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Ruben’s mind was a mess - torn between the past and present, and a future he wasn’t sure was ever going to look the way he’d hoped.
Joshua was supposed to be the one who carried the team - the one who had the potential to break through, to be the next big thing in racing, to make APX GP finally a serious contender. And instead, his rookie crashed spectacularly during his first F1 race, his injuries serious enough to force Ruben to bring a new driver into the team - probably permanently, hopefully only for one season. The physical injuries were one thing. The emotional, the mental ones though? Joshua was a kid who had lost his purpose. And Ruben hated seeing it, hated knowing that there was nothing he could do to fix it.
The idea of calling Sonny hadn’t come out of nowhere. Ruben knew Sonny better than anyone, and he knew the man had a unique way of dealing with things. Sonny had lived through it all - the fear, the pain, the realization that racing might be gone forever. But he’d come back after all that, hadn’t he? And Joshua? Ruben couldn’t ignore the parallels. Joshua had that same drive, that same fiery need to be at the top. But if he didn’t get a handle on that frustration, that raw anger, about the situation he was currently in, it was going to tear him apart.
Ruben couldn’t bear watching it. He couldn’t stand seeing the kid fall into the same self-destructive cycle that had eaten Sonny alive for years. He needed Sonny to show Joshua that life didn’t end just because racing was gone. That there was still something worth fighting for on the other side.
Sonny had been through the worst. But Ruben knew it didn’t just stop with the crash. The real battle had come after. The rebuilding, the healing, and ultimately, the quiet acceptance of living with the scars - both physical and emotional. Ruben was hoping Sonny could show Joshua that there was something after the crash, that survival didn’t just mean existing. That it meant finding a new way to live.
So Ruben wasn’t offering a quick fix. He was offering something much harder - the truth, in the form of Sonny Hayes. And the key to moving forward wasn’t about reclaiming what you had lost, but about accepting what you had left. If Sonny could help Joshua accept that, Ruben knew they both had a chance. The problem wasn’t the crash. The problem was what happened after.
*****
Joshua wasn’t used to silence.
Racing filled the world with noise. Engines. Radios. Wind. The crowd.
Silence left him alone with the memory of metal buckling around him, of doctors saying “career-ending” like it was a weather report, of Ruben watching him with that particular brand of pity he hated most.
He was sick of being pitied.
Ruben kept insisting he needed “people” now.
Joshua thought that was code for “therapy,” which he had already tried and already loathed.
The last few months had been nothing but people telling him that he was okay. He wasn’t okay. He wasn’t anything. Not without racing.
So when Ruben said he wanted him to meet someone, Joshua braced himself for another counselor with sad eyes and a clipboard.
Instead, he got Sonny Hayes.
Sonny walked into the conference room at APX headquarters with a slightly uneven swagger that said he’d broken every bone in his body and survived out of spite.
He had the kind of presence that made Joshua immediately bristle. Older, bruised by life, eyes sharp enough to cut through excuses. Joshua hated how easily the man saw through him instantly.
He hated how much he wanted to be seen.
The two of them spent an hour sniping at each other, another hour pretending they weren’t impressed, and a final hour circling each other like two stray cats shoved in the same enclosure.
Ruben walked into the room just in time to see Joshua storm past him.
“What happened?” he asked Sonny, watching the younger man’s retreating back.
Sonny crossed his arms. “You told me to talk to him.”
“Yes. But I did not mean you should antagonize him!”
“I didn’t antagonize him. I matched his energy.”
“His energy is aggressively unstable, Sonny!”
Sonny just shrugged.
*****
Sonny promised to adjust his approach, as he so eloquently called it. Ruben decided to trust his old friend though the catastrophic first encounter between the two drivers had him worried. Still, he somehow managed to convince Joshua to come back the following day.
After an hour of throwing barbed comments at Sonny, Joshua’s frustration had sharpened into something hot and dangerous. Sonny kept provoking him with maddening calm, mere looks, small gestures and infuriating little grins.
Joshua finally snapped. “Are you just going to stand there and stare at me?” Joshua yelled, his voice sharp, cutting through the air. “You really think that’s going to help?”
Sonny didn’t respond. He didn’t even move. His calm gaze just stayed on Joshua - cold, steady, calculating.
It made Joshua’s blood boil. “Answer me, damn it!” Joshua yelled, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He wanted to break something. He wanted to break Sonny. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw, until the frustration inside him was gone.
Sonny didn’t need words. His silence, his steady presence, was his own version of an answer. He knew that sometimes the only way out of the pain was to get angry enough to break it, and so he kept pushing Joshua’s buttons. He just tilted his head slightly, the smallest gesture, as if saying, “Go on. I’m waiting.”
The silence burned like acid, gnawing at Joshua. Every second of it felt like it was eating him alive. He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the way Sonny just stood there, as if he was waiting for Joshua to crack, to lose control.
And then, finally, Sonny spoke. “Still pissed?” The words were low, clipped, like they didn’t even matter. But they cut through the air with precision.
Sonny was taunting him, and Joshua hated it - he hated how Sonny knew exactly how to push him.
“Fuck you,” Joshua growled. “You don’t know shit about me.”
Sonny’s lips twitched, as if trying to suppress another infuriating grin. “You sure about that, hot shot?” He watched Joshua’s eyes flash with cold hatred, and allowed the grin to actually spread across his face. “Well? Even more pissed now?”
Sonny knew the answer, and he was daring Joshua to admit it, to say it out loud.
Joshua didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He felt a spike of something hot and angry shoot through him. It was a pure visceral reaction. He was sick of being told what he should feel when all he felt was rage.
Joshua shoved him. Hard.
Sonny only grinned.
That stupid, infuriating grin.
“Ya wanna hit me?” Sonny asked. “Or ya wanna do something else?”
The question lodged in Joshua like a hook. The anger, the loss, the humiliation - it all mixed into a single unbearable pressure inside of him. He didn’t know whether he wanted to scream or break down or set the whole damn world on fire.
Instead, he grabbed Sonny by the collar and pushed him against the nearest wall. Hard.
There was no finesse in it, just raw need, ugly and honest. Joshua kissed him with the same ferocity he used in the past when he threw a car into a corner at the absolute limit. Sonny responded with infuriating steadiness, grounding him while fueling the fire at the same time.
It felt nothing like racing.
It felt like the aftermath of a crash: heart hammering, body shaking, adrenaline flooding every nerve.
Joshua pulled away just long enough to growl, “Don’t you dare pity me.”
Sonny looked at Joshua calmly, only his harsh breathing betraying the cool exterior. “Not pity,” he said. “Never pity. You wanna use me? Fine. I’ve been used for worse reasons.”
That admission hit Joshua harder than any impact ever had.
He pushed Sonny back against the wall again, not to hurt him but to drown in something - anything - that wasn’t grief. Sonny’s hands gripped Joshua’s waist, grounding him even as Joshua tried to lose himself.
It wasn’t tender.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was two broken drivers trying to burn out their ghosts on each other.
Joshua finally let the tension break, dragging Sonny into a messy, desperate tangle that wasn’t quite comfort, wasn’t quite anger, but something sharp enough to feel real.
This wasn’t passion. This wasn’t softness. It was fury wrapped in skin, violence wrapped in heat.
It was a volatile release, a collision of two forces that didn’t belong together but somehow fit, even in all their anger, their brokenness.
Sonny didn’t give him easy answers, didn’t offer him comfort, but he showed him that survival - real survival - meant more than just breathing after the crash. It meant learning to live with the wreckage.
Joshua began to understand that Sonny did get it. Survival wasn’t enough. You had to live with the scars - physical and emotional - and still find a way to move forward.
For the first time in months, Joshua felt alive.
And that terrified him more than the crash ever had.
THE END