Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He keeps an eye on JP. Of course he does. He’d said he would, and he’s got to make sure JP’s not going to throw away his chance at glory after all the blood, sweat, and spinal trauma Sonny had gone through to get him there.

And maybe——just maybe——it’s because he’s gotten a little attached to JP. (Possibly too attached, but no one knows and no one needs to, so Sonny’s content to sit with that realization by himself.) Whatever the reason, when the season starts up, Sonny makes it a point to find a bar in his area——right now it’s New Mexico——showing the race, and he holes up there for most of the weekend——qualifying to checkered flag. He drinks so much soda water that the bartender starts shooting him dirty looks, but Sonny doesn’t want to be so plastered that he can’t watch the race. He can only drink so much these days, and besides, his vision is already blurry enough without the added threat of alcohol. Has been, in some way or another, since Vegas.

It’s not so bad that he can’t enjoy the race though, even if it’s not a particularly good one for APX GP. Bahrain doesn’t quite put them in the top ten, but 11th isn’t a bad spot, considering where JP had finished in the same race last year (P19——and it had only been that high because of three DNFs from other racers). Still, no points, and that’s not what Sonny wants to see. He knows that’s not what JP wants to see either, based off of the way that he storms into the pit after the race. The camera angle they get of him shows nothing but irritation and low-simmering anger, and that’s something Sonny guesses he can work with.

Poke the bear enough to make him determined, but hopefully not angry enough to fuck up his next race. It’s a delicate balance, and Sonny’s never been good at achieving that with a person, but the disappointed looking emoji he sends JP is the best he’s got in the moment——and maybe he actually is a beer or two deep when he sends that one.

JP doesn’t respond for a while, and with how much he’s on his phone, Sonny starts to assume that he’s just not going to. He’s back to his van, laying flat on his stomach in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure on his aching spine, when JP does actually text back.

Rude.

Sonny guesses he deserves that. He’s still tipsy enough to think it’s funny though, and he sends back a frowny face instead of bothering with words.

JP disappears after that. Fair enough, Sonny guesses.

***

By the time Saudi Arabia rolls around, Sonny’s made up his mind to text JP again. It’s not like he has anything better to do. He hasn’t raced in weeks, but that’s only because there’s nothing he hasn’t done before that’s looking for a driver——and anyway, he’s been tired. As a general rule, he never runs more than one season with the same team, and never does back-to-back races in the same series. That’s a fast track to getting too comfortable, to getting too attached to his team, and Sonny’s not about that. He’s been there, done that, and all it did was make 1993 harder on him than it should have been.

None of that stops him from sending JP a thumbs up when he pulls out P9 in the last seconds of the race. He looks happier this time, as he steps out of the car.

That’s more like it, JP texts back. Sonny can practically hear JP saying it. He hesitates before texting JP back. Initially he types a smiley face, but then he deletes it, and frowns. He might as well actually say something. It’s not the caveman days, they have words for a reason.

Culd say the same 2 u, he replies. JP doesn’t give him anything after that, and Sonny resigns himself to waiting until the next race weekend.

It gives him something to look forward to, at least.

***

He has a nightmare the day before the Australian Grand Prix. This is nothing new; Sonny has nightmares all the time, but this one is worse. He wakes up with a raw throat, anxiety pumping through his veins , and a burning, shooting agony in his spine, one that runs all the way to his skull and makes his head ache. He raises his hands to his face, and feels tears on his cheeks.

Even after he manages to get his breathing under control, he can’t calm his heart rate. It thuds heavy in his chest, sends pulses of pain through back.

Same dream as always. Doesn’t mean it ever gets any easier to handle.

Sonny curls onto his side, pulls his legs in and holds his head in his hands. Deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He coughs, then again and again, and it spirals into a fit that culminates with tears in his eyes and his entire body shaking.

After half an hour of laying still on his bed, Sonny’s no closer to getting back to sleep than he had been just after he’d woken up. He checks his cracked phone screen for the time and sees that it’s seven in the morning. He has three outstanding texts that he squints at blearily. One is from Ruben, a paragraph about coming back to APX that he doesn’t have the wherewithal to bother responding to. The other two are from Jodie, but Sonny’s phone screen goes dark before he can read them. He sighs and turns his face into his lumpy mattress.

He needs to wash his sheets.

What he really needs to do is get up, find his headphones, find something to make him relax. Otherwise he’s never getting back to sleep, and he needs that.

Sonny picks his head up enough to squint around his van. The action makes the nerves at the base of his neck twinge. He knows for a fact that his prescribed painkillers are in a little basket next to his sink, with his toothbrush and toothpaste. He’d need to get up to find those, and he doesn’t know if he’s able to do that right now. His unprescribed marijuana is in a drawer under his bed, next to his socks.

Okay. That’ll work.

Sonny flings his hand out and fumbles around in the dim light until he finds the drawer’s handle, which he pulls open. He feels around until he finds the little plastic bag, which he pulls out, and then pulls open.

As it turns out, smoking doesn’t help much. It dulls the pain in his back enough for him to stand up, and makes him hungry enough to eat the PB&J that’s been sitting on his counter since yesterday. Still, it doesn’t get him back to sleep. Not even close. His brain is still wired, and his hands are still shaking when he looks down at them. They waver and blur in the low light, and Sonny laughs to himself at the sight. Then he feels his eyes burn with the beginning of what might be tears.

His eyes aren’t getting better. Three months and all they’ve managed to do is get worse. If his body wasn’t a ticking time bomb already, Vegas had just gone and solidified that when he’d crashed. He hasn’t moved right since, hasn’t seen clearly either. Everything’s just ever so slightly more fuzzy around the edges, and that’s on a good day. On worse ones, he’s lucky if he can walk in a straight line he’s so disoriented.

Couple that with a headache like the one Sonny can feel building now and he’ll be lucky if he’s able to leave the van today. He doesn’t necessarily want to, not when he can see how bright it is outside now that the sun’s come up——even through the curtains——and he knows all going out will do is hurt his eyes.

He picks up his phone, because the light from that won’t hurt his eyes, and he’s nowhere close to sleep. He squints at Ruben’s text until it starts to make sense——he’s saying APX GP needs a racing strategist, and Sonny tells him that he hopes they find one. Not the answer Ruben wants, but it’s the one he’s getting. All Jodie is asking him to do is play chess, which is a much easier task than Ruben’s. Winning is another issue entirely——he does manage to lose to her three times in a row. She played competitively in high school though, so Sonny counts himself lucky when he can hold his own.

With the pounding in his head that he’s managed to accumulate over the first two games, the third one is a shitshow to the point where he gives up on the fame entirely after Jodie checkmates him, and digs a deck of cards out of the back pocket of his jeans. He loses to himself at solitaire for the next half hour before passes out face first into the cards.

He wakes up with a seven of spades stuck to his cheek, in near-complete darkness. After he unsticks the spade from his cheek and gathers the rest of the cards into their box, he fumbles for his phone to check the time, and——

Shit. Somehow, he’d managed to sleep through the entire race, and then some. That——the amount of time he’d slept for——can’t be healthy. He didn’t think he’d smoked enough to knock himself out for so long, but now it’s——fuck——way too late. He pats his front pockets, and his breath catches in his throat when he feels that both of them are empty.

He breathes in hard, holds his breath as he looks up the results, and then sighs with a relief that makes his whole body sigh. JP’s okay. P7 for him, P9 for Cortez.

He sends a smiley face JP’s way as a form of celebration.

You’re late, comes in from JP less than a minute later. He sounds a little grumpy maybe, but it’s nice to know he cares, kind of.

Srry, Sonny types out. Fell asleep.

Old age catching up to you?

Sonny rolls onto his back, stares up at the ceiling. JP’s not exactly wrong with what he’s saying. Sonny has to give him credit for that.

Sumthin lik that.

***

Japan is bad. It’s a shitty race with a shitty finish that has Sonny ordering a second beer even though he’s not halfway through his first one. Then, as if things aren’t bad enough, Joshua and Cortez start fighting. Verbally and physically. The audio isn’t clear enough to pick up what they’re saying, but whatever it is it isn’t good. By the time they’ve been pulled apart, Sonny has already pulled his phone out and fired off a text to JP.

Wtf r u doing?

By the time he sends the text, the cameras are back on some of the other drivers, and Sonny resigns himself to watching them while he waits to see what JP’s response is, if he responds at all.

He’s made it to his second beer by the time JP comes back on screen, and sure enough he’s intermittently staring down his phone and glaring at Cortez.

Sonny’s phone buzzes. He looks down at it, and sees a text from JP. My job.

He rolls his eyes, and picks up his phone again.

Don’r look @ ur phone when ur on tv, he types. By the time he’s noticed the typo the text is already sent. Its unprofesh.

And, despite Sonny’s wonderful advice, JP starts typing. Are you watching me?

Takw a wld guess. Jesus, he really can’t type. Even when he squints, the letters tend to swim in front of him to an extent. He switches his squint back to the bar’s tv, where JP is still on the screen.

Sonny watches as JP looks directly at the camera and mouths a word that looks an awful lot like asshole.

That one, Sonny knows he didn’t deserve. He shoots a frowny face JP’s way and calls it a night.

What a mess of a race.

***

Sonny knows that JP has a win in him, but that doesn’t make him any less surprised when JP does actually pull out P1. He barely stops himself from yelling in the bar he’s found himself in this weekend——some Kentucky dive with sawdust and peanut shells on the floor that seems to be populated exclusively by alcoholics.

JP gets an emoji with a party hat for his performance. Way 2 tie it up. 1 mor & u have me beat, he adds, almost as an afterthought.

Next week, is JP’s immediate response. It makes Sonny smile.

Ill believe jt whn I see it.

come to Florida, is the response he gets. we’ll get you a good seat.

The feeling that bubbles up in Sonny’s chest when he reads that message is warm and fuzzy, entirely too happy for the dive joint he’s in now. It’s a good one, but it makes his stomach sink a moment later, because he knows he can’t go. If he sees JP again——if he sees any of them——he won’t be able to leave. He won’t want to let go.

It wouldn’t be a hard drive, not when he’s got a week to do it, but at the end of the day, the hole it would put in his heart wouldn’t be worth seeing the race.

Ill think ab it.

The lie sits sour in his stomach, and burns behind his eyes. Cold guilt, as if he hasn’t felt enough of it in his life.

***

JP doesn’t finish in Florida. He crashes hard enough to send a bolt of empathetic pain down Sonny’s already aching spine. He finally starts breathing again when he sees JP get out of the car. It seems like JP is walking alright. No limp, he doesn’t look stiff.

Sonny switches his phone from the race to his text thread with JP, and sends a screaming emoji. After a second’s thought, he follows it up with words, because sometimes he’s considerate enough to use those. R u k? After a second he types another message: Looked bad.

He knows he doesn’t deserve anything more than a curt response after he didn’t show up today, but JP’s response still makes him frown, after he takes the thirty seconds he needs to puzzle the words out of the fuzz his eyes have put them into.

What, like you’re worried?

Sonny hesitates before replying yes.

I’m fine, JP texts. You’d know if you were there.

Sonny tosses his phone against the wall of the van before he can text or say anything he’ll regret. JP probably doesn’t want to hear anything he has to say anyway.

***

Self-destruction is an integral part of Sonny’s personality. Always has been, and it will be until his body finally completely gives out on him, which is——more likely than not——probably going to happen sometime in the next 3-to-6 months. Sooner if he’s unlucky, but he’s got his dark sock on his left foot, and a card he’s hoping is a five of clubs in his pocket, and that’s enough to calm his nerves.

Not enough to make him feel invincible, but it never has been. Anyway, no one’s invincible in figure eight racing when you get down to it. Even the car that makes it to the end never drives again after the driver kills the engine. It’s brutal, reckless, exactly everything that he shouldn’t be doing, if Ruben or doctors or anyone is to be believed, but if this is going to be his last race, he wants to go out with a bang.

That said, even the thought of retiring makes him feel sick to his stomach. Not like this has to be his last race, not like there’s anything stopping him from getting behind the wheel again and flooring it, save for the fact that there are other people out there. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone just because he can’t see——it’s just selfish, plain and simple. And Sonny’s allowed to be selfish, he’s done it before, he’ll do it again, but not to the point that he hurts someone because he couldn’t see where he was goddamn going.

Figure eight is all about running into people though, so Sonny figures it’s as good a place as any for one last hurrah. Maybe better than most places.

The track is on the edge of a town that already feels like it’s on the edge of the universe. Meadville is tiny, to the point where Sonny guesses half of it had to come out for the race, and even then the crowd isn’t huge, and that’s fine by him. Less drama that way. No one here knows him from his season with APX GP. Almost no one knows him, period, save for the guy whose car he’s crashing. He’d recognized Sonny from his stint with NASCAR, and offered him a hand fixing up his own car to crash over the weekend.

That’s southern hospitality if Sonny’s ever seen it, and he’s more than grateful for it.

He double checks his pockets and leaves his watch where it lives when he’s racing before he exits the van. His phone stays shoved under his pillow on his bed. He hasn’t texted JP this week, and he’s not planning on doing it after the race either. Probably for the best, after how he’s been pissing JP off.

The more he thinks about it, the more he knows he should’ve gone to Florida. That could have been a good, clean break for them——for the entire APX GP team. Goodbyes said, ties severed, good riddance. He likes to think he would’ve been able to do it, but now he’s just stuck chasing people off one at a time.

Ruben still texts, more of the same every time, like he thinks Sonny might change his mind eventually and come back. He won’t, and even if he did, what good’s a racing strategist who can’t see? Most times, Sonny doesn’t have it in him to respond, but Ruben isn’t above sending 12 texts in a row.

He’ll give up eventually, but that’s neither here nor there. All that——Sonny just needs to think of it like noise. Block it out, get in the car, and do what he does best.

It actually works. He doesn’t quite find that calm, peaceful places that racing sometimes offers him, but his mind is occupied by things other than APX GP for a good 30 minutes while he gets bumped and tossed around the inside of the car. It’s a fight, because races like this are always a fight, and that’s one of Sonny’s favorite kinds. No holds barred, no bullshit FIA breathing down his neck, just raw driving.

There’s something pure about it. Pure adrenaline, more like, but Sonny will take it. His whole body buzzes like a live wire, enough to momentarily make him forget the stiffness in his legs and the pain in his back, even when some fucking 90s pickup truck slams into his car’s side and makes him spin out.

He revs the engine, his tires spin in the mud, and he’s off again for another ten until he flips himself taking a corner too fast, and takes a couple other cars with him. That actually does hurt. His seatbelt stops him from folding like a ragdoll, but even then the impact empties his lungs and has him wheezing——though he’s laughing like a maniac the whole time he catches his breath.

What a way to go out.

If there are a couple tears mixed in with all that, no one needs to know. Sonny wipes them away before he pokes his head out of the car, and waves at what must be half the town’s population up in the stands, though it’s become hard for him to pick out individual figures. It’s raining, just a light mist, but the water feels good on Sonny’s skin.

There’s still about ten cars out there——those, Sonny’s vision is still good enough to find——but Sonny can’t be upset that he’s not one of them. Today wasn’t about winning anyway. It never really is, winning is just a nice side effect of doing what he loves. He sits in the bleachers to watch the rest of the race, lets the rain soak his skin and plaster his hair to his head.

It feels strangely cleansing. Almost peaceful——almost.

He goes back to his van after it’s all said and done, drives himself to the nearest truck stop and stands under the spray from the shower for too long and tries to will things into focus.

When he finally does force himself out of the shower and get some dinner into his body, he’s run out of distractions, but he still stalls by throwing an entire deck of cards one by one into the canvas bag where he keeps his dirty clothes. If he waits any longer, he might not be able to read enough to make his way through a website in order to find an appointment.

Even without the challenge that his fading eyesight poses, making that doctor’s appointment is one of the hardest thing that Sonny’s ever done.

A few days later, they tell him what he already knows. The fact that it’s obvious doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

***

He listens to the Monaco Grand Prix while he’s driving. He shouldn’t be behind the wheel, that’s what they’d told him, but he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Mississippi (no offense). If he drives for the next few days, he can make it back to California. He’s always liked the west coast, and California isn’t the worst place in the word to be homeless——which is probably going to be his fate after his money from APX and the other races he’s done since runs out.

He can’t work like this, not with his eyes going, and his back hurting so badly that he needs to take his painkillers more days than not. He hates the way they make him feel out of focus, like he’s not quite in control of his body. But if he takes them, at least he’s able to move around, and that’s miles better than the alternative of laying flat on his bed and trying not to shout from the pain. That’s how he spent last night anyway——he can’t take medication if he’s driving, and he’s only in Texas. It’s going to be a long way to California.

Monaco isn’t JP’s best showing, but he does manage P9. Sonny itches to text him, but he keeps his focus on the road, and doesn’t bother pulling over until the idea subsides. Clean break——that’s what he needs, especially now.

Later that night, he caves. Two Percocet down the hatch and chased with half a sleeve of Ritz because that’s all he has in his cabinets. He’ll need to wait for a while before driving tomorrow, but it’s worth it if it can make the muscles in his back stop spasming, and let him get some sleep that’s actually worth something.

His eyes burn, from exhaustion and emotion. Usually he doesn’t cry, but it’s so late, and he’s so tired, and the fact that he’s high doesn’t really help his case for staying composed. No one’s around to see anyway. He doesn’t have the energy to do much more than lay there and let the tears slide down the sides of his face, so that’s what he does.

He falls asleep like that, wakes up with salt on his face, feeling just as shitty as he had the night before.

***

Sonny spends most of the race weekend for the Canadian Grand Prix curled up on his bed with his headphones on and his bottle of Percocet lost somewhere in the blankets. He’d made it to Nevada before his body had decided to give up and make him sick. It’s just a cold, but the way sickness makes his bones ache was never easy even before Vegas. Now, he feels like he’s dying.

He doesn’t know what time it is when he wakes up in a fevered haze to the ear splitting sound of a text notification on his phone. He usually has it on silent, but he’s started to get scared he’s going to lose it and not be able to find it again, so the volume stays on, no matter how much his head hurts.

Hearing the sound come through his headphones though, that’s awful. Sonny fumbles around, eyes still shut, until he finds his phone, and then he squints at the screen. The type is blown up as large as he can make it, but it’s still not the easiest to read.

It’s a text from Kate. Funny, not what he’d been expecting. He’s not really sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t her. He’s texted her a few times since the season started up, mostly about the car’s performance, but this one isn’t about that.

Check on Josh, her text says.

He sends a menagerie of question marks to Kate. JP OK?

It takes a few minutes for Kate to respond. In that time, Sonny almost falls back asleep.

He’s fine, just text him.

Sonny sends her what he thinks is a thumbs up emoji, and then opens his conversation with JP. K8 told me 2 txt u, he sends. Sometnin happen?

A couple minutes pass before JP responds. It looks like he types for a while, but all that comes through is Did you see Monaco?

Despite how shitty he feels, the message makes Sonny smile. JP does care. Kind of. He likes the performance reviews Sonny’s giving, anyway. He sends a thumbs up, then a smiley face JP’s way.

Thought you’d stopped watching, JP texts back.

U wish, Sonny tells him. Good luck tmrrow. As if JP needs it. He’s good at what he does, and that’s more than proven the next day when he slides across the finish line in P2.

***

Spain doesn’t go well. For JP specifically, or APX GP at large. Roughly halfway through the race, after JP spins out——he recovers, but barely——Sonny gets a text from Ruben. His first in a couple weeks, and Sonny can’t fucking read it. He’s been fighting that particular losing battle for a while, but yesterday was when he had officially lost it.

He has something on his phone that will read text out loud for him, and activates it. The mechanical voice struggles a little pronouncing APX, but the message as a whole manages to get across. Ruben wants him back for strategy, and he wants him back yesterday. The message is enough to make Sonny laugh. Ruben doesn’t know the bullet he’s dodging by Sonny turning him down.

Sonny sets down his phone and turns his attention to the race commentary he has streaming. Things don’t take much of a positive turn for the rest of the race, and the only person JP ends up finishing in front of is Cortez.

Yikes. Sonny figures out how to send JP a crying emoji, and hopes it comes through. It must, because JP texts back Don’t worry, I’m fine.

Generally, Sonny doesn’t worry about JP. Does he care about JP? Absolutely, as inconvenient as that is, but he doesn’t worry. JP can hold his own out there in the field; he’s tough. Strong enough to bounce back from whatever the track throws at him.

Everything Sonny isn’t anymore.

Speaking to his phone feels awkward, but Sonny does it anyway. He doesn’t trust himself enough to type coherently without being able to actually see the keys.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says, and he’s goddamn lucky that voice to text can’t convey the lump in his throat when he’s speaking.

***

JP does well in Austria, as does Cortez. P7 and 8 aren’t too shabby, all things considered.

In California, in his van. Sonny struggles to send a text message. He still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of speech to text. Finding the buttons he needs to press isn’t exactly easy when they’re all fuzzy and have the same texture. He hits what he thinks is the voice to text button, but then hears the sound associated with a voice memo, and curses.

“Shit,” he says. “Dagnabbit, how do I turn this off?” His fingers fumble against what he hopes is the keyboard, to no avail. At any rate, he’s not really sure how to delete one of these messages once he’s started recording, and he absolutely can’t do it if he can’t see the screen, so he might as well commit. “Forget it.” He sighs before continuing. “Good job JP, way to knock it out of the park today. Smiley face, thumbs up, whatever the fuck. Bye.” He spends another couple seconds poking uselessly at the keyboard until it finally complies.

A whooshing sound effect confirms that his message has been sent, for better or worse. Probably worse. He doesn’t know what JP is going to make of this. Really, he’d rather JP not make anything of it, but that’s just not likely.

Case in point: What’s with the voice message being JP’s next text.

“Accident,” Sonny says, and sends that, as an actual text this time. He follows it up with “I touched the wrong thing,” a second later, and contemplates giving up entirely on texting when he can’t find the button to send the damn thing. He squints at the phone, fully aware that it won’t help. “How do I send this?”

He should really stop talking to himself. It’s one thing if it’s in the car and no one can hear him, but another entirely if JP is receiving what he’s saying as a text. Maybe. Sonny doesn’t fucking know what’s happening to his words, but the sound his phone makes leads him to believe that his text has been sent somewhere. To someone. Hopefully JP.

You alright? Is JP’s quick response.

It’s at that point that Sonny forgoes speech to text altogether, and does his best to type never better into the chat.

Whether he succeeds or not, Sonny doesn’t know. JP doesn’t reply. Probably for the best.

Chapter Text

Sonny thinks he’s well enough prepared for the British Grand Prix. He doesn’t really trust text to speech with emojis, and he doesn’t trust himself either, but he figures muscle memory and guesstimation is better than accidentally sending JP the phrase smiley face emoji in place of the actual thing. Then he accidentally sends two, thinks why not, whatever, and adds a third face emoji of some kind and what he hopes is the British flag. Sent with confetti, because he’s feeling fancy and just figured out how to do that last week by accident.

Thanks, comes through a moment later. Would’ve been nice if you were there.

And there it is. Sonny doesn’t know if the last part is supposed to be sentimental or passive aggressive, but it makes him feel bad either way. He should have gone to the race in Miami, is what it makes him think. He should have never texted JP in the first place, is what he should have done. Now he’s attached, and he can’t bring himself to stop, no matter how hard getting across a message is.

“Would if I could,” he tells the phone, and that’s the message he sends JP’s way. Hopefully. Miracle of all miracles, JP doesn’t ask why Sonny can’t, but Sonny’s pretty sure he knows that JP is thinking it. Not that he blames JP, it’s the kind of thing that Sonny’s thinking as well.

He think he could make it, if he tried. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but at least he’s got the money for a plane ticket, he could figure something out. Then again, showing up means APX GP seeing him like this——means JP seeing him like this——and Sonny doesn’t know if he can handle that.

***

Hungary is great for APX——both of its drivers. JP ends up on the podium, and Cortez barely misses it. It’s a good race to listen to, though Sonny wishes he could actually see most of the action. The image he has pulled up on his phone screen is a mess of shapes and colors that Sonny can’t quite make sense of. He knows there’s a track, he knows there’s cars, he knows the happy-sounding smudge that appears on screen for a post-race interview is JP but he can’t really see him worth a damn.

He can see enough to send a smiley face, so that’s what he does. He follows it up with “Great job out there JP,” and wonders what the hell he’s doing with all this. There’s no sense in talking to JP the way he has been. No sense in JP bothering to respond, but as long as he keeps replying Sonny is going to keep texting.

Grape?

Not the reply that Sonny was expecting, but he can roll with it.

“What?” He asks.

What’s the grape about?

Sonny squints his way to a question mark, and sends it JP’s way. He doesn’t get an elaboration. Figures.

***

JP ends up in P7 when Belgium is all said and done, despite the fact that corner five had it out for him, and that’s what Sonny tries to tell him. Who knows what corner five had it out for you, actually comes through as, but that’s the message Sonny tries to send. He’s in his van——he’s been spending more and more time in it as of late——the less he can see, the less he likes being out in public.

I managed it, is JP’s response, which leads Sonny to believe he’d managed his text pretty well too. It’s a relief. He knows the course JP had been on pretty well——he’d studied the hell out of it, run the damn thing on the simulator about a million times——and he knows turn five.

In hindsight, trying to type out his thoughts on the turn is a terrible idea. He knows that, but knowing an idea is a terrible one has never stopped Sonny from executing it before. Maybe executing isn’t really the best way to describe what he does, because all he receives from JP in response is a series of question marks.

“What did I do this time?” Sonny asks, and sends it before he can think better of it.

Just look at the text.

If only JP knew. Better that he doesn’t though.

“This fucking phone hates me,” Sonny tells JP, which doesn’t really help anything, but it does make him feel better. "I meant to say you did a good job," he says. It’s not what he was going to say, but it is true.

Appreciate it, JP texts. You driving in anything soon?

Sonny sets his phone to the side, and tries to forget JP’s question. He’s not sure how long he spends staring at the smudge that the side of his van has become, but it’s long enough to shove down the emotion that’s making him sick to his stomach. He can’t even drive his van anymore, much less anything on a closed course. As it is, he usually hurts so badly that he can barely make it out of his van without his painkillers. He takes one of them now, to quell the ache that’s plaguing the base of his spine and his shoulders.

He doesn’t bother looking at the time when he picks up his phone——he’s not even sure he’d be able to read it——but he knows it’s been a while.

No would be a fine answer. No probably doesn’t raise that many questions, but that’s not what Sonny says.

I think I’m done racing is what ends up being sent to JP. It takes him a long time to force the words out, and he’s damn lucky the microphone in his phone picks them up at all. It’s the first time he’s said the words out loud, and he hates hearing them. It makes the whole thing feel more real, makes him feel cold all over——empty.

If he’s not racing, what the hell is he supposed to do with himself?

***

He goes back to the doctor, is what he does with himself. He can only run into so many walls before something needs to be done, and it’s a limit that Sonny has quite literally hit. Multiple times.

It’s hard, harder than it should be, to get to the clinic he’d found after a few struggling internet searches. It’s not walking distance, but it’s conveniently accessible via a bus route, as long as Sonny’s able to find it. Easier said than done when he doesn’t know braille, and is in an unfamiliar city to boot. It certainly doesn’t help that his back feels like it’s tearing apart every time he takes a step. It’s a bad day for pain if he’s ever seen one, but Sonny doesn’t take anything for it. He can’t take his painkillers and find his way where he needs to go. They make him too fuzzy around the edges.

The bus makes him nauseous, and he almost misses his stop getting of. He doesn’t run into the bus like he had when he was trying to get onto it though, and that’s better than nothing.

He gives himself two hours to get where he’s going, and even then, he just barely makes it. She tells him more of what he already knows——that it’s not getting better, and it’s only getting worse——and he finds himself wondering why the hell he’s even here when she mentions they do have a recommendation for something that might help. Not something that could stop what’s happening, but something to——in her words——accommodate him.

He leaves with a white cane, rudimentary instructions on how to use it, and the renewed faith that things only are only going to get worse from here.

By the time he’s limped back to his van——because he limps now, most of the time——he’s missed the Dutch Grand Prix, and he’s too tired to fight his way through google to find out who placed where. His head and back both hurt so badly that it’s all he can do to scramble for his painkillers and take twice his prescribed dose, because that’s the only thing that’ll help. He washes it down with a flat soda he’d forgotten to toss yesterday, and collapses onto his bed.

When he wakes up the next morning——what he thinks is the next morning, anyway——it’s only because his body hurts so badly that he can’t stay asleep. Everything spikes in pain when he moves, and his mouth is dry as he stumbles to his feet, and searches until he finds a plastic bottle of water to drink, which he does in approximately fifteen seconds. It helps, but barely.

He’s patting down his kitchen area for his actual water bottle when he comes to the conclusion that he can’t just stay in the van all day, no matter how nice the thought of taking his pills and passing out again is. There’s almost no food in the van, and he needs to eat. He needs to wash his clothes, wash his goddamn sheets, take a shower so he feels like a person again.

It feels like a tall order for a man who can’t really read anymore, but if he wastes away in here any longer he might be able to convince himself to give up entirely. He thinks he’ll feel better if he gets himself into a shower, cleans up, but the motivation to leave the van is sparse.

Fuck it, he’s going. He spends a couple minutes patting around for his cane he’s got basically no idea how to work, grabs his phone even though it’s been dead since yesterday, and throws half the shit he owns into his duffle bag. Clothes, sheets, everything cloth that can fit gets shoved in there. Somehow, the action exhausts him. A few months ago, he’d been able to run five miles no problem. There had been pain, yes, but there’s always pain——and he’d still been able to run. Now, he can barely stand up without his legs going weak from the pain, and everything in him screaming at him to sit down and give it up.

Sonny slings the duffle bag over his shoulder with a wince. Luckily, it’s not a long walk to a laundromat. He’d picked his home base specifically because of that——it’s close enough to a stop with showers, a laundromat, and a grocery store, albeit a shitty one. Everything he needs to survive. Maybe not to live, but to survive, and right now it’s starting to feel like survival is all he’ll be able to manage. Still, better than nothing, right?

Some days, Sonny’s not so sure. His one saving grace right now is that his vision isn’t entirely gone——it’s the one reason he even makes it to the laundromat, and even that’s difficult for him. He scrounges up the change to run his washer, and spends the next five minutes sitting down as he contemplates whether or not he can find food and make it back here by the time the washer goes off. He should try, at least. If he sits too much longer he just won’t want to get up again. That’d be a way to go——wasted away in the damn laundromat of all places.

Sonny forces himself to stand, braces himself against the table because his back will scream at him for anything else. He grabs the cane, leaves everything else, and makes his way out of the laundromat without tripping once, by some miracle. He does almost eat shit the moment he steps onto the sidewalk, but that’s been par for the course recently. Sidewalks aren’t his friends. They’re usually uneven and cracked, and he can’t tell where those parts are, which is giving him a bit of grief. Maybe more than, he still has scrapes healing on his hands from a couple days ago when he hadn’t been able to stay upright. Some kid had helped him up, and Sonny doesn’t know if he’s ever felt as old as he had in that moment.

He’s been feeling old a lot recently, though. Feeling tired a lot recently.

He fumbles and feels his way through the convenience store——it’s not really a grocery store, but it’ll do. Not like Sonny’s ever been good at eating right anyway. He ends up with enough peanut butter for a small army, crackers, and exactly one orange that he hopes will be enough to stop him from getting scurvy. It’s a miracle his eating habits haven’t made him sick already, but it’s too late to change them now.

It takes another ten minutes to get back to the laundromat. When he does make it back to the washer he’d had, his clothes aren’t where he left them.

Shit. That’s most of his clothes——he’s had some of those things for ages, he likes them, goddamnit, they’re comfortable——never mind the fact that he can’t afford to get more clothes right now. He turns around and squints at the space around him. There’s only so many places his clothes could sit, and if he can’t find them, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do about that. His only set of bedsheets is in there.

“Damnit,” he mutters to himself. “Dagnabit.”

There are tables to the left——he thinks they’re tables anyway, it might be a line of dryers——it’s hard to tell with how bad his eyes have gotten. He can see a lump on top of one of the tables though; maybe it’s clothes. He moves over to them, cane out in front of himself, until it bumps up against the table.

The clothes are wet, Sonny hates the feel of it, but they’re definitely his. He recognizes some of the fabric, some of the blurry patterns that he can still see are familiar. Definitely his.

Thank god. Sonny breathes a sigh of relief as he gathers everything up in his arms, and——now he can’t hold his cane right——shit——tries to move to the side of the building, where he knows the dryers are. He can hear them running, they sound different from the washers.

When he gets there, there are a couple of open machines, by some kind of miracle. He shoves his stuff into the first one he can find, and loads it with enough quarters to start the load. When he’s done, Sonny slumps down on the nearest bench and presses a palm——the one not occupied by his cane——against his temple. He doesn’t have time to shower while his clothes are drying, that’s for sure. And even if he did, he doesn’t currently have any clean clothes to change into.

It won’t kill him to wait the 45 minutes——he thinks it’s 45, he couldn’t read the damn timer——it’ll take for his shit to dry. He’ll be fine.

***

He falls asleep, wakes up woozy and with a crick in his neck. There’s no way for him to tell how long he’s been asleep, but his clothes are done, and it’s still light outside, so it could be worse. He’s lucky enough that——while plenty of clothes are being washed——the laundromat is relatively empty. Probably because most people can go do whatever they have to do and come back in a timely fashion. Unlike himself. Fuck.

His phone chooses that moment to buzz in his pocket, but Sonny ignores it. He doesn’t really like the idea of his texts being read out loud——granted, the most scandalous thing anyone will read is Jodie challenging him to chess——so it’ll have to wait until whenever he’s finally back at his van.

It feels like that will take forever, but Sonny’s never been the best at managing his time.

When it gets down to it, it almost does take forever. It’s getting dusky by the time Sonny’s done putting the sheets back on his bed. He’s already exhausted, but he’s also disgusting, which means a shower, which means more walking, and hopefully not getting hit by someone else’s car. He’s had a couple close calls——mostly in parking lots——and really isn’t looking forward to the day his luck runs out. It’s the kind of thing that makes him think he shouldn’t just wear his mismatched socks on race weekends.

Finding his way in the dark is even harder than it is when the sun is still out. Sonny figures he should get used to it——everything’s going to be dark sooner rather than later——but he’s still tripping over bumps in the sidewalk and crosswalk as he tries to make his way to a shower. It’s at what basically amounts to a truck stop, which means it’s a little out of the way from the rest of his set up, but he needs to get cleaned up, and it’s the only option.

It’s a damn good shower though, when he finally gets there. The water is cold at first, which is fine by Sonny, because it’s hot and humid out. The cold feels good on his back, and he uses entirely too much soap in the process of scrubbing off what feels like a whole layer of skin.

The walk to his van is less fun, but the night has cooled down enough by the time Sonny leaves that the walk is tolerable. It still takes longer than it should, and by the time he gets back to his parking lot, he’s forgotten entirely where the hell his van is. He can see vague illusions to cars in the lot, but the darkness is making it hard to pick them out of the rest of the shadows. Shapes and colors all blend together in the dark, and he trips over a loose piece of concrete at one point, but the second he touches the van, he knows it’s his.

What a relief, too. He really hadn’t wanted to have to roam around touching every shadow that looked like it could be his home. Getting into the van isn’t hard, even with his failing eyes. He’s done it so many times over so many years that he probably could do it fully blind. He does almost trip on a tennis ball as he makes it to his bed though. Not his finest moment, but today hasn’t exactly been what Sonny would call fine. It’s closer to passable.

He all but collapses onto his bed with a sigh, and wrestles his shirt off as soon as he’s on the bed. The end of the walk had gotten warm, and he needs less clothes on. He pulls his phone out of his pocket after he throws the shirt across the van. It takes a minute of fumbling with the screen, but he manages to open the text he’d gotten earlier. Apparently, it’s JP.

Proof of life, is read out to him in a mechanical voice.

“What?” Sonny says, and decides that’s good enough to send.

Proof of life, JP sends back. Send a picture.

Okay, fine, sure. Sonny can do that. Probably. He tries his best, but his phone screen is almost incomprehensible at this point, and the colors that show up when he opens the camera app aren’t enough to give him an idea of what the camera is focused on. He takes the picture anyway, and sends it JP’s way.

A picture of you.

“What did I send you?” Sonny asks.

The fucking ceiling.

Damn. The camera had been facing the wrong way after all.

It takes a lot longer than Sonny would like to admit for him to take the photo of himself. This time, he’s 90% sure that it’s actually of him, though he has no idea what he looks like. Probably not very good, based off of the fact that he’s been cutting his own hair without being able to see it, and can’t shave without cutting up his face. Homeless might be a good way to describe it, but it’s not like he can really clean himself up any more than he already has when he can’t see.

The picture’s not getting any better though, so he sends it anyway. “Happy now?” He asks, and sends that too. “I’m not dead.”

I like the mullet.

Sonny frowns and puts his fingers through his hair. It’s longer than it had been, but he’s pretty sure it’s not a mullet. He should know; he’d had one in his NASCAR days (and Ruben will never let him live it down).

“I don’t have a mullet, do I?” He sends JP’s way.

Absolutely, is the unfortunate response. Straight out of the 1980s.

“Shit,” Sonny tells him. He probably looks crazier than he thought he did.

Don’t worry, JP texts back almost immediately. It’s cute.

Sonny doesn’t consider himself the type of man who gets flustered easily, but that has his face warm. Jesus Christ——sixty fucking years old and he’s blushing. If that isn’t embarrassing, Sonny doesn’t know what is.

JP thinks he’s cute. Who’d have thought?

***

Sonny dozes through the majority of the race in Italy, but he’s been dozing on and off instead of actually sleeping for most of the week. His back hurts too much to sleep well, and the sleep he gets when he’s taken his Percocet usually ends with him waking up more tired than when he’d gone to sleep. It’s what he likes to call a last resort.

He’s wide awake for the last half hour of the race, thanks to the splitting pain in his head. Listening to the race doesn’t help his migraine by any stretch of the imagination, but he can’t bring himself to turn it off. JP places 6th, which isn’t bad, but Sonny knows JP can do better. Cortez, on the other hand, likely can’t do much better than his P8 unless he eases up on the breaks a bit, but he’s not really who Sonny’s focused on.

For his hard work, JP receives a thumbs up. Sonny hopes it’s a thumbs up anyway, he still doesn’t trust his ability to speak to or type on the phone.

JP’s response comes in half an hour later: can’t you do better than a thumbs up?

“Can’t you do better than sixth place?” Sonny asks.

Watch and see, JP tells him.

Sonny might not be able to do that anymore, but he can sure as hell listen.

***

Azerbaijan sees JP delivering on his promise, and a phone call from him——and Jodie——neither of which which Sonny is aware of until more than an hour after they happen, thanks to yet another particularly exhausting visit to a particularly exhausting doctor, who can do exactly jack shit for his recurring migraines. There’s no voicemail from either of them, so Sonny doesn’t bother calling back. It must not be important, and thanks to the Percocet he’s taken, he’s going to be on his way to incoherent pretty quickly. He doesn’t want JP or Jodie to have to deal with that.

He does play half of a game of chess with Jodie before his headache finally takes over and he lets his turn expire. He’ll get Jodie eventually.

Before he rolls over and tries to go to sleep, he manages to text JP a smiley face. The next morning, he wakes up to a message failed notification. Just his luck.

***

He doesn’t even get a chance to text JP in Singapore, because it seems like JP calls him the second he gets off of the track. Sonny’s so surprised that it takes him a second to answer. He considers letting it run through to voicemail, but he does want to hear JP’s voice. It’s been a few days since he talked to anybody anyway, and he’s starting to feel lonely.

“Hello?” JP asks. “Sonny? Are you there?”

The fact that he answers also might have something to do with the fact that he’s high out of his goddamn mind on painkillers that barely work, but JP doesn’t need to know that.

“JP!” Based on the way he’s sounding though, it’s not really a secret he’s on something. “Why’d you call?”

“You should come up for the next race,” JP says, which isn’t really an answer, but it’s a nice idea. Not going to happen though, no matter how much Sonny wants it to. The thought of JP seeing him like this——anyone seeing him like this——makes him a little sick to his stomach. “It’s in the states. You can drive there——“

And Sonny’s gotta stop him right there, because that’s sounding just too appealing, and just too impossible.

“No can do,” he says.

“Why not?” JP asks. He sounds hurt.

“Can’t make the…” Sonny sighs as his foggy brain stops him from finding the word he needs. “What’sit——the drive. Can’t make the drive.”

“That’s bull,” JP says, and god——Sonny wishes that was true. “Sonny, all you do is drive. You took first in a race a couple months ago.”

Despite everything else JP’s said so far, that last bit makes Sonny smile. “You’re watching me?”

“No.” JP suddenly sounds defensive. “I just heard——it doesn’t matter. Why can’t you make the drive?”

“It’s just not something I can do,” Sonny replies. And really, it’s not. He can’t drive anymore, and there’s no way he’ll be able to bus there. He’s running low on money anyway, and he’ll miss half his busses if he’s lucky.

“Mate, if you don’t want to come, just say so.”

“I do,” Sonny mumbles, “want to come.” His words are loose in his mouth, thoughts loose in his head. “It’s just not in the cards for me.”

“And you’d know all about that,”<\em> JP replies. He sounds just a little sad, but Sonny swears he must be imagining it.

“Cards?” He laughs. “Yeah.”

“Think about it, would you? Everyone’d like to see you there.”

Now Sonny’s eyes are burning. Fuck.

“And I’d love to be there,” he says. He thinks he sounds——not quite right, definitely not sober——but he doesn’t sound like there are tears in his eyes. He thinks. “But it’s not happening.” He uses the hand that’s not holding his phone to rub his eyes. “It was nice to hear your voice,” he adds.

He hangs up before JP can say anything else, and lets himself cry for real. He tells himself it’s the pills fucking him up, but he’s always been bad at lying to himself.

***

Should’ve been there, JP texts him after he’s off the track. It was a good race.

“I missed this one,” Sonny says, and sends the message. “No spoilers.” Another fucking doctor, another entire day of getting lost and being told there’s nothing they can do. He doesn’t know why he bothers going back.

Why’d you miss it?

JP’s not supposed to ask that.

“I was out.”

Where to?

“Nowhere interesting,” Sonny replies.

Keep your secrets, is JP’s next text, but apparently he doesn’t mean it, because he keeps talking. Says he’s worried, says you’re acting fucking weird, which is true, but JP shouldn’t be saying that.

Maybe Sonny makes a mistake by not answering, because that’s when JP calls him. Three times over.

Sonny doesn’t answer. Maybe he won’t, because he knows he’s going to crumble, spill all of it to JP the second he hears JP’s voice. He’d be angry, his last few texts have been more angry than worried, and Sonny’s okay with that. Something in him would rather have someone mad at him than pitying him.

JP leaves a voicemail after his third failed call——he sounds angry, and he’s loud, just like Sonny’d thought he’d be. It’s still nice to hear him speak, even if he’s calling Sonny an asshole. He’s doing it because he cares, which is strange, but Sonny’ll take it; he just wishes that he wasn’t worrying JP as much as he is.

Sonny tells him to stop anyway, leaves a long, rambling voicemail asking JP to calm down, don’t worry, in just about every way he can think of. He’s mumbling, and at a certain point he chokes up so badly that he can barely understand what he’s saying, and is almost certain that JP won’t get shit out of what he’s saying, but he sends it anyway.

What? Joshua asks, after about ten minutes of radio silence.

“What do you mean?” Sonny replies after he composes himself.

I can’t understand what you’re saying.

“I’m trying,” Sonny tells him, “but it’s hard for me to text now.”

Why? JP asks. He’s asking the right questions, but Sonny wishes he wouldn’t, because everything he does or doesn’t tell JP just digs him into a deeper hole.

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

JP takes a minute to respond after that one. Are you sick?

“No.”

Hurt?

Sonny starts to speak, but then quits halfway through the first word. Nothing he can say will help him. He can’t come clean, and if he lies JP will clock that immediately.

Then JP calls again, and Sonny ignores him, again. A minute later, a text from JP comes through. Answer your phone.

JP gets voicemail again when he calls, and Sonny gets another text.

Sonny, please. You’re scaring me.

JP must work in threes, because the next time Sonny ignores his call, he takes to voicemail again. This time, he’s not just loud, he’s really yelling. He says a lot of shit——most of it deserved. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

God, he really fucked that up.

***

He almost doesn’t text after Mexico. When he does, he accidentally sends the wrong emoji, which probably doesn’t help the fact that JP thinks he’s not all there. He corrects it, and takes enough painkillers to let himself sleep.

JP’s given him a thumbs up by the time Sonny wakes up again, scared and groggy, fresh out of a nightmare. No point in taking things to help him sleep if the effects give him a panic attack so bad that he loses any energy that rest might have given him. It’s bad, he knows. Not healthy, makes him seem like he’s not well, and he’s not.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can live like this. His eyes, body, and now his mind all seem like they’re in competition to see what can break first. He can’t say he’s looking forward to the day he finally finds out which one wins.

***

JP takes second in Brazil, and he gets a smiley face. For once, Sonny is feeling good. Might have something to do with the fact that he went outside, might have something to do with the fact that his back’s having a better day, but whatever it is, he’s not complaining. He still hurts, but he always hurts, it’s just that right now he’s hurting less than he usually does.

It’s late, and he’s laying out on the top of his van——still warm from the sun, even though it’s been dark for a while——when JP starts texting him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s drunk, or high, or something like that, because text to speech is having a hard time with his spelling.

Should’ve been there old man, is the first text Sonny gets. Drove fast for you.

And Sonny says you should really be driving for Ruben, because he doesn’t know what else to say. JP seems like he’s in a good mood, which is nice.

Mop, JP responds.

“Mop?” Sonny asks.

NOPE, Joshua corrects, all capital nope. I’m so ducking trunk right now.

Well, look who’s incoherent now.

“Out celebrating?”

Wantoo come?

Sonny smiles. “You’re in the wrong country for that,” he tells JP.

In response, he gets a crying emoji.

And then about twenty more, all sent individually.

“Sorry, JP.”

I’m not a grape.

Whatever that means. Sonny doesn’t bother asking, what with JP being three sheets to the wind and all.

You need to stop actin weird, JP texts again after a second.

“You need to get off your phone,” Sonny says. “Live in the moment.”

Don’n want too.

“Live it up,” Sonny tells him. “I’ll be here when you get back.” Not like he’s planning on going to sleep anytime soon. He doesn’t get days where he feels good like this often, and he’d rather be awake for this one. It’s almost peaceful. As peaceful as he can get when he’s not behind the wheel of a car anyway.

He goes back to listening to music, like he had been before JP started texting him, and sets his phone to the side. He can’t see much of anything when he looks up, but the sky’s supposed to be overcast anyway, so Sonny likes to think it’s almost like his eyes still work the way they’re supposed to. After a few minutes he just closes his eyes, listens to the music, and tries his best to turn his brain off. It doesn’t work, of course it doesn’t, but at least for the moment he can’t hear his own heart thudding in his chest, stressed and scared. All he can hear is his music, and the warm metal of the top of his van is enough to make him a pleasant kind of sleepy. One of his button-ups is balled up under his head as a makeshift pillow, and Sonny thinks he’s more comfortable than he’s been in a while.

It’s not too long before texts start coming in again. Less than an hour before JP sends a photo, but Sonny has no idea what it’s of. It’s just a smudge of colors and shapes that don’t mean anything, no matter how hard he squints. He settles on reacting with a thumbs up, because that feels safe. In the meantime, JP had followed up his picture with a text saying the twam misses you,

“Tell them hi for me,” Sonny says, and sends it. That’s pretty neutral.

Tell them yourself, JP responds. Come to Vegas.

Sonny’s in the process of responding when one please comes in. It’s quickly accompanied by four others.

“I can’t,” Sonny tells JP, and then sets down his phone again.

He makes it through about half an album of what he’s listening to before his phone rings. It comes through his headphones——loud as hell——and makes him flinch at the abruptness and volume. He knows who it is before his phone reads the contact’s name out loud. JP’s the only person who would call him, and the contact name being read out loud only confirms it.

In spite of logic, Sonny answers the call.

“JP?”

“Sonny!” Based on the enthusiasm in JP’s voice, he’s completely plastered. “Didn’ think you’d pick up,” he says, and laughs. “You sound good,” he continues. Between the drunken slurring and the accent, he’s almost completely indecipherable. “Are you good?”

“I’m okay,” Sonny responds. “Hey, are you——“

“Great!” JP interrupts. “I’m so——so…” He sighs at the lost words. Sonny can relate, he’s been there. “‘M really glad you answered,” he says, so goddamn warmly that Sonny swears he can feel it. “Miss havin’ you ‘n your stupid face ‘round.”

“That’s sweet,” Sonny tells him. He shifts on the roof of his van. The movement makes his back hurt, but not as much as it has recently. “Where are you?”

“Hotel,” JP says. His voice pitches up a little, like he’s almost excited. “‘M alone. Why? Wha’s happening?”

“I don’t want you wandering the streets drunk,” Sonny says.

“Tha’s all?”

“I’m watching out for you, I feel like that’s pretty good.” Sonny takes his free hand, the one not holding his phone, and feels around for his water bottle.

“Do you miss me?” JP asks. If Sonny was drinking something, he’d choke on it. He quickly abandons looking for his water. He probably didn’t need it that badly anyway.

The answer is yes. Obviously, the answer is yes. Sonny thinks JP should be able to see right though him there. He doesn’t think he’s necessarily subtle about it. Then again, maybe he’s got the luck of JP not knowing him well enough to realize. Ruben, if he knew how Sonny was acting, would clock the situation in an instant.

“Yeah,” Sonny says, after thinking on it for far too long. “I miss you.” And a whole lot of other things that he can’t say.

“Then come to a race,” JP says. “I’ll pay for your fuckin’ plane ticket, just please——“ He sighs, aggressive and frustrated. “I want you there,” he says, so drunkenly mournful that it’s practically begging.

“I can’t do that,” he tells JP, as much as it breaks his heart to say so.

“Why the hell not?” JP asks, and Sonny’s bracing himself for another fight when JP switches gears entirely and asks if he’d liked the picture. Thank god for drunk people’s occasional lack of object——or topic permanence. “Was it the picture?” JP asks. “Was it too much?” He sounds worried when he says it, so genuinely concerned that it’s sweet.

“It’s not the picture,” Sonny assures him. “The picture was fine,” he says, and wishes he knew what the hell it was. He’s not about to ask though, not when he’s so deep in already. If he asks what the picture is, that’ll just raise more questions from JP, and that’s the last thing he wants.

“You liked it?”

“I liked it,” Sonny confirms.

“Fuck yes,” JP mumbles. “I wan——want’ta tell you somethin’,” he continues.

“Okay,” Sonny says. “Shoot.”

“I really——“ JP’s voice is cut off by aggressive, almost violent gagging. Sonny cringes as he hears a wet splat over the line. “Fuck me,” JP grumbles.

“Did you just throw up?”

The devastated noise JP makes is enough of an answer. “Can’t say it like this,” he mumbles.

“Say what?”

“Not tellin’,” JP says. “You’re tricky.”

“Not tricky,” Sonny says. “You’re just drunk.”

“‘M so drunk,” JP confirms.

“Wash your mouth out,” Sonny tells him. “Brush your teeth, it’ll make you feel better.”

“It’s all over me,” JP says sadly.

“Take a shower too.”

“Uh-huh.” Sonny hears rustling on the other end of the line as JP starts moving around. “Takin’ a shower,” he says.

“Don’t bring your phone in the shower,” Sonny reminds him as he hears water start up. “You’ll kill it.”

“Don’t want’ta do that,” JP says. “You tryin’ to hang up?”

“You’ve got better things to do than talk to me,” Sonny responds. “I’ll see you soon anyway.”

“You’ll come to Vegas?” JP asks, suddenly sounding surprisingly sober.

“I’ll try.”

That’s an understatement; Sonny’s mind is more than made up now. He’s making it to Vegas if it’s the last thing he does, he thinks as he ends the call with JP. He follows that up with a text to Drink water. Go to sleep, just in case JP’s drunk enough to forget.

The next morning, JP doesn’t seem to remember anything he said. Maybe that’s for the best, maybe not. Maybe he knows exactly what he said, and he just regrets it. Sonny won’t pretend to know, but he texts JP back all the same. It’s pretty cute that he’s so apologetic, but Sonny can’t spend much time on that.

Today, he’s figuring out how to make it to Vegas. He wants to be there——he’s wanted to be there all damn season——but this is his last shot; last race of the season that’s continental. If he doesn’t make this one, he’ll never make any of them.

He’ll find his way to Vegas if it kills him.

Chapter Text

Getting to Vegas does very nearly kill him, but Sonny doesn’t think that’s really hard to do these days. What getting to Vegas really does that Sonny hadn’t completely accounted for is drain his wallet. Between the missed busses, food, and the generally staggering cost of living when you don’t have a van to go back to, Sonny’s down to his last twenty-odd dollars by the time he arrives in sin city, a day before the race.

Lucky for him, he was a professional gambler for a decade. Not like it’ll be hard to scrounge up a small win that’ll afford him some good food at least, and maybe access to a shower. He can sleep in the bus station——he’s been doing that on and off since he set out on this trip——and it’ll be uncomfortable, it’ll be hell on his back, but if he has to choose between eating or a motel room, he’s going to eat. He’s kind of banking on not having to choose at all, but it turns out to be pretty hard to play poker when you’re blind, and he needs to win pretty big if he wants to be a me to afford a room the night before a Grand Prix. It’s kind of hopeless, but it’s worth a shot anyway, he figures. Not like a twenty gets him too much more than nothing.

Sonny gets down to five dollars in blackjack, bets it all, and manages to break even before he decides maybe this isn’t going to work. The way he is now, there is no choice——it’s food or nothing. Everything else in his pockets amounts to his phone, and his ticket for tomorrow. Neither of those are things he wants to part with. He needs his phone almost as much as he needs his ticket. As it is, it’s so busted up that no one would want it even if he did try to sell it.

What he really needs to do is call Ruben and ask for help, but it’s not hard for him to admit he’s too proud for that. Even if he did want to call Ruben, his phone is dead; he’d left his charger somewhere in a Greyhound station a few hundred miles ago, and he doesn’t have Ruben’s number memorized, even if he managed to find a pay phone or borrow someone else’s phone. He can still rattle Ruben’s number from 1993 off without thinking, but that’s not what he needs right now.

He doesn’t have JP’s number down either, and JP’s the only other person he’d even think of talking to right now. And now that he’s thinking about it, he’s not sure he even wants to call JP at all. The thought of hearing JP’s voice makes him sick to his stomach, and he’s not sure if it’s in a good way or not. He’s nervous——pretty sure that’s what it is, anyway——he’s not too used to the feeling, not in the way he’s feeling it now. There’s a knot in his stomach so bad that he doesn’t even eat with the money he has, and barely sleeps that night.

He’s scanning his ticket as soon as he’s able. It’s way before the race starts, way before most sensible people are there——but F1 fans have never been sensible. Sonny’s thankful that the assortment of fans he’s among aren’t as dense as they could be, or he might run into one of them. Even straining his eyes as hard as he is, he still can’t see shit.

It’s not hard for him to find his way into a place where he, as a spectator, shouldn’t be. It’s even easier for him to find his way into a place where he, as a member of APX GP, also shouldn’t be. He has to try and beg a phone off someone——he doesn’t know who the hell they are, only that they have a walkie talkie, and are willing to radio that they need Ruben in Red Bull’s territory. Fucking Red Bull, of all the teams.

The security guard is nice enough, though it’s probably only because he recognizes Sonny, and feels bad for him. It’s a lethal combination, Sonny figures. The guard waits with Sonny in a hallway that Sonny doesn’t know how the hell he found his way to, and they make awkward smalltalk that stilts every time Sonny sees a shadow in the hall, and straightens up in the hopes that it might be Ruben.

It takes all of twenty minutes, and about five false alarms, for Ruben to show up. Sonny can’t see well enough to tell, but if he had to guess, he’d paint Ruben as surprised——hopefully not mad. He’s so tired that he’s not sure he can handle Ruben being angry right now.

“Hey,” Sonny says, and raises the hand that’s not holding his cane to wave. “Sorry to drop in like this.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ruben asks. He throws up his hands like he’s angry, but Sonny knows Ruben well enough to know better. Exasperated is more accurate, and Sonny can’t blame him for that. He’d probably be a little exasperated if he was in Ruben’s place, if Ruben was the one who showed up half-blind, looking half-dead, a few hours before a race.

“I was in the area,” Sonny replies. “Would’ve called ahead——” that’s a lie if Sonny’s ever told one—— “but my phone’s dead.”

Ruben’s quiet for a second, like he half-expects Sonny to keep speaking. He must be waiting for Sonny to see something, maybe an expression, and continue on, maybe explain why the hell he’s here, but Sonny won’t know what Ruben wants until he continues.

“You’re here to watch the race?” Ruben prods.

“More like listen to it.” He shrugs. “All that driving finally caught up to me.”

“Sonny.” Ruben sounds pained.

“No regrets,” Sonny says. He’s never had a second thought when it comes to driving that car for the sake of APX. He’d die for that team, and the sentiment hasn’t changed in the year Sonny’s been away from them. He did, however, enjoy seeing. Still, at the end of the day, he’d do it all over again. Not for the trophy, not for the glory——it was never about that anyway——but for the team, for the sheer fact that he was able to be behind the wheel of one of the best cars in the world. That kind of feeling, it’s unbeatable.

Ruben frowns——Sonny thinks Ruben frowns. He’s not completely sure, Ruben’s facial features aren’t all visible, but the way his posture changes reminds Sonny of the way Ruben stands when he frowns.

“Can I ask——

“Fire away,” Sonny says. Might as well get used to awkward questions sooner rather than later. He knows he’ll get plenty of them, especially when he’s surrounded by the entire crew.

“How much can you see?”

Makes sense Ruben’d ask that one. “Not much,” is Sonny’s answer. “My depth perception’s shit,” he continues, because Ruben, being Ruben, will want the nitty-gritty of it. “I can’t read,” he says. “Can’t see your face,” but I know it’s sad. He doesn’t even think of mentioning his back pain. That might be enough for Ruben to just leave him down here, or——worse——drag him to a hospital.

“Please tell me you didn’t drive here.”

“I’m not that much of an idiot,” Sonny replies. He’s done a lot of stupid things in his life, but he wouldn’t do that. Too much risk of crashing and burning, not making it to Vegas. Too much risk of hurting other people, and Sonny’s never wanted to do that. “I took the bus. It was terrible.” As evidenced by the ache in his back that’s doubled in intensity since he set foot on that bus. He grits his teeth as he musters the next sentence. “I don’t drive anymore.”

“Don’t, or can’t?” Ruben asks.

“I like the illusion of choice.”

Ruben does this little motion with his head that he only does when he rolls his eyes. The blur in Sonny’s vision is so bad that he barely catches it.

“Do me a favor,” Sonny says. “Grab my arm or something. I’m still figuring out how to use this thing——” he taps his cane against the ground. “And I don’t want to run into the wall again.”

“Again?” Ruben asks as he takes Sonny’s forearm and guides him down the hall.

“You didn’t hear that.”

He can practically sense Ruben rolling his eyes.

“Why are you here?” Ruben asks after a second. “Don’t say it’s just for the race.”

Sonny debates lying about it, he really does, but he’s never been good at lying to Ruben. No matter what he does, Ruben will see right through him. Consequences of knowing a man for thirty-odd years.

“JP,” Sonny finally says. “He wanted me here.”

“He’s wanted you here all season,” Ruben replies. “Why now?”

“He asked nicely.”

“Joshua doesn’t ‘ask nicely,’” Ruben laughs, and air quotes the last two words. “And I’ve been asking all season.”

“Maybe I just like him better,” Sonny says, trying to keep his tone casual. “I’m a sucker for a pretty face.” Never mind that he can’t really appreciate JP’s face anymore——he can still appreciate JP, at least.

Ruben probably gives him a look, probably exasperated, but it’s hard to tell. Then it doesn’t matter, because they come up on the pitch abruptly, and he’s swamped with people before he even registers them as being in the room. It’s loud in the pit, and the voices of crew members blend together almost as much as their figures do in front of Sonny’s struggling eyes.

Momentarily, he feels his chest tighten with something like anxiety. He’s never really been good around large groups of people, they make him nervous, always have, especially when the attention is focused on him. It had been bad enough before his accident in Spain, but it’s only gotten worse afterward. The less said about how not being able to see in a crowd makes him feel the better. He grabs Ruben’s arm instinctively, and tries to pick people he knows out of the crowd, but they’re too loud, and his eyes are too bad, and everyone’s dressed the goddamn same. Who decided that was a good idea?

Sonny keeps hearing his name from multiple directions, multiple voices that he can’t place——maybe this was a mistake. His hand tightens on his cane as Ruben yells at everyone to quiet down.

Thankfully, they listen. The volley of voices settles down to one or two, and Ruben tells everyone to get back to work——please. Most of them do. Sonny shakes hands with and makes his voice work for the ones who don’t. He’s not too bad at matching voices to names, but he avoids using them when he can, just in case. Almost no one comments on the cane, but he’s sure they’ve seen it, he’s sure they’re looking, even if he can’t tell with his own eyes. People like to stare; he’s just lucky that no one’s really said something.

Kate says something, but that’s Kate——she’s right to the point. Sonny does get the courtesy dialogue, the how are you and it’s good to see you, but it doesn’t stop him from having to tell her that he can’t see much, and that it’s only going to get worse.

It’s hard to say. Makes the place behind his eyes hurt, makes his throat feel like it’s full of gravel. He might as well say it though, get used to letting the words roll off his tongue and the grief of the whole situation roll off his mind. People aren’t going to stop asking questions any time soon, and Sonny’s not going to be in a position to stop answering them. If he doesn’t talk about it, everyone else will, and by the time he does say something, no one will be listening.

It’s fucking exhausting is what it is, but Sonny would rather tell the APX team than anyone else. He has friends here, at least. That’s something it’s taken him far too long to figure out.

***

Jodie corners him eventually. Really, she’s a welcome distraction. She doesn’t ask about his eyes, or his cane, or offer him any help, she just talks with him. Mostly about things they’d talked about before Sonny’s eyes and energy had left him and he’d fallen out of contact with her. It’s easy; makes Sonny feel more like a human than a spectacle.

He’s maneuvered himself to sitting on a counter——which only hurts his back a little——and he’s tapping his deck of cards rhythmically against his leg as he listens to Jodie prattle on about this guy she’s talking to. She’s pretty sure he’s flirting, but it’s hard to tell, and so on and so forth. Then, in the middle of a sentence, she cuts herself off and grabs his forearm.

“There’s yours,” she says.

He raises his eyebrows. “My what?”

“Your guy,” Jodie responds. Obviously. She points across the room, and Sonny follows the line of her arm to a smudge across the room. He’s no more distinct than anyone else in the room, but Sonny thinks he’s got a pretty good idea of who Jodie is talking about.

“JP?” He calls. “That you?”

“Last I checked,” JP responds. He sounds good over the phone, but his voice is so much nicer in person. There’s something warm in it, something that makes Sonny feel warm too.

The hug Sonny gets from JP a moment later——tight and clinging——is the best damn thing to happen to Sonny all month.

***

Telling JP what’s happening to him is harder than any of the others. Sonny doesn’t want to think too hard about why; he’d had plenty of time to consider the reasons in his van, he’d rather not do it when he’s sitting across from JP and blinking back tears. At least he’s coherent when he’s talking about it. Sonny counts that as a win, because by the time the stands are emptied out and the APX team is heading back to their hotel, he’s feeling somewhat delirious from exhaustion.

Apparently, only sleeping on busses——or not at all——takes a toll on a man. Who’d have thought?

He’s practically asleep by the time Ruben comes around and interrupts what JP is saying about turn five to tell Sonny they’ve found him a hotel room. It’s almost a miracle, considering how many people have come into the city to watch the race, but Ruben’s managed. It was a pain in his neck, he tells them, but he’d done it.

“You’re welcome,” he tells Sonny.

“Thanks,” Sonny says, because that’s what Ruben expects of him. It’s also what he owes Ruben, along with a couple thousand dollars for that room, no doubt. Sonny knows better than most people how pricy a hotel room can become around a major racing event. One of the bonuses of living in a van is that it usually doesn’t matter.

He can only imagine how bad it’s going to be to try and find a room for him in Qatar or Abu Dhabi. Not like Ruben won’t do it——or have someone do it for him. Sonny’ll have a place with the team for Qatar whether he deserves it or not.

He probably doesn’t, but he’s sure as hell not saying no.

***

The week between Vegas and Qatar flies by. It’s a whirl of activity, cars, and adrenaline, and Sonny doesn’t think he’s ever been so overwhelmed by the racing circuit in his life. It’s all so different now that he can’t see as well, and not knowing what’s happening around him has his jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed.

Still, it’s the best that Sonny’s felt in ages. Might have something to do with the fact that he’s eating actual meals instead of peanut butter crackers, might have something to do with the fact that he’s sleeping in an actual bed for once, but he’s blaming it on being around the team just as much as he’s blaming it on anything else. Whatever it is, he finally feels like a person again, like he’s not just waiting for something to give out so he can curl up in his van and die.

Not that he’d ever really sat down and thought it over very hard, but that had been the plan, hadn’t it? Keep in contact until the end of the season, and then fade into the night and hope no one remembered to check in on him? Not quite suicide, and he’s not——he’s never really been suicidal——but it had been kind of a nice thought. He still might go that way, after the season ends and he’s back to day to day life, but he couldn’t be much farther from that version of himself than he is right now though, now that he’s living the high life: thousand thread count sheets and good food and people. Nothing he’s used to, and nothing he wants to give up any time soon.

He’s already dreading the thought of being alone again, which is something he never thought would happen. Sonny’s not exactly a stranger to being on his own in the days or weeks between finding a race, and it’s not something he’d call an issue. More so, he’s just a fact of what he does. Part of the system, goes great to break up any attachments he’s made during the space between seasons.

He should’ve known enough to do that this time around, but he’s in too deep now. For the first time in years, he doesn’t think he wants to leave the team——and he’s not even technically a part of it anymore.

He could be. Ruben had offered him the job again——dangled it in front of Sonny, and Sonny had wanted so badly to take it, but he’s pretty sure he won’t be any good at telling JP and Cortez what they need to do when he can’t see. He’d said no, Ruben had told him to think about it, and that’s exactly what Sonny’s been doing. For the time being, he knows his answer, but the thought of accepting it is nice.

The thought of being on the team is really what’s nice, and what definitely doesn’t hurt his opinion of them is the fact that JP keeps touching him. Sonny’s not bothered by it——not irritated by it, anyway——but it is making him feel a little crazy. Going from sequestering himself in his van, completely alone, to having JP all over him whenever he’s not on the track is jarring. He’s not sure he recalls JP being nearly this touchy last season, but there’s always the chance he’s misremembering.

Whatever the case, he’s certainly not complaining. JP runs warm, he’s practically a heater. Then again, some of that could just be in Sonny’s head, because he just feels warmer when JP’s around. And he sounds——well, he sounds like some high school girl with a crush. He’s too old and tired to be acting like this, but none of that stops him. He’ll be gone from APX soon enough anyway, he might as well enjoy the time he has here, even if that does make leaving harder down the road.

Something else nice about JP is that he stops Sonny from running into walls and tripping over shit. Most of the time. (The one time he had managed to fall over in public, JP had been the one to help him up. Sonny guesses that counts for something.) On days where he’s not letting Sonny embarrass himself, JP’s a pretty good seeing-eye person. One Sonny hadn’t asked for——he’s trying to get around just fine with his cane, thank you——but he’s not going to tell JP to stop.

That said, sometimes it’s more of a hinderance than it is a help, because Sonny just about trips over his own feet the first time JP puts a hand on his back to guide him around a dip in the ground. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not like JP’s been a stranger to catching him in the week it’s been since APX, for lack of a better word, abducted Sonny for the rest of the season.

It’s fine, not like he had much going on anyway. Even when he’s hanging around the pit, he wouldn’t say he’s busy——it’s the first time in years he’s been this close to a track without driving——he’s more like stir crazy. He throws cards and paces enough to drive anyone crazy, taps out rhythms for songs against his leg or against whatever he’s sitting on.

Playing chess calms him down a little, but not much. Even when the race is being run, he can’t sit still, not when he’s so close to the action, but can’t really see it. The whole thing is frustrating, but it’s better than listening from his van.

And that’s just qualifying——Sonny’s scared to see how he’s going to react to the actual race. Race day comes all the same though, and Sonny’s up far too early on that morning——though he doesn’t know if he can even call it getting up since he was so jittery that he didn’t sleep.

He knocks around his hotel room nervously for a while, until he hears a knock on the door. Odds are it’s JP——he’s come to coax Sonny out of his room almost every day the past couple weeks. It’s endearing, really, though Sonny doesn’t know why JP’s subjecting himself to it. He appreciates it though, and it’s always nice to see——well, interact with——JP. Today is no exception, despite the pre-race jitters that Sonny’s feeling.

They’re driving JP absolutely crazy, if Sonny’s guess is right. JP doesn’t say anything, but the way his body seems to tense up after Sonny ripple shuffles his deck of cards for what feels like the tenth time on their way to the track is enough to make Sonny stop. He doesn’t want to be a bad luck charm, or throw JP off his game.

But they’re at the track soon enough anyway, so the cards would’ve needed to go back in Sonny’s pocket anyway. They’re residing there when Sonny finally has to brave the unrelenting horror of actually getting through the throng of spectators and publicity so he can reach the pit. It’s infinitely easier with JP there, Sonny’s learned.

Usually. JP will put a hand on his shoulder and just sort of pull him along. It keeps Sonny from tripping, keeps him from getting lost, too——he doesn’t want to end up in the wrong place again——and so he’s expecting JP to grab his shoulder, or his arm maybe.

He’s not expecting JP to hold his hand, but that’s exactly what JP does before they start to ford their way through the blurry assortment of media around the team. Sonny almost freezes at the contact, but makes his legs move to follow JP. The last thing he needs is to fall behind in the presence of press. He hadn’t liked them last season, and he’s discovered he likes than even less this go ‘round. Apparently, tagging along with the team when you’re not technically on it, but used to drive for said team, stirs up a lot of excitement. He’s had a couple people shove a mic in his face and ask questions, but he’s never bothered answering them.

Head down. One foot in front of the other. Everyone’s in his way, and he can’t position his cane right, barely has room to walk, and all that makes him thankful to have JP’s hand on his in more ways than one. It keeps him on his feet until they’re actually in the pit, which is when JP stops moving abruptly. Sonny freezes too, so he doesn’t run into anyone, and tries to position his cane so he can figure out if he’s about to run into anything before JP turns him loose and lets go of his hand. It’s not the worst thing in the world, to hit a wall or a table now and then, but JP keeps telling him he’s covered in bruises, and Sonny doesn’t necessarily like that aspect of it.

He doesn’t want to worry anyone——more than he already does, anyway. He hadn’t been trying to worry them at all, but apparently suddenly——suddenly to the team, anyway——going blind makes people worry about you. Who would have thought? They’re not treating him like he’s made of glass, per se, but it’s close enough.

“You feeling alright?” JP asks.

“Yeah,” Sonny says, and pulls his hand away from JP’s, which he immediately regrets. “Why?”

“You’re red.”

Shit. He’s blushing. His face had felt hot, but Sonny hadn’t known it was bad enough to show; now the heat on his face is just plain embarrassment.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just warm.”

It’s a miracle that JP buys it——or at least doesn’t push further. He saves that for the race, pulls out P4. Not bad considering the fact that he’d started at the back of the pack.

***

The next night, JP takes him out for dinner. He doesn’t really ask Sonny to go, more so just tells him to get in the car and talks about the last race until they get where they’re going. Sonny would say he’s a little confused, but it’s his own fault——he hadn’t bothered asking where they were going——which is, quite frankly, concerning behavior on his part. He usually likes to know where he’s going, but JP’s mindless chatter is all too good at distracting him from frivolous information, like where he’s going and why.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out its food. Good food——really good food——not that he’d expect anything else from JP, he’s got high class taste, something entirely wasted on Sonny. Sue him for preferring In-N-Out to wagyu. JP would probably have a thing or two to say to that, but Sonny’s sure not in the business of sharing that thought any time soon.

Mostly, he’s busy eating and trying not to make a mess of himself in front of JP. It’s kind of hard to eat when he can barely see the nose in front of his face.

“Last race of the season coming up,” JP says after he’s watched Sonny lose a fight with his dinner. “Nervous?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Sonny smiles, and hopes he doesn’t have anything stuck in his teeth. “You’re the one driving.” He hooks JP’s leg with his own under the table, and feels JP freeze up. Now, that’s payback.

Gotcha. The game they’ve been playing——the game JP’s been playing, mostly——will be over soon enough. Sonny might as well enjoy it in the meantime.

“I’m pretty good at it, yeah?” JP asks. “Nothing to worry about.”

APG GP isn’t going to take the whole thing——not at this point——but they’re doing a hell of a lot better than they were last year. Makes everything last year feel like it was worth it, if he ended up here, even if he can’t see where exactly here is. It’s better than his van, at any rate, and Sonny loves his van.

Shit, his van. He needs to figure out how to get back to his van after all this. The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, and he tries to wash it away with his drink, but it’s already opened up a cavern in his chest.

“You’re right,” Sonny says, and puts a smile on his face. He has one more week, he can’t be sad yet. “The other teams might have something worth worrying about, though,” he adds.

It’s not really funny, but JP laughs anyway.

Sonny’s really going to miss that sound. It’s just not the same over the phone.

***

JP is worried, as it turns out. Come race day, Sonny can practically feel the nerves radiating off of JP. Sonny can’t blame him for that——the last race of the season is a big one, regardless of how they place. It’s the finale of the season, one more chapter closed in APX GP’s book. This year, it’s been a good one, but that doesn’t make it any less bittersweet, doesn’t make it any less nerve wracking. Sonny’s nervous too. He won’t deny it——granted, he’s also not going to outright admit it——but he is trying to hide it.

He makes an effort to appear at least halfway sane by the time he gets to the track. It’s less messy to anxiously fuss with his bracelets than it is to throw cards, so that’s what he does. He snaps the elastic band of the beaded bracelet that Kaspar’s daughter had given him——she’d made ones for the entire team, it was cute——against his wrist until Kate tells him, under no uncertain circumstances, to stop. Immediately.

He just starts tapping his foot instead. Eventually, the motion makes his back hurt, and he has to resort to staying still and stewing in his adrenaline and anxiety while he waits for the race to start.

Five minutes after he makes that commitment, JP goes to walk past him——at least that’s what Sonny thinks he’s going to do——but then JP just stops, about five feet in front of Sonny, and stares.

“You know I can see you, right?”

Sonny can’t really see that well, but he gets the sense that JP tenses up.

“I wasn’t——“

“Go look at the car instead,” Sonny tells him. “Eye on the prize.” He almost says that he’s not going anywhere, but that’s both too tempting of an idea, and a flat out lie.

He’s getting out of here today, booked his plane ticket a while back, figured out exactly what he needs to do to put himself back on American soil, hopefully without disrupting or offending anyone on the team. Ruben will understand, because Sonny’s done this to him more times than he hasn’t. Sonny’s not so sure about JP.

“They are,” JP says, with a smile in his voice.

Sonny rolls his eyes. “Very funny.”

JP makes kind of a scoffing sound, and Sonny can guess that he’s pulling some kind of offended looking expression, but it’s impossible for him to tell. But then it doesn’t matter, because someone’s calling him away, asking him to look at something, and the moment’s gone, just like that.

The race feels like it’s over just as fast. Sonny’s never felt dread at the end of a good race before, but there’s a first time for everything.

***

Be tries to leave as soon as possible after the race finishes——he tells JP good job, claps him on the back, and tries not to relish the champagne and sweat soaked hug he gets from JP. No sense in lingering, no sense in overstaying his welcome. If he does stick around too long, he might end up caving and accepting Ruben’s offer to keep him on as a strategist. He might end up saying something to JP that he’ll never be able to take back. It’s all fun and games until he says too much and scares JP off, and that’s inevitable, unless Sonny does the smart thing and takes himself out of the equation now.

He tries to——he really does, but it’s not his fault that JP’s quick on his feet and doesn’t take no for an answer when Sonny’s the one trying to make a clean break. It might be his fault for kissing back after JP pressed him up against that wall, though. Definitely his fault for sleeping with JP——which was great, for the record. No notes.

His back hurts now though, throbs something awful from his neck to his tailbone, but it was worth it, without a doubt. JP’s skin is warm against his, and Sonny feels comfortable——despite the pain. He could probably lay here forever, perfectly happy with JP sprawled out on top of him.

But then JP says they’re going to the team party, and all of Sonny’s hopes and dreams for doing nothing for the rest of the day disappear just like that. If the first half of the night is anything to go by, JP’s not going to take any excuses from Sonny to stay back (even if they are good). To Sonny’s credit, he does make an attempt at protesting, but then JP kisses him, and that really stops everything in its tracks.

Goddamnit, he’d probably do just about anything for JP, he can’t say no to this.

***

The party doesn’t entirely suck, but that might be its one saving grace. It’s still a party, and that means people——even if they’re people Sonny likes——that means standing and chatting and standing, and Sonny’s not sure how much more standing his back can take at this point. It already aches, and he’s so tired that he’s about to ask JP if they can leave, but then JP has to go and disappear to talk to shit knows who, and Sonny finds himself cornered by Ruben.

“You had fun,” is Ruben’s first, amused comment.

“What’s that mean?”

“You might want to button up your shirt,” Ruben tells him. He flicks the collar of Sonny’s button-up. “It looks like you’ve had a run in with a very large mosquito.”

Sonny goes to fix his shirt, but stops before he does the first button. It’ll look even more suspicious if he’s all the way buttoned up. He’s not sure he’s ever fully buttoned a shirt a day in his life.

“How bad is it?”

“You’ve had worse.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Sonny says, halfway sarcastically. He touches his neck, and sure enough, there’s a raised mark there, courtesy of JP. How generous. It’s definitely going to bruise, if it hasn’t already.

JP’s damn lucky Sonny’s so smitten with him. And Sonny? He’s considering himself lucky that JP’s giving him the time of day.

***

They find their way back together eventually, as things start to wind down. The high energy of the day has finally more or less crashed, and most everyone is quieting down, which is fine by Sonny. He’s more than content to lean against the wall near JP and people watch, in relatively peaceful silence.

He’s had enough excitement for the day, and he was ready to lay down and pass out hours ago. Of course, that train of thought is slightly derailed by the fact that he’d turned in his room key before JP cornered him. Technically speaking, he doesn’t have a bed right now. Or transportation. Or anything, for that matter. Even his phone is dead, and he’s still down a charger.

“Shit,” Sonny says under his breath. He’d thought it was quiet enough that JP wouldn’t hear, but JP’s head turns in his direction, which either means that JP’s hearing is better than Sonny had thought, or his own hearing is worse than he’d thought. He hopes it’s the first one——he doesn’t particularly like the thought of being blind and deaf.

“What?” JP asks.

“I checked out of my room,” Sonny tells JP, because there’s really no point to lying. “Was supposed to catch a bus hours ago.” He looks over at JP, more for effect and out of reflex than anything really visual. The fact that it’s dark out hasn’t helped the absolute shitshow that his vision’s become, and JP is little more than a smear in front of him. The emotional sting of losing his eyesight has faded over the past couple weeks, but he wishes——so badly——he could look at JP and really see him, not just see the suggestion of him. “You distracted me,” he says.

Even with everything blurry almost beyond recognition, Sonny can still pick out when JP smiles.

“Pretty good distraction,” he tells Sonny. “Feel like doing the same thing tomorrow?”

Sonny finds himself laughing nervously. “What?”

“Same thing tomorrow,” JP repeats. “You said you’d stay.”

“And I said that didn’t count. Besides, I don’t have a room.”

“I do.” The words come out with a distinct air of obviously attached. And there’s room for you in there.

“I snore,” Sonny tells him.

“I’ll get used to it.”

“I steal blankets.”

JP covers his mouth when he laughs.

“You don’t want me in your room,” Sonny says, in lieu all the other horrible things he could cough up. He could tell JP that he has nightmares——screaming ones, if it’s a bad night——that some days he hurts so bad he can’t walk, and its all only going to get worse. He doesn’t say any of that though. Maybe it’s because he wants to stay; he can’t push too hard, or maybe JP really will want him to leave.

No matter what JP does or doesn’t want him to do——no matter what Sonny tells himself he’ll do——he always ends up running eventually. It’s just a matter of when. The last thing he wants to do is give JP what he wants, just to rip it away. That’s cruel, even for him.

“Well, I’m not letting you go,” JP says, earnest despite the amusement that peppers his voice. “Not when I just got you back.” He moves like he wants to touch Sonny, but hesitates before he gets there. “It’s just one night,” he says placatingly. Well, Sonny thinks JP’s trying for placating. Whatever he’s trying for, Sonny’s not so sure it’s working.

“You say that now.”

“And tomorrow,” JP says. He has a grin in his voice, and Sonny can see the bright glint of his smile; JP has a great smile. “And Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” Sonny raises his eyebrows. “You’re supposed to be back in England on Tuesday.”

“I know,” JP says, and there’s this lilt to his voice, this infliction that makes it so Sonny doesn’t even need to see the other man’s expression to know exactly what he means.

“No,” Sonny tells him. “No, JP.”

“APX is going to need you there anyway.”

“What?”

“Strategy, right?”

What JP’s doing right now, the way he’s talking, that’s a strategy. It’s practically manipulation, but Sonny’s more flattered than irritated.

“I can’t be a strategist if I can’t see.” He says it pretty steadily, doesn’t let the knot of emotion he can feel in his chest make an appearance. “For the record, don’t believe everything Ruben tells you.”

“I don’t.” He tips his head a little, and reaches out to take Sonny’s hand. Sonny lets him. “But I know you’re staying.”

“In your dreams, Swan.”

***

Goddamnit, Sonny thinks later that night, as JP sleeps like the dead, halfway on top of him. He was right.

It hadn’t taken long for him to cave. He has nowhere to go anyway——save for his van, which isn’t even on this continent——and JP is very persuasive. And now, with the way JP is laying on him, Sonny doesn’t think he could leave even if he wanted to.

He might as well stick around for a while——might just stay, if JP’s serious. If he is, he’s an idiot, but Sonny’s pretty sure they both are at this point. He wouldn’t have it any other way, because none of this happens if either of them are sane. After tonight——the last few weeks, really, Sonny really thinks he might have lost it, and, shit, he just might be a little in love, but he’ll figure that out tomorrow. Right now, he’s just plain happy, happier than he’s been in a long time, and he’ll take that.

Everything else can wait.