sportscars. Apparently the subtext was more of a supertext to Racing Drivers. She pursed her lips. ‘Right then. It's your wardrobe. But I think you should definitely have some trousers.’

Chapter Text

Stepping beside the slush-lined streets of what could be counted as the downtown bit of Giggleswick, Rael definitely looked a picture. Presumably one painted by an artist with an abundant sense of humour. He followed behind Priscilla, whole simultaneously trying to look like he was leading her , and definitely knew where he was going.

She was several pounds poorer than she'd been that morning, but he was seven pairs of trousers, six shirts, two ladies’ blouses, a faux-leather jacket, a silk neckerchief, and one pair of suspenders richer. He was taking full advantage of the jacket, a dubious pair of trousers with fringe, and a blindingly red shirt that flapped in the wind like a sail.

The things he wasn't wearing were in a tote at his side. And yes, at least ninety percent of them were bright red. She could barely believe she'd let him get that last item. She wasn't exactly the fashion police, or even a fashion vigilante, but those suspenders were a crime .

Rael continued walking, then faltered for a moment. ‘Where are we going?’

‘We're going to get you a toothbrush, a razor, a hairbrush, some other bits and bobs, and maybe some biscuits,’ she sent cheerily.

‘I know that. I asked where we were going.’

“Oh,” she said aloud. ‘We're going to the grocery store. Forgot what it's called; I don't usually do the shopping. But I'll know it when I see it.'

They stopped to wait for the traffic lights to agree with where they were going. Rael took in the scene with interest. There was one car waiting at the intersection with them. Soon enough, the light changed, and it and they were on their way.

Rael settled down behind the upturned collar of his new jacket, fending off the December wind. He inhaled deeply. It definitely smelled like a stranger, but at least it didn't smell of soap. The stuff was always so overpowering. But if it did smell of detergent, at least that would've been better than smelling of nothing. He hated things that didn't feel lived in. They didn't just feel unloving and dishonest, they felt dead.

Priscilla didn't pay any attention to what he was thinking; she was thinking things of her own. Mostly about little, golden things that tasted sweet.

‘Those things that you're thinking about. What are they?’

‘They're biscuits,’ she responded, with a touch of concern. ‘You've never had one?’

‘No.’

As they entered the shop, Rael’s eyes flicked from thing to thing, eagerly and suspiciously. ‘There's... so much food here. How is there so much food in the world?’

Priss giggled. ‘We-ell, for one, there's farmers who grow the things that make these foods.’

His mood shifted, into the “stop talking about things I don't know about” one. ‘Explain.’

She took a deep breath. This was going to be a fun one. ‘Well, you know vegetables?’ The ‘yes’ he sent back spoke of being all too familiar with them, especially cabbages.

‘They don't just pop off of trees, you know. People tend to them, and make sure they grow.’

He went up to one of the shelves, and dangled a loaf of white bread from its bag, looking at it with a small modicum of disdain. ‘What plant does this grow from?’

She shooed away the rather amusing mental image of a loaf of white bread sprouting from a tree. “It comes from a sort of grass called wheat. What happens in between then and now is really quite a lot of faffing about, but it makes some pretty nice loaves.’

Rael considered the bread, then put it back. ‘That one smells like chemicals. I don't like it.’

Priss nodded. ‘Objection noted. We've got plenty of bread back at the house.’

He sort of walked around, taking comically deep breaths, presumably indulging his preternatural sense of smell. ‘What are we here to get, anyway?’

She proudly pulled out her mental shopping list. ‘We’ve got to go to the toiletries aisle, to find you a toothbrush, a comb, a razor, that kind of thing.’ She made her way in the direction she thought was right, and then turned around, because it wasn't.

Rael took one step into the toiletries aisle, then recoiled immediately. Priscilla stepped back too. ‘What's wrong?’

He was opening and closing his eyes rapidly, and tilting his head like a confused dog. ‘The smell !’

Priss took a breath in. ‘What, the soap?’

He made an odd, sputtering, sneezing noise. ‘It feels like I'm being murdered by a thousand flowers at once! In the name of all that moves, how do you stand that?’

She frowned. ‘It's not that bad.’

He shook his head, sneezed, and revved in quick succession. His dark, greasy hair flew everywhere. It was definitely a sight to see.

Priss laughed quite suddenly. ‘Come on. Let's get you your things.’ She walked down the aisle, while Rael hung back.

The soap smell was really bothering him. She found herself almost asking what brand of razors he'd prefer, and then considered precisely how confused he'd be by such a question. Instead, as she went down the shelf and picked things out, she came up with another question, one that night end up being sort of important. ‘Rael?’

‘Yes?’

‘In the stables, did you ever shave yourself, or did they, like, shave you?’

‘They took care of all that they saw fit to,’ he sent somewhat bitterly. He also sent a memory.

He was definitely younger, maybe twelve. He'd been brought into the ablutions room with all the other colts, as usual, but something was different. The handlers had little things with them. Priss felt the surge of fear as little Rael watched the keen blades get nearer and nearer to his face. He cut the memory off there.

She shook the remains of it out of her system. ‘That's… odd. Couldn't they have saved themselves some work of they'd just taught you to shave yourselves?’

He blinked confusedly, as if this had never occurred to him. Which it hadn't. After a moment, he shot back with, ‘No. It's not odd. That's just the way it is. We do not clean ourselves. We save our energy for more important things.’

She shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

Chapter Text

The past week had been terrible. Even Priscilla had to admit that. They'd made virtually no progress on the car, and she hadn't had the heart to tell Rael to make some damn progress on his cornering.

The weather had also been terrible. She couldn't believe that there had been a time, buried deep under several years, that she'd actually liked snow. She used to go out and frolic in the stuff. Now, it wasn't even January and she couldn't wait to see the arse-end of winter.

Rael had been in a funny mood, too, and not funny in the sense that he'd actually developed a better sense of humour . In fact, quite the opposite was true. He'd almost died on the track that afternoon. Well, maybe not died, but almost crashed quite severely.

Priss had gone to calm him down, or whatever it was that he'd needed, but he'd screeched at her. Screeched . Something was definitely afoot. Rael might have been a bit of an angry one, but this wasn't normal behaviour, even for him.

So Priss had told herself she wouldn't worry about the fact that he hadn't come to dinner, and that his thoughts were a huge, obscure mass, and she'd gone to bed. Or at least she tried, because at around one o’clock, she was woken up by a loud bang on the other side of her wall. Where Rael slept.

This was worrying, to say the least, especially when coupled with the indelible sense of uneasiness that was starting to pool in the pit of her stomach. Something was most definitely wrong.

She crept into his room, heart in her mouth. Figuratively. She wasn't quite sure what she was scared of, because she didn't know what to expect. Rael’s room was completely windowless, so the only light that came in was from the hallway. It shone off all the baubles and dolls, which rattled around on their table.

She couldn't see Rael very well, but she could hear him. He was making a kind of high keening noise she didn't know he could make, and, in the dim light, she could see his limbs jerking and twitching. His arm must have hit the wall, or something of the kind. That would've accounted for the loud bang, unless he had been setting off firecrackers in his sleep.

She crept forwards, fully against her better judgement. She probed the place in her mind that connected to his, and recoiled immediately. It was… It was ridiculously hard to describe. The feeling she got from him was like static, if static could be in a state of intense panic. The shape of his thoughts felt like it was crawling with ants.

Priss stayed stopped where she was, just shuddering for a bit. What the hell could he be dreaming about that feels like… that ? she thought to herself. Not that it was strictly necessary to specify that she thought it to herself; Rael wasn't exactly in a position to hear her. Then she promptly remembered that she could go find out.

Slowly, she reached back for his mind, cautiously. A few thoughts graduated from nagging at the back of her brain to the lofty position of nagging at the front. Whatever he was dreaming about, it was probably horrible . Going to school and finding you've forgotten your pants didn't exactly merit that kind of reaction.

She felt guilty for a second, then found his thoughts again. You can't be too scared of something if you not very sure of what it is , she reasoned. Which was entirely wrong. People were afraid of things they couldn't put their fingers on more often than not. But it was after midnight, and at that point, anything that sounded vaguely profound would do.

She extended a spiritual limb towards that mass, roiling and crawling in an alien way, and took a brief look under the surface. She saw… things. A blur of images cycled past what she would've called her mind’s eye if she was the sort of person who believed tarot cards were useful for something other than making poker more interesting.

Priscilla frowned, though not conscious of it, and edged closer to the swirling dream. It was like she was in a room with a screen, playing randomly selected frames from an art student’s video project, and was stepping closer and closer to the TV. It filled her vision. She reached out to touch it… and suddenly she was falling, falling.

The world turned reversed, went a funny shape, and suddenly sssshe… He was falling up, into the room, the one where all the lights were too bright, and dirt covered the floor in the corners that the antiseptic couldn't reach.

The air was cold in his lungs, and especially on his face, which was streaming with tears. Humans bustled all around him, a blur of hands and faces, trailing their noises.

“Damn! Why won't this one stay still?”

Their hands were locked around his wrists and ankles. He thrashed violently from side to side, managing to bite the nearest hand.

“Ouch! Jesus Christ!”

“Are we going to need the ketamine?”

There was a pause.

“No, you idiot, heavy tranquillisers aren't the solution to everything. Get him something lighter. I don't care how much trouble he is, he’s of no bloody use if he's passed out.”

Something sharp flashed in the corner of his eye. He watched, with fear and rage, as two men held his arm down. Their strength was as indelible and immovable as any solid machine. The tip of the needle disappeared into the pale, worm-brown crook of his elbow.

It sunk down into the vein, and in went the clear liquid. It only stung a bit, but he screamed, screamed because the were doing things to him , things he couldn't do anything about.

He looked around, breathing heavily. He imagined he could feel the drug, whatever it was, running like sour, stinging poison through his veins. A sudden bit of panic jolted him. Were they killing him? Is that what it was? Yes, now that he thought of it, he felt a little woozy…

He tried to think it through, but his brain felt like there was cotton wool stuck in between all the cogs. He numbly thrashed about in resistance as the men pulled him upright, but his muscles were too tired. He felt colder. They were taking off his jumpsuit.

Dimly, a door opened in front of him. The men were saying something. They were laughing. The room in front of him was dark.

Priscilla sat bolt upright in the darkness of the spare room, her heart fluttering like a butterfly with chronic anxiety disorder. She whipped around. Rael was on the bed, his hands balled into fists around handfuls of the sheets.

‘Rael!’ she immediately called out to him. She wore the expression of someone who's just gone to unblock their drain, and discovered that the source of the blockage was, in fact, Cthulhu. “What on Earth was that ?”

He looked back at her. His eyes were wide, and his forehead was wet with sweat. ‘Get out.’

That one got her by surprise. ‘What?’

He revved loudly at her, his expression taking on a touch of desperation. ‘I said get out!’

She was at a bit of a loss. Her eyes darted back and forth helplessly. ‘Um. Alright?’

A tad sweatier and a lot more worried than she'd been upon entry, Priscilla burst out into the hallway. She still didn't know what the hell had just happened, but, moreover, why did Rael just want her to leave him? He was still getting used to the idea of actually doing a bit more than just tolerating her, but he had been doing better with it.

She leaned against the wall and wondered what to do for a second. Well, she couldn't just go back to bed now, could she? She tried for Rael. He didn't seem to be interested, shockingly.

Ignoring this, she did something akin to leaving a message on his mental answering machine, or, alternately, shouting into the void.

‘I'll be downstairs. Making tea. You know, in case you're interested. There'll also be biscuits.’

And with that, she set off down the stairs.

Chapter Text

Priscilla was making tea. This was mostly because she didn't know what else to do. In her experience, tea didn't exactly solve problems, but it never seemed to make them worse.

She rummaged around in the tea cabinet. Plain black, Earl Grey, Darjeeling… Well, it was the middle of the night. Couldn't have too much caffeine. She eventually settled on chamomile.

The kettle startled her with its loud and deliberately annoying scream. She quickly pulled it off the heat, and shushed it. She didn't know why she did things like that, it wasn't like the kettle would hear her and say, “Oh, terribly sorry, I don't know what came over me.”

The tea turned a rather nice amberish yellow colour in the delicate bone-china teapot she'd selected. It had been a present from her maternal grandmother. She'd sent a tea set to the MacLean household when Priscilla was very young as a sort of apology.

Priss set the entire set out on the kitchen table, sugar, cream, and everything. She set biscuits on the pink flower-edged saucers, two for her, and four for Rael. If any tea could help things, this would be it. She sat down, and then waited.

It wasn't long until she heard disgruntled footsteps on the shag-carpeted stairs. It wasn't exactly clear how footsteps could be disgruntled, but she just knew.

‘I knew you wouldn't be very long,’ she thought, very deliberately not looking up from the pattern on her teacup. To be fair, it was a very interesting pattern. The detail on the flowers was very clear.

Rael slunk across the sitting room and into the kitchen. There wasn't really a better word for it than slunk. His clothes, a very nondescript combination of loose pants and a t-shirt, were aggressively rumpled. He eyed the tea set, and slumped into his seat.

He looked very seriously at Priscilla, who wasn't looking at him. ‘You saw what was in my head.’

‘Well, I do that all the time, technically. Sort of.’ She could feel him getting frustrated.

‘No. You see what I want you to see. I can control it.’

‘Except when you sleep?’ she finished for him.

His eye twitched. ‘Obviously.’

She looked up, and sighed. ‘Look. I'm sorry. I didn't know what you were dreaming about. All I could tell was that you looked and sounded like you were in pain.’

‘Then let me be in pain!’

She looked at him incredulously. ‘Seriously? You want me to just… leave you alone?'

He rumbled. The tips of his fingers were locked in his hair, gripping tightly. Priss looked around awkwardly. Then, more out of an urgent need to do something than an actual desire for tea, she poured some into the delicate white cups.

‘Rael. Please have some tea.’

He let out a deep, shuddering breath, and let go of his hair. ‘Why?’

‘Um, dunno, really. It's good tea, I guess. Real Egyptian chamomile.’

He looked at her briefly, in confusion, and took a sip. His face contorted.

“Oh, bugger,” she whispered. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I forgot to tell you to cool it down. You could blow on it. Or put some cream in. And some sugar. Yeah, you should probably put in some sugar. And maybe ice.’

Rael, forgetting himself for a moment, stuck out his tongue and fanned at it. Priss almost laughed, although she felt quite bad about it. She leaned over the table, and scooped a generous amount of sugar into his tea, and poured some cream in after it. She disappeared around the corner for a moment to fetch an ice cube.

‘There you are. I remembered you're not exactly the biggest proponent of spoons.'  Suspiciously, he leaned over, and took a small sip of his tea.

‘Better?’

‘Yes.’

He picked up one of the biscuits, and popped the entire thing into his mouth. There was a long, slurp-infused silence as he finished off the cup of tea.

Eventually, Priss decided that she had to say something .

‘Look. I know you like to keep things private, and I respect that. Do I want an explanation of what on Earth you were dreaming about? Yes. Yes I do. Very much, in fact. But if you don't want to tell me, I'll be fine. I don't know if you will, for that matter, but I know how to leave well enough alone.’

‘Good.’ 

Despite the immediate, simple snippiness of his response, she could’ve sworn she felt a small blip of gratitude radiate towards her.

Chapter Text

The atmosphere in the kitchen was one of vague awkwardness.

No one could figure out quite why Rael had decided to sit between Craig and Terry. The two of them eyed him intermittently when they thought he didn't notice, and he looked at them out of the side of narrowed eyes when he thought they weren't looking.

He was also a particularly solid rock in the stream of the general conversation, which had to recalculate and flow around him. Everyone just awkwardly sat there, eating their respective lunches.

Hardly anyone noticed as Priscilla walked in, yawned, and stretched.

“There you are,” said Terry with mildly forced conviviality. “I thought we'd lost you for good.”

“Oh, god, tell me about it,” she groused. “I don't want to see another bloody waiver so long as I live!”

“Yes, but did you fill them out?” asked Tony insistently.

“I did. I mean, you're going to have to do the signatures-”

“Yes, naturally.”

“-but there's the issue of, uh, Rael,” she finished.

Because this seems to be some sort of a universal rule, everyone chose that moment to look at him rather onviously. Rael, taking some offense at this, looked up mid-chew and stared back.

‘Why are they staring?’

‘Well, we need to talk about some things.’

“Right, yes,” sighed Tony. “What are we going to do about him?”

‘What things? You can't just say it's “things.”’

Priss rubbed her temples. It wasn't like she couldn't talk and think at the same time, in a technical sense, but it was almost exactly like having to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time.

‘Can't you just see for yourself?’

He looked a little irritated. ‘Your thoughts are confusing.’

The team looked at her expectantly. ‘Later, Rael. Please.’

She narrowed her eyes and adopted a very performative “thinking” stance that would've impressed Rodin. Or probably just made him laugh.

“Yeah, I don't really know what to do about that. I mean, we really can't register him as a… a nonhuman Racing Driver, can we? I don't even know if you can. Is that a thing?”

Terry chuckled grimly. “Not unless you want the FIA down on our arses like a ton of bricks.”

She nodded slightly to acknowledge him. “Right, right. So I guess we'll try to pass him off as human. Should be fun.” She smiled desperately.

“Well, hold on,” interjected Craig. “He hasn't got any, like, legal records or anything.”

Tony nodded. “I'm afraid we're stuck there, yes.”

Priss wilted. “Oh. Right. That.”

Terry frowned, then sat up. “Come on, you lot. Do you honestly think that, when we register, they're going to go through the trouble of digging up everyone's birth certificates and all that? That's ridiculous.”

“Even so,” Tony cut in, “it would be unrealistic to expect that no one has heard about how we… came by Rael. It’d be obvious. We could just be honest, and, who knows, we might not be worth their time.”

“What, do you think they put up ‘wanted’ posters, or something?” retaliated Terry. “Besides, I doubt they'd just ignore us like that if we take a crap all over their rules.”

Nigel said nothing, and continued to nibble at his sandwich whilst he watched the exchange, like some sort of street theater. Priscilla sighed.

‘I do wish they wouldn't argue nearly so much.’

‘This is about me.’ It wasn't a question.

‘Yes. Yes it is. We're registering for the BP Formula Three series, but we've got to register you as well.’

She felt a spike of panic from him, and suddenly felt like she should explain things better. ‘We've got to register you under some name,’ she clarified. ‘Otherwise, you won't be able to race.’

That made him even more distressed. ‘No, I need to!’

‘Well, yes, I'm not arguing against that part. We're probably going to try to pass you off as human, but we're just afraid no one will believe us.’

This seemed to give him pause. In his mind, if no one ended up believing he was human, the FIA would come for him. He had two absolute priorities in life, which were to race, and to stay alive. Bringing the two into conflict was liable to short-circuit something.

Not really knowing what to do, Priss continued. 'Normally, I would guess that Racing Drivers are registered under their matches'  names. But, well...'

Priss looked at him worriedly. His thoughts were jumbled, acting in weird ways. Then, they seemed to solidify.

‘I will race,’ he sent, quietly but without a single question. ‘And I will win.’

Priscilla blinked off a sense of what may, by some definition, have been considered awe. “Good, good. Alright!” she said aloud, clapping her hands very pointedly at the bickering mass that had formed around the table. Four faces turned around to look at her.

“So, uh, me and Rael were having a bit of a discussion, and, as it turns out, he'd rather not die, but he really wants to race. So it's settled. For all intents and purposes, to anyone who isn't one of us, Rael is human.”

“Well, Priscilla,” said Tony gently, “I appreciate your resolve, but he hasn't got a surname. You can't put that on a form.”

“Well, we'll just make one up,” she said in a chirpy tone that somehow managed to have room for finality.

He raised his eyebrows. “Well. I believe it's settled, gentlemen.”

Terry grinned. “You're right. For the first time this century.”

“Which is once more than you.”

“Nigel,” said Priss out of seemingly nowhere, “Just looking at him, where would you say you think Rael’s from?”

Nigel shrugged, slightly panicked. He hadn't been expecting a pop quiz. “Er, er, Sicily!” he shouted out. “Or, er, some other bit of the M-Mediterranean. Or maybe Spain. I don't know. I know I'm not b-b-being very helpful,” he muttered defensively.

Priss patted him on the shoulder. “No, no, that was very helpful. Have any of you, uh, ever known anyone from those places?”

The air immediately went out of the room.

“Oh, god, right. Uh… besides, er, Nico,” she corrected quietly, face red.

Rael looked up at her questioningly. She brushed his attention off.

“The name ‘Rael’ sounds a little Hispanic itself, don't you think?” asked Tony.

“Yeah, a bit. I worked with a man from Spain once,” volunteered Craig, encouraged. “Name of Joachim San Jacinto. Weird bloke, but really knew his way around am engine bay.”

“San Jacinto,” mused Terry. “Rael San Jacinto. You think that'll do?”

Priscilla thought about this a moment. “It might. I like it. Sounds, I dunno, sort of mysterious. I guess.” She turned to Rael. “Well, I don't know, Mr. San Jacinto, what do you think of that?”

He frowned at her and revved. ‘Talk sense.’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Never mind.’

‘What were you saying?’ he insisted. A small smile sprouted on her face.

‘Well, Rael, all I can say is… you're going to race.’

Chapter Text

Rael shivered sullenly in his leather jacket, huddling into the seat of Tony's Renault Four. It was around six o'clock, and snowing softly outside. The road noise almost drowned out the sound of Tony snoring so quietly that it was barely audible in the passenger seat.

The trip had been Terry's idea, but his car had failed him the previous week. Tony was just there to prevent more dents, not that a dent would've made a difference on the car’s appearance.

‘We should've gotten you a proper coat. I'm sorry,’ Priss sent sympathetically.

‘I will be fine,’ was the grudging response.

‘Here, you can have mine.’

‘No, you keep it on.’

She ignored him, and wriggled awkwardly out of her grey wool coat. She draped it over him like a blanket. ‘There. It isn't red or anything, but it's rather warm.’

He sighed deeply. ‘It is. Be grateful if I don't fall asleep.’

‘Of course you can take a nap,’ she reassured him, even though he hadn't really asked. ‘It's quite a long way to where we're going.’

He opened one eye and fixed her with quite a look. ‘If you really don't want to tell me where we're going, like you keep insisting we do, then stop mentioning it.’ His eyes slid closed, and he went back to being curled up.

“If you say so,” she muttered.

“Did you say something, Priscilla?” asked Terry from the front seat.

She shook her head. “Nothing really. When do you reckon we'll get there?”

“Sorry, love, I don't know. Tony’s got the map.” Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached over to the passenger seat and flicked the older man squarely on the shoulder. “Wakey wakey!” he roared.

Tony jolted awake with a rather comical jostling of limbs and glared furiously at Terry. Rael glared disapprovingly at this scene, then went back to his attempt at a nap.

“That was utterly uncalled for,” he snapped.

“That may be, but it was hilarious,” rebutted Terry.

“I fail to see how that was funny.”

“It was a little funny,” said Priscilla.

“Have you just woken me up to torment me, or is there a point to this?” asked Tony huffily.

“There is, actually. Can you get the map out of the glove box?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Is that all? Honestly, you could've just reached over me or something and gotten it yourself.”

“I didn't want to disturb you,” said Terry, sweetly and without a hint of irony.

Priscilla had to cover her mouth to keep herself from laughing too loudly.

Chapter Text

Rael woke up to the mental equivalent of someone tentatively tapping on your bedroom door. That is, Priscilla was basically whispering politely for him to wake up and expecting it to work, which it eventually did.

‘Rael? You've got to wake up now. We're here.’

He rolled over and looked at her. ‘Will you finally tell us where we are?’

She nodded excitedly. ‘Let's come see for ourselves, shall we?’

She opened the door and slid out, joining Terry and Tony on the pavement. Rael followed behind, and handed her back her coat, which she accepted with a nod. Then he saw what they were all looking at.

Over the tarmac expanse of the parking lot, there rose a massive, plain building, which had clearly been designed by someone with absolutely no creativity, but possibly a lot of thoughts pertaining to shipping containers and the colour beige. It immediately and very unpleasantly reminded him of a holding facility.

He bristled and revved subtly. Priscilla looked at him questioningly, had a rummage through his proffered thoughts, and sort of went ‘Oh.’

After a moment or two of awkwardly standing around, they started towards the building. The night was dark, thick, and greasy as a bucket of pitch.

Rael rubbed his eyes. ‘So why are we here so late at night?’

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ sent Priss guiltily. ‘We had to come here after they closed. This is a big store for racing supplies, and, while we're normally fine out in public, the people who come here are more likely to recognise you, as, you know, not human.’

Rael silently acknowledged this, with a touch of frustration. It wasn't exactly pleasant, being reminded that he could never quite get away from that world.

Tony led them through a small door in the side of the building. Inside, it was warmer than the biting winter night, but not by much. Rael huddled down into his jacket. All around them, there were shelves lined with different sorts of racing gear. The particular section they were in seemed to be for helmets, which sat, neat, shiny, and unused, in rows.

At the end of the aisle, but rapidly coming towards them, was a man. He was muscular, and had the appearance of being compact. Tattoos and veins snaked down seemingly all of his limbs. He appeared to be in his forties, and his face seemed to be grinning madly without the consent of his brain.

“Tony!” he called, loudly and somewhat obnoxiously.

“Hullo, Barry,” muttered the designer resignedly as he was hugged somewhat violently.

“How have you been, me lemon-sucking old arse bandit?”

Terry laughed out loud. Tony's face went to a sort of sour disgust. “Never mind the… colorful epithets, Barry, have you got the order ready?”

The stocky man nodded dutifully, releasing him from the stranglehold of an embrace. “I have, I have.”

He looked around at the rest of the team, still maintaining a gormless smile. He went up and shook hands with Terry. “Oh, you must be Terry. Has he driven you up the wall yet, or is there still time?”

The blond shook his head, chuckling. “Mate, I'm on the bloody ceiling by now.”

“Lovely, lovely. And this wonderful young lady must be Priscilla, right?”

Priss walked right up to him and shook his hand as firmly as she could manage. Rael was right. Being talked about in the third person while you were in the room was annoying. “Guilty as charged,” she said, with an industrial-strength blast of sweetness.

She finally let go of his hand. This didn't have nearly the desired, or expected effect. Instead, he laughed uproariously.

“Oh, mate, she's a right pistol, so she is!” he said, elbowing Tony directly in the ribs. He clutched at his side, his face looking as if he'd just been shot, but didn't really want to make a fuss.

“Very good, can we please see the equipment?” he managed.

“Oh, have some patience,” the older man chided.

Looking somehow more solemn than before, he approached Rael. [You're their pilot?] His hands formed the gestures heavily, but not clumsily, like the dancing of a rhinoceros who just so happened to be a very seasoned ballerina.

Rael looked at him from below hooded lids. [I do not have to answer that. I do not have to go back. You should be telling me who you are.]

If anything, this seemed to amuse Barry. [You're a fiery one. The FIA is going to hate you. No need to worry, I'm not with them. I make helmets and jumpsuits, as well as some other things. Your team had a helmet and a set of suits made just for you. Would you like to see them?]

In an odd display, Rael’s expression brightened, by a lot. ‘You had equipment made for me? A new helmet?’ he sent to Priscilla, eyes wide and open. She didn't know what else to do but nod.

‘Why didn't you tell me?’ Well, there was some of the anger back, at least.

She shrugged. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

He looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why would you want to keep that from me? You make no sense.’

Beginning to feel like a broken record, she shrugged again. ‘I don't know. I think it's kind of a human thing, honestly.’

Rael shook his head, a smile blooming on his face. ‘Come on. I want to see my helmet.’

Priss felt a similar grin coming on. ‘Absolutely.’

Chapter Text

The curious thing about snow is its amazing silencing properties. It fell during the whole week, in huge, muffling drifts. Priscilla woke up earlier than she normally would have, for reasons quite unknown to her at that moment.

She drifted out of her room and down the stairs to the sitting room. She felt strangely, but not forcibly compelled. The sun shone through the windows, golden and quiet.

Rael was sitting on a chair, facing the picture window. He was clutching his helmet, its round, bright red plastic looking out of place next to the nubbly brown upholstery. Light streamed around his outline. Well, that was probably the reason she'd felt compelled to come down there, then.

The sight of him seemed to pull her out of her trancelike state. ‘Good morning,’ she sent quietly.

‘Good morning,’ he responded, not even turning around. The mystery seemed to go out of the atmosphere gradually, like air out of a balloon with a tiny pinprick.

She sat down on the chair nearest to him, frowning slightly. ‘How long have you been here?’

He continued to stare out the window. ‘Since before the sun rose.’

She wasn't sure what sort of answer she'd been expecting. It wasn't like he was familiar with the concept of dividing the day into hours. ‘Was it a good sunrise? Pretty and all that?’ He nodded. She fiddled with the collar of her nightdress. ‘So… is there any reason in particular you've been sitting out here since dawn?’

‘I have been thinking,’ he answered plainly.

She contemplated this. ‘Oh. About… what, exactly? Just things?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not just things. Strategy.’

This surprised Priscilla a bit. Rael had never really mentioned having something so refined as a strategy, let alone developing it. ‘What about your strategy?’ she asked, quite genuinely interested.

‘I have been thinking that I should have one.’ He said it with an inordinate amount of solemnity, and glared at her as she giggled. ‘Stop that. I know it's the right thing to do.’

She looked at him, her eyes full of mirth. ‘Oh, I didn't mean it that way, Rael. Of course you would have a strategy, I just a assumed that… you know… you already would have one.’

He shook his head blankly. His hands picked at the strap of his helmet. ‘My strategy was to drive. I drove as hard and fast as I could. Clearly that wasn't enough.’

‘Clearly,’ she repeated, still slightly stunned.

Rael glared determinedly out the window. ‘I will stop failing today.’

‘Well, wait, you weren't failing. I've told you that,’ she reassured him, though slightly confusedly.

‘I was making slow times. It's the same thing.’ He was messing with his helmet again. He'd been so happy when he'd put it on. Well, not so much happy as calm, calmer than she'd ever seen him. She suspected it was a bit like that spiritual Nirvana thing people who did a lot of yoga were on about. He really did live to race.

Priss sighed. He beat himself up more than anyone she'd ever known, and she knew Tony and Nigel. ‘Well, no matter,’ she concluded brightly. ‘Would you like some breakfast? I know I would.’

He sent her his grateful assent. He followed her into the kitchen. Frowning slightly, she dug around in the fridge. ‘Do you think you'd like some bacon?’ she asked. He nodded emphatically. He'd had his first taste of heavier foods a week or so ago, and had taken to fats and carbohydrates like a duck to water. He'd even been willing to learn the proper use of utensils, if it meant he could use them to eat something that wasn't a vegetable.

She put a pan on the cooker and poked the rashers around a bit, and also dumped a can of beans out into a pan. ‘I should teach you to cook sometime,’ she mused. ‘Useful life skill and all that. Of course, this is really the most I can do. You'd probably end up being better at it than me.’ He shrugged indifferently.  'You know what, I'll ask Nigel to teach you. That'd probably end better.’

‘Can he gesture?’ asked Rael dubiously.

Priscilla stopped for a moment. She hadn't actually thought of that, although she wasn't quite sure why she hadn't. It seemed rather obvious in hindsight. ‘Well, no, but he could learn. All of us should learn. I should, too, actually.’

‘Yes. Yes, you should,’ he sent plainly. ‘But it won't be easy.’

She nodded continuously. ‘I realise that, but we're a team. We need to understand each other.’

‘I'm not disagreeing with that,’ was the slightly disgruntled reply. ‘I just mean that I am not looking forward to teaching you.’

She laughed, whilst also going to get plates for their breakfast. ‘Come on. We can take turns. I'll teach you some human things, you teach me some Racing Driver things, alright?’

He seemed to think about this for a moment. ‘Alright.’

Chapter Text

Rael took a deep breath, eyes darting suspiciously from side to side. It felt like pressure was building in his throat and chest. The eyes of his teammates were beginning to feel to him like a vise felt like to an overripe banana.

‘I don't know how to teach people things,’ he finally sent. It had the general feel of an admission to it.

‘You'll do wonderfully,’ Priss reassured him, her smile still affixed to her face like it was nailed there.

‘I won't.’

‘You will. And we need this.’

He shuffled awkwardly forwards for a few steps across the faded carpet. He looked out at the rest of the team from under his hooded lids. They were waiting patiently and politely, although the definition of both differed immensely from person to person.

[Gesturing is simple. But that is only true for Racing Drivers. For you humans, it becomes inexplicably complicated.] He gestured it in the clearest movements he could manage, and sent it to Priscilla, all at once.

She glanced at him, frowned slightly. “What he's basically said there,” she told them, picking her smile back up, “is that gesturing can be pretty difficult.”

[For some reason, your kind tend to think that gestures that are different are the same.]

Priscilla's expression took on a bit of strain. ‘Rael! That isn't very polite!’

‘What do I care? They can't hear me.’

‘ I can hear you!’ She cleared her throat.

“He's also said that there are, um, subtle differences between gestures that, uh, you might think are the same.”

Terry nodded slowly. “Right, yeah.”

Tony looked at him suspiciously. “I thought you didn't know very much at all about Racing Drivers.” “I don't- Nigel, are you taking notes ?”

The tallest of them tried to stuff a small notepad into his breast pocket. “Er, er- no.” Craig snickered.

“I apologise on their behalf,” said Tony sourly. “Do continue, er, Rael.” Their pilot looked a bit confused.

‘They're asking you to continue explaining.’

Rael shook his head the tiniest fraction. ‘I do not know what more to say. I will try to answer questions, but they must be more specific than “continue explaining”.’

Priss considered this. ‘Right.’ “He, uh, wants you to be more specific. Just bear with him, please.” There was a brief and indistinct murmur that seemed to pass between them.

Tony was the first to step forwards. “Well, ask him, perhaps… Some vocabulary, I should think. Ask him how to say, er, ‘Hello, how are you?’”

Priss passed this along. Rael waved at them plainly, and made a few other passes with his hands.

“Oh,” said Terry. He chuckled. “That is pretty simple. Here, uh, ask him how you'd say, ‘It's raining today.’”

This time, the gestures were different, obviously, but made in the same clear way as before, like a man thinking that you can get foreigners to understand you if you just shout very slowly at them.

Tony actually appeared to be paying quite a bit of attention. “What about how to say, for instance, ‘The car is fine’?”

Nigel's pen made a skritch-skritch noise as it moved across the steno pad.

“Alright. And what if it needs some more work, as it were?”

Rael looked ahead heavily and blankly. There were a great many different ways to say that the car needed more work. There wasn't really an easy way to generalise.

Priscilla’s eyes moved back and forth a couple times, as if she were reading an invisible page. “Sorry. You're going to need to be more specific. Again.”

Tony stopped to think for a brief moment, so, naturally, Terry seized the opportunity to cut in. “Oi, Rael, how would you tell him to, for example, bugger off?”

Priss struggled to not laugh, and failed spectacularly. Tony looked affronted.

Rael got a wicked grin, and dutifully translated the request.

Chapter Text

When Rael said that he would stop failing that day, he meant it. Priscilla really had to hand it to him on that front. If he said he wanted something, you knew immediately that he really did. Of course, everyone knows that you can't just turn your entire strategy around in a day, but he appeared to be trying.

She was the sole occupant of the stands by the side of the track. Besides Nigel. Everyone seemed very interested indeed in the proceedings, but the tallest out of all of them seemed to be content to sit.

Meanwhile, it almost didn't matter that Priss was sitting, although if she had been standing, her knees would've locked, which wouldn't have ended well. It was peculiar, how it felt when Rael was racing. It was almost like observing the same thing from two points at the same time.

Yes, she could see him, zipping around the circuit, and seriously testing the limits of amateur engineering, but she was also seeing and feeling things secondarily through him. This phenomenon was always sort of present between them, but it seemed to get a lot more intense during a race.

It really was like she was getting a feed, a transmission through his eyes, feeling exactly what he felt, with his thoughts as a sort of radio chatter. And it was honestly rather terrifying.

He screeched around a tight corner, nearly flying into a snowdrift. Priss’ hands tightened unconsciously on the sides of the seat. That was another thing. The weather wasn't exactly on their side, and hadn't been since they started this endeavour.

They had long since given up trying to get any temperature into the tyres, and they were already half-deaf from the squealing of the brakes.

‘Please brake a little sooner!’ she sent cautiously.

Rael didn't seem to be listening. He heard her, mentally, at least, but listening was a whole other concept. He rumbled to himself, angrily, but somewhat melodiously. It appeared to be a bassline.

The idea of him singing wasn't necessarily a new one. He'd mentioned songs, and had hummed to himself a bit before, but this? This was different. The song was like a whetstone to sharpen his focus, which already could've sliced through a side of meat and ended up lodged in the chopping block.

It didn't necessarily have lyrics; anything involving Racing Drivers was more esoteric than words, although for good reason. Instead, it sort of had concepts, thoughts, and ideas baked into the very melody.

He was singing the first bit he was to himself, over and over. ‘The tarmac is devoured by my tires. The world around me is only streaks.’

Terry was standing next to the line, stopwatch in hand. Tony stood about a foot away from him, clearly trying to look uninterested. He spent a few seconds picking at his nails, then looked up, and shouted, “Priscilla! I respect that he needs time, but we may well freeze to death out here!”

Terry glared at him. “All you're doing by yelling at her is annoying the rest of us. Look at her, man, she couldn't hear it if we organised a bloody rock concert!”

He countered this with a chilly stare, ha ha, and muttered, “It isn't natural, that. I'm still worried about her.”

“Oh, what do you think he's doing then, stealing her soul? She'd know if there was trouble. And never mind that anyhow, look at him go!”

Rael blew past them in a fury of engine noise. Much of which was coming from him, unless a remarkably helpful and clever car thief had made off with their engine in the dead of night and replaced it with a big-block American V8.

“Priss, he's beaten his best time, love!” shouted Terry.

Tony snorted sardonically and muttered, “Talking of annoying the rest of us.”

Rael, of course, was oblivious of this, and even if he hadn't been, he still might not have stopped. ‘I will never be afraid of the corners. I will never be afraid of the night. When amber turns to green, I will take flight.’

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. Priscilla's nails dug little crescents into the plastic of her chair. She felt rather dizzy.

Rael was speeding down the main straight now. He knew this would be his fastest lap. He had no way of knowing what was on the stopwatch, but he just knew.

Terry waited tensely for a second, and then clicked the stopwatch as the car flew by. He cheered uproariously. Craig gave a loud hoot of approval.

The others didn't necessarily follow suit, but at least Nigel smiled, and Tony contrived to look a little less indifferent.

Chapter Text

The moon shone down on Snoughton like a pale, luminescent soup plate. That is, if soup plates had craters. The evening was a blue one, in a nice, deep shade that would've impressed the sea. Everything had a bright, pearlescent edge, and one that either stood black against the blue backdrop, or faded into the myriad shadows.

The warm, buttery glow of a lightbulb clashed horribly with all that nice pallette work that Mother Nature had done, although it was confined to the garden shed. Inside, Tony lay flat against the cold concrete floor, paper and pencil in front of him.

He considered this position rather undignified, and extremely uncomfortable besides, but he had to see the car from the correct angle. Sure, he could've taken a picture and traced, but they would've lost a certain je ne sais quois . Namely the time it would've taken to develop.

With hands that were long past beginning to ache, and really more in the intermediate states of achery, he traced the contour of the rear wing. It was, in his opinion, a ridiculous addition. Him and Nigel had done the maths, and checked each other's work. It didn't need to be this huge, flared, pantomime thing.

In fact, that actually took away from the functionality. But everyone else seemed to like it, including, according to the little bits of gesturing they'd exchanged, Rael. If everyone else wanted to be daft, then, while Tony didn't consider it their prerogative to continue being daft, they wouldn't listen to him anyhow.

He blinked in the dim light. His eyes were starting to hurt. Actually, his eyes had started to hurt an hour ago, he'd just forgotten about it. At this point, he decided enough was enough, and actually endeavoured to move his frozen limbs. Groaning, he managed to get up, joints protesting the entire way. He brushed dirt and metal shavings off his trousers.

His hands were practically numb. Blinking tiredly, he rubbed them together. It was like rubbing two pieces of cold stone together for warmth. That is to say, it didn't work. He shut his eyes hard. The light, no matter how dim, was starting to bother them. He turned it off with a click of the chain.

Blinking, his eyes tried to adjust to the dark. There were shadows outlined against the blue night, of trees, of buildings, of… things. One of said things moved and said “Hello.”

Tony reacted less strongly than he thought he would. “For god's sake, Terry. I never took you for the loitering type.”

The shorter of the two laughed a bit, surprisingly. “How am I loitering? I literally just got out here.”

“Never mind. Just try not to jump out of the shadows.”

“Mate, I think I would remember it if I did any jumping.”

Tony bent down to pick up his drawing supplies. “Why are you out here, anyways?”

Terry shrugged. “Dunno. Just going out to check on you, I suppose. You've been out here for three hours. Did you know that?”

Tony mulled this over. He didn't know. Time had genuinely seemed to fly. But it wasn't necessarily Terry's business to know.

“I did,” he said, picking up his pencils curtly.

There was a long, frostbitten silence. They could see their breath, drifting fleetingly into the night in cold clouds.

“So, uh, things are looking up, eh?” asked Terry, clearly looking to break the ice.

“I suppose so.”

“Do you think we'll be ready by April? I mean, I think we do.”

“I have every confidence in us,” said Tony, in very clear tones.

Terry began to rub his hands together, presumably for warmth. “You know, I was thinking maybe we could take a bit of a holiday.”

Tony cocked an eyebrow at him. “‘We’?”

“Yes, we. I mean, not right now, obviously, but I think we all deserve a little coop de grass, eh?”

Tony looked down his nose at him. “I really don't think you know what that phrase means.”

Terry waved dismissively. “Whatever. Fine. I'll take everyone else on holiday and leave you here, you and your fancy Latin bits.”

“That suits me fine, I should think. After all, there is no rest for the wicked.”

Terry ran a hand through his hair, chuckling almost inaudibly. “You're not wicked. A bloody-minded, idiotic hard-arse, yes, but wicked, no.”

“And I suppose you shouldn't like to know what I think of you, then?”

“Oh, trust me, I know what you think of me.”

Tony let out a small breath of what could've been exasperation. “Well. I'm going inside. No point in freezing to death, I've got to finish this drawing.”

“I'll go with you.”

Seemingly without thinking, Terry had reached out and grabbed his wrist. Tony stared at the limb as if it had just been severed, then yanked it away, glaring wordlessly.

As they walked back towards the house, Terry just couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut. “So why don't you like being touched, anyhow?”

“I just don't.”

“Come on. There has to be a reason. I know you're not a germaphobe, so it isn't that.”

Tony stopped in the middle of the doorway, exasperated enough to ignore the warmth radiating out of it.

“I said I just don't. Can you kindly leave it there, for once in your life?”

Terry didn't leave it there. He didn't do anything of the kind, in fact he did rather the opposite. He kissed him.

Tony didn't necessarily resist. His eyes were lightly closed throughout, and, after they came apart, he swayed slightly. It felt like a quiet, unsensing dream.

This lasted for precisely half a second, however, before he recovered, hauled off, and slapped Terry full in the face. It was a little cliche, but it was the best he could come up with on such short notice.

The blond winced. “You know, I can't say I didn't expect that.”

Tony ignored him. “You pillock ,” he hissed. “You utter, utter moron. What have you gone and done that for?”

Terry managed a small and desperate laugh. “Mate, I'll give you a second to think about that one.”

“I don't need a second! You're the one who needs to do a little thinking. Only a little, mind, since I suspect that's all you're capable of! You need to damn well learn that your actions have consequences.”

Terry began to look slightly blindsided. “Sorry, what?”

Tony gave up, and tried for a more direct approach. “Get out.”

He was beginning to look somewhat nervous, a rare occurrence. “Of what, the house?”

“No, because unlike you, I'm capable of thinking things through . I just meant for you to get out of my sight. Now. ”

So he did. Not that he was happy about it.

Chapter Text

At the track that day, things had an air of being slightly disrupted. Even Priss and Rael could tell things were amiss.

It wasn't just that Tony had refused point-blank to come with them, and hadn't even come down to breakfast, although that was a pretty big part of it. It was like something had changed in a barometric sense. A fat, dark cloud of unknowing was hovering above Snoughton.

Rael was especially attuned to this. Ever since he'd smashed his own lap record, he'd been in a decent mood, but, presently, you could forget about getting him to do anything other than grouse. And everyone noticed.

Rael stumbled across the tarmac, fiddling with the collar of his jumpsuit. [Are you navigating correctly?] signed Terry clumsily.

Rael made an exhaust noise. He knew what the mechanic was getting at. But his nerves were raw and frayed at the edges. [No!]

He grabbed Terry’s hand, and, ignoring the man's reflexes, bent his fingers into the correct position. [You do it like this if you are trying to say “comfortable”, and you do it like this if you are trying to say “successful”!]

He stormed off, leaving Terry to stare, half in disbelief, and half in sheer pissed-offedness. Priscilla fast-walked up to him, grimacing sympathetically.

“Jesus Christ , Priss. What bee flew up his arse?”

She winced, probably just because of that rather painful-sounding mental image. “Don't ask. He's been like that all day. I've gotten quite a few earfuls- well, more like brainfuls.” She sighed. “Still. I hope a spot of racing will help him work it out.”

Terry shook his head. “You and me both.” He turned around and stalked a few steps towards the car. “Oi! Nigel! Go get the lights and count him off, would you?”

As it turned out, a bit of racing didn't do Rael much good. In fact, it almost did quite the opposite, seeing as a shredded clutch and broken leg wouldn't have necessarily made for anyone being in a good mood. No, they just got the shredded clutch. It still wasn't any reason to celebrate.

Rael extricated himself from the stopped car, almost tripped, and kicked its wheel viciously. He revved loudly, with a screaming undertone. ‘Worthless! Worthless !’

Priss cringed, hunching her shoulders unconsciously. He didn't stop kicking it.

Terry grabbed him on the shoulder. “What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't blame the car if you can't shift properly.”

Rael, naturally, reacted like he'd been stabbed. He whirled around, and, lightning-fast, slapped Terry’s arm so hard he left nail marks. The mechanic retreated quickly, clutching his arm.

Rael let out an anguished rev. ‘Get away from me!’

The sentiment turned out to be rather pointless, considering that he got away from everyone else. He did this by running away to behind the stands.

Nigel looked on in shock. Craig whistled. “Je- sus ,” he said softly. Priss looked close to tears.

Terry seemed to be the first one to really take stock of things. He looked down at his injured arm. “He drew blood. Hope he's washed his hands recently.” Priss nodded vaguely.

The blond rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a deep breath. “Bloody hell. What a waste of a day. Just… go after him, would you?”

“I'll go with her,” said Craig very suddenly.

The heiress seemed to finally snap out of it. She shook her head. “No, you won't,” she said, emphatically. And then she ran off after Rael, following much the same path.

Chapter Text

Rael sat with his back against one of the supports that held up the flimsy collection of bleachers that apparently qualified as stands. He had his head resting practically in between his knees, arms crossed over his head like someone participating in the world’s most oddly timed bomb drill.

His hands were occupied with gripping handfuls of his overgrown, greasy hair. He heard footsteps approaching with an urgency which was entirely contained to the person making the steps.

‘Rael!’

He didn't look up.

‘ Rael !’

He heard a crunch in the grass beside him. It didn't take superhuman senses to tell that Priscilla had just sat down. She took in a quick breath. “God, that's cold.”

He could feel her thoughts whirring away in her head. She didn't want to say anything, and yet she had so much to say. Humans tended towards that behaviour, weirdly enough.

He slowly let go of his hair and relaxed his arms.

‘Your car is shit,’ he informed her when he was fairly certain she was least expecting it.

She made a noise that could've passed for laughter in some circles. ‘Yes. Thank you. You've quite made your point.’

For a while, the only noise was the whipping wind that blew their hair into their faces.

‘ You're angry at me.’ It was Rael that said it, but it could've easily been the other way around.

Priss frowned lightly. ‘A little shocked, yes, but-’

‘Don't lie. You are.’

‘Maybe a little angry, yes,’ she admitted. ‘Look, I do try to be reasonable with you, but you can't just kick things and shout at people for no good reason. Especially if said things are valuable property. And said people are your teammates.’

She looked around perfunctorily at the bleak winter scenery. ‘Whatever happened back there was too much, even by your standards. I mean… what was that all about?’

Rael looked up fully, if only to glare at her. ‘What part of “your car is shit” don't you understand?'

‘The part where you end up scratching one of your teammates and drawing blood! And I think it's pretty fair of me not to understand that!’

There was a brief silence.

‘He touched me,’ said Rael, somewhat more reproachfully than the situation merited.

‘ Because you were kicking seven shades of shite out of the car we built!’

‘I wouldn't have done if I could find second. And I couldn't . I couldn't find a gear in the entire thing!’

Priss sighed exasperatedly. ‘Well, that is a bit your fault, right?’

He grabbed at his hair again. ‘ I know !’

She watched with concern as he rocked back and forth. ‘I didn't mean-’

‘Yes, you did. The car failed me, and I failed it.’ His fingers tightened their grip. ‘This is not how it’s supposed to be!’

Priss bit back platitudes, and instead asked, ‘How is it supposed to be, then?’ She didn't think it was necessarily the right thing to say, but it might've been, so it was worth a shot.

‘I would think it is obvious. We would be better. More skilled. Proper. I would be that, too. Especially me.’

‘What do you mean, proper? Aren't we good enough for you?’

Rael seemed to think about this himself for a moment. ‘No! How can you say we are good enough? We are falling apart, and the series has not even begun! This team is made of spare parts. We were not made to fit together.'

Priscilla felt a small stab of resent, which she promptly tried to cover up, like putting a coffee table over a pool of blood and pretending it was a throw rug while the authorities arrived. 'You don't just mean all of us. You mean... us us. Don't you.'

He sighed deeply. 'You are my match. You are supposed to…’ He whined like a supercharger, briefly, face twisting. ‘I cannot explain.’

Priss raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, not to be glib, but I can't do something if you can't tell me what it is.’

‘A stallion once told me about what happens when you match,’ sent Rael after a pause. ‘He said that your match can take the pain away. When emotion is flooding your head, when it is everywhere and impossible to avoid, like now.’

Priss kicked a pebble around while the gears spun in her head. This sounded like something out of a sci-fi novel, and no mistake. She was more than a little at sea here. ' Right. So, remind me, how do I do that?’

Rael snorted. ‘Why do you think I would know?’ She shrugged.

They sat there for a while, breathing out steam into the cold of winter, white clouds like the ones in the sky.

‘Let's get back to everyone else,’ sent Priss. ‘They'll be worried about us.’

‘They won't be worried about me. Not after what I did.’

‘Are you kidding? They'd be even more worried about you after an outburst. They're your teammates. I do want you to apologise, though.’ A sour look crossed Rael's face. This was going to be fun.

[I'm sorry.]

The gestures were as small and bad-tempered as a sleep-deprived toddler.

Terry stared for a moment. “What does that mean?” he finally whispered.

“It means he's sorry. At least it should.”

Rael, picking up on her meaning, looked offended. ‘Would I lie?’ She shook her head quickly.

Terry, who couldn't hear this conversation, asked, “Well, is he?”

She nodded, looking ashamed. “Aren't you angry?”

“At you? No. At him? A little. In general? A lot.”

“At who? Tony?” asked Craig.

This was the exact wrong thing he could've said. Even he cowered a little under the mechanic’s crushing glare.

“Mind your damn business, O’Donnelly,” he growled.

The Irishman slunk back, muttering “Alright, alright, I was only asking.”

Terry sighed, scratched at the bandages from the first aid kit that had been hastily wrapped around his arm. “Craig, what bloody use are you anyways? You've wrapped me bandages too tight.” The Irishman sighed. “That's the fifth time you've mentioned it in less than ten minutes. And no, I've not wrapped it too tight. I didn't get halfway through nursing school so that I wouldn't be sure about a damn bandage.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Right,” said Nigel, who had apparently mustered the courage to look less than terrified. “So, er, sh-should we put the car b-b-back on the trailer?”

Terry turned the full force of a glare dripping with sarcasm onto him. “No, y’ great daft git, we should leave it out here for the little transmission elves to fix.”

“S-sorry. Stupid question.”

Terry sighed, then clapped his hands decisively. “Right. Get to work, you two.” He looked at Priss and Rael like he was considering them. Not maliciously, just… observing.

“D’you want us to help them?” asked Priss.

“What? Oh, yeah, that'd be great. Don't hurt yourselves, mind.”

As they went off to the trailer, Terry let his eyes slide closed for a moment. He was starting to get a headache.

Chapter Text

Terry slogged through the shag carpeting like it was deep mud.

He might as well get this over with. Tony couldn't just stay in his study forever, although god knows he'd try.

Everyone else knew something was amiss. Besides, it wasn't like they could just keep ignoring each other. The only time Tony had been seen that past day was when he'd gone downstairs for a glass of water.

Terry had attempted to talk. Either the older of the two had suddenly gone deaf, or he was just ignoring him.

Gnawing apprehensively at his lip, he stopped in front of the warped wooden door. Here goes nothing , he thought ruefully.

He knocked.

“Who is it?” was the response, predictably.

"I'm coming in,” said Terry plainly.

“No, you aren't. Bugger off, Terry.” His voice had turned from tired and indifferent to hard and snapping.

“Yeah, don't think I will, thanks.”

There was a few seconds’ silence.

“Have you gone yet?” asked Tony impatiently. His voice was muffled through the door, but no subtleties seemed to be lost.

“Did you hear what I just said? I'm not leaving. You've got to deal with this sometime, and better now than later.”

“I haven't the faintest clue what you're on about.”

Terry sighed, hard. “Tony,” said he said exasperatedly, “you're gonna hurt yourself one day.”

“Oh, and I expect that's a threat?”

He looked momentarily thrown. “What? No, it’s a fact . You can't just ignore this forever.”

“I can, I will, and you've got no power over me! None!”

That one startled Terry a little. He'd expected shouting, but that had just been a little sudden. It felt like being unexpectedly bitten by a small dog. Anger started to rise in his throat.

“So we're shouting, are we? Fine. Two can play at that,” he barked. “Of course I haven't got any power over you! This isn't about me, and you know it isn't!” He took a deep breath. “Anthony, you're a bleedin’ poofter! Why don't you just admit it? ”

After a moment, he added, “And could you please just open up, I feel like a bit of a tit for shouting at a door!”

There was a shuffling, and the door cracked open a bit, almost reluctantly in and of itself. Beginning to feel a tiny bit self-conscious, Terry walked into the study. The place reeked of smoke. Drawings were strewn everywhere in an uncharacteristic display of messiness, and the ashtray was overflowing.

Tony stood in the middle of this mess, arms folded. He was not, to say the least, happy. “Why don't you shout that a little louder, eh?” he snarled. “I've half a mind to cuff you over the head!”

“Only half a mind? Wow. Progress,” muttered the blond, snidely.

“You're not listening to me, are you?”

“Well, ‘s only fair, innit? It's not like you've been listening to me.”

“I don't have to listen to anyone, least of all you!” He said this almost accusatorily.

Terry rolled his eyes. “Has no one ever told you not to shoot the messenger? You could've dealt with this earlier if you just got around to it.”

Tony gaped at him. “This is ridiculous . I'm not a homosexual.”

The shorter of the two laughed under his breath. “Jesus Christ, you don't actually believe that."

“Terrence, you're hardly the arbiter of what I do and don't believe.”

“Well, if you do, mate, then you've won a gold medal in mental gymnastics,” said Terry firmly. “I'd understand you being a bit cagey about it with strangers, but it's not the stone age anymore. It's 1978. Stop… stop eating yourself alive about it. It's the least you could bloody well do for yourself.”

“God, you really don't understand, do you?” Tony was glaring at him, rancorously. “Some things just can't be , Terrence! This is the sort of thing you can lose family over.” His chest heaving up and down beneath his shirt. “Jobs, livelihoods… family.”

Terry simply stared at him. “I'm sorry about that,” he whispered.

What did you say to that? It wasn't like his life had been difficulty-free. But at least his parents had never found out.

Tony didn't seem to hear him. “Why are you doing this to me? I tried so hard, for so long, to just be normal , and now think you can just trample all over that?”

“Doing what to you?”

“I've not got to answer that,” he Tony, likely quicker than was warranted.

“Well, that's fine, ‘cause I can tell,” said Terry with a snort.

Tony glared at him, a good strong glare. “And precisely what do you mean by that?”

“Tony, just ‘cause you've got the emotional literacy of a rock doesn't mean everyone else does.”

The older man put his head in his hands. “This is such a farce,” he said quietly. “I don't love you.”

“Never asked if you did.”

There are few things in this world that are actually priceless. But the look of utter mortification that crossed Tony's face at that moment would have come close to qualifying.

He could've chosen to blame himself, in that moment, and he did, at least a bit. But, rather unsurprisingly, his first thought was to blame Terry.

He sat back, and folded his arms.

“Alright,” he said, with an unwarranted amount of calm. “Start talking.”

Chapter Text

Rael drifted in and out of sleep, curled up tightly under the covers. The blankets were too thin, he knew, but it was better than being exposed to the biting air.

A sort of delirium overcame him. He shivered, drifting in a shallow dream. The cold brought back memories of concrete floors and bruises, being separated, being too much trouble, being useless.

His eyes came open, though he wasn't entirely awake. The moon was shining down through the small window, shining in the cold, clear night. At least that was something that let him know he wasn't in a concrete cell. Well, that, and the little touch in his mind.

She was awake, too, but only just.

‘Rael?’ she sent groggily. ‘You're awake, right?’

‘No. I am asleep.’ He was too tired to do anything but deadpan.

‘Right. Yeah.’ After a while, she asked, ‘Are you okay?’ with the very strong implication that he wasn't.

He sighed, and wrapped the sheets more tightly around him. ‘I am cold. It is cold. Don't you people have a furnace here?’

‘Ours is broken. Sorry. I'm freezing, if it's any comfort.’

‘It isn't. I am still cold.’

There was a long pause. ‘You were dreaming. About… being locked up somewhere. Was that just a dream, or, you know, a memory?’

‘There is little difference,’ he sent grudgingly.

‘Oh. Sorry.’

After a while, he sent, ‘You know, it is expected for matched pairs to sleep in the same bed.’

She seemed to have a mixed reaction to this. ‘Um, alright? You know, if you wanted a little company, you could've just asked.’

He hunched down into the covers, huffily. ‘I am asking. Do you want to, or do you not?’

She thought indecipherably about this for a second. ‘Sure,’ she sent, eventually.

Mildly irritated, he rumbled into his pillow. ‘Is that a yes or a no? You clearly don't want to, so just stay in bed.’

Priss frowned from where she was on her bed, as if she was having a face-to-face conversation. ‘It's not that, it's not that at all,’ she corrected hurriedly. “It's just that, well…  I don't mean to be old-fashioned, but sleeping in the same bed as a boy is just… I don't know, a little weird.'

Rael fixed her with the full beam of his sleep deprived, disinterested confusion.

She sighed. ‘Forget it. It's just some human nonsense.’

‘From what I have seen, a lot of things seem to be “just some human nonsense.”’

‘You're right about that, at least,’ she thought, a touch ruefully.

He could sense her getting out of bed, wrapped in a blanket.

‘Thank you.’

‘You're welcome. I guess.’

He moved over until his back was touching the wall, to make room in the tiny cot. She laid down in a way that somehow exuded politeness.

‘Crikey, this bed is small. Why couldn't you have come over to mine?’

He settled down under the warm quilt she had brought. ‘Don't know. You're the one who came over here.’

‘Yeah, well, I'm not getting up.’

‘Good. I will not, either.’ His eyelids slid closed, and stayed there as if they were weighed down.

‘Rael?’

‘What now?’ He didn't open his eyes, given the effort that would've necessitated.

‘Nothing. I just… I’m curious as to what you were dreaming about. Only if you're willing, of course,’ she added hurriedly.

‘Could you not see it?’ he sent, somewhat impatiently.

‘Not really. I mean, I can see bits, and I can definitely feel things, but I can't make much sense of it.’

Rael, separated from sleep by a margin the thickness of a fly’s eyelash, wasn't quite sure what to tell her. ‘Well, just now, it was only… you know, the memories. Being locked up.’

‘That must have been terrible!’

‘Yes.’

Priss took a moment to bite her lip. Not nervously, just habitually. She didn't want to pry. And he was definitely getting tired. But it had certainly occurred to her that, had he not been so tired, he might not have answered.

‘Did they do it often?’

He let out a deep breath. ‘Often enough. I fought them a lot. Bit and scratched them for all they did to me.’

‘God, that's awful, Rael.’

‘What, that I fought them?’

‘Of course not! I mean it's awful that they did things to you. Whatever those were.’

If his eyes hadn't been all but sealed, he would've eyed her quite suspiciously. ‘You are pushing me.’

Priss shrank back, guiltily. ‘Sorry.’

He gathered the quilt around himself, ignoring her. For once, he seemed too tired to argue.

‘Goodnight.’

Chapter Text

Nigel thought he was the first to wake up. He had fairly good reason to think this. It was, after all, seven o'clock in the morning. Not unreasonably early, but most of the team would still be asleep.

He was wrong. As soon as he got near the kitchen, he heard voices. Not the kind which sound vaguely demonic and are oddly insistent upon murder, but the sort which come from actual people talking, about things which tend not to be murder.

He considered waiting until they got done to get himself breakfast, but the noises his stomach was making almost gave him away in and of themselves. So, reluctantly, he poked his head into the kitchen.

The interlocutors in question, which were Terry and Tony, didn't seem to notice him.

Terry let out a subtle snort of laughter. “I thought you were making that bit up.”

“Why would I lie about something like that? No, it failed the crash test spectacularly.”

For reasons slightly beyond him, Nigel said “Um.”

The two men at the kitchen table turned to look at him. The older of the two even looked slightly startled.

“Wotcha,” Terry greeted him casually.

Tony looked to him and back to Nigel, an expression of concern on his face. “What are you doing down here? At this hour, I mean.”

“Um, g-getting breakfast?” squeaked the hapless anorak.

“Oh, god, is it morning already?” He leaned over to look at the clock in the hallway, and his entire face seemed to readjust itself into the position of standing corrected.

“Seven oh five ay-emm,” said Terry lazily, reading off his watch.

“Yes, thank you, I can read a clock,” Tony dismissed him.

“Wait, so…” The blond appeared to be counting things on his fingers. Then he gave a loud hoot of laughter, which startled both others present. “We've been up all night!” he exclaimed, almost revelatorily. “And just from  talking, too. Hah! I haven't done that since, oh, '68, '69. ”

“All night?” echoed Nigel. He wasn't too surprised. He was quite well-acquainted with the concept of the all-nighter.

Terry nodded, rubbing at his eyes.

Without a word, the gawky brunet got up, and began to make coffee like his life depended on it.

“What're you, uh, doin’ there?” slurred Terry curiously.

“Making coffee.”

“You're uh, making it a bit strong, innit.”

Nigel turned around and made eye contact with him. “I know how to deal with people who've been up all night. I went to university.”

This was said very plainly, but with a concerning undertone of fear, which both Terry and Tony decided, logically enough, that they hadn't nearly enough sleep to ask about. The coffee was poured out into cracked mugs. The stuff was so strong, it could've lifted its own body weight.

They took long, slow slurps of it, although Terry was being especially loud about it. Tony looked at him disapprovingly. “Stop drinking it so loudly, you'll wake up the whole house.”

Priscilla wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. Rael followed behind her like her shadow, except bonier and with emotional baggage.

“What was that bit about waking up? That sounds like something I'd like to do.”

Terry gave her a tired smile. “Long night?”

She shrugged. “Sort of, I suppose. I eventually got to sleep, but it was bloody well cold. Just ask Rael.”

Nigel nodded in agreement. “It really w-w-was.”

Priss seemed to pause for a moment, as if she'd forgotten something. “Er, have you and Tony made up at all?”

“No,” said Tony immediately.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘made up’, love,” said Terry, ignoring him.

“Did… Are you two still mad at each other?”

Tony looked around carefully, as if afraid of divulging something classified. “Priscilla, I don't understand how he doesn't infuriate you. He's a moronic yob. He can't get a single thing through his skull, and, moreover, refuses to try.”

“Oh, I'm stubborn?”

Both of them looked like they were going to fight, which, with each of them, looked different. Terry looked genuinely angry, whereas Tony just folded his arms and sort of sneered.

Priss, on the other hand, looked concerned. Nigel managed to look more frightened than usual, and Rael had the expression of someone who's watching a show they're pretending to not be interested in, but is secretly a little interested.

At that very tense moment, Craig walked in, wrapped in an enormous wool blanket which made him look somewhat like an Andean llama herder. That broke the spell. Everyone stared for a moment.

“We really need to mend that furnace,” laughed Terry down into his coffee.

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” asked Tony frostily. “You can mend the furnace. The rest of us have got work to do.”

Chapter Text

It wasn't a lovely morning, the grass wasn't wet with dew, and the sun was most definitely not smiling down on the countryside. 

The only thing that was down on the countryside at that point was a dense and chilling fog, which froze shortly after covering whatever it came into contact with. 

It wasn't so cold that it could freeze on anyone's skin or hair, but it made everything feel clammy. 

Rael shifted uncomfortably around as Terry and Craig got the Flower down off its trailer. 

‘There is someone here,” he sent, in the same tone he'd use if it were a poorly kept secret. 

Priscilla frowned and looked up from fiddling with her scarf. ‘Really? Who?’ 

He shrugged apathetically. 

Behind them, there were distracting shouts of, “Gently, gently… I said gently , you tosser! Do I need to buy you a bloody dictionary?” 

She smiled privately. It seems whatever had been bothering their lead mechanic had been resolved, either that or made worse to the point of him not caring. Whatever the case, he seemed back to his old self. 

Tony leaned against the side of his car, shivering slightly. He'd forgotten his jacket. Priss watched him for a few seconds, wrapping her own coat tighter and tighter around herself unconsciously. He must be cold , she thought conciliatorily, but I don't want to be.  

Soon enough, though, things got underway as they half-hauled, half-rolled the little open-wheeled car towards the track. 

That being said, they were in for a bit of a surprise when they got there. Someone had already set up shop there, more specifically, four someones. They were clustered next to the maintenance shed, ostensibly talking amongst themselves. 

Priscilla’s first reaction was one of mild panic, although that could've easily been Rael. 

‘I told you someone was here!’ 

‘How’d you know ?’ 

That was a decent question, actually. The strangers hadn't done anything to signal their presence. 

‘Their driver,’ he sent curtly, as though it was blindingly obvious. ‘I can sense her.’ 

This exchange was cut a little short by Terry shouting “Oi! Who are you lot?” across the tarmac. No one replied, instead, they chattered more nervously at each other. 

“Sod this,” muttered Terry. He set off towards them. The figure on the right, discernibly in a pair of racing overalls and helmet, put down its visor. 

Rael began creeping slowly backwards. 

The team watched from a distance as Terry seemed to introduce himself and carry on a little conversation. Then he motioned for them to come over. 

They followed, although Rael lurked behind Priscilla a bit, as if he was hoping no one would notice. 

As they drew closer, they could see that the strangers in question were, in fact, likely not anything to worry about. Two of them were rather elderly, a man and a woman. The other one appeared to be in his mid-forties. 

Terry greeted them as the two groups met. “‘S alright, chaps,” he said disarmingly. “They just got the schedule mixed up.” 

Priss gave a relieved smile, half-forced. “Oh, that's alright, then.” She stuck out her hand for the old woman to shake. “Hullo, I'm Priscilla MacLean. Lovely to meet you.” 

She accepted, which Priss regretted slightly- there were rocks that would've looked soft in comparison to her handshake. “M’ name's Pam, dearie, Pam Waller. This one's m’ husband, Harry-” She motioned in his general direction, eliciting a nod.”-and this one's our Roderick, y’ see.” 

The forty-something grinned in a way that could only be described as “squashed”, and waved lightly. 

“Oh, a family team, how wonderful,” Priss beamed. 

“If, er, I may ask,” interjected Tony, “What exactly brings you here?” 

“Oh, we're just doing a spot of winter testing. Race season’ll be on us in no time at all, and no mistake.” 

Terry gave them a polite smile of interest. “What series are you racing in?” 

This seemed to have been the wrong thing to ask, in some measure, because the older couple began arguing about it. 

“Which one is it, Harry?” 

“Petrol something, wasn't it, dear?” 

“Oh, yes, it was the British Petroleum Formula Three one, yes,” said Pam, finally. 

“Really?” asked Priss excitedly. “What a coincidence, we're in that one, too.” 

“‘S not really a coincidence, there were two for this region…” muttered Craig, with the full intention that no one would hear him. Which was good, because no one did. 

“Well, seeing as we were mistaken about the schedule, I think we'd better get packed up,” said Roderick hurriedly. 

“Wait!” said Priscilla, quite out of nowhere. She really wasn't sure what had possessed her to say it at all. 

She pointed slowly at the one person who hadn't been introduced, who had been standing at the back with their arms folded, visor down over their eyes. 

“Is that your driver?” 

Chapter Text

Pam seemed extremely unsure of how to answer this.

She eventually pointed to Rael, who was looking a peculiar mix of uneasy and interested.

“Is that yours?”

“Yes?”

Then, with all the suddenness of a falling anvil, the old woman adopted a jovial tone. “Oh, that's alright, then.”

The other team’s pilot came forward and took off her helmet, grinning. She looked uncannily similar to Pam, save for a small wart on her nose, and, more obviously, a pair of bright green racing overalls.

Roderick came over to his mum and whispered, “Mum! Are you sure you should be doing this?”

She waved him away. “Oh, Roddy, dear, don't be such a worrywart. Look, they’ve got one, too.” She seemed to have noticed that Rael's behaviour wasn't exactly standard, which is something a small cave fish could've noticed.

“But he doesn't look like-”

“Hush, Roddy!”

He backed off, reluctantly. She beamed, this time seeming actually rather happy. “Sorry about him, he's just being cautious. This is my right hand girl, Tam. She says her name like this, see?” Pam demonstrated the name-sign by slapping her hands together sharply.

Tam waved happily. All of them, except for Craig, waved in return, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

[Hello, I hope you're keeping pace,] gestured Priscilla clumsily.

[I hope you're well, too,] returned Tam without smugness.

“How did you get her?” asked Tony, a little untactfully, although he was really quite curious.

“Oh, they practically gave her away to us,” laughed Harry.

His wife nodded in agreement. “Aye. Apparently they don't get much call for ladies our age in the racing profession.”

Tam revved happily. [I'm just happy to be here.]

“Oh, good, good. Lovely.”

A little bitter flower bloomed in Priscilla's head. They “gave her away”? Where was that attitude when they'd gone to get Rael?

“So what about yours?” asked Pam politely.

“I'm afraid we had rather more trouble with him,” Tony cut in smoothly.

“What, red tape, all that?” Every member of the MacLean racing team, to a man, exchanged glances.

“Yes,” said Terry eventually, to save everyone the trouble. “But he's here now. Hi! Rael!” [Come here, would you?]

The pilot looked at Priss for confirmation, and then slunk forward. She hovered next to him with a frozen grin.

“This is Rael. How did you know he was, uh, wasn't human?”

“Well, seems a little obvious to me, seeing as he was eyeing our Tam.”

Rael got her meaning secondhand, and took it as an accusation. He revved uncomfortably. ‘Of course I was looking at her! You never see an old mare on the grid.’

‘Why not?’

‘Mares do not race,’ he said flatly.

Priss decided, wisely enough not to press the matter. ‘Well, you’d better go introduce yourself, anyhow.’

He glared, briefly, but eventually took a couple steps towards Tam. She tilted her head and smiled at him.

[You're theirs?]

[Yes. They are a good team.]

[So’s mine.]

He studied the Wallers, rumbling pensively. [They do not look… proper. Professional.]

[Neither does yours, little stallion,] she gestured, with a hint of glibness.

Rael’s eye twitched. [I look up to no one, old mare!]

[I didn't ask if you did,] gestured Tam, with a surprising lack of anger.

[You implied it.]

Oddly, she seemed to find this all enormously funny, cracking a smile.

[You'll go far, little stallion, and you'll get there fast. Don't worry. I don't look down on you. Everyone's little when you get to be my age.] 

Chapter Text

It is a known fact that the amount of pubs per capita in the UK was far superior to other countries. It didn't matter whether this was actually true, of course- it was a known fact, not a fact fact.

Everyone had a local, the quality of which could generally be judged by the concentration of twigs in the beer, and exactly how trace the trace amounts of urine in the peanuts was. This particular pub, known as the Gruntle and Sage, would've scored particularly high.

It was fairly small, cosy, even, if you were the sort of person who thought about things that way. Every wooden surface in the place appeared to have been recently varnished, when they were, in fact, infrequently cleaned. This was mostly concentrated to the tabletops, but even the door felt a little sticky when you opened it.

It squeaked extremely loudly as it opened to admit the entirety of the MacLean racing team. Tony shut the door behind them, and grimaced at his hand before deciding it wasn't worth making a fuss about.

The barman waved egregiously at them. “You lot!”

This choice of words could be interpreted in many different ways, but, in the least expected one out of all of them, he seemed to be genuinely pleased to see them. “I haven't seen you here in ages! Thought you disappeared,” he laughed.

“Nah, not us,” said Terry. “How’ve you been, Nick?”

“Same as always, young man. Same as always.” Nick “Scouse” Finnikin was the sort of man who, what he lacked in stature, he made up for in presence. He was, in fact, a dwarf, and, as such, had so much presence that it got wherever he was going five minutes before he did. None of them knew how the hell he got his nickname, and they were honestly afraid to ask.

He peered at Rael, who somehow managed to both stare angrily, and shrink back. “Who’s the new lad?”

“Just our driver. He doesn't talk much,” said Terry obfuscatingly, swaggering up to the bar. “I'll take a pint of your worst.”

“Another one for me,” Craig piped up.

“Right you are,” the barman said in his rumbling voice, moving off to go get the requisite pints.

“I don't suppose there's anything in this establishment worth drinking,” said Tony, coolly.

Nick set the mugs down in front of their eager consumers-to-be, who had already had a seat at the bar. He gave Tony a conspiratorial wink. “I've got something you might like.”

The designer folded his arms. “I shall like to see it, then.”

With a theatrical flourish that would've distressed the hammiest of actors, Nick pulled a rather large bottle of red wine from underneath the bar.

Tony stared at it pensively. “Chateau Marceillage? This better not be the cheap stuff.”

The barman nodded enthusiastically. “Just got a crate, direct from France. Bloody good stuff, if I do say so myself. Not the cheap stuff, that is, if you can pay.”

The brunet eyed it for a moment, and then said, “I'll take a glass. But if it's rubbish, I shan't be pleased.”

“It's not rubbish, take it from me.”

He retreated to a table in the corner, and gazed out on the rest of the room with a certain inadvertent, latent judgement.

Priss and Rael then approached the bar, looking, if you knew the signs, rather embroiled in a conversation.

Nick smiled at them in a way that was a bit patronising, but charming enough to get away with it. “And for you, young Miss Priss? And Sir Talks-a-Lot?”

She directed the full beam of her counter-smile on him. “Just a glass of claret, I think. Two glasses,” she amended, seeming unsure about the second glass.”

“Well, lah-di-dah, any claret in particular?”

“Oh, no, just something sweet.”

He bustled off to go find it. It wasn't exactly a popular request.

‘So they just let the fruit spoil?’ asked Rael, for the third time in the past minute.

‘I told you, it's a little more than that,’ she sent back. ‘It's technically spoiling the grapes, yes, but… I dunno. I'm not a, a sommelier. I guess it's just, instead of going bad, the grape juice goes good.’

The pilot attempted to make sense of this, before essentially leaving the idea in a ditch to fend for itself. Priss sat at the bar next to Terry, so he followed her lead. Nigel attempted to scurry off into the nearest corner, but, of course, Nick had to call him out.

“Nothin’ for you, Nigel me lad?”

“M-maybe just some chips.”

“Right you are.”

“Oh, that's a good idea,” interjected Priss. “We'll have some, too.”

They watched the mildly amusing process of their order being placed. Any order that didn't involve drink was deflected to the sole cook on the premises, by way of unnecessary shouting. Their order that did involve drink was shortly fulfilled, though.

Rael just sat there, watching the bubbles rise in his glass with an unmatched level of attention. Then, with the same kind of motion as a hunter going in for the kill, he snatched up the glass and downed about half of it in one go. He then proceed to cough, splutter, and fan at his mouth like he'd just gotten hydrochloric acid down the wrong pipe.

‘Is this poison?’

Priss had to cover her mouth and swallow the wine very carefully to keep from suffering the same fate.

‘Rael, you're not supposed to just drink it all at once!’

‘I won't drink any more of it, end of sentence. It tastes like how cleaning fluid smells.’

‘That's awfully harsh,’ she sent, taking another sip. ‘It's just how drink is, at first. I remember going out for my first drink. I pretended to like it, and my da thought something was wrong,’ she reminisced.

Nick came sidling up to the bar and set their chips in front of them.

“Seems your driver's got a bit of a drinking problem, eh?”

That got a chuckle out of all of them.

Chapter Text

One of those interesting little bits of trivia you can come across and regale unsuspecting company with is that, while cold temperatures make it much easier to fall asleep, it also increases the chances of having a nightmares. Unfortunately for Rael, it was a very bitter winter indeed.

This was not good news for Priscilla, either, who had taken to inviting him into her bed these days. It was a lot bigger than his cot, a lot more comfortable, and was home to a very comfortable quilt.

She was asleep, of course, but, as would surprise literally no one, when you sleep, you tend to dream. And, although this is not as much of common knowledge as the previous fact, having a psychic link to someone can do funny things to your dreams.

Priscilla wasn't dreaming. Rael was dreaming for her. And it was a nightmare,

The stale air of the stable rushed through his hair, making the same halfhearted effort to be exhilarating that an ageing pop star makes to be kind to his fans. But they didn't care. Oh no. Their hearts sang as the drove, circling the track. Their vocal cords also sang, in the more literal sense.

The little Yellow flashed him a sweet, wide grin, his teeth contrasting against his dark skin. [I'm ahead! I said I could pass you, see?]

Rael leaned forward in the rattling old kart. [Not for long!]

As the cars surged around the little track, they began to sing again. ‘On the grid again, I don’t care if you are in front or behind. I only care if you are by my side. You come from the left, I come from the right, even when darkness falls in the night.’

The image changed… 

Rael was slumped back on the filthy wall, ignoring the cobwebs and dirt. He peered through the little slits that ferried air from one room to another. A pair of hands hovered at the other end.

[They're going to give me my medicine soon. I'll see you when I'm better.]

Rael rumbled, feeling the anger and unease deep in his throat. [Why did they have to put you in a different room?] he signed back. [Remember Crossing the Pale Lands? He never came back! Aren't you listening? They killed him!]

[They did not.] The gestures were shaky yet sure, as if tapping into some deep conviction about the nature of human sympathy. [The handler is good. He brings us sweets. He brought a bandage to Singing From on High, when the fender of a kart tore his skin. Remember that?]

The Yellow seemed hurt that Rael would imply it, but with an undertone, he realised in retrospect, of fear. Doubt.

The Red felt a stab of guilt, which was immediately drowned out by sick-feeling rage.

[You trust too much,] he signed very simply.

[See you soon.] The hands retreated from view.

The image warped… 

This was not memory. This was not imbued with the same preciseness that Racing Drivers recalled things with.

The shape of things in this room were very similar to the stable’s medical office, which was a familiar sight. But it took on a different cast.

Shadows crept up the walls and lurked in the corners like black mold. Yet at the same time, the lights were too white, seeming as if they could bleach anything of life.

A young boy moved nervously in his restraints on the table in the middle of the room. He looked up beseechingly at the man who stood over him, needle in hand.

[Can I see my friends after this?]

The handler averted his eyes. [Maybe.]

As the needle pierced his smooth skin, sick fear jolted through him. This was not right! He couldn't remember why he ever thought it was! He struggled against his bonds, screams like tortured brakes ripping from his throat.

The image disappeared…

Chapter Text

Priscilla's eyes snapped open.

For a moment, the things in her room failed to look familiar to her. This made her heart feel like it skipped a few beats, but she started to feel better after a few moments of trying to remember precisely who it was she was supposed to be.

I'm Priscilla. Priscilla MacLean. And that's Rael, she thought, glancing to her right. And he's… he's crying. Oh.

Despite her instincts warning her against it, she reached over to touch his shoulder.

‘Rael? Are you quite alright?’

He recoiled, not so much from her touch, but more from the intrusion.  ‘ No ! Get away from me!’ Loud revving noises ripped from his throat.

Priss, naturally, shrank back herself.

Slowly, Rael took his head out of his hands and looked up. He had the courtesy to look a bit contrite. ‘You're frightened of me.’

Priss didn't feel the urge to deny it. She nodded flutteringly, her tone just the slightest bit hysterical. ‘Yes. Yes I am. You shouldn't be surprised. It's one of the first things you ever said to me, remember?’

His eyes were focused solidly on the floor. ‘That was different.’

‘I know it was.’

He ignored her. His problem seemed to be mainly with himself. ‘Matched pairs aren't supposed to be frightened of each other.’

‘Then stop frightening me!’

This pulled his attention upwards a bit. He looked up at her, tired, baleful, and saying nothing at all.

She continued, gesticulating jerkily. ‘Look, I can't not be scared of someone who expects me to be close to him, and then lashes out when he thinks I've trodden wrong. One of the first things you said to me was that you’ve hurt people before, and you could hurt me just as easily. And the worst part is, Rael, I can see in your head. I know it's not just posturing. I know you can. And of course that scares me! Fear is literally the most logical reaction to that sort of thing!’

The air hung in the room, still and suspended, for a moment.

‘I will not hurt you.’ If it had been said aloud, it would've been nearly whispered, a quiet, mousy type of sentence. ‘It has been a long time since I was even capable of doing that.’ Rael's eyes were pointed straight up towards her, shockingly soft and sorrowful.

She looked away, her hand automatically moving to cover her mouth. ‘I… I don't know what to make of that. I'm sorry. I really don't.’

‘Are you not relieved?’ In asking this, he looked strangely scared.

‘What? No, no, I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely relieved that you don't want to hurt me. I'm just… If you're not going to hurt me, then why do you always act like you're going to?’

He looked stunned and quite genuinely puzzled, like he'd been asked the meaning of a word he couldn't quite define. Then his expression hardened. ‘You wanted to know who it was? In my memories? Fine. I will tell you, if you want to know so badly. He was Sun Rising Gold, and he was all I had.’

Priscilla gaped at him for a moment. ‘That's… not what I asked. But, uh, do go on.’

He shrugged limply. ‘What more is there to say? You have already seen what happened to him.’

She seemed to pull herself together enough to sit down next to him. ‘Of course there's more than that. I mean, for one, who was he, really?’

Rael looked at her with an expression of sleep-deprived, unshaved puzzlement that practically said “Wha’? without any outside assistance.

‘I mean, was he your brother?’

‘What? No. We did not know each other until I was weaned.’

‘Friends, then? Of a sort?’

He considered this carefully. The words she expressed herself in were holding her back. They always did; that was the trouble with humans. They thought in boxes, little boxes that interlocked at the corners, but not anywhere else.

‘He was all I had,’ Rael repeated. It was a good job he wasn't actually speaking, because he would've had trouble what with the painful lump in his throat. ‘I was not all he had. He had others, and a good future, too. But he always came back to me. For years, he did. I never knew why. I still do not.’

Priss, very conscious of it, reached out and took his hand. Well, she didn't so much take it as awkwardly put her own hand on top of it, but it's the thought that counts.

‘Maybe he just liked you.’

Rael let out a brief puff of air.

‘No one “just likes” me. You don't.’

This hit Priscilla like an unexpected tray of sausages to the head. It seemed so simple, now the that he'd put it like that. She wasn't at all sure if she liked him, not in the sense that she’d actually spend time with him willingly, if given a lot of other options. He just hadn't done much to make himself liked, and, in fact, had done quite a bit to the contrary.

But it seemed a bit cruel, just not liking him. She felt bad for him, of course. And, when he wasn't angry at anyone or anything, which was extremely rare, something seemed to show through. She didn't really know what it was, but it was something, for certain.

Her attention was drawn by a sobbing, interspersed with small mechanical noises. Rael had curled himself into a bit of a ball. He didn't do any mental shouting, any indicating of why he'd begun to cry. But he really didn't need to.

Priss looked around, as if someone would materialise out of thin air who knew what to do. But no one appeared, not a wizard or a teleporting therapist, so she just wrapped her arms around Rael, gingerly. He moved with heaving, jerky breaths, and felt very warm to the touch, even slightly sweaty.

‘Rael?’

‘Yes?’

‘I wouldn't hurt you. For what it's worth.’

Chapter Text

It was raining that morning.

It was a rather welcome change, at least in Priscilla's opinion. The sound of water falling softly on the roof created a cocooned feeling, of sorts. It almost felt like the middle ground between sleep and the waking world.

She got out of bed with surprisingly little difficulty, and looked out the window. Yes, the sky was still grey and white. But it wasn't snowing, and that was progress. Well, not very much, considering that the raindrops looked like the wimpy cousins of hailstones, but still.

Rael seemed to stir, which was, obviously, because he'd woken up.

‘It's raining, you know,’ Priscilla told him.

‘Yes.’

‘I quite like rain.’

‘I can see that.’ He sat up fully, stretched his arms above his head, and then yawned in a way which would be vaguely yet uncomfortably familiar to anyone who'd ever owned a cat. The noise he made while doing so were equally odd, halfway between mechanical and organic.

The air was still cold, but it seemed to have lost the bite it had the previous night.

‘I think I'll make some toast,’ mused Priss. Rael just scratched his head disconsolately.

She walked over to him, mustering a cheery smile. ‘You'd like some toast, wouldn't you?’

‘No.’ He slumped back down onto the bed. ‘I don't think I'm hungry.’

‘Oh.’ She sighed as the smile drained slowly from her face. ‘Look, I… If you want to talk about it, that's fine, but I don't really know what to say.’

‘I don't want to talk about it. I have already done that. Too much of that.’

She drummed her fingers on the dresser for a moment. ‘Right. Well, you go wash up, I've got to brush my hair.’

He slid heavily out of bed, feet hitting the floor with a soft thud, and ambled tiredly down the hallway. Meanwhile, Priscilla set about the complex task of getting her hair to bloody well cooperate.

She tugged sourly at the thick nest of curls, occasionally spraying it with a supposed detangler, which, much like an eighteenth-century French noblewoman, did pretty much nothing else besides smelling strongly of flowers.

About halfway through this bitter battle of brushing, there was an extremely sudden and inordinately loud noise, which went as follows.

“ Cling -bang-ftang- ftang -ftanggg… Clonk!”

Priss stopped mid-brush, then remembered to remove the brush from her hair, considering it could stay tangled there on its own.

She began to creep down the hallway. “Um, chaps?” she called out into the otherwise silent house. “Did anyone else hear that?”

Rael ducked out of the washroom, drying his face on his sleeve. ‘What was that godawful noise?’

‘That's what I'm trying to find out.’

Slowly, like they were trying to imitate a bad spy movie, the two of them made their way downstairs. There was no one down there, at least no one up and about. Rael froze, and slowly turned to look at one wall in particular.

‘There are more noises coming from behind here.’

Priss frowned. ‘I don't hear anything.’

‘You wouldn't.’

Ignoring that last remark, she put her ear against the wall. ‘Huh. You're right.’

‘I know. What is behind there?’

‘Just some bits. Water heater, furnace, all that.’

They slowly turned to look at each other.

“Ohhh.” Priss broke out into a fit of giggles. ‘I'm such an idiot. You know, for a moment there, I thought someone had broken into the house.’

Rael watched her walk around the corner, and unlatch a little door. ‘Where are you going?’

‘The basement. Come on.’

He looked down the rickety stairs, then decided, hey, what the hell.

Down they went, into the pitch-dark. Rael sneezed and brushed a cobweb out of his face. Priss shaded her eyes against the light coming off of a bare bulb, which hung from the ceiling.

“I should've known it was you two causing that big noise.”

Terry, who was covered in so much soot so as to resemble a railway worker, grinned sheepishly. Tony, holding a flashlight for him, looked abashed.

“Was it that loud?”

“Afraid it was.”

He shot Terry an “I told you so, you clumsy ape” type of look.

“Well, at least the furnace is mended,” the mechanic laughed. “Mostly. I’ve sorted the blockage, but there's some other bits…” He grunted and shot a cursory glance at the hulking, pig-iron thing in the corner, which had spilled soot out onto the concrete floor. “Yeah. Other bits.”

She laughed weakly. “Well, your sacrifice isn't in vain. None of us like the cold here. I'd give you a hug, but, well…” She indicated the pale pink shirt she was wearing.

Rael stepped out from behind her. [You are fixing the heater?]

[No, I'm driving in the rain,] he signed, trying to inject the appropriate amount of sarcasm into the gestures. [Of course I'm fixing the furnace.]

Rael nodded his approval.

“Well I, for one, am famished,” said Tony after a pause.

“Me too,” seconded Priscilla. ‘Feeling better now?’ she asked to Rael.

He considered it for about half a second. ‘Better? Maybe. Hungry? Yes.’

Chapter Text

‘Left. Right. Throttle. Straight.’

It marched along like a mantra, steady in Rael's head. And, consequently, Priscilla's. She sat by the side of the track, almost unblinking. Her eyes tracked the progress of the little car around the track, not that they really needed to.

‘Find the line in the corner. Brake.’

She could feel him humming, deep in his throat. She wondered, in a subconscious sort of way, whether she should hum too. Maybe harmonising would help his focus.

Rael didn't seem to notice this thought. And Priscilla’s mind was dragged away from it too. The focus of his mind was too narrow to allow for much else. So she allowed herself to be drawn back in.

They needed to double down. Really and truly. The start of race season was approaching like a lorry on the motorway.

It was both fascinating and rather worrying to see the gears shifting, as it were, in Rael’s mind. His thought processes were lightning-fast. Despite how connected they were, Priss could barely follow how he came to a conclusion about how to turn or when to brake. And he was getting quicker about it, too.

The physical sensations he was feeding back to her, the wind whistling past his helmet, the dampened view of the world whipping quickly by outside his visor, they were, well… terrifying. And amazing. Electrifying. She was sure that any experienced racing driver wouldn't feel the same about such a small, relatively underpowered car in winter testing, but it was all a question of perspective. 

It was a start. Their start. 

Rael blew past the line for about the tenth time that day, not slowing down a bit. He began to hum louder. ‘Watch the podium, wait for the day. Let the champions know we are on our way.’

Chapter Text

“Clonnnggg.”

This was the noise which the wall of the hulking object sitting in the drive made when Terry slapped it enthusiastically.

He looked around at his teammates faces, most of which appeared as blank as a cluster of etch-a-sketches in an earthquake. “Feast your eyes, chaps, it's your new home sweet home.”

Tony's eyes darted accusingly from him to the caravan and then back again. He opened his mouth, doubtless to release a cutting remark, but was interrupted by Craig. “It's horrible.”

Terry rounded on him. “Horrible? I spent £125 on that!”

Their resident disgruntled car designer affixed him with a Look. “It's a caravan .”

He considered this for a second, and cracked a smile, unexpectedly. “Well, you're right there.”

“Why'd you spend so much on it, then? And out of the team budget, no less?”

“Yeah, I'm wondering that myself,” Priscilla cut in. “We don't have to all sleep in the same place, I don't think.”

Terry shrugged lazily. “Well, we can now. Less to tow around, I'd bet.”

“ Less ,” deadpanned Tony.

“Less spread out, I mean. More practical,” clarified the blond.

Craig snorted. “So you expect us all to go in here?”

Terry shrugged. “Not really, but a bit, I guess.”

“I see you've got strong opinions on the subject,” Tony cracked.

“Oh, would you rather I ordered you around? I can do that, you know.”

Priss put a hand on his shoulder. “Uh. I'd rather not, actually.”

He smiled at her. “Well, someone here's got some sense. Think we should take the caravan, Priss?”

Everyone looked at her with some degree of expectation. “Well. Uh. Yeah, considering you've already gone and bought it. N-not that it was a bad idea, good idea, actually. It’d be a bit uncomfortable to all sleep in our cars, uh…”

She craned her neck around, squinting. ‘What's taking you so long? Terry said it was time for a team meeting, not time for lunch.’

‘It’s time for lunch when I am hungry,’ sent Rael, from where he was, which was the kitchen.

‘Alright, just hurry up, please.’

“Earth to Priscilla?” said Terry good-naturedly.

She shook her head. “Sorry. Was miles away. Actually, only a few metres, but, uh, right. The sleeping arrangements. How many beds are there?”

Terry appeared to be counting on his fingers, miscounting, and then re-counting. “Three. I mean, depends on what you mean by ‘beds’. There's a sort of sofa, which I guess we could use as well, but it looks like it’d just murder your back, so I don't know if there'd be any takers on that.”

No one answered.

“I know,” said Priss. “Let's just go in and see what we've got.”

“We can't all fit in there at once,” exclaimed Craig.

“Of course we can, don't be thick,” said Tony, extinguishing his latest cigarette.

“Let's just go in, alright?” pleaded Priscilla, going up the creaking couple of steps. They all followed behind her, in an odd sort of inversion of a mother duck and her ducklings.

The inside of the caravan was what could be charitably described as cosy, and realistically described as a claustophobe’s shag-carpeted nightmare.

Tony looked entirely unimpressed. “I think I shall sleep in my car.”

“Are you sure?” asked Terry.

“There's only three beds. I shan't take my chances.”

“You could take the futon.”

He walked over to what appeared closest to a sofa, picked up the cushion, and inspected it dubiously. “That isn't a futon, that's a rug on top of some wood. I vastly prefer the back bench seat, thank you very much.”

Terry looked a bit exasperated, then shrugged. “Suit yourself, mate.”

Meanwhile, Priscilla had gone on to examine what might be called a kitchenette, if you weren't familiar with the term “hot plate”.

“You've gotten one with all the trimmings, haven't you?”

Tony picked over it with a jaded eye. “A small cooler, sink, and what can hardly be called a stove isn't exactly all the trimmings.”

“Well, no,” she admitted, “but it's bound to be handy, isn't it? So's the lavatory.”

Craig cleared his throat loudly from one of the “bedrooms”, diverting their attention. “This bed is mine, alright? No one else is to sleep here.”

Terry sighed. “Come on. Stop taking the piss. That's the only bed here that Nigel can possibly fit on without folding himself in half.”

“Yeah!” seconded Nigel, secure in the knowledge that he had someone to hide behind.

“Fine! I'll take the other one, then. Wasn't doing that on purpose, you know.” The Irishman resignedly sat down on the smaller bed, opposite Nigel's.

Terry had stopped on one end of the hallway, and appeared to be considering things. Priscilla went up to him. “Are you pondering?”

“Yes I am pondering, in fact.” He pointed to two small alcoves, each with a curtain in front of it. “That's the other two beds. And there's three people left.”

Priss looked around at nothing in particular. “That is, that is true, isn't it?”

He lowered his voice, not conspicuously, and said, “Would it be too much to ask of you and Rael to, you know, share…”

“No, no, it's fine, perfectly fine,” she cut in, flapping her hands about a bit. “We, uh. We already do.”

Terry’s eyebrows raised a small bit, then went back down again. “I suppose it's not my business.”

“No, it's not, we're not like that, see,” she explained rapidly. “It's just, it makes him feel better, you know, he gets night terrors and all…”

He nodded. “No need to panic, I get it. Had to share a bed with my little brother when I was small, cos my mum used to get sick of comforting him when he got his nightmares. And cleaning up the wee.” He made a face. “Well, not quite equivalent, I hope.”

Priss smiled a little and shook her head. “No. Worst he does- apart from the nightmares and all that, obviously- is hog the blanket.”

“ Well, I'm glad. That solves that, then. Now to stop Tony from griping five different ways ‘til Sunday about everything, that's not so easy, eh?”

“Suppose not.” Suddenly, she seemed to perk up, as if she'd heard a loud noise. “Oh, look who's decided to grace us with his presence.”

The door to the caravan swung open, revealing a barefooted, disheveled Rael, trying his level best to demolish a small stack of Nutella sandwiches. He slowly looked up at everyone who was staring at him, which was most of them.

[What?] he gestured with a sticky hand. [Haven't you seen someone eating before?]