Chapter Text
There was a drag strip breaking open the forest. It was a flattened desert of asphalt and metal and concrete that caused the air to vibrate with heat. Thousands of people gathered and hundreds of cars were lined up under the scorching light of the sun.
There were the grandstands where spectators sat with ear plugs and noise-proof ear muffs. They looked out over the length of the strip, at its sticky black surface, and at the two dragsters in preparation at the starting line. There were kids running around, old people sitting in the shade of the commentator’s box, middle aged guys with round bellies eating hot dogs and women drinking from beer hats that doubled as sun hats. They were laughing and cheering, expectantly waiting for the next race to begin, talking about cars and who their favorite racer was.
Many names lived in the crowd’s mind, but today’s undefeated star had to be Tommy Dawson. The eighteen year old newcomer who’d lived his teenage years as the champion of the junior dragster competition. He was expected to set new records today.
There was the pit on the grass beside the strip, set up with small mobile workshops where dragsters that just finished their race rolled into, taken apart and rebuilt from scratch. About five mechanics worked at once, taking out the cylinders and lifting the motor block, readjusting the sensors, fuel and oil pumps, and shifting the center of mass according to their perfect calculations. They worked frantically to get ready within an hour, before the dragster had to return and line up for its next race.
Every so often the thunderous roar of engines switching to nitro reverberated inside the pit. The spectators who decided to walk around watched with delight at how the mighty engines burned. The nitromethane fuel left a sweet fruity scent lingering between the smells of burning rubber and sweaty people.
And at the edge of the drag strip, under the shade of the forest, there was a coyote.
She peeked her ragged ears out of the bushes, watching with big yellow eyes the commotion of people at today’s races. She sat in a dense layer of leaves on the ground of the forest, at the very edge of the trees between the property line of the drag strip and the wilderness. The forest’s border was completely straight, like it had been drawn with a ruler. Through the trees a thin shadow overlapped onto the grassy perimeter of the pit. The grass was dry and yellow. The forest was a lot less hot than in the sun.
She opened her mouth to cool off and breathed in and out slowly, tasting the burnt fuel and tires on her tongue. She didn’t like the drag strip. It hadn’t been there when she was a little pup, when this place was once all forest. The drag strip was new. Somewhere under this flat stretch of asphalt was the den her mother dug, where she grew up with her siblings and first learned to live in a pack. Even though she’d raised her own pups for years, it was still her habit to come here every now and then. If only for the fact that on racing days like these, there was a lot of discarded food in the garbage containers that she could scavenge.
Her front paws leaped from the bushes and she landed elegantly onto the grass, sprinting along the forest border towards the entrance of the pit where the garbage was collected. She twisted her ears and found that no way she adjusted them, they hurt at the noise of these people. There were so many of them and they were so loud. Fear took her as they spotted her. They pointed and howled at her, laughed like she was being funny. But she knew that they were too slow to catch her, so she quickly jumped onto the edge of the container and snatched a discarded chunk of sausage and bread. Before anyone ran up to her, she was gone again, sprinting along the forest and hiding in the bushes to devour her meal.
She made little growls and whines while chewing on the dried-out sausage. Then she heard footsteps approaching. They were slow and lumbering, inattentive to their surroundings. Between the branches she saw two young humans slowly walking along the border of the forest.
“Grrr, no way, bro! You’re never gonna fucking beat me!” said one of them. He had white hair that contrasted with the dark hair color by his roots. He walked ahead of his fellow human, jumping from leg to leg, twirling around to give a scowl. “You’re a little fucking shrimp! No way your stupid car would beat mine! Mine’s the fastest and it’s always been that way!”
“Shut up Jett…” said the other. He walked calmly and had short black hair. He rolled his eyes and looked somewhat sadly at the grass beneath his feet. “I’ve literally broken your records before. It’s really not that unlikely.”
“I’m gonna fucking smash you into the dirt if you beat me! Don’t you think just because you’re eighteen now that I’m not the top guy anymore! I’m gonna be number one forever!”
“But what if I do win? Are you seriously gonna throw a tantrum again?”
“Grrraahhhh!!! Shut up, shut up!!”
The guy at the front smashed himself into a tree and punched the bark with his gloved hands. The coyote tensed her muscles and watched him closely. He was far away enough that she didn’t feel threatened, but she didn’t like him anyway.
“Come on…” The other guy walked up and put his hand on his back, rubbing it slowly. “It’s not the end of the world if you lose once or twice. And even if I win from you once, that doesn’t mean you can’t beat me again later. Just keep trying your best, Jett.”
"Nyeh… Fuck you, Tommy…” He shook his head and rubbed his face. “Yikes… I’m getting too riled up over this race, bro… If only you were still in the junior championship. Then I wouldn’t be losing my mind over this shit. I’m gonna go insane competing with you.”
“Let’s just act like grown-ups for now.”
“Grrr… Sure… But don’t think I’ll go easy on you! I’ll show you what a real race looks like!” The white-haired guy folded his arms and looked sternly at the other. With one word he commanded. “Hug.”
“Alright.”
And they wrapped their arms around each other. For a long time they shared each other’s warmth. She could see sweat droplets down their necks and foreheads. The suits they wore looked pretty hot. She opened her mouth again to cool off, then continued eating her meal.
They passed by her in silence, unaware of her existence. She was really good at hiding like that. They continued toward the pit and disappeared. She ripped the sausage apart between her teeth and finished eating without being disturbed again.
Today she decided she would get as far away from the drag strip as possible, away from all these people and cars, and see if there was any prey to be caught deeper in the forest. This place was no good with so much going on.
Jett realized he’d dozed off with Mark. They’d slipped away into a soft and lazy haze and neither of them had realized it. He opened his eyes slowly and adjusted to the light of his room. It was bright and hurt his eyes, but when he blinked it became more tolerable. They were still lying together as they had been before. Together in Jett’s race car bed. The blanket was wrapped over both of them.
He had felt before the soft fur of a dog who had been washed and brushed. A big Labrador Retriever who lived at his neighbor’s house while growing up. And he would ruffle his hands through the dense coat of hair and pet it on all sides and feel the fur against his fingers. Running his hands through Broskii’s hair felt much like that. Sleepily he petted Mark, ruffling him from all sides at once, until Mark stirred and groaned.
“Oops, sorry Broski, rehehe!!” Jett chuckled.
Mark’s green ends were a bit rough and dry but the base of his hair was soft and warm, still dense without a sign of the thinning you saw with shrimps like him once they turned adult. He nestled his fingers by his roots and flakes of dandruff rubbed off against his fingertips. It smelled like hair that hadn’t been washed in weeks, oily and musty, and by Jett’s math a week would be about right. Neither of them liked to shower. They were wild coyotes who preferred to jump into a lake if they had to wash some dirt off. Or at least Jett was. Mark was more like a cat maybe, who’d lick his paw and then rub his paw onto his head, spreading that signature breathy cat smell. Jett didn’t mind Mark’s smells. They were distinctive and he’d begun to grow attached to them. Years of cigarette smoke caked into every fiver of his body, combined with the scent of that same jacket he wore every day.
“Hey Broskii… Feeling better yet? Wanna go do something?” Jett asked with a quiet voice. He noticed that Mark winced and squeezed his eyes shut when he was loud, but when he spoke with his inside voice he seemed a lot calmer. It was fun being able to control Broskii’s movements. “Cass said she’s setting up another gaming tournament. Wanna go there tonight? Diana’s gonna be there too. And Ulysses and Jean.”
Mark let out a quiet groan and shook his head. “I don’t wanna…”
“Okay. We can stay here too.”
The last hour they’d spent in Jett’s room. Mark lay to Jett’s side and spooned him, hugging him tightly with his arms and legs. His wrists clutched Jett’s soft sides and his face was nestled between his chest and upper arm. Meanwhile Jett stroked Mark’s back and traced the ridge of his spine, following up and down slowly, lingering at the base of his back and rubbing the tailbone until Mark shivered and stretched his feet and squeaked.
“Rehehe… You’re like a cat!” Jett chuckled, and he thought how cats would raise their backs and stretch when you touched the base of their tail. Apparently Mark had a kitty back home. Despite his closed-off appearance he was very clingy, just like a cat. He’d been all over Jett these past few days.
Today Jett found him curled up in the basement. Apparently he had been yelled at by Desmond. He didn’t want to say why, though. And he wasn’t telling if Desmond hurt him somehow, but by the looks of it he was unharmed. It was hard to say what was going on anymore. Desmond seemed like a cool guy, and not the type to go yelling at anyone. Maybe Mark had been doing something bad? Like snooping around in Desmond’s room? At any rate, he fled down the stairs into the basement and hid there where no one would find him. Jett only knew to find him there because he’d done the same before.
“Do you think they’d have beer in the pantry now?” Jett wondered.
“You shouldn’t have beer,” Mark said weakly. His breathing slowed as if he was purposefully trying to slow his heartbeat. Slow mechanical breaths. He said it was because of his anxiety that made it feel like there was a hot band around his chest, a feeling as if he were suffocating.
Jett gave a few heavy rubs on his back to get his mind off the feeling. He knew that whenever something set his head off into a spiral, any sort of distraction helped him. And Mark always calmed down a little when Jett rubbed his back.
“Then, what about a nice meal of random stuff into the microwave and some soda!?”
“Hmm…” Mark groaned. “Okay…”
“You gotta eat too, y’know? You’re so skinny dude!” Jett had felt the shape of Mark’s body and he knew that couldn’t be right. He definitely needed to eat a bit more, especially if he was going to be surviving this death game.
“Yeah…” Mark mumbled. “I wanna eat something too… C-can you feed it to me again?”
“Of course! I’ll feed you anything you want! I can feed you cheese sticks and pizza and pasta and anything else they have. I’m sure there’s something you’ll like. And I’ll make sure to add some fruit or vegetables too, rehehe!”
Mark lifted his face, his pale sullen face with bags under his eyes and a stubble running along his jaw, and he smiled wearily. That smile was so cute. Jett felt something burning in his chest. A love he wanted to pick up like an orphaned kitten and hold tightly, all crusty and wet and letting out squeaky meows, and he wanted to pamper it with attention.
“Thank you, Jett…” Mark said.
“Yippee!!!” Jett couldn’t contain his excitement. “Let’s get some food for ourselves, broskii!”