Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sound of dirt crunching under tires, and the low rumble of old, powerful engines filters up from below him.

The Thomasville Speedway hasn’t seen a crowd like this in like fifty years, not at least since it closed in ‘67. Lightning watches the three old Thomasville racers line their cars up below him. Each one of them comes to a stop at the second, third, and fourth spots in the lineup. The space where the pole sits is left empty.

Lightning tries not to fiddle with the flag in his hand, not with multiple camera crews prowling around, trying to find anything interesting to record for the B-roll on the TV documentary being made. The announcer talks about each of the racers and their histories, and the history of Thomasville’s speedway, but Lightning tunes it out. He knows all that already. In the cars, he can hear the racers chirping at each other, insults being thrown to whoever can hear them. He can’t pick out most of them through the sound of the crowd and the announcers, but he can hear some of them. Enough to make him crack a smile at the familiarity of it all, despite the everything else about today.

The reopening of Thomasville is a happy thing, he reminds himself. He worked so hard for today to happen. Between mentoring Cruz through her freshman year and racing his last year himself, he’s been researching and reaching out to possible sponsors and cashing in on IOU’s and doing outreach to the press and racing community as a whole. It’s been a long process to make it to today, so he hates how he can’t stop staring at that empty spot.

It’s been several years since Doc’s passing and up until yesterday Lightning had figured he’d managed alright, but today has him feeling like he’s back at Doc’s wake. He wants to lose it. He’s just barely able to go through the motions as it is, but that side of him that wants to just lie down and ignore the world and scream and cry that it shouldn’t have happened to him is getting harder and harder to ignore.

Something about today. Honoring the past.

It’s just been… draining. He’s drained. The sad thing is that he should be over this. He wants to stand here in the flag box of the newly reopened speedway, the one he worked for months to get to where it is now. But he also wants to bury himself in his bed at home until the grief either goes away or consumes him, whichever happens first.

He has to force himself out of his dissociation. Shake himself loose. Can’t be drowning in grief when he knows his cue is coming up to drop the green. Not even as the empty pole spot screams at him in his head over the churn of engines and music and voices, like a dying cicada screaming to be heard one last time.

His first cue hits. His hands don’t shake as he steps up to the edge of the flagbox, the green flag unfurling in his hands like he knows what he’s doing. He's managed his signature smile on his face so far today, despite everything that's been going on inside his head. 

They had talked about putting Lightning in that pole spot. Bringing the Hornet out of her old slumber and having Doc’s protégée run in his place. “One last hurrah,” as Smokey had put it. But…

But he and Doc already had their last hurrah. Years ago. A few weeks before Doc’s last time in the hospital, a little over a month before his passing. Just before he became too sick to do much of anything. They had gone out to the Butte together and drove for hours until Doc’s hands just couldn’t hold the wheel straight anymore.

They drove and they talked and they laughed and for a good three or four hours, Lightning had felt that everything was normal again. That everything was going to be okay. The calm before the storm, the pride before the fall. Whatever metaphor fits there, but it was the last bit of normalcy he had with Doc before everything went grey and sad and then… stopped.

He didn’t tell them all that, not when it's none of their business. Instead just waved them all off with a “not about me” and left them with the idea of leaving the pole empty as tribute.

Another cue from the loudspeaker. He drapes the cottony fabric down the edge of the flagbox and leans against it, slightly overwhelmed at the sudden onslaught of memories from that day at the Butte. He’s not going to cry, but he can’t keep the pressure from building behind his eyes. He hopes it’s not too visible.

Cue number 3. He lifts the flag.

His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He thinks about Doc fifty years ago, in the very pole spot beneath him with a lifetime ahead of him, and he thinks about his Doc. He thinks about a lot of things, but mainly, and simply, Lightning thinks about how much he just plain misses him. 

His final cue sounds over the speakers. His arm arcs down and the rumble of the old engines fills the air and for a moment, just for a infinitesimally small moment in time, Lightning can see what this place was like in 1950, with a brand new shiny blue Hornet speeding through the field and kicking up dirt and filled with life.

Slowly, Lightning finds the smile on his face isn't so forced anymore. The present for once gives way to the past, which always eventually gives way to the future, and Lightning finds for once, he doesn't mind.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Doc,” Lightning says apropos of nothing and all Doc can think is Oh, here we go. “What’re you afraid of?”

The question doesn’t completely come out of left field. Lightning and Mater have been planning on hosting a horror movie marathon as part of their Halloween countdown in a few weeks, and part of that has been the two of them going around Radiator Springs asking folks what movies they want to see and then what they’re scared of so they could find one to really spook each and every one of them. So far Doc has heard some of the answers secondhand, like Ramone and spiders, Sheriff and heights, and Luigi and needles (something Doc is very familiar with every time flu season comes around). Red had said public speaking to the surprise of no one, and Sally had nearly convinced the duo that she was afraid of knees before Sheriff had butted in and accidentally outed her on her claustrophobia, much to her dismay. Fillmore had said “fascism”, also to the surprise of no one, and Sarge had simply told them “pass” in that way where even Mater knows not to push.

Doc had figured Lightning was smart enough to exempt him from all that foolishness. Apparently not.

He looks up from his morning newspaper and eyes Lightning over in the living room, who is doing that thing where he leans back over the arm of the couch in that way that looks painful, so his head is dangling upside-down and he can look over into the kitchen without having to peer over the back of the couch like a normal person.

Doc fixes a flat look over at the kid. “What makes you think I’m afraid of anything?”

Lightning gives him a grin in response. “Everyone’s scared of something, Doc. It’s just simple physiology.”

“Psychology,” Doc corrects easily, going back to his newspaper so he doesn’t have to keep looking at Lightning’s face as it turns red with the blood pooling in his head. “And you can mark me down as ‘not afraid of anything’.”

“Really?” Lightning obviously doesn’t believe him. “Nothing?”

“Yup.”

Lightning hums. “Spiders?”

“Free pest control, why would I be scared of ‘em?”

“Heights?”

“Great views.”

He doesn’t even need to look up to know Lightning’s pouting. He can hear it in the kid’s voice. “Nothing? Really?”

Doc clicks his tongue and turns the page. He’s more interested in, or rather amused by, the conversation with Lightning than reading about whatever mess is being reported in the news today, but he wants to keep his air of nonchalance. “Nope.”

“Really? Not even, like, crashing?”

Doc’s jaw tightens. He can’t stop the ice that floods his veins but he can stare straight ahead and hold onto that faked nonchalance with a grip tight enough to strain something.

No, he isn’t afraid of crashing, not like how Lightning probably thinks. He’s long since gotten over the hesitation he carried every time he got behind the wheel. But he could never quite shove down the instinctual flood of fear or panic or what-have-you that comes over him whenever his own crash is mentioned. He’s not scared of it, it’s just a lingering symptom of surviving it, like the pain in his back or knees.

The newspaper in his hand crumples roughly between his fingertips. He takes a breath, letting the flood wash over him without drowning. Just a quirk of physiology.

He unclenches his jaw, clears his throat. “Pass,” he forces out, not surprised at how gruff it sounded. He doesn’t look away from his newspaper even when the words long stop making sense.

He hears Lightning mutter an apology. Instead of trying to force any words past the blockage in his throat he simply nods in understanding. He knows Lightning didn’t mean anything by it. And anyways, he should have seen the question coming and gone Sarge’s route sooner. His fault really, ruining just a bit of fun.

The air in the room slowly comes back down to a normal temperature. Doc sighs, letting the breath reset his endocrine system. Letting it flush out all those hormones telling him to get out run go it's not safe.

The newspaper long since lost his interest. He scans the sports section for any mention of any familiar names, then skips to the back. He spots one of the clues to the crossword puzzle. Strong and illogical fear of a situation or object; six letters down. He can't help but crack a small smile at the coincidence. He clicks his pen and marks phobia in the boxes, and saves the rest to do over breakfast with Sheriff in a bit. The rest of the paper he gives up on.

Stretching, he sets the paper down on the table. He stands, pours the rest of his stale coffee down the sink, and rolls the newspaper up as he walks out of the kitchen.

Lightning still sits on the couch with his computer open in his lap. Walking up behind him, Doc can see a text document open on it with a list of movies going down it. Of all them, he only recognizes Jaws. But at the top, next to the long list, is a smaller one. It just says No-gos, and listed underneath is is guns/war/that kinda stuff, and then car crashes.

He has a feeling the second one was added just a little bit ago.

He baps the newspaper on Lightning’s head. “Airplanes,” he says, apropos of nothing.

Lightning jumps in his seat, surprised. He instinctively whacks away the newspaper with a “hey!” Then, “What?”

The newspaper’s roll loosened in the whacking so Doc tightens it up so it’s neater. Less cone-shaped. “You asked what I was scared of, and I’m telling you: airplanes. Hate the damn things.”

He can see it click in Lightning’s head, the obvious olive branch. Then the kid grins. “That’s why you drive everywhere right?” Doc waves him off but Lightning doesn’t stop, his grin widening. “You know, technically—”

“If you mention the word ‘statistics’..." He brandishes his newspaper threateningly. "I’m hittin’ you again.” 

Lightning’s grin doesn’t diminish. If anything, it gets wider. “Well, technically, I wasn’t going to say ‘statistics’ because I was going to say ‘statistically speaking fl—’”

Doc whacks him with the newspaper again, not hard enough to hurt but enough to ruffle his hair a little. Lightning calls him a bastard through a grin he’s totally trying to hide and tries to grab the newspaper from Doc’s hands, but has to change from saving himself to saving his computer when he almost knocks it to the floor. “You know it really is safer, right?” Lightning says as he repositions himself and his stuff on the couch. "That's what they say."

“Kid, I could have a handwritten and signed letter from God telling me it’s safer than driving, you will not get me on one of them things. I still remember when planes crashed so often they stopped making front page news,” Doc says. “If we were meant to fly we’d’ve been given wings.”

Lightning has that defiant look in his eyes he gets when he’s about to piss Doc off and he knows it. “Well, technically then you could make the argument that we weren’t meant to drive ‘cause otherwise we’d all be cars.”

Doc brandishes his newspaper again like Lightning’s a cockroach he found in his house, the little pest that he is, and Lightning flees out the front door, computer in hand, with a laugh before Doc can swing at him. “Spending too much time around Sally, you are!” Doc yells after him, to which he thinks he hears Lightning say something but he can’t make it out over the screen door slamming shut. Shaking his head, he fixes the cushions strewn about the room from Lightning’s quick exit.

The silent house creeps into his bones, like it always does when he finds himself alone. It brings with it that unease he can’t shake.

If he’s honest with himself, Doc has long since stopped being afraid of crashing. That was a fear for a young man who had everything to lose. A future that was very nearly taken from him at such a young age by the exact thing he loved more than anything is enough to make anyone question getting back in a car again. But after 50 years, he’s not affected by it like how Lightning thinks he is.

Because he still dreams of the Hornet’s crash. But crashing is a young man’s sport, and it’s not Doc’s own body he sees in those nightmares, not anymore.

Chapter Text

It’s Bobby’s night, which is why Lightning is holding back, not wanting to make a scene and pull away from Bobby’s hard-earned celebration. So instead he just complains about what's always safe to complain about. “If Pearson doesn’t shut up I’m going to make him shut up.”

Cal next to him gives a small huff of air, a half laugh. “He’s already scared enough of you, Lightnin’. I don’t see the need to rub it in.”

The two of them found a relatively quiet spot in the busy infield celebration to be wallflowers together. Cal is an expert at wallfower-ing at parties like this if he doesn’t have someone to drag him out to actually enjoy the celebrations, but Lightning’s too tired himself to be that someone. It’s been a long season if he’s being honest and since he’s not in the center of attention tonight he doesn’t feel the need to put on a show any more than he has to.

A couple of hours ago, Bobby won his first Cup. It’s his first Cup, compared to Lightning’s two and Cal’s none. It’s an ecstatic night. Bobby’s first Cup! That’s a huge deal!

It should be. If Lightning can just get over his stupid feeling of that should be me.

It was a fair win too! Not even like Bobby stole it from him. Lightning was far enough behind Bobby in the standings that it was almost a statistical inevitability that Bobby was gonna take it from him, unless he had managed to DNF in the first lap or so. Lightning is just a little too used to his winning streak apparently. But the last thing he wants to do is make Bobby’s night about him, so talking shit about Pearson makes hiding his jealousy a little easier, but it doesn’t diminish the bitter taste in his mouth at all.

He’s, uh, still working on the whole ‘selfishness’ thing, apparently.

(Is it still selfish if you worked so hard all year to see nothing in return?)

(Cal’s not bitter, he’s never bitter. Lightning should be more like Cal.)

(Lightning should really be moving on from this.)

Watching Bobby actually receive the Cup was great. It was fine. Lightning had felt so so happy for his friend. Bobby worked so hard and now he finally got to see the payout, and Lightning was right there celebrating alongside him! Because Bobby’s his friend and Lightning likes to see his friends succeed too.

Or, he thought he did. But now that they’re at the afterparty, Lightning’s ugly side is trying to rear its head again.

(Pearson’s ugly side is also rearing its ugly head, in the shape of a drunk Pearson spewing the same kind of shit Lightning is feeling but smart (and sober) enough to keep to himself. And anyways, Pearson hadn’t been in the running since June.)

(No, he’s not happy that he and fucking Pearson are thinking the same thing. Just goes to show how stupid and petty he can still be despite all of Doc’s rehabbing.)

But this year was supposed to be his number three, it was supposed to be the year he broke even with Doc. It was supposed to be the year he could put his new, shiny trophies up next to Doc’s old, faded ones and match him one-for-one. But instead it was Bobby. One of his best friends.

How on Earth is he simultaneously happy for Bobby and jealous out of his mind?

These are the kinds of things he’s learned to bring to Doc but he’s been lowkey avoiding the man all night. They’ve worked as a team long enough to know that Doc’s probably not as upset about the season’s loss as Lightning is (empty cups and all that). But they’ve been a team long enough for Lightning to know that the only reason Doc still sticks around is because he thinks Lightning is better. Better than this. Better than sitting in a corner throwing an internal hissy fit over someone else winning the Cup fair and square. The Lightning Doc likes would be out there with Bobby, and Cal in tow, celebrating all night. This Lightning is the Lightning Doc saw in the courtroom; selfish, with a whole lot of karma coming his way.

“Ope,” Cal says in that dorky way he does and Lightning refocuses back in on watching Pearson make a fool of himself. “I hope whatever that was he just spilled on that pretty lady wasn’t expensive. Or for her sake, sticky.”

Lightning huffs. The woman that Pearson was just trying to sweet talk stomps away towards the bathrooms, the whole front of her expensive-looking dress discolored by whatever concoction was in the glass Pearson was holding just a moment ago. Now that was karma in action, for talking shit during Bobby’s celebration. “Either way the both of them are going to go home smelling like alcohol.”

Cal sighs, a little overdramatic. “I wish I was that drunk.”

That makes Lightning snort. “No you don’t.” He’s 80% sure the beer bottle in Cal’s hand is the same one he was handed at the ceremony almost three hours ago. Cal can drink with the best of them when he wants to, but it’s a blue moon when that happens.

“No, I don’t,” Cal agrees easily. He swirls the warm liquid in his bottle and looks down at Lightning. “I do want a new drink, though. I wonder if Bobby’s got any of that champagne left.”

Again, Lightning just snorts. “Bobby was just about as gone as Pearson last I saw. I think that bottle is long gone.”

“Well,” Cal sighs. “You’re sponsored by that one beer company, right? With the, uh,” he waves a hand, forgetting his words. Not uncommon after a long day. “Things.”

Lightning smiles. “Yeah, the one with the things.”

“You think I could grab one from your tent?”

Lightning starts leading the way, but still asks, “Aren’t you sponsored by those guys?” He nods at the bottle in Cal’s hand.

Cal shrugs. “Yeah, but I’ll just pour it into this one and no one’ll know the difference.”

“Just don’t get caught,” Lightning says with a grin, already picturing it in his head. “I can see it now, pictures of you huddled in a corner pouring out my sponsor into your sponsor’s bottle. I doubt they’d be very happy about that.”

Cal waves a hand with a grin. “What’re they gonna do? Fire me?”

Lightning puts his hands out, indicating that’s none of his business, and continues leading the way away from their little quiet corner and back into the fray. He puts the what-coulda-beens out of his mind, for the meantime at least.

He didn’t catch it in the moment, but he’s noticed now how Cal had actually been the one to drag him away from the wall this time. He wonders if Cal could see it, or how much Cal can relate. He wonders how much of his friend’s wallflower tendencies are actually due to being anti-social.

Behind him, he watches Cal duck out of the way of distracted people nearly dumping entire solo cups’ worth of alcohol onto him. Lightning tries to search his friend’s face for any sign of the stupid petty jealously he’s feeling. He can’t see any, but he also can’t help but see all the times Cal has stood there watching Lightning or Bobby on victory lane. And all the times he’s tried to seclude himself away afterwards.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair for Lightning to be so selfish when Cal never complains. He tugs Cal’s arm and returns the unspoken favor. “Hey,” he says loudly over the music rising in volume, “How do you feel about finding wherever Bobby’s passed out at and giving him a little bit of hell?”

Cal trips over something, nearly barreling Lightning over, but catches himself with Lightning’s arm. “Depends,” he says. “Let me have first go with the marker?”

Lightning laughs. “You think too small. I’m thinking bigger. How much tinfoil do you have in your trailer?”

It’s a lot easier to digest a loss when you’re standing in the winner’s bedroom with everything they could get their hands on wrapped in a good amount of tinfoil. The stupid jealousy recedes a little at Bobby’s angry, near-illegible text later that night/early morning.

And the jealousy is long gone a year later when he’s standing in his own room with Doc behind him doubled over and howling with laughter at the sight of silver tinfoil everywhere, and Bobby and Cal's signatures scribbled over hundreds of fake plastic Piston Cups strewn about the small room.

This took time. This took planning. It's a little scary. 

But he can't help the stupid grin.

Alright, fair game. Next season, it's on. 

Chapter Text

Everyone hates Mavinesville.

It’s one of those tracks whose relationship with upper level Cup racing is teetering on the edge, where every year everyone thinks ‘oh, this’ll be the year Mavinesville loses its contract with the Cup’ but every year the schedule gets posted and proves them all wrong for at least one more go around and no one can quite figure out why. It’s one of those tracks that very obviously hasn’t been updated in like forty years because the owners very obviously abuse the income brought in by Cup racing instead of putting it towards things like, oh, say, the track. Complaints from drivers are constant, and leading the pack is Lightning. Because he’s not an idiot.

He’s used to being seen as a bit of a princess, plus he’s got his reputation behind him. The defending Cup champion for the nth time in a row, plus his reputation he’s been carrying and building since the tiebreaker race several years ago, has public interest on their side for once.

(For the most part. There’s always a vocal group that wants them to shut up and drive but over the last few years that group has been somewhat quieter. Cal says it’s because of the recent increase all over the sport in dangerous crashes involving drivers hurt and nearly killed, not just at Mavinesville, and with Cal still dealing with his bad day at Talladega two years ago, Lightning is inclined to believe him.)

The men who run the track are, obviously, not willing to hear any of their complaints. Of all the shut-up-and-drive crowd, the track owners are always the loudest. And the idiots that run Mavinesville are loud.

“The fans like the track as it is,” Mr. Dothing, one of the co-owners of the track, says in the meeting Lightning and his rather large coalition of drivers called before they race the track this coming Sunday. Mr. Dothing and Mr. Trip don’t want to do anything to the track because, as Doc called them, they’re money-hungry bastards who’d rather see someone die on their track than spend $3 on it. Lightning, as well as Cal, Bobby, fucking Pearson, and a whole host other concerned drivers want the owners to do literally anything to make it safer. The Cup officials in the meeting are there to keep the peace or protect their own assets or just watch because they’re bored, jury’s still out on that one.

“Yeah,” Mr. Trip adds on. “The fans like the tire wear. It adds…” He waves a hand like he’s looking for a word. “Spectacle,” he decides on, and turns to the Cup people next to him. “Spectacle brings in viewers, doesn’t it?” One of the men shrug, half-agreeing with him.

“Tires aren’t supposed to wear after three laps,” Bobby says from next to Lightning, a deeply unhappy frown on his face.

“And that’s saying nothing of the safety violations,” Lightning points out next because that’s his main problem. Fuck the views, he wants to get through this race alive. “Last year, a piece of debris almost killed Pearson before it was even spotted!”

“Pearson crashed,” Mr. Dothan says slowly like Lightning is a child or an idiot, “and walked away from it fine. That is what viewers want, not a safe, boring race where nothing happens at all except a bunch of hicks going around in a circle for four hours.”

Mr. Dothan might be rich but he’s apparently an idiot.

Lightning doesn’t remember most of what he said, or what the others said, but he remembers the Cup officials very loudly calling the meeting off right around when Lightning was threatening Dothan that if he wanted views, he should get in front of a camera with Lightning and see what happens.

And they still have to race Sunday.

“You know,” the King says later as they all sit around the 42 trailer, “back in my day we all would’ve just not raced.”

Lightning shakes his head at that. “They’ll just drop us and pull up from the junior Cups. I don’t want those kids racing on this track in those cars.”

He can hear Cal clicking away on his phone, scrolling through whatever webpage he has pulled up on the tiny screen. “Well, maybe we can’t strike, but what about this work-to-rule thing?”

“Work to what rule, though?” Lightning asks. “We just, what? Drive the speed limit?”

“Like a bunch of hicks,” Bobby mumbles under his breath for the fourth time.

“Back in my day,” Doc says as he comes out of the trailer with another couple of beers, handing one off to Lightning and then the King, “we woulda just beat the snot out of track owners that pulled shit like that.”

Lightning points at Doc. “He’s got a point.”

Cal looks at Doc with a wince. “Aren’t you supposed to be Lightning’s moral compass or somethin’?” he asks. “I can’t be the only one.”

But Doc just shrugs. Lightning loves it when he’s got Doc on the same page. At least, until the man flip-flops back to his normal ne’er-do-wrong mentor stance on everything. “I think y’all are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Doc says as he sits back down. “No one’s on your side ‘cept us and each other. So all you can do is take it easy out there, don’t put yourself in any extra danger, and keep an eye on each other.”

“Lame.“ Lightning deflates back in his chair. “I liked it better when you were advocating violence.”

Sunday is dreary. A cool mist blankets the track early in the morning.

“You know,” Cal says, standing in his spot between Lightning and Bobby as they all watch the rain come down gently, “It’s good luck if it rains on your wedding day.”

Both he and Bobby squint up at Cal against the mist. Lightning says, “They just say that to make the bride feel better,” the same time as Bobby’s, “What? We getting married or something?”

Cal throws his hands up halfheartedly. “Fuck you guys too.” He doesn’t mean it. None of them do. It’s just their way of trying to get past the unease that’s seemingly overtaken all the drivers, like they all know something’s coming and can’t do anything about.

Unfortunately the mist lets up well before noon, so the track dries before the point where they’d have to delay or call the race off entirely.

Lightning goes through the pre-race motions. The energy picks up as the sun starts to peak through the light clouds and the crowd starts trickling into the stadium seating. But even as the jokes come easier, a vague stomach ache he can’t get over persists throughout the day. Doc hands him an akla-selzter and a look when Lightning tells him about it between events, a little under an hour before green.

“Nerves?” he asks.

Lightning takes the little tablet and drops it in his water bottle. He shrugs. “Maybe?” He grins at Doc. “I wouldn’t know. Never felt them before.”

Doc rolls his eyes. “Sure, kid.” The event announcer says something over the loudspeaker. Cal’s cue, so Lightning knows he’s up next for driver introductions. “Just,” Doc says, catching Lightning’s arm before he has to let him go onstage, “don’t do anything stupid out there.”

“Me?” Lightning asks with a grin, brushing off Doc’s worry and hopping over to the stage entrance. “Never.”

Mavinesville isn’t the fastest track, nowhere near Daytona or Talladega or even Atlanta. But it’s also not the slowest track. The track itself, minus all the safety violations that would give occupational health and safety inspectors aneurysms, is actually not bad. The turns have a good bank, the transition between the turns and the straightaways are solid, and the straightaways themselves are just long enough to get them up to a good speed. It’s not a drafting track, the actual track too short and skinny for that, but it seems like it was designed with one in mind. In theory it’s a great track, one that’s fun to run. It could be a twice-a-season. A real hit. Really, it’s just a damn shame that the idiots in charge are letting it go to waste like this.

It speaks to everyone’s discomfort at Mavinesville that they’ve been running probably twenty or thirty under their normal average at tracks like these. The pace has only sort of picked up as they drop down to the last twenty or so laps. For the last few, as they came out of a green pit cycle, Cal has been sitting a few spots in front of him in third after a near perfect execution by his team, but he's still barely making any moves to get ahead despite the allure of points.

“Just take it easy,” has been Doc’s mantra for today. Lightning himself is semi-comfortable in fifth, behind Pearson of all people, who hasn’t tried to overtake Cal in seven laps. Lightning is pretty damn sure that’s a record for the loser.

“Fifteen to go,” he hears Doc say over the radio. “Nice and easy, you got it kid.”

“How’s it looking in the back?” he asks. Bobby was near the tail last he heard, along with the other drivers dedicated to being so safe they’re boring to watch. Lightning should be there too, but once he was in the car it was back to business as usual: going for the win, or as close as you can get without getting killed. Cal’s up here too because Lightning figures he also wasn’t going to pass up the chance for points when for him the road courses are the only real guarantee of a high finish. Lightning could take it easy, but that got boring after about three laps.

“Slow and steady back there,” Doc answers back. “Bobby’s got quite the following.”

“Well he does have the prettiest smile on the track,” Lightning jokes. Bobby’s penchant to win that particular fan award is a bit of a low hanging fruit but in his defense Lightning is a bit busy driving his car and trying not to hit anything/anyone. The jokes are gonna be what they are.

Doc still gives him a pity huff-laugh that the mic only kind of picks up. “Don’t be jealous now."

“I’m not jealous,” Lightning lies. He sees the blue 42 all the way to his left coming out of the turn Lightning’s about to go into. “What’s it look like up in the front?”

A pause from the other end. He can hear Doc’s hum even without his mic keyed. They just left the front straightaway by the pit lanes so he knows Doc is flicking through his screen to find a good image of what Lightning is asking for. “Clock’s showing Waterson about 8 seconds ahead of Havier, and Cal only a second behind him. Pearson’s dropped a couple seconds behind the 42 so I’d recommend making a pass before you end up with Laurelle behind you sniffin’ up your ass.”

“Thank you Doc,” Lightning jokes, “for that vivid image.”

“Always happy to help.”

“Can you find me a line?”

“If you nose in the next time he takes a wide turn I doubt he’ll fight you much on it.”

“Pearson? Fight?” Lightning jokes.

“Kid’s gettin’ tired I think. By the looks of it. I think you take a bite out of ‘im and he’ll relent. You know he hates it here more than anyone. Be aggressive and he’ll fold.”

They come around the field again. He risks a glance over at the pits, finding the red 95 box easily like he does every time. Doc looks up as he passes, and even at almost 150 miles an hour he can just barely make out a small nod the man sends his way, like he knew Lightning was looking. “If you say so, Doc.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says back, hearing the trepidation in Lightning’s voice. “But if you wanted to play it safe you’d be playing bumper cars with Bobby back there. Pass or don’t, but I think you’ve got a chance. And then it’s just you and Cal poking each other for third for the next few laps.” He adds on, “Fourteen to go.”

“Alright, you’ve convinced me,” Lightning says.

“Good, I was worried I was gonna have to get out my chicken voice,” Doc jokes back.

Oh God. “Please don’t do your chicken voice.” Lightning eyes Pearson in front of him, mentally switching from ‘just don’t crash’ mode to ‘pass his ass’ mode. “Keep an eye out for an opening if I miss one but I’m gonna start poking at him.”

“Alright,” Doc says. “Keeping an eye out. Let me know if you need anything.” Doc backs off the radio, letting Lightning do his thing without interruption.

They’re coming through turns 3 and 4. Lightning sees Pearson wiggle, losing traction as they enter into the first of the twin turns. He brakes too little, then too hard, and Lightning sees him just accept that his car is going wide. Lightning takes the chance. He hugs the inside lane, forcing some contact with Pearson’s rear left bumper as they go into the turn, but just as he does so he hears a loud bang! that seems to shake the whole track beneath him and the radio screeches to life with Doc already yelling his name with a desperate “stop!”

But Lightning sees it. And 150 miles an hour is too fast for Lightning to do much to stop it.

At some point, Havier turned Waterson, whose larger car slammed front first into the outer barrier of turn 3. Somehow, and it happens all too quick for Lightning’s brain to comprehend the complicated hows and whys, the SAFER barrier collapses instantly. The full force of Waterson’s car rams into the harder concrete barrier behind it, and behind that, the huge post holding the track’s lightning system wobbles at the force of the impact.

There’s nothing any of them can do but watch (and try to brake in time) as the huge piece of equipment gives out and topples over onto the track ahead of them.

Lightning sees a part of it tag the backside of Cal’s 42, sending it airborne onto its roof. But he’s a little distracted heading right for the huge metal pole himself to worry about his friend.

Time slows to a crawl. He veers right hard, shoving Pearson’s 06 sideways and then backwards into the pile of solid metal, trying to get the other driver either into the infield or positioned in a way where the rear or passenger side of the car takes the brunt of the impact.

As for himself, the move has him skidding near sideways up turn three towards the where the pole crumpled the outer barrier, his wheels locked up with how hard he’s braking. His vision tunnels out as he realizes he’s a passenger in his own car. He’s headed right towards the mess of metal and wires and debris at near full speed.

All he can do is brace himself as a metal rod tears his car in two.

Chapter Text

Doc has a lot of regrets in life. He's done some things, he's said some things, and maybe he's not done a couple things he should have. And he's made peace with most of them he likes to think. But of all his regrets, chief amongst them right now is that he didn't fight more when Lightning went to buy their airline tickets.

Doc does not fly. 

He will drive. He will take the train. He will even get on a boat before he will ever get on an airplane. But the one thing those all have in common is that they're slow. And right now they just don't have the time. Driving from Radiator Springs to New York City takes over a day and a half if they don't stop. They received the last minute invitation to appear on tonight's RSN radio show yesterday. Hence why he is currently sitting in a too-small seat in a too-cold airplane trying really, really hard to keep his composure and not hurl.

Really, it just feels like the universe has it out for him. 

If he can focus on literally anything else except the small bubble of his own personal hell he's found himself in then maybe he can survive the four-and-some-change hours to New York City. Sally and Lightning’s conversation offers a small bit of comfort and normality but not nearly enough. Not if he wants to override the feeling of impending doom or the thought that they totally could have made it in time if they drove (a lie he is telling himself so he can feel irritated instead of like he’s about to vomit).

“If we’re going to be there,” Sally is saying from the aisle seat, her tray table down and a notebook out with a list already started on it, “then I want to see everything. I haven’t been to New York City since I was, like, eight. We’re going to hit every cliché we can.” The trip to NYC was last minute but they managed to pull Sally away from her motels and bring her along for the two or three day trip out east. 

Lightning is next to him bouncing in his seat in excitement. “Well, tonight is the only limitation, but once we’re done at the studio then it’s all up to us on what we want to do.”

A few more stragglers make their way down the aisle, out of breath with their bags piled in their arms. Doc watches the flight attendant trail after them, closing the overhead bins and gently telling Sally to put the tray table up. They’re far enough forward in the plane that Doc can hear the heavy cher-kunk of the door being pulled closed, and he watches from the small ass window as the gate bridge pulls away. His stomach does flips, eventually landing in his throat as he quite literally watches his last chance to get off this damned thing leave them behind.

“You alright over there?” Sally asks as the plane lurches from underneath of them, now backing away from the gate.

Somehow the vice grip Doc has on the armrests tightens into a white-knuckling at the unexpected movement. He doesn't look over at Sally but still hums an affirmative. He knows his face is giving his lie away but he doesn't care. He's holding onto the fragments of his composure in desperation. 

“You sure?" Lightning nudges his arm. "'Cause you look like me the last time you caught me driving with the flu,” he jokes and Doc can’t find it in him to find it funny. “If you need it, there’s always the barf bag.”

“What I’m gonna need is for you to shut up,” Doc snaps, maybe a little meaner than he wanted it to be. But Lightning stops talking, throwing his hands up in surrender. Which simultaneously is and isn't what Doc wants him to do. On one hand, he wants Lightning to keep talking, keep chatting, to fill Doc's head with white noise instead of the photo album of all the news articles he's seen and read over the years about the myriad of ways people have died from one of these things falling from the sky. On the other hand, if Lightning is going to makes jokes at Doc's expense then his frayed nerves are going to snap very, very quickly.

The plane lurches again, stopping before turning in a new direction. Doc watches out the window as the airport passes them by. In front of them, one of the flight attendants stands in the very front of the aisle, braced against the overhead bins against the swaying of the plane in motion and chatting loosely with the passengers sitting near her. The PA system kicks on with a bing, and Doc has to tune out the safety demonstration. Thinking of all the ways a plane can crash and kill all of them just makes this all worse.

Outside the plane, they drive past the runway where a much larger jet takes off and the image of it pointing nose-up has Doc’s vertigo going wild, and he has to look away from the window until it goes away.

“When you said you were scared of planes I didn’t think it was this bad,” Lightning says. “We haven’t even taken off yet.”

Doc hums another affirmative. He is aware of that fact, thank you Lightning. The pilot over the PA say something too quick for Doc to catch, something about the flight attendants. Over in the aisle seat Sally looks like she’s caught between pitying Doc and finding the whole thing inappropriately amusing. “When was the last time you flew?” she asks.

A long time ago. Long enough that even navigating the Phoenix airport was a challenge. “1979,” he answers, trying not to think about it. “Flew into Chicago for a conference. The day before I was supposed to fly back out to Arizona, a jet crashed and killed over 200 people, right at that airport.” He can still see the video from the news if he thinks about it hard enough. Needless to say, he rented a car and drove home, and never flew again.

“Oh,” he hears Lightning mumble, like he was expecting Doc’s phobia to be more abstract and not tied to any one thing in particular.

“Yeah,” Doc mumbles back. The plane they’re on turns and stops. Doc is looking out down the runway now as another large jet comes in to land. The tires smoke as they hit the pavement, but otherwise the landing looks fine. The jet slows and turns off the runway, and then their plane jerks forward into motion.

Doc’s hands hurt with how hard he’s gripping the seat. His leg bounces with excess energy. His heart is beating in his ears loud enough to drown out any other sound. He thinks his breathing stops. His vision goes dark around the edges, either from tunnel vision or a lack of oxygen.

And then a warm hand pries his right hand off the armrest and holds it tight. Doc looks away from the hole he’s been burning into the back of the seat in front of him and at Lightning, who is rattling off some random story about whatever mess of trouble he and Mater got into last week. The roar of the engines grows, pushing them back into their seats. The whole plane vibrates, the overhead bins shaking and rattling, and for a moment Doc can picture the whole thing just falling apart at speed, sending them flying across the airport grounds, still strapped to their seats. He unconsciously tightens his grip around Lightning’s hand, and Lightning squeezes back.

The plane’s nose lifts up. Doc’s head snaps to his left towards the tiny window and he watches the ground drop from below him, his stomach dropping with it. He forces himself to take a breath through his nose. Lightning squeezes his hand again.

“Do you,” he hears Lightning ask, slowly and uncertain, “maybe want to close that?” He sees Lightning point at the window shade.

But Doc shakes his head. “If I’m about to die on one of these God-forsaken things then I’m gonna see it coming best I can.”

Lightning nods slowly. “Oh-kay,” he says, and squeezes Doc’s hand again. He goes to say something else but the plane’s nose dips again as it levels out, no longer pointed straight up, and despite being able to see the horizon, for a split second it felt like they were pointed straight at the ground and Doc can’t help the full-body flinch at the relatively gentle movement.

“Hey,” Sally says, leaning over Lightning and putting a hand over their joined hands. “You’re okay, Doc.”

Doc squeezes his eyes shut and breathes out a curse. Four hours. It’s four hours to New York, and then they just have to survive the landing. And then from there it’s navigating the city’s terrible traffic, and then a radio interview with the east coast’s biggest racing news radio station.

They just have to get there.

The PA makes a sound, and it’s the pilot’s voice again. Doc half expects her to tell them to brace, that they’re going down or some other terrible news, but instead she sounds bored as she thanks them for flying with whatever company let them book last minute. The flight attendants are up again already, making their way down the aisle.

The plane shakes and rumbles all around them, and Doc feels like he’s the only one to feel it, to react. He can just barely see the tip of the plane's wing and it bounces up and down with the shaking, like it's going to snap. But the small pocket of turbulence is over before it starts. The world slowly tilts to their right and again his vertigo threatens to empty his stomach into the barf bag Lightning was joking about earlier. He chances a look to his right, looking past Lightning and Sally watching him with worried faces. The windows on the right side of the plane all are looking straight into the ground, with his showing nothing but blue skies.

“Just a turn,” Sally says gently. “We’re fine.”

Doc curses again. He leans back against the seat and shuts his eyes again. Maybe Lightning had a point. Maybe not seeing anything is better.

Lightning squeezes his hand again and Doc realizes he’s probably hurting the kid. He releases his white-knuckle grip of the kid’s hand and mumbles an apology.

“It’s fine,” Lightning says, not letting Doc completely slip his hand away entirely. “Just let me know ahead of time if you’re gonna hurl. I want to make sure it doesn’t get on my new shoes.”

Doc lets his eyes close again. “I’m gonna aim directly for your shoes,” he threatens.

Lightning does a faux gasp. “After all I’m doing for you? Letting you break my hand and everything?”

Doc squeezes the offending hand as hard as he can, eliciting a yelp from Lightning. He grins despite it all.

“Sally can we switch?” he hears Lightning ask. “He’s being mean to me.”

“Sorry honey I’m busy,” she says, pretending to be distracted. Another grin pulls from him. Tag-teaming with Sally against Lightning on stupid things is normal. He can almost forget he’s on a death trap designed to kill you in the worst ways possible.

“I don’t know why you guys are so mean to me,” Lightning says and Doc can hear the ‘petulant asshole’ played up in his voice on purpose. “I’m literally the money-maker.”

That one has Doc barking a laugh, the stupid bastard. He looks over at the kid, who’s grinning hard enough to hurt. Behind him, Sally is glaring at the back of Lightning’s head with a flat look, like she’s already regretting coming on this trip more than Doc is. Or like she's about to whack the back of his head with her notebook, he's not quite sure.

“Is your goal to piss me off enough that I hope this plane crashes?” Doc asks.

Lightning’s grin impossibly widens at that. “Depends,” he says. “Is it working?”

“Depends,” Doc says back. “How many more of those stupid jokes you have queued up?”

Lightning waggles his head, proud of himself. “Enough.”

“I’m just saying, Doc,” Sally says, leaning forward and talking around Lightning. “We can always just leave him in New York.”

Another bit of turbulence hits, washing his good mood away. His hand squeezes Lightning’s on its own, but he still plays along with Sally. “We can’t do that,” Doc says with a forced even voice that threatens to wobble. “Not even the New Yorkers would want him.”

Lightning’s hand squeezes his back at the same time as his gasp. “New Yorkers literally love me.”

Sally grins, remembering the same thing Doc is. “Didn’t Watkins-Glen nearly boo you out of the stadium last year?”

Lightning throws his free hand in the air. “Because I turned Freedman in her home track! Other than that, they love me!”

Four hours doesn’t feel so bad now. Doc slowly forces himself to relax. He peels his other hand off the other armrest and stretches it, trying to take the strain out of it. Next to him, Lightning and Sally are arguing in good nature about which states hate him and which states like him based on crowd reactions to his introductions. Doc chimes in a couple of times with his own anecdotes but for the most part he sits there listening or watching the ground pass below them.

Lightning doesn’t let go the whole trip, nor does he make any comment about it outside of the occasional joke about breaking his hand.

He’s still shaking by the time they make it on the ground in New York. His nerves are fried. He feels like he could sleep for a whole day, and he still has to do a stupid interview before that can happen.

They pull up to their gate, but before they can all pop up to grab their stuff and get off the stupid plane, Doc squeezes Lightning’s hand one more time with a small, “Thanks.”

Lightning squeezes back. “Anytime, old man.”

Chapter Text

What Lightning got the gist of in the last thirty seconds was that everyone is mad at everyone and no one is happy.

What tipped him off exactly?

Well, probably has something to do with Cal Weathers currently pinning Bobby Swift to the wall by the throat while the two get in each others’ faces about how awful everything is, or something like that.

And honestly? Lightning is the one currently in the hospital bed on multiple different kinds of drugs because of his multitude of injuries so he’s not really up to being the one to break them up. He’s drained enough by the everything else that’s going on so if someone starts swinging then he’ll call a nurse but for right now he’s willing to just sit here and watch the two voice exactly what he’s also been feeling about the both of them.

“Now you come back?” Cal hasn’t sounded this pissed since… well, maybe since Lightning’s met him. He’s never seen him this angry. “It takes Lightning nearly dying for you to show your face again? After everything?”

Bobby had very quickly gone from surprised to equally as pissed off. He bares his teeth, clawing at Cal’s arm across his neck. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he bites, “that my breakdown wasn’t in a way you approved of."

Cal shakes him. "I was worried about you! We needed you!"

Bobby pushes him back, not enough to free himself from Cal's grip but enough to make the taller man stumble a little. "What did you want me to do? I woke up to a text telling me I was done! That's it! No warning, no pretense. Just done." Bobby pushes him again. "Where the hell was this energy when you decided to quit?"

Lightning can see the way Cal didn’t like that comment. It’s moments like this that Lightning is suddenly reminded of the Cal from the King’s stories, of the kid that had more of a record than both Bobby and Lightning combined. He wasn’t all meek smiles and bad comebacks.

Something shifts in Cal’s body language like he was just slapped and Lightning looks for the button to call the nurse, or his phone to call Sally. He’s certain he’s about to see Cal actually throw a punch at Bobby.

The tense silence that follows Bobby’s comment builds, waiting for a small spark to set it off, when Cal suddenly drops Bobby. Lets him go and backs off. With his back turned to Lightning, he can only see Bobby’s befuddled look, not Cal’s face. Bobby rubs his neck where he was held against the wall and goes to say something but whatever it was gets cut off by Cal suddenly turning on his heel, grabbing his coat from the seat by the window, and leaving without another word.

The door to Lightning’s hospital room slams shut behind him, hard enough to rattle the blinds over the window on the opposite end of the room.

“Well,” Bobby says after a moment, “he seems happy.”

Lightning holds his tongue. “He’s got a lot going on,” he settles on, playing the diplomat here because he really, really doesn’t want to start a fight. He does shoot a warning text to the King, though, to keep an eye on him.

“What, and the rest of us don’t?” Bobby points out, waving a hand over Lightning’s whole situation.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lightning says.

Bobby’s still rubbing at his neck, even though Lightning would bet Cal wasn’t holding him that hard. It’s still Cal. “Then what did you mean by it, huh?” he asks as he sits back in the chair in Lightning’s room. “The hell’s gotten into you, man?”

Lightning sends a dry, half-lidded look at Bobby. He taps the tube draining from the bag above his head into his arm. “Percocets mostly,” he half-jokes. He actually doesn’t know whatever’s in the little baggie dripping into his IV but he knows it’s considered the ‘good stuff’. He hates it.

Bobby cracks a half-grin at his half-joke. “Alright, fine,” he relents, “but I still want to know what the hell’s gotten into him.”

Yeah, Lightning knows and he kinda wishes he didn’t. It’s easier to just be mad at Cal for giving up than it is being mad but also feeling bad for his friend for the way his brain works. He just gives Bobby a half-shoulder shrug.

Bobby sits back in his seat, taking it in stride. “I mean,” he continues, “I’ve seen him mad, but I’ve never seen him mad, you know? He’s kinda scary.”

Lightning huffs a small laugh at that. Cal, scary?

But Bobby pushes. “No, I’m serious.” He leans forward. “He’s fucking six-feet, man. He ain’t small. Six feet of pissed off energy coming right at you is scary!” His grin drops, a hand coming back up to rub by his collarbone. “He had me by the throat, man. He wasn’t fucking around.”

Yeah. "He hurt you?"

Bobby shakes his head. He drops his hand from his neck. "'Course not. A pissed off Cal still wouldn't hurt a fly. I think he just..." He breathes. Pinches his eyes. "I dunno. Needed to take it out on someone and I was the one not in the hospital bed, y'know?" Lightning sees his eyes bounce from Lightning back to the floor. "He still quit." 

"I know."

"You and I lost everything. He just gave it up."

"...I know."

"How could he just do that?"

"I don't know."

Bobby shakes his head, more put out by Cal's actions than Lightning's minimal answers. 

He doesn't want to talk about it. Honestly, he really doesn’t want to talk about Cal, or Bobby for that matter. He doesn’t want to talk about himself or the shitshow they’ve all found themselves in. He just wants to lay down and sleep until things get better.

Maybe when he wakes up it’ll be ten years ago.

Chapter Text

He was not having a good day.

It happens sometimes. He wakes up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever. A bad night leads to a shorter than average temper and he can’t help but take it out on other people.

If it were last year he wouldn’t think twice about it. He didn’t. Took his bad days out on anyone who would go near him. But for some reason he’s trying to be better at the whole nice thing so he can’t just start snapping at people for no reason.

Fine. That’s fine. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings? Fine, he’ll just remove himself from the equation until he can be assured he’s not about to alienate the people that have for once decided to keep him around.

So he ‘steals’ the 95 from Doc’s garage before the old man could finish his breakfast and fucks off to the Butte.

(Yes, he knows that hiding away in the 95 when he feels like shit is exactly how he found himself in this desert town in the first place but he can’t help it. Something about the cramped space and the promise of power under the hood smooths his temper like running a hand over wrinkled clothes; it doesn’t completely fix the problem but it lessens it enough that you can get on with your day.)

Some days he wishes the Butte was bigger. He wants to get up to speed. He revs down the short straightaways, barely pushing a third of the 95 can do but even then he’s on the verge of losing control. He can feel it as he makes his turns. The high banking on one end allows him to carry that speed through but the other end— his favorite turn— requires him to slow it way down or risk running straight off the edge, and he is most definitely not in the mood to deal with cactuses today.

He does that dance for a while, pushing and pulling the car’s REMs again and again until he’s sweating buckets and the little clock Mater duct taped to the dash tells him it’s well after noon.

He would have ran out of gas eventually without even realizing if it weren’t for the low coolant light popping on at some point. It breaks the little spell held over him and he slows it down. He checks his gauges, and all of them are telling him he’s fine minus the low fuelage (he doesn’t normally have these gauges since they weigh the car down too much but for practices Doc had Mater put them in for him) (the clock was added after Lightning had stumbled back in the middle of the night thinking it was only a little after nine when it was well into the morning) (Doc was not happy with him).

He stops at their made up start-finish line and shuts the car off. Stupid car. Stupid high-capacity engine always needing maintenance. Doc’s stupid Hornet is like 100 years old doesn’t require nearly as much babying as Lightning’s 95 for some fucking reason, despite the 95 being worth, like, $100 million or whatever.

He loosens the bolts holding the hood down and lifts it up. The hood opens up backwards from the windshield so it’s always a pain to get in there and mess with stuff. He leans over the still-hot engine and, because he is a short-sighted idiot, doesn’t think at all before he’s untwisting the cap for the coolant to check its levels.

Well, suffice to say, he was very quickly reminded of the very basics of engine maintenance which is do not mess with the coolant with a hot engine.

He can’t pull his hand away fast enough to completely dodge the pressurized spray of boiling hot coolant sent in every direction. He managed to turn away fast enough to keep it from burning his face but he feels small droplets land on his neck and behind his ear.

Most of the damage is concentrated on his left hand and forearm. He jumps away from the car, cursing up a storm and holding the offended limb close. He uses his sleeve to quickly brush off the burning liquid but it’s too late. He can see the skin turning red and shiny under the desert sun.

“Fuck,” he breathes. He keeps brushing off the coolant with his sleeve but the abrasive fabric against his brand new burns is just making it worse. His whole arm burns like he dumped it in a pot of boiling water.

The pain and adrenaline momentarily superseded his bad mood but as the adrenaline subsides the pain just fuels his anger even more. “Fuck!” he yells, louder this time. He kicks the 95 in a very childish move like it was the car’s fault he’s an idiot. The string of curses he lets out doesn’t make him feel any better but it was worth the shot.

He plops down on the ground, his back against the 95.

His whole body shakes from the sudden rush of adrenaline and its subsequent departure, as well as the burning pain that isn’t so quick to leave him apparently. It pulses up and down his arm with every heartbeat, flaring at every spot the glycol landed on him.

This is fine. This is sooooo fine he’s not even mad, not at all. He’s literally so cool right now and not at all shivering with rage and pain. He’s having such a normal one, it’s not even funny.

He shifts on the dirt and huffs out a breath. He’s so mad at himself his brain has just stopped. Enough time passes that the heat in his cheeks is past a warm pink and well into sunburn territory. He just can’t bring it to himself to move, even as he hears that old Hornet in the distance and footsteps on the dirt coming closer.

“Go away,” Lightning says as he hears Doc getting close.

“Oh, I’m doin’ okay,” Doc says sarcastically as if he was asked how he was doing. Lightning can see him out of the corner of his eye propping himself up with his arm on the hood of the car. “Not too bad, but been wonderin’ all day where this one kid was.”

Lightning really isn’t feeling up for Doc’s particular brand of smart-ass. “Didn’t ask.”

“Too bad,” Doc says anyways. “Sal had said something about you having a bad day. We could hear you pushin’ this poor thing to its breaking point all day. When it stopped we hoped you’d came back down the mountain as it were, but no cigar. I drew the short straw and was elected to come make sure you were still alive. Want to enlighten me on whether you are still alive?”

“No.”

“See, I don’t think they’d want me comin’ back with that answer, so I think I’ll stick around out here until that changes, yeah?”

“Dude, what part of ‘go away’ doesn’t click?” Lightning finally looks up at him, hoping if he reverts back to his old schtick maybe Doc will just leave him alone. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart or something? Or did you lie your way into a medical degree too?”

The low blow really should have done the trick but Doc sucks a breath through his teeth and says, “Ouch,” like it didn’t even bother him despite the fact that it totally should have. “I’m having flashbacks.”

Lightning rolls his eyes and vies for a new strategy: ignoring him until he gives up.

“’Cause see, I don’t know if you were there for it, but a little while ago there was this kid that landed in this town here and acted just like this. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Oh my God,” Lightning mutters. Will this guy just shut up?

“Is he back for a visit? Or here to stay? ‘Cause with all the traffic on 66 recently I’m sure the county wouldn’t mind if we brought Bessie back out—”

Lightning can’t take it anymore. He grabs a handful of dirt with his good hand and chucks it at Doc. “Do you just like to hear yourself talk or what?” Lightning asks over Doc’s barked laughter as he ducks to dodge the rocks and dust.

“I can grab a cactus,” Doc ventures, ignoring Lighting.

Who ignores him back. He got dust on his bad hand and now it’s rubbing painfully against his burns. He shakes that hand out to try and clear off the dirt but it just upsets his injuries more. He’s able to keep a wince off his face but he can’t stop the breath he sucks in. “Yeah, you go ahead and do that,” he settles on, getting the words out through gritted teeth.

Because Doc is mean and won’t let him get away with anything, the man’s jovial attitude is gone, replaced with that searching look he gets when he’s in Doctor-mode. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

But Doc is already settling down next to him in that slow old man way. “Did you break your wrist?” he asks, reaching for the arm Lightning is favoring. “I swear if you broke your wrist when I already told you not to hold the wheel like that—”

Lightning pulls his arm away from Doc, blocking him with his body. “I didn’t break my wrist, back off,” he snaps.

“Then what did you do?”

Lightning breathes through his nose. “Something much stupider.” He knows there’s no getting out of this, he’s past the point of no return. Once Doc sniffs out an injury, he’s on you like a shark with blood in the water.

But Doc backs off a little. “Yeah?” he prompts. “You wanna tell me about it? Or what’s been hanging over your head all day?”

“Oh, that’s even stupider,” he mumbles. Lightning shakes his head and sighs. “Just, had a bad dream last night. Can’t even remember it but I woke up sweating my ass off and couldn’t go back to sleep. Been in a bad mood all day because of it. And I didn’t want to, you know…” He waves his good hand between the two of them. “Be like this to people I’m trying to care about.”

He can see Doc’s mustache twitch. “So you’re like this to me?”

Oh, God. “No, that’s not—” he walks it back, shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant—”

But Doc waves him off. “I know,” he says, “I’m just messin’ with you is all.”

Lightning glares at him. “Well can you stop?”

Doc’s mustache twitches again but inwards this time like he’s frowning. “Yeah, sorry kid.” He nods down at Lightning’s arm. “Can we deal with that next?”

Always back to that. “Can you just let me sit here until the desert consumes me?”

“I could but then I think the townsfolk would miss you.”

Lightning can’t help the scoff that comes out at that. He didn’t want Doc to hear that. He tries to cover it up but Doc cuts him off before he can change the subject.

“What’s up with that?” he asks. “You don’t think they’d miss you?”

Lightning just shrugs, looking away. He doesn’t remember his dream entirely but he knows he woke up feeling the kind of loneliness he only felt as he and Mack drove away from Radiator Springs. That’s been the cloud hanging over his head all day. He can’t kick it so he decided to revel in it. Like poking a toothache, maybe making it worse will make it better in the end. He knows it won’t but he does it anyways because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Well, he doesn’t want to talk about that either so he changes the subject. “I burned myself on coolant,” he admits instead of answering Doc’s question. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I know better.”

Doc shifts, letting his question and the obvious deflection sit in the air for a second because he’s evil. But then he relents to the subject change. “I dunno,” he says. “Stupidest? I mean, I remember seeing the 95 hanging off telephone wires a few weeks back so it’s got some tough competition for that chief spot.”

Lightning huffs a small, minuscule half-laugh at that. “Okay, second stupidest thing I’ve done, how’s about that?”

A hum, then a nod. “I’ll allow it.”

“Case closed?” Lightning asks. “Can I just get my sentencing now?”

Doc chuckles at that. He gets to his feet and holds out a hand for Lightning, who takes it. “Probably more community service,” he says, “in the form of making a showing at Flo’s to prove you’re still alive. After I make sure you didn’t break your wrist.”

Lightning rolls his eyes but follows in step. “I didn’t break my wrist.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Doc says, then suddenly rounds on Lightning. They both stop, Lightning abruptly enough to make indents in the sand at his feet. Just between them, and low enough that not even the desert can hear it, Doc says, “And next time you have one of these days where you’re feelin’ like the short straw we all had to pick, and not our friend we chose, don’t go hiding away, yeah?”

Lightning just nods.

Doc taps him on the chest with his knuckle. “Good,” he says, then beckons at him with the same hand. “Now lemme see what we’re dealing with here.”

Defeated, Lightning shows him the damage he did to his arm. Doc tsks and says, “Do you like burnin’ yourself?”

“You know Doc, not particularly.” He still has the scar from Bessie’s revenge shot that one time.

“Alright.” Doc drops his arm but wraps one of his own around Lightning’s shoulders. “Let’s get that cleaned and looked at, right kid?”

“I have a feeling,” Lightning says dryly, realizing now what his accident-prone habits mean for his future with Doc as his crew chief, “that I’m going to get really sick and tired of seeing the inside of your clinic.”

Chapter Text

Coming to when the world is upside down isn’t something Cal is particularly fond of but in this line of business it can’t be helped.

He knows he wasn’t out for very long because he feels and hears the metal roof of his car still scraping harshly against the rough track pavement as it slides to a stop, the momentum he was carrying still keeping him in motion for a few seconds. He wheezes in a breath. The force of the sudden change in direction had knocked the wind out of him. He’s lucky that it doesn’t hurt to take a breath; a small prayer of thank you sent up to whomever might be listening that he doesn’t have another punctured lung. He coughs and moves his hand from the ceiling where he was unconsciously bracing himself against the sudden swap of gravity, and keys his mic.

“Strip,” he just wheezes out. He skips over ‘uncle’ entirely, the word too complicated right now as he’s still catching his breath.

Nothing comes back on the radio, not even static of an open line. Cal curses. He’s had a crash before where the comms somehow got taken out but he thought they fixed that. He tugs off the window net, giving a thumbs-up to whoever can see. He’s fine, his breath coming back. Without comms (and with the car upside down so the net can’t really drop, pre se), it’s the best he’s got to let his uncle know he’s not dying in a car again.

And then worried that his thumbs-up might look like a thumbs-down since everything’s upside down, he flips it so to him it’s a thumbs-down but to them it should be a thumbs-up. And then worried that they’re gonna take that as a thumbs-down-I’m-not-okay, he just does the OK sign. He can already hear Lightning and Bobby and them making their jokes but whatever. That’s nothing new.

Getting out of a flipped car is the most frustrating thing, next to a lot of other things that irritate Cal like not being taken seriously or being called ‘Calvin’. He’s not really supposed to take the helmet off first (well, technically he’s supposed to wait for the safety team to get there before doing anything) but he’s had a bad day so sue him for not caring. He tosses the helmet to the side, still with one hand braced on the ceiling of his car. He shuts it all down. The sound of the car dies around him, and replacing it is an odd quiet with only the faint sound of the safety crew doing their thing around him.

He slowly, one by one, releases the straps holding him in his seat and lets himself tumble down to the ground with an “oof”. Because he’s got a predictable kind of bad luck he lands right on top of a crunched part of the metal roof so it stabs into his lower back. His left leg gets caught in the footwell, pulling at his hip and knee until he kicks it free. He feels a twinge around his knee and doesn’t bother hiding the grimace, not while he’s alone in his car. He rubs the spot where the metal is going to leave a bruise before sighing, accepting he’s going to have to face the music at some point.

He takes another second, reorienting himself to normal gravity, before pulling himself out the partially crushed window.

“Fucking Mavinesville,” he mutters to himself, mostly to make himself feel better.

He’s been racing for a good while now but still has yet to figure out how to crawl out of the window in a way that doesn’t make him super embarrassed when it’s inevitably shown later on TV. Bobby’s the best at it, swinging himself out and onto his feet in one swift (heh) motion. Lightning puts on a show either way, whether it’s a clean getaway or him falling on his face. Cal always compares his own egresses to the cat that lives under their porch back at home as it tries to pull itself out from under the wood through a steeply dug out hole. It’s never graceful. It’s only funny sometimes. Most of the time it’s just kinda pitiful.

His height working to his disadvantage, as it normally does when his racing is involved (stupid cramped cockpit), he manages to wiggle his way out before the safety team gets to him and tries to drag him out despite him being perfectly fine.

He uses the car to pull himself to his feet, careful not to burn himself on the still-hot undercarriage. He stumbles a little. His knee hurts more than he thought it would. He can’t put a lot of weight on it. Not very much at all. Ow. Ow. Okay, no weight at all.

He grimaces at the damage to his car. The entire backside looks crunched like something landed on—

it.

Oh…

“Oh,” he mumbles out loud for a lack of anything better to say.

The familiar white smoke of a Big One obscures most of the scene but he can still see that about twenty feet from where he came to a stop, give or take, one of the giant poles that holds up the track lighting lies on its side over the track like a fallen log over a backroad after a bad summer storm.

It’s the most surreal thing he’s ever seen at a track, and he once saw a tornado off in the distance at Talladega growing up.

The thing is all tangled up in wires from the catch fence. Smoke curls around it from the cars that probably inevitably ran into it and those that tried to dodge it. It sinks in how lucky Cal got. A few milliseconds slower and he probably would have been crushed entirely.

Fun thoughts for later.

He stumbles towards it, scanning the little he can see. Safety crews are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. One stops when he notices Cal limping towards the chaos. He sees him take notice of the upside-down 42, and it registers plainly on the worker’s face. And Cal realizes that with the chaos unfolding in front of him, his own crush-flip sequence got pushed to the wayside.

If his car getting nearly crushed is a non-event, then what did happen? What is he missing?

“Muh— Mr. Weathers?” the safety worker asks like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. “Are you alright?”

Cal waves the guy off. “’M fine,” he says, literally waving a hand so the guy doesn’t try to help support his weight or something stupid. He’s fine, only limping a little bit. It doesn’t even hurt. “What the hell happened?”

He only sort of hears the answer to his question. Something about a crash, and then the obvious.

Cal is only just now really starting to take in what exactly is happening around him.

This is a disaster. He can see it now, the way no one really knows what they’re doing. He looks over and sees a whole host of people crowding around where the pole’s lightning system had crashed into the infield. Smoke drifts up from somewhere over there. Something’s on fire in the infield.

Oh God. This is a disaster. How many people are hurt? Seriously hurt, and not his little fake limp?

He picks up speed, not even feeling his leg or neck or back anymore. The safety worker tries to stop him but he ignores the guy, ducking and weaving through the mess of wires and metal. A white haze still sits heavy over the scene, threating to choke him and blocking out the full view of the chaos. He reaches the metal pole and for once his height gives him an advantage. He vaults over the three or so feet thick pole without missing a beat. His feet land square in a warzone.

To his left, crews are putting out a car on fire. He gets a glimpse of purple and for half a second he stops dead in his tracks, thinking it was Bobby’s car, but the purple is too light to be his. Too lilac. And next to the charred lilac he sees Laurelle sitting on the ground looking like he’s in shock.

Laurelle. He wracks his probably concussed brain to remember where Laurelle was last he remembered. Lightning was somewhere behind him, just two or three spots back. Bobby was supposedly all the way in the rear. Laurelle was maybe three behind Cal? Pearson was directly behind, with maybe Lightning in between Pearson and Laurelle.

“Patty!” Cal yells over to Laurelle. His fellow driver looks up at his name being called, and jumps to his feet to meet Cal.

He’s not particularly close to Patrick Laurelle, but there’s a sort of comradery that comes with being part of a very small group of people doing the same thing week after week, and Patty’s always been kind to Cal, even if the man tends to be mildly anti-social most of the time.

Today, though, he’s running up to Cal and grabbing him by the shoulders, a wild look in his eyes. Bruising rings around the soft part of his eyes. Concussed. “Are you okay?” Patty’s asking, looking Cal over like he’s about to keel over at any moment. “Shit, kid, I thought the thing landed square on your car.”

‘Kid’. Laurelle is, like, three years older than Cal, but he lets it slide. He’s obviously stressed. “I’m fine,” he says, looking Patty over himself. “You okay?”

“Ran face first into the thing but I’m okay,” he says. “Had enough time to brake before hitting it.” He looks to the side. “I don’t think—” He pauses. “Have you seen Lightning?”

Cal shakes his head, stomach sinking. “I just hopped the thing now.”

Patty was shaking his head now too. “I saw him turn Pearson before they hit. I think Jet got a good hit in, they just took him to the care center, but I haven’t seen Lightning anywhere. I don’t—”

He’s getting too much information at once. His head pounds with what is probably a concussion of his own, plus the effects of the smoke he’s breathing in and now a deluge of information. He tries to shake away the cloud of confusion. “Where did you see him?”

Laurelle points behind Cal. “He turned Pearson and last I saw he was headed up the turn towards the outer wall, but I didn’t get a good look in with the pole suddenly taking up my entire windshield, y’know?”

Cal nods and slips out of Laurelle’s grip, intent on finding Lightning. He stumbles up the turn towards the outer wall, using the wires and the pole itself to pull himself up the sharp banking. The number of safety team members spikes around him as he passes Pearson’s now empty 6. The car hit square on the passenger side. He can see the thick black markings from tire scrubbing leading up to the point it hit. Patty said Lightning turned Jet just before they hit. Cal knows Lightning well enough to know it was on purpose.

The right side of Pearson’s 6 is nearly crushed entirely against the pole, but as he passes by, he’s not shy at admitting he’s relieved to see that the driver’s side looks intact for the most part. Pearson’s helmet still lies on the ground by the car, also intact.

Cal stumbles around the wreckage. Ahead, he can see a convergence of safety crew and he knows that’s his destination. He knows Lightning is there.

He’s barely made it past Pearson’s car when his bad leg gives out from under him suddenly. He hasn’t felt it since he got out of his own car. He manages to hold himself up by grabbing and hanging onto a wire he recognizes with a sickening sense of dread as part of the catchfence the pole had crushed under it. He pushes his own shit down and forces his feet back under him.

A passing safety team person stops. Or rather, he realizes when he takes in the clothes, a firefighter. Strong hands help him to his feet before he can wave them off. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he hears from his right.

Surprisingly they don’t make him sit right then and there. He gets out a “Lightning,” before they can try to stop him.

The hands change their grip and he’s suddenly got help going up the steep pavement. The shoes the drivers wear don’t offer much in the way of grip but the boots the firefighters wears are much more equipped for trudging up banked tracks. “We haven’t seen anyone from the infield here yet,” the firefighter tells him. “It’s a mess down there. We’re working on getting him out but having a friend will definitely make it easier on him. We can only do so much comfort-wise.”

“Is he okay?” He feels stupid asking it. And the look on the firefighter’s face tells him all he needs to know.

They push through the crowd of safety teams and firefighters and EMTs, and Cal gets his first look at the car.

It’s nearly sliced in half.

The nose is crunched like a soda can and split down the middle. The driver’s side hangs down the track, held up from sliding down entirely by the other half of the car caught on a pole of some kind. The rear is mostly intact, holding the car together but barely. He can see where the stress of the weight of the left side of the car is buckling the part where the split ends. The whole car looks like a V. And caught in there, apparently, is his friend.

The firefighter drops Cal by the driver’s side window. The window net is down and he can see Lightning moving in there. The pounding of his heart in his chest doesn’t stop at the sight but he feels less like he’s about to throw up. He stumbles up to the window, not sure what he’s supposed to do but by God he’s going to try.

His leg gives out on him again and he’s forced to kneel by the driver’s side. “…Lightning?” Cal asks stupidly because that’s all he can think to say while he tries to take in what situation exactly he found himself in.

Lightning is conscious, that much is obvious. His helmet is off and there’s blood smeared under his nose. He’s still sitting in the driver’s seat but the steering wheel was removed at some point. He’s bracing himself in the seat with his arms, a horribly pained look on his face.

He can’t figure out why Lightning is still here, still in the car when it’s obvious he’s in pain and needs a hospital or something after getting his car chopped in half, until he looks down.

The right side of the footwell is crushed inwards almost entirely. Right into Lightning's leg.

Oh.

Oh God.

Cal might vomit.

At hearing his name, the eyes Lightning had squeezed shut pop open and Cal is faced with a look of shear panic on his friend’s face. Honestly, he might mirror that same face at this point. Fuck. There's so much blood.

“Cal,” he hears Lightning hiss out before his face is once again contorting into a deep wince. All the drivers (for the most part) have a high pain tolerance and Lightning is up there with what he can tolerate, so this is… deeply upsetting. Actually, ‘deeply upsetting’ might be too soft for whatever Cal is currently feeling.

“Hey. Hi. Oh my God.” Cal is so not helping.

Lightning’s arm swings out at him and Cal grabs at it, taking Lightning’s hand in his. There’s blood on it. Oh God.

“Hurts,” is all Lightning says like, holy shit what an understatement. Cal can’t stop looking at the crushed spot Lightning’s leg was. Maybe is? Is it… still attached? Is he going to lose it?

Okay. Okay. “Okay,” he says aloud because he needs to say something. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.”

Something with the car shifts as the workers on the other side do something and Cal’s blood goes cold at the yell torn from Lightning’s throat. Still holding Lightning’s hand, he pops up onto his good leg and asks the first firefighter to meet his eyes, “What are y’all doing?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out so demanding but, you know, he’s under a lot of stress, okay? “Can’t you get him out of here?”

The firefighter steps away from whatever she was doing and comes close into his space, but not to intimidate him. He realizes she’s trying to cut Lightning out of the conversation without separating the two of them. “We need the ambulance right here when we extract him,” she explains as sternly but kindly as she can. “It’s a couple minutes out. The moment we release the pressure around his leg we’re under a short timer to get the bleeding under control.”

“Oh,” Cal mumbles. He’s never felt this small before in his life.

She nods, a kind look in her eyes. “And,” she adds on, “we were told to wait for his family. Just in case.”

…Oh. Okay.

The “okay” he breathes out is so weak he’s surprised she heard it over top of all the noise around them. She gives his shoulder a squeeze.

“Just stay with him until then?”

Cal nods. Barely, but he nods. She leaves him then, off to do whatever she needs to do to prepare for the extraction. Cal kneels back on the ground, his whole body numb. He can’t think of anything else to say, so he just sits there holding Lightning’s hand through the pain until he hears Doc’s voice in the distance.

Chapter Text

“Are you going to be able to… do this?”

Honestly Cal would be more insulted by the question if he wasn’t feeling like he’s about to throw up all over Tex’s nice clean floors.

He and his uncle are waiting for the next elevator down to the lobby. Somewhere down the hall, his signature on a piece of paper (well, more like fifty pieces of paper, his hand hurts from all that signing) is being sent to legal to be notarized or confirmed or whatever they do to it to make it official paperwork and not just a mark on a sheet of paper.

All the way down in the lobby, his aunt and a couple of Uncle Strip’s racing friends wait for them, for the good news. And honestly Cal should be ecstatic. He was, about five minutes ago. But now reality is setting in and he’s realizing this dream is real and that reality is going to be so, so much more complicated than the half-baked dream he’s been holding onto for probably almost a decade now. Maybe more.

“Honestly, I think I might throw up,” Cal says to his uncle, only half as a joke.

His uncle huffs a small laugh as the elevator dings and the doors open. It’s empty, thankfully. The two step in and wait for the doors to close before restarting the conversation. “I guess it’s too late to back out now anyways,” Uncle Strip half jokes in return.

Oh God. It is too late isn’t it? He’s made his decision and now he has an entire future. And surprisingly it's the details of his choice that are hitting him one at a time like bullets.

The driving he already knows, but also the ravenous media and how they’re going to treat him with him being attached in every way possible to the greatest racer on Earth, but then also how the other racers are going to treat him. And the fans, interacting with them. Will they even like him? Or will they hate him for not being his uncle? Is he too weak? Should he try to act tougher? Will he fail so badly his first season and everyone will think he’s a joke?

“I think I’m actually gonna throw up,” he says, not joking anymore. He grabs the bar behind him, bracing himself as if the floor were about to fall out from under him. Not a great pairing in a descending elevator.

“Oh, Lord,” he hears his uncle mutter. Uncle Strip stands in front of him and thankfully doesn’t try to pry his hands off from where he’s braced. Instead, he lays his hands on Cal’s shoulder. Instead of whatever Cal was expecting, maybe some kind of pep talk, his uncle tells him, “Please don’t throw up on me.”

That has Cal letting out a small laugh despite the flood of self-conscious fear drowning out every other thought.

“Look, buddy,” Uncle Strip continues, “you’ve wanted this for years now. It’s what we’ve been working towards, isn’t it? So where’s that…” He struggles for the word, then settles for, “enthusiasm?”

Below their feet, the elevator slows to a stop. The doors open and Cal squeezes his eyes shut, not ready to face the outside world. He doesn’t hear any talking but he hears his uncle move, and then the doors slide shut. The elevator stays put.

“They’re all gonna hate me,” he says, feeling stupid as he says it but it can’t be stopped.

“Who?”

“Everyone,” Cal answers, then narrows it down a little to the group he probably fears the most, “the other racers.”

Uncle Strip huffs a breath. “Yeah, some of them probably will.” Cal glares up at him; that is so not what he wants to hear right now, thank you! But his uncle continues, “What? You think everyone loves everyone all the time? Kid, the amount of drivers that hated me could fill the seats at Bristol, let alone the number of fans that hated my ass. They don’t have to like you, they just have to respect you.”

Cal shakes his head. “How can they respect me when I’m…” Me. Stupid and young and awkward and clumsy on a good day and worst of all: carrying the weight of a name he didn’t earn. He’s quite frankly not that good of a driver. He’s got a small following of fans from his runs in the lower circuits but nowhere near where it was when other drivers made the jump up to the Piston Cup.

His uncle sighs. “Okay,” he says, shifting. “Lets run through how every freshman year goes: you show up, you take the chirping the other guys throw out at you, you give one or two back, you race, and in the end, they’ll either love you or they’ll hate you. But by November, they’ll respect you because you’re gonna show that you deserve to be there with them. It’s the hardest year to survive, but Cal, you grew up around all this. You know more about this sport than any of those fellas running right now.”

He's not wrong but there's still...

Cal doesn’t voice the obvious out loud. They both know it. They’re all going to compare me to you. And there’s nothing either of us can do about that.

He still feels like he’s falling. But he doesn’t want to be in this elevator anymore. He’d rather have a crisis in the hotel room or at home, wherever they’re going next. He shoots his uncle a wobbly smile. “You know I can’t throw chirps.”

His uncle laughs a little. “We’ll work on it. Maybe you can steal some from one of the older guys. We’ll just have to get you—”

Cal cuts him off. “If you recommend I get notecards like your old ass, I’m going to ask for a new crew chief.”

He smiles at Uncle Strip’s laughter. He manages to pry his hands off the elevator’s bar as his uncle tells him, “See? That’s a good one. Write that down.”

Cal rolls his eyes, hiding a grin, and reaches around his uncle to hit the door open button. He wasn’t expecting to see a group of people, all in office business clothing, waiting outside the doors. He cringes back. All these people were waiting for the elevator… that they were hogging…

His uncle pats him on the back and leads the way out with nothing more than a ‘thank you’ towards all the people waiting. Cal follows behind, not wanting to be looked at by those people any longer. Not when he still feels like the earth is dropping out from under him.

He can’t wait for that feeling to go away. He hopes it’s soon.

---- 9 years later, on the other side of the country ----

“If you can’t handle it—”

“I can handle it,” Jackson snaps at Ray. He can’t help the flinch at the flick the man give to the side of his head, still unused to the playful jabs the man gives. He’s already so high strung from whatever that meeting had turned into that he really doesn’t need Ray to rub it in. Not when they’re in such a confined space.

“Don’t get snappy with me,” Ray says, crossing his arms. He’s not even looking at Jackson, giving off an air of apathy Jackson knows he’s going to have spend the next fifteen minutes fighting against to make Ray listen to him. It’s just the two of them in the elevator down from the top floors of IGNTR’s racing headquarters. It’s the best place, Ray has apparently decided, to have this stupid conversation away from the prying eyes of the IGNTR higher ups. “My job is to make sure we aren’t about to throw you to the wolves and embarrass your sponsors. If you can’t handle it—”

Jackson snaps again, “I can handle it.”

But Ray keeps talking over him, ignoring him entirely. “—then you need to tell me so we can make adjustments.”

‘Adjustments’ being ‘going with a different driver’. So no, Jackson is not going to say anything even close to ‘I can’t handle it’ because he’s aware of the precarious position he’s in.

But it was supposed to be another year away.

Ray is still talking. “If you think you can do it without embarrassing us all, then we’re going to have to get started now. We’ve been going easy on you but the Cup series is a whole other beast with a whole host of deadlines to meet and tasks to complete, starting with the car. We’re gonna have to talk to the garages since their deadline just got moved up a whole year, and not to mention having to get you practicing in the simulator. And then there's the advertisements and...” 

Ray keeps going but Jackson tunes him out. The numbers in the elevator count down to 0 too fast. His thoughts are rising faster. He can't afford a slip up. He needs to stop.

He squeezes his eyes shut for half a second. Everything he’s been managing to push down bubbles up to the surface. Every doubt, every fear flashes behind his eyelids like neon billboards in Times Square. He can’t do this. He needs more time, more practice.

He’s going to fail, and no failure ever goes unpunished.

He’s the villain, and no one likes the villain.

He sees all of it where it lingers, threatening to slice him open like an animal to the slaughter. 

And then he opens his eyes again, back in the real world.

Enough of that. Lingering is what gets him killed. 

Ray is texting on his phone, still talking about the car. Jackson, this time, cuts him off. “Are you really so worried that these geezers in twenty year old cars are going to beat whatever IGNTR has cooking downstairs?” The old speaking habits come back easy. He’s no longer begging for Ray’s attention, he’s demanding it. The confidence he has to carry, whether it's faux or not, bleeds off him once more. He’s stuck here now, in this situation. All he has to do is own it, right? Swim or drown, there's no in between. And Jackson Storm is not about to drown. He tsks. “You’re not doubting our dear holy sponsor, are you?”

Ray scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “You got a smart mouth for a kid that looked like he was gonna throw up thirty seconds ago.”

Jackson gives him a half-shrug. “I just didn’t like that they thrust this on us out of nowhere.”

“You and me both, kid,” Ray says. “But you heard them, they liked that you were giving them results, plus you add another tick in the popularity category by being the youngest driver to debut in the Cup series since the 50’s or whatever. Records like that add to our Wikipedia page or whatever. Good headlines.” He waves a hand. “I just hope you’re ready for a rough few weeks.”

He’s not. “I’m ready for anything.” He looks Ray in the eyes. Pushing the lingering thoughts away is easier when the margin for letting any of his doubts show on his face is much smaller. “I just hope the Piston Cup is ready for us.”

Ray’s mouth twitches in a half-smirk. “Good,” he says. “Freshman year is the hardest but keep up the attitude and maybe you won’t let us all down.”

He can’t afford to let anyone down.

Chapter Text

He’s not accident prone. He’s just… got bad luck sometimes. Smokey exaggerates.

Mr. Marker from down the road had called the other day. His truck was being held together with duct tape and dreams and when it finally died no one was surprised. He and Smokey had towed the poor thing back to the garage to diagnose what finally killed the old girl.

This was Hud’s project. He and Smoke have an ongoing bet that this would be the truck’s final days and no amount of finagling or begging of a higher power could get her road worthy again. Hud thinks otherwise, that he can get anything going given the right time and tools, and so Smokey gave him free reign in the garage to get the beast back together.

“Five bucks says I can get her going again,” Hud had said with a grin.

“Next round at the bar says you can’t,” Smokey said back and thus the bet was on.

Which is how Hud found himself sitting on the floor of Smoke’s garage in the middle of the night, carefully trying to hold blood from flowing from his inner arm at frightening speed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he curses under his breath. Smokey had long since gone back to the house hours ago. It’s just him, the truck, and now the long, red line that cuts from the outer part of his left wrist to nearly his inner elbow weeping blood all over the place. It burns like a mother fucker. His whole arm is covered in blood. Fuck, that’s a lot of blood. Is he dizzy?

He kicks away the creeper he was on when he stupidly pulled his arm back from the innards of the truck. Somewhere in there a stray piece of metal caught the sensitive flesh of his inner arm and carved into it before he could realize it was there.

That’s what he gets for not paying attention.

He scrambles to his feet, trying to think past the either panic or shock clouding his mind. Okay, blood needs to be stopped. Bleeding. Bleeding needs to be stopped. C’mon, Hud, get it together.

He stumbles through the garage into the back office. He should call the house, wake up Smokey. He can’t…

He can do this himself.

He’s about 80% sure that Smokey’s comment a few weeks ago after Hud had cut himself helping in the kitchen had been a joke, but that 20% of him that isn’t sure is currently taking the lead here. He doesn’t really want to find out if Smokey really is just gonna patch him back together with duct tape and dishrags.

(He does feel bad. He knows paying the bills isn’t easy, he’s seen the way it stresses Smokey out. Hud’s winnings only earn them so much and most of it goes to keeping the Hornet up and running. Constantly restocking the supply of bandages and sutures can’t be good on the checkbook.)

(Okay, he’s maybe only 75% sure Smokey was joking.)

So maybe he’ll just use… a little bit of the stuff in the first aid kit. Just enough to keep the blood from flowing freely like a river.

Carefully, quietly, with his arm pressed hard against his stomach to keep from dripping blood all over Smokey’s floors, he pulls the hefty first aid kit out of the office closet. He swings by the desk to grab the good scissors, holding them in his mouth as he makes his way back to the garages.

Ugh. There’s a bunch of blood by the truck. He again kicks the creeper to the side as he plops down against the wall by his workstation, not even gonna worry about a chair. He just needs to sit down for a second.

He takes a minute, not quite catching his breath but more like waiting for a dizzy spell to go away, before he clicks the first aid kit open.

It’s not as full as it used to be. The next race he wins a good pot they’re gonna have to put some aside for this. But that’s a future Hud problem, not a current Hud problem. With his good hand, he digs through the little they have. His hand lands on a bundle of cloth wrapping, the kind to hold a limb in place but not to stop bleeding. He pulls it out anyways, along with some cotton patches in plastic packaging he thinks are for putting on injuries. He hovers over the suture kit; he’s seen Smokey sew him back together over and over again like a ragged shirt but he’s pretty sure doing it on himself with only one hand in an area as sensitive as his inner arm is not a good place to start. He leaves it in the kit and pushes the big box to the side. He can work with what he’s got. Probably.

He pulls his arm from his stomach, and hisses a breath through his teeth in lieu of a curse when his shirt peels away the blood that dried against the fabric. More blood weeps from the wound. His shirt looks like he either killed someone or was just shot in the stomach.

Wait. He probably needs to clean it. He looks around the garages. The only thing they have in here is bleach, and he’s not stupid enough to put that on a wound. Water should be fine. He stands on shaky legs and carefully makes his way to the sink. It’s dirty as all get out but he’ll manage. He turns the water to a cool-lukewarm and after a count of three, sticks his wounded arm under the stream.

His knees nearly give out under him and he has to brace himself against the sink with his other hand as the pain skyrockets. Blood pools in his mouth now too from how hard he’s biting his cheek.

He can only take so much. He pulls it out from under the water and tears off a length of paper towel to put over the cut. It’s still bleeding but it looks… marginally less bad. Well, with the speed it just soaked the paper towel with blood probably still bad.

Well it’s clean now. Good enough.

He meanders back to his spot on the floor by Mr. Marker’s truck and slides down the wall. The blood on the floor is slowly drying into something viscous and brown. Gross.

He folds the paper towel and sets it on one of the larger pools of blood to hopefully soak some of it up before turning his attention back to the task at hand. He tears open the plastic packaging for the cotton cloth bandage things with his teeth, forgetting he brought scissors and subsequently feeling like an idiot. He packs the cotton squares against the length of the wound. They stick on their own despite not having the sticky stuff normal band-aids got. A small blessing, though he’s pretty sure it’s because the blood is acting as the sticky stuff.

Now comes the hard part. Using the scissors this time, he opens the length of wrapping. It takes a log of finagling but he manages to hold the start of the length of cloth down just long enough to use his right hand to wrap it all the way down his arm to his elbow. He has to dig back into the first aid kit for something to tape the end down but once he got that done, he admires his handiwork.

Take that, Smokey. Duct tape and dirty rags? Ha.

He sighs at the carnage around him. Blood and plastic packaging and tools all surround him. He should clean that up before Smokey sees the mess he made. ‘Accident prone,’ he’ll call him. Well, if Hud has any say in this then Smokey won’t even know about it. He’ll just have to wear his jacket for a bit. Not the best plan given that it’s nearly summer, but he’s too tired to think of a better plan right now.

He sits there for a bit. Uses the already soaked paper towel to sort of wipe off some of the blood from the concrete floor, but really just smears it everywhere.

He’s tired. That took a lot more out of him than he thought.

His head hurts. He closes his eyes, trying to force the sudden pounding in his head to go away.

He’s cold. Maybe the jacket idea wasn’t such a bad plan.

Maybe just a quick nap before getting back to work…

Something tugs on his arm. He groans against the harsh action, and then flinches away at the hand that pats his cheek harshly. Near slapping him, that is.

“I’m not even thirty and you’ve already given me grey hairs,” a voice says, then much louder, “I swear to God Hud if you bleed out on my garage floor I will send you to Hell personally, you hear me?”

More slapping. He groans again. Tries to pull his arm back from the hand gripping it tightly.

“I can’t let you out of my sight for five minutes without you finding a new way to nearly kill yourself.” Smokey. That’s who that is.

“J’st unlucky,” he mumbles. Barely, but he gets it out. Why is he so tired.

Smokey gives a laugh that sounds only a little hysterical. “Unlucky? Kid, if I didn’t find you until morning you’d be dead. You’re lucky I came to check on you when I did.”

He flinches as pain shoots up the arm in Smokey’s grasp. He tries to tug it back, harder this time, but he doesn’t have the energy to overpower Smokey. The grip on his wrist tightens. Hud can feel Smokey pulling off the bandages he put on. Oh right, the cut on his arm. He forgot about that. Is that what’s got Smoke so mad?

“S’rry about the blood,” he gets out.

Smokey doesn’t say anything to that. He hears him doing something, one hand still with Hud’s arm in a death grip, then he hears a small muttered apology from the man. Hud doesn’t even have the time to question it before his entire arm is set on fire. He can’t help the scream that tears from his throat.

It burns.

He lasts for a couple seconds before it all becomes too much and he’s out like a light.

He blinks awake at some point later on the couch. His bloodied shirt is gone. He’s cold, and he would blame that on a lack of a shirt entirely if it weren’t for the pile of blankets stacked on top of him like a deck of cards. Nearly every throw blanket Smokey owns, plus maybe one he’s seen at Louise’s house.

Damn, it’s cold. He shivers despite the God-awful humidity under all these blankets. It’s a strange feeling; he should be hot, he can feel how stuffy it is under here. But he can’t get warm.

Still, the stuffy feeling sucks. He kicks the pile of blankets off him and onto the floor. Now he’s really cold but no longer stuffy. Win some, lose some. He shivers again. Okay, maybe one blanket.

He swings an arm out to reach for a blanket off the floor but the action pulls painfully. He twitches the arm back, his right hand going to his inner forearm.

Thick, tight bandaging wraps around his forearm. Much better than his own mess he tried to do last night. Smokey’s handiwork. But not the duct tape and rags the man had threatened to use to put him back together with the next time he needed help.

He smacks his tongue against the cottony feeling in his mouth and looks around. It’s daytime now, the sun streaking through the blinds over Smokey’s living room windows.

Just as he was about to start wondering where the man went, a hand places down a glass of what might be orange juice next to his head. Hud blinks up at Smokey above him.

“You look cold,” is all he says.

“Feel cold,” Hud says back.

Smokey scoffs and walks around the couch. He gathers all the blankets Hud just kicked off and dumps the pile on top of him. “There. Now you won’t be so cold.”

Yeah, Hud has a feeling he did something wrong. But right now he’s just focused on pulling a blanket from the tangled pile on his legs and wrapping it around himself to really care all that much. It’s the pink and green one. The softest but girliest, so Hud never really uses it unless he has to. But the soft fabric against his skin feels good so he doesn’t mind that it’s pink. Better than the scratchy grey one.

Smokey sits on the coffee table in that way he always snaps at Hud for doing, and crosses his arms. Hud can feel a lecture coming so he closes his eyes to get out of it. Smokey, of course, doesn’t let him. A hand slaps him on the cheek a couple of times, just like in the garage. “Oh, no you don’t, boy.”

With his good arm, Hud swipes the hand away and glares at Smokey from under the pink blanket. He just hums, low and unhappy.

“What,” Smokey starts with once he sees Hud is awake, “is the phone number for the house?”

Not was Hud was expecting. “I know the phone number for the house,” he drones.

“Then what is it?”

Hud groans. Calling the garage is easy; just let the operator know you’re trying to call Smokey’s garage and she’ll put you through to the phone in the office. But the phone in the house is just a string of numbers he had to memorize. “T 5106,” he says.

Smokey hums. Obviously he wasn’t expecting Hud to get it right (honestly Hud is surprised he got it right, he always mixes it up with Junior’s number). “Now, that brain of yours is smart enough to memorize four measly numbers, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why it can’t make you push them.”

He opts for a joke. “I can’t use the telephone, Smoke, you know that. Not since I broke that one operator’s heart.”

(Sort of a true story, one of the girls in town works at the local switch station and did try to flirt with Hud, but he didn’t like her like that and now she’s got a vendetta against him. Calling the switch station now is a bit of a roulette game for him. One time she put him through to a wrong line all the way across the country. Smokey was not happy when he saw that bill come through.)

Smokey doesn’t even grace that with a laugh. “Then why did I find you passed out and bloodied on the floor of my garage at three in the morning?”

Again, Hud deflects with a joke. “I don’t now, why were you awake at three in the morning? Sounds unhealthy—”

Smokey slams a hand down on the wooden table. “Dammit, Hud, I thought someone had tried to kill you!”

Hud shuts his mouth. Between his racing and Smokey’s moonshining, there’s enough of a list of people out there that want either or both of them dead.

The silence drags on. Smokey rubs his face with his hand, looking exhausted. He hates doing this to Smokey, he really does. Some days, he feels he’s just brought nothing but pain into this man’s life. Days like today.

“You know I’m here, you know I can help, so I’ve been wracking my brain tryin’ to figure out why the hell you decided it’d be best if you bled out on the floor of the garage rather than call me in the middle of the night.”

“I had it under control,” Hud says back instead of the truth, which was that he wasn’t sure if Smokey would help or not. The man looks stressed enough.

Smokey scoffs. “All you did was waste some perfectly good bandages and scare the ever-loving shit out of me at the ass-crack of dawn. ‘Under control’ my ass.”

Hud pushes himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the pulling from his wound. “I did!” he argues. “I cleaned it, I wrapped it! It was under control.”

“You stained my floor,” Smokey says. “Not even the bleach could get the bloodstain out of the concrete. So thanks for that. You best wish I never come under suspicion of a crime ‘cause a copper gets one look at that spot and I’m done for.”

That has Hud snorting. “Moonshine, or murder?” he asks.

“Moonshine and murder.” Smokey shakes his head. “I keep telling you that if you do something that stupid again, I’ll put you in the ground myself.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Kid, a hundred year old truck nearly brought you down, I think I’ll be just fine.”