Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sunday is by far the busiest day of Tommy’s life.

He wakes up at six, slips out to run with Purpled and Foolish—mostly because they invited him, but also a little because he needs to burn off the anxious energy that hadn’t left him since yesterday afternoon—and comes back at seven to find Tubbo just crawling out of bed. They make breakfast together in the kitchen, Tubbo on eggs and Tommy on oatmeal, and eat outside as the sun starts to rise.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re outside the garages. There are a lot of cars there. A lot. As Tommy scans down the line, he feels something in his stomach flip when he spots number seventeen and George’s car, number four, lined up side-by-side. They look nothing like they did on the recording yesterday. No bumps or scratches, not a single indication of what had happened during the last race they ran.

Tommy swallows, and moves on.

From then on, Tommy’s whisked from one activity to the next. First it’s the car, checking it out with Tubbo and making sure everything’s running smoothly. They meet up with the rest of the crew, and Tommy listens from the sidelines as they go over pit stop protocol. He goes to a couple interviews, waves hi to Niki, and talks to Purpled and Aimsey.

“If I puke in the car, do I have to keep driving?” Aimsey asks, jittering up and down in the middle of the garages.

“Nah, just lean out the window. It’ll be the next car’s problem,” Purpled says, startling a laugh out of both of them.

Tommy leaves that conversation feeling slightly better, a little of his nervousness washed away. Then he runs into Wilbur, and all the words he’d been fretting over last night flood back.

“I had to pull over to have a panic attack.” “Hazards.” “You’re going to freak out.” “What happens when you freeze up halfway through a lap, take one too-quick turn, and smash into someone else?” “You’re a rookie, kid.”

Alongside that rush his old chief’s, “You’re just a kid who got lucky.” “You’re just going to fuck it up, Innes.” “God, can you do anything right?”

“Ready for today?” Wilbur asks, a bright grin splitting his face as the two stop in front of each other.

“I guess so,” Tommy says, shrugging.

“You’re going to have a tough time beating me, I’ll warn you.” Wilbur sounds completely serious, but Tommy catches the subtle glitter in his eyes. He’s teasing, baiting him into firing back with something equally as confident. Normally, he would. He’d say “Yeah? Watch me” or “Eat my dust, Wilbur Soot,” and Wilbur’s grin would widen at the opportunity of a challenge.

Today, he feels more like if he opens his mouth, he’ll throw up.

Before he can decide whether hurling all over Wilbur’s shoes is worth the fifty bucks he’d have to pay to replace them, Wilbur’s hand lands on his shoulder. His thumb sweeps over his jacket, soft and gentle, and for the first time in years, Tommy doesn’t cringe away from the touch.

“Hey, are you okay? You look a little… shaken.”

“‘M fine,” Tommy mumbles.

“You throwing yourself back into it so soon isn’t just a hazard for yourself, it’s a hazard for all of us.” Hazard, hazard, hazard.

“Are you sure? Listen, if you’re nervous–”

“Excuse me,” Tommy says, politely pushing past Wilbur before he can finish.

“Hey, wait. Tommy, what’s wrong?” he hears Wilbur call from over his shoulder, but he waves him off, and Wilbur doesn’t try to follow and ask again.

A couple hours later, he passes Techno in the garage and is offered lunch. He shakes his head.

“No thanks.”

“C’mon. It’s ham and cheese. Your favorite.”

Techno waves the tinfoil-wrapped sandwich enticingly. When Tommy continues to shake his head, blatantly turning his face away from the food, Techno crosses his arms and cocks his head. “What’s wrong?”

Whenever Tommy’s old chief asked him what was wrong, he never wanted the real answer. He never wanted to hear about the stress headaches and breakdowns, the nausea or shaking hands. He wanted something fake, made up. Like, “nothing, just a bit tired,” or “my head hurts a little, but I’m fine.”

“I’m okay,” Tommy says first, because it’s what he’s been trained to do. Techno levels him with a disbelieving glare, and he swallows. “Nervous.”

Techno’s gaze softens. “You’re gonna do great, Tommy. It’s the first race. Of course you’re going to be nervous.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Want me to get Phil? He can do those… wha’dya call ‘em? Breathing exercises or whatever with you.”

Tommy shakes his head again. “No. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

He can see the indecision on Techno’s face. His hand absentmindedly drifts to his hair the way it always does when he’s stressed, and he glances back over his shoulder to the pit, where they both know Phil is most likely camping out. There’s only about half an hour before the race starts, and it’s Phil’s job to make sure the entire crew’s prepared.

Finally, Techno turns back, releasing a breath. “Okay. Well… just know I’m gonna be there the whole time with you. Okay? Anything you need, directions, warnings, that’s literally my job—but if you need me, I’m here.”

Tommy nods, and Techno’s shoulders slump. He ruffles his hair once—affectionate—then leaves, brushing past the bathrooms at the end of the hall. Tommy waits until Techno disappears around a corner before rushing into the men’s room, and losing half his breakfast into the nearest toilet.

“Ten minute warning!” he hears as he’s washing his face in the sink, and then he blinks, and he’s back in the pits with Phil, doing those stupid breathing exercises anyway.

“In and out, you’re going to do fine,” Phil says, smiling warmly as Tommy clings to his hands. “You’re fourth in the line up. Are you excited?”

Tommy chokes on a nervous, half-hysterical laugh. “I guess so. This is crazy.”

He can hear the crowd outside the pits. Fuck, he can see them. If he turns his head a little to the right, the sunshine hits him and there they are. The stands, invigorated with that electric energy Tommy had fallen in love with at eight years old. He’s not amongst them anymore, but he can still feel it—like static cling.

“You’ve earned it,” Phil says, still beaming, and squeezes his hands. “You’ve earned this.”

No one’s ever told him that before. He’s not sure he believes it. Hazard, hazard, hazard keeps repeating in his head, and he’s pretty sure he’s made a mistake, actually. He’s not supposed to be here. But Tommy swallows around the lump in his throat, and squeezes Phil’s hands in return.

“Thanks, chief.”

“What’d we say about that? It’s just Phil.”

“Phil.”

Phil winks, and squeezes Tommy’s hands one more time before letting go. Tubbo hands him his helmet, Techno checks the comms, and then Tommy’s strapping himself into Clementine and gearing up for a race.

If there’s one thing that can calm Tommy down before a race, it’s sitting in the cockpit. Clementine wraps snugly around him in a hug, her parts molded specially for him, and the feel of the steering wheel under his palms is like the feeling of slipping on a favorite sweatshirt—familiar, comfortable, worn. For the first time since yesterday afternoon, he lets himself breathe, and closes his eyes.

He’s going to do fine. His whole team is counting on him. He can do this. He’s done this since he was eight years old, and, really, what’s the difference between a go-kart race and NASCAR? Okay, well, a lot, but…

Someone taps on Clementine’s hood, and Tommy’s eyes fly open just in time for Phil’s words to filter through his headset.

“Ready? They’re lining up and getting out on the track now.”

“Y-Yeah. Yeah,” Tommy says, gritting his teeth against the way his voice shakes and reaching for the gear shift. “I’m ready, let’s do this.”

He shifts into drive, and the event begins.

For a lap, they follow the pacer car around the track. Tommy is fourth, and as he slots himself into his lineup position, he can see the way the little white pacer car winks in the sunlight ahead of them. It’s holding them back, keeping them hovering at a safe speed of fifty-five. For now. As soon as they round back toward pit road, the little car will disappear down it, and they’ll speed through the green flag.

“How’s it lookin’ out there? Lots to see?” Techno asks through comms, and Tommy tears his eyes off the pacer car to look around.

“Mm… it looks good. Road’s clear. No slickness. Clementine’s doing good, too. Whatever Tubbo adjusted with the steering is great. It’s smooth as water.”

“No, Tommy, I mean—” Techno chuckles, and Tommy’s heart sinks into his stomach. Had he already not been listening? “—the stands. Have you looked in the stands?”

Oh. Tommy raises his eyes from the track, and lets his gaze flit over the stands. There’s people there. Hundreds of people. The stands are already built to look as if they have people in them all the time—what with the multicolored chairs—but these are real people. Moving, breathing bodies whose cheering he can just barely discern through his helmet. He catches a poster with Wilbur’s name on it, and another neon purple sign with Niki's, and one that comically reads “Can you Uber me to the airport?”. There’s a little kid on his dad’s shoulders, waving, and Tommy has to fight a grin as he realizes that’s exactly what he had done, years ago, with his own dad.

“That’s a lot of people,” he says out loud.

“Did you see the kid with the bright pink sign? I guess he’s sorta closer to the top of the stands, but it’s got your name on it.”

“Pink?” Tommy asks. It’s impossible to see the top of the stands from his perspective inside the car, but he leans forward anyway.

“Yeah. He’s got pink hair, too. Pro’lly the only reason I spotted him.”

“That’s Michael,” Tommy says without thinking, then clears his throat. “I mean, I think it is. I met him during that one tour we did last week. He likes pink. And pigs.”

“And you, apparently.”

Tommy flushes.

Ahead, the green flag is approaching. He tightens his grip on the wheel, and gets ready to push down on the gas.

This is it. This is where he takes it all back—the yelling, the too-tight hands on his shoulder, the bright red paint still clinging to his side. This is where he makes it up to his new team for all the hassle he put them through after wrecking. This is where he finally proves to himself that he belongs here. That he isn’t just some kid who got lucky. He wants this win. He needs this win. He can’t settle for anything less.

“Hey.”

Phil’s voice breaks through just in time for Tommy to watch the pacer car drift off, slipping away down pit road. As expected, everyone starts easing on the gas, picking up speed as they approach the checkered line. Tommy mimics them.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful out there, okay?”

“I will. I’ll bring the car back in one piece this time, Phil, I promise.”

“I’m not worried about the car. I mean you.”

The flagman raises the green flag, holding it high in preparation. Tommy grips the wheel, and prepares to press the gas down hard. He’s in the frontlines, for now. He’d like to keep it that way.

“Okay,” he responds to Phil, and aligns himself perfectly behind Foolish. “I’ll try.”

He’s not really worried about himself. He’s not supposed to be. When he’s racing, the only thing he’s supposed to worry about is the next position to be overtaken. Everything else is a distraction. Irrelevant.

Hazard, hazard, his mind repeats, as if purely to spite him. He shoves it away as best he can, which isn’t great—there’s still a sinking, swirling feeling in his gut—and focuses on the track ahead. It’s fine. He’s fine. He can do this.

The flag waves over Wilbur’s head, a flash of summer green in the bright blue sky, and the race begins.

It starts off well. Tommy sticks his place in fourth for a while, following behind Foolish and getting a feel for the course again. After the first few laps, people start getting gutsy and passing, and Tommy drifts back a few spots. He’s not worried about it, though. There are two hundred laps, and one hundred ninety of them are left for him to catch up.

He pulls himself back to the front after a while, ducking around Purpled and grinning when his friend resigns himself to sliding in behind him. He presses harder on the gas, and winds up leading a few laps after that.

Leading laps is great, not just because it gives him extra points, but because it feels just like driving. The road ahead is clear, solely his for the taking, and all he has to worry about is the people behind him. The many people behind him. He glances in his rearview camera while leading his first lap, and has to swallow back a sudden spike of nausea as he sees the sea of cars trailing him. They’re all tightly packed together, like cattle. If even one of them turned wrong, shifted a little too much to the right or left, or accidentally pressed too hard on the gas or brake, the resulting wreck would be disastrous.

He yanks his eyes back to the road in front of him, and ignores the way his lungs squeeze tight—just like they did in the hospital, all those weeks ago.

Hazard, hazard, hazard.

“Soot, to your right,” Techno informs him.

Great. Tommy rolls his eyes, pressing harder on the gas. He can’t go much faster than he already is without risking a spin-out at the next turn, but he’s known for pushing the limits, and he absolutely refuses to let Wilbur win today.

“Careful. Let him pass,” Phil says. “It’s not worth pushing your luck. Especially not so early in the race. You have one hundred laps left to pass him again.”

“I could do it now,” Tommy replies, but he relaxes the gas and lets Wilbur slip back into first place. He’s learned his lesson in listening.

The next twenty laps pass in relative silence, save the rumble of the track and hum of Tommy’s engine. Nothing much is happening, so Techno has nothing to report, and Tommy listens to Phil and doesn’t push his luck so early in the race. He’s pulled ahead with a single-digit amount of laps left, before, so he’s not too worried about falling behind.

Well, he’s not worried about it until Purpled passes him, and Sapnap, and then George slips by, and suddenly he’s wedged in the middle of the herd.

During practice, it’d been him on the track with a select few others. During qualifying, it was just him. Now, there’s three cars on his right, one on his left, three in back and two in front. Every single one of them is pressing in on him, and Tommy wouldn’t say he’s claustrophobic, exactly, but the prospect of being stuck in the middle of this if anything bad happens makes his heart begin to pound. It’s the feeling he’d get when his chief cornered him in an empty hallway, or when an interviewer asked him a question he didn’t want to answer but the cameras were already rolling. Cornered, confined, trapped.

“Keep it steady,” Techno says. “You’re doing good. You could probably slip out on the left side, if you wanted. Just let number nineteen get a little further in front of you, then slide in behind him.”

Tommy nods, throat to dry to speak, and hopes Techno hears the rustling, at least. He keeps an eye on the car to his left—Karl Jacobs—until a space starts to open up. He drifts left, beginning to take it, when number seventeen pulls forward and steals it before him.

“Fuck,” Tommy mutters, falling back into place.

“It’s fine,” Techno says, sounding utterly unphased. “A spot will open up. You’ll just have to be patient.”

The lung-tightening feeling is back again. Tommy grips the steering wheel until his fingers turn white, and tries to keep it under control. This cockpit is his place. He’s the only one who controls it, the only one capable of actually implementing the decisions made. Usually, that fact is comforting. Now, it freezes him in place.

What if he makes the wrong decision? What if he jolts the gas on accident, and slams into the car in front of him? Or swerves right, and hits the car there? What if he goes to pass, and it’s a mistake he can’t take back? Like last time.

Worse, as his fingers start to tingle, he thinks about how every other car is in the exact same situation. Every other car is being steered by a person who’s tasked with the same amount of decision making as Tommy. What if they choose wrong? What if someone nudges him again? Or messes up, and causes an accident?

Wilbur was right, Tommy thinks with startling clarity as they hit lap one hundred fifty. Everyone’s a hazard, and he’s the worst one of all. He’s panicking. He’s panicking on track, and it’s going to become disastrous if he can’t stop himself soon. He’s going to fuck up. And he wants to do this—he really does—more than anything in the world. But he can’t. He can’t.

“There’s an opening to your left,” Techno’s voice suddenly cuts across the comms, and Tommy flinches. He swings left, pulling into the spot Techno pointed out, and then stays there, drafting off of the person in front of him while frantically trying to calm his jittering nerves. He’s shaking. Literally shaking. And when he exhales the sound is harsh and staccato.

“Nice work,” Techno praises, oblivious. “Once you hit the turn, you can probably slide around him. Everyone should thin out so the turn doesn’t get congested.”

“Okay.”

His voice pitches on the last syllable, but Techno must not notice, because he doesn’t say anything.

Tommy makes it around the turn and does what Techno says, using the draft to slingshot himself past the car in front of him. That gets him out of the pack, but the nerves inside him won’t stop buzzing. He feels like an engine overheating, and the combination of nerves, heat, and stress makes his stomach twist.

For a while, he holds his position there. He knows he should be fighting to get back in the top few spots—leading laps gives him points, after all—but he’s too scared to try anything risky while his brain’s all scrambled. What if he crashes? What if someone crashes into him? What if he wakes up tomorrow morning, and instead of one ear being completely deaf to the blinds’ rattling, it’s both?

He’s going to disappoint his team. He’s going to let them all down, and they’re not going to want to work with him again, and—oh god—what if he can never race again? Is that what this means? What if this panic is permanent, and he’ll never be able to run a track again without feeling it? How’s he supposed to race the rest of the Cup? How’s he supposed to race at all? He’s a hazard.

Tears spring up in his eyes, and even that’s dangerous, because now it’s harder to see the track in front of him. He makes out the blue of Wilbur’s car up ahead before it starts bleeding into the gray asphalt—like watercolors—and knows he could catch him. He could press the gas down, take a risk, and catch up on the next two turns. But—

“I’m pitting,” Tommy chokes out, and he hears a rustle on the other side of comms as someone adjusts their headphones.

“What?” Phil asks. “What’s wrong with the car? What do you need?”

“Nothing. I just— I’m pitting.”

“Tommy?”

Tommy can’t bring himself to answer. Pit Road is coming up, and he slows to an appropriate speed before turning in.

It feels like giving in. It feels like failure. The paint he’d been working so hard to peel back re-seals itself over his skin as he rolls down Pit Road and parks at his designated box.

Instantly, Phil is at his window.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Your levels look fine. What broke?”

Tommy holds back for approximately two seconds before bursting into tears.

It’s embarrassing, he thinks as Phil reaches inside the car and pulls his helmet off. He’s crying—huge, ugly sobs that make his insides feel like they’re being ripped apart—and someone is definitely filming this. It’s probably going to be all over Twitter tomorrow, and he’s embarrassing himself by just sitting here and letting it happen, but he can’t stop. Whenever he tries to swallow it down, he chokes, and another burst of tears flood out. He can’t catch his breath.

“Tommy?” Phil asks, and he sounds panicked, but Tommy can’t see enough through the tears to know if that’s accurate. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?”

He probably wants him to get back on the track, but Tommy can’t. He can’t race. He loves driving, he loves the thrill of racing, but not right now. Wilbur was right. Everything around him looks like a hazard, and he’s just a kid, and he can’t breathe.

His old chief would say he’s being selfish. He’d tell him to get back out there, tears and all, because racing isn’t meant to be easy. It’s supposed to be difficult—physically and mentally. Every time you go out, you’re facing the idea that this race may be your last. You may never wake to another sunrise. You may never stand in the ocean, or sit in a coffee shop, or call your mother again. You may never eat another blueberry scone, or make cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast, or laugh with a friend as you ruthlessly smack each other with pillows. Sometimes, a race is it, and that’s something you agree to when you hand over your contract.

Tommy’s being selfish, and he knows it. But he’s scared.

Tommy raises a shaking palm to his chest, and grips his suit.

“I can’t do this,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Phil. Wilbur was right. My last chief was right. I’m stupid and shouldn’t be here and— Wilbur— I—”

“Tommy, breathe.”

Phil’s hand finds his shoulder, and it’s not like all the hands on his shoulders before. It’s not like his old chief’s. But his breath stutters anyway.

“I’m a failure,” he blurts out. It’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud, and it tastes like battery acid on his tongue. “I fail at everything, Phil. I can’t listen, I can’t drive, I can’t do anything good enough. I fucked up the last race we ran, and you guys are so nice— you’re so nice— you gave me another chance, but I’m just going to keep messing up.”

“What are you talking about? Another chance? Tommy…”

“You don’t deserve that,” Tommy cries. He reaches up a hand to wipe the tears streaking down his face, and for the first time, Phil comes into view. The look on his face makes Tommy’s heart fall even further. He looks crushed. “You deserve so much better than me, because I— I can’t do this. I want to do this. I’ve been waiting my whole life to do this, but there are so many cars, and I know I shouldn’t but I can’t stop thinking what if one hits me? What if something happens and I lose— I lose more of me, and it’s stupid and dumb but I’m scared. I’m really really scared. I’m really sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He hiccups, burying his face in his hands, and waits for the anger, the scolding, the disappointment. Out of everything he’s ever done, this is the most unprofessional. He’s having a breakdown mid-race, in his car, on the side of Pit Road. His old chief would be furious. More than furious. Tommy would be making this up to him for months.

A hand, gentle and kind, brushes through his hair.

“Tommy, it’s okay,” Phil says. “You don’t have to race.”

What?

Tommy looks up, blinking back tears as Phil smiles sadly.

“What?”

“You don’t have to race if you don’t want to, Tommy. You’re shaking. I’m not going to make you go back out there if you’re not ready.”

“You’re… you’re not?”

“Of course not.”

“But the race? I already messed up so bad, and now I’m ruining my second chance with you guys… You’re— Aren’t you mad?”

“I could never be mad at you,” Phil replies, and he says it with such conviction that Tommy’s heart skips a beat. “And there are no numbered chances. You’re part of our team. You’re our driver. You don’t have to prove that to us. You don't have to prove anything to us. Tommy, mate, how long have you thought all this?”

Weeks? Months? It feels like a long time.

A tear trickles down the side of Tommy’s face. “I don’t know.”

“We would never make you prove yourself to us,” Phil assures him quietly. “We already know who you are. You’re Tommy Innes, the rookie who slingshotted his way to the top. The one who’ll sit in front of a simulator for hours, not always because he’s forcing himself to be better, but because he genuinely loves to race. You’re Tommy, who is so kind to everyone he meets, even when that same kindness hasn’t been extended to you. Your real laugh is loud, your favorite color is red, and when we fly you want the window seat even though your legs don’t fucking fit there.”

Tommy snorts wetly, remembering how he and Tubbo had battled for leg room on their last flight. They really should have been banned.

Phil’s smile widens a fraction. “You had a bad wreck—an awful one, really—and instead of giving up you said you wanted to keep trying. You wanted to get back on track. And I don’t know how much of that was you wanting to prove yourself or whatever, but I know a lot of that was genuine love. You love this. I see it in your eyes every time you get in that car. And you are so incredibly brave for going after what you love even when what you love has hurt you. You’re not stupid or dumb for being scared. Anyone would be scared. But not just anyone could do this. Not just anyone could come back in four weeks, and try even while they’re scared. You tried. And you did so well.”

Tommy sniffles, thick and wet, and rubs his eyes again. “Wilbur told me coming back so soon was stupid. He told me this would happen. I should have listened.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

Tommy’s head snaps up as a third, familiar voice joins their conversation. Phil scoots aside, and Wilbur ducks down next to his car, resting his elbows on the window as he leans in.

“Wilbur?” Tommy blurts, mouth falling open. “What are you doing? The race is still going!”

“I was wrong,” Wilbur says, ignoring Tommy’s open-mouthed stare. “Whatever I said to you up in the stands? Forget it, okay? I was projecting my own experiences onto you because I was jealous. I was jealous of how quickly you bounced back, when it took me ages. Of how confident you were that you could still do this, when it took me years to even consider the possibility of making it back to where I used to be. You made recovery look so easy, and I knew—I know—it’s not. It’s not easy. But you didn’t let that stop you then, and you can’t let it stop you now. You can still do this!”

“I can’t, Wilbur,” Tommy says, feeling the prickle of tears well up in his eyes again. “I got stuck in the middle of a crowd of cars, and it scared me! I can’t race like that! I’m— I’m a hazard!”

“You’re not a hazard. You’re a good driver, Tommy. A really good driver. Way better than I was at eighteen.”

“Kid?”

A hand falls on Wilbur’s shoulder, and then he’s moving aside too, and letting a third person through. God, this is becoming a one-act circus. How many more people are going to bear witness to his breakdown?

Tommy slouches lower in his seat, but when the person ducks down, it’s just Techno. Techno with a hand in his braid, yanking at it the way he always does when he’s stressed, and eyes alight with a kind of worry Tommy’s only seen from him once, when he was in the hospital.

“Kid, what’s going on?”

“Techno, I can’t do this,” Tommy says for what feels like the fiftieth time. “I’m going to get hit or mess up or make a mistake and have another accident and I can’t— I’m scared. I want to do this, but I don’t think I can—” His breath hitches, on the verge of a whole new round of tears, and Techno hurries to interrupt.

“You want to?”

“I– I mean. I want to race, but I can’t with–without…”

“Not race. Do you want to finish?”

Tommy frowns. A tear trickles down into the corner of his lips, and stays there. “Finish?”

Techno nods. “No one’s going to make you race if you don’t want to, but if you want to finish, there are only twenty laps left. You don’t even need to race; you just need to drive the track.”

Tommy sniffles, and tilts his head curiously.

Phil ducks down as well, joining Techno on the other side of his window. “Techno’s right. You can get out if you want, end here, but if you want to finish, all you have to do is drive. No racing. No fighting for a position. You take it slow, on your own time, and you cross that checkered line.”

Slow? On his own time? Tommy almost laughs at the irony in hearing those words on a race track. On a race track, everything is fast. The cars, of course, but also the crews filling gas and changing tires, the announcers spitting words a mile a minute, and Tommy’s heart as it ricochets against his chest. Slow is not part of the deal. Slow is the opposite of what Phil should want.

But here, as Phil softly rubs his shoulder, Tommy realizes he’s made a mistake again. He hasn’t listened. He’s known for a while that this new team is different from his old one, but he hasn’t trusted it, hasn’t listened enough to see the truth buried under all their kind actions and gentle words.

Now, what they’ve been saying all along hits him at full throttle speed. They care about him. They genuinely care—wanting the best for him even when that best is not necessarily best for them. They want him to feel safe, and loved, and for the first time there are no strings attached. There are no repercussions for doing what makes him comfortable. There is nothing he will have to do later to make it up to them. They want him to be happy just because they do.

Tommy exhales, and three months of weight falls from his shoulders. There’s no catch. There’s never been a catch.

“You should finish, Tommy,” Wilbur speaks up. His brows are knit together, hair sweaty and slicked back because of how he keeps anxiously running a hand through it. It’s showing off his hairline—which is quite frankly tragic—and Tommy would make fun of him were he not a sniveling, puffy-eyed mess himself.

“If you want to finish, I’ll guide you,” Techno offers.

“It’s up to you,” Phil says softly. “What do you want?”

When Tommy was four, he told his mother what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“Race carrr!” he babbled, running his bright red Hot Wheels off the corner of the kitchen table. It hit the floor with a clatter, and he giggled as his mom rolled her eyes fondly and bent to pick it up. “Wan’ be race car!”

Four years later, he asked his dad to take him to the go-kart park. “I want to race, Dad. For real. There’s this karting place…”

At ten, he saw his first NASCAR race and decided his future. At thirteen, he watched Wilbur Soot’s accident live on television, and even when his mom looked at him and said, “you sure you want to race like that?” he bobbed his head yes.

When Sam told him he should start thinking about hearing aids in the hospital, he hadn’t wanted to think about anything but racing. Hours later, when Phil asked if he still wanted to do this, he’d said yes. No hesitation. From the time he was old enough to know what wanting meant, he’s wanted this. And he still wants this. He’s terrified, but he doesn’t want to be. He wants to drive. He wants to race. And if he can’t race like normal right now, he wants to do the next best thing.

Sniffling back the last of his tears, Tommy nods his head.

“I want to finish,” he says hoarsely, and everyone outside his window releases a collective breath. “I want to… yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Phil double checks. The hand on Tommy’s shoulder gives a feather light squeeze, and Tommy reaches up to grip it back.

“I promise, Big Man. I– I want to at least cross the finish line.”

“Okay,” Phil breathes, and Tommy can see that he’s still worrying—still worrying over him—but he doesn’t try to stop him or change his mind. He lets go of Tommy’s shoulder, and swings around to face the rest of the crew. “You heard him! We’re getting back out there, so we’re going to need gas and wheels!”

“I’ll spot you. Tell you when anyone’s getting close,” Techno promises, handing Tommy back the helmet Phil had yanked off of him.

Tommy smiles gratefully, and then it’s just Wilbur left outside his car door.

“What are you still doing here?” Tommy asks. “You’re wasting time. There’s no way you aren’t already a lap down.”

“Oh I am,” Wilbur chuckles, but he doesn’t move away from the car. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does! This is your comeback race! People are watching just to see you!”

“They’re watching for you, too,” Wilbur fires back, and Tommy’s hands stall on the sides of his helmet. “This is our comeback race. I had to make sure both of us were going to finish it.”

Tommy blinks, then takes his helmet and lifts it over his head. The plush padding squishes perfectly into place, and after he attaches it to the HANs device, he flips the visor up.

“I’m going to finish,” he says decisively—the first racing decision he’s made for himself that hasn’t been made out on a track, where a chief couldn’t get to him. “I don’t know about you, though. You might be too slow.”

Wilbur laughs, and the tightening feeling around Tommy’s lungs disappears entirely. He smiles, and when Wilbur reaches a hand into the cockpit, Tommy takes it.

“Now I know you’re feeling better. Insulting me and everything,” Wilbur says.

“Who else is going to keep you humble?”

Wilbur’s eyes glitter. “Tommy Innes, you’re a legend. Now go finish this thing.”

Tommy squeezes Wilbur’s hand once more before letting go, and watching as Wilbur runs back to his own car. His chief is standing outside it, one hand on the baby-blue hood, the other on his hip, but he doesn’t say anything to Wilbur, just pats his shoulder as he hops back in the vehicle.

“You’ve got fuel, tires… anything else?” Phil asks over the comms.

“Mm… Clementine? Got any diagnoses?”

“No. We are in park.”

“I thought I told Tubbo to take that feature off!” Phil exclaims, and Tommy smiles as he hears his best friend’s “It’s only breaking NASCAR rules if they find out!” in the background.

“Nothing else,” he replies, cutting off their impending squabble. “Just gotta drive.”

“Okay. That’s it, yeah. Just cross the line, and have fun out there, okay? Trust yourself.”

Tommy places his hands back on the wheel, and this time, when he shifts into motion, they don’t shake.

“Okay.”

Driving is different from racing. Where racing is all calculated moves, constant speed and constant pressure, driving is the more relaxed version of that. There’s no pressure to go faster, or to pass everyone up until you’re leading the pack. There’s no need to speed or calculate every second of every minute on the track. Instead, Tommy can just breathe. He lets his fingers loosen around the steering wheel, and hugs the inside of a turn before veering out wide. He’s so far behind it’s not even funny, but he takes the turns careful like he’s supposed to, and lets the exhilaration of being behind the wheel wrap him up and take control.

“How’re you feeling?” Phil asks as he hits straight track, and pushes the gas pedal a little harder. Just a little. He likes going fast, and everyone else is on the other side of the track, so there’s no one to block his way. He can feel safe doing this.

“Better,” Tommy replies honestly. He lets up on the gas and rounds Turn Two, then straightens out. “A lot better.”

“Good,” Phil says, and they leave it at that as Tommy continues around the track.

It feels like his first practice back, when he’d whipped around the course all on his own. His comms had been torn out, so there was no one in his ears, just the hum of the track under his feet and the wind whipping outside his window. That’s how it is now. He rounds Turn Three, and hardly realizes that he’s started pressing the gas again until Techno comes over the radio.

“They’re callin’ a yellow,” he says, and Tommy’s eyes widen. “Someone hit a wall up ahead, and there are bits of debris on the track.”

“Are they okay?”

“Oh, yeah. They just popped a tire. Watch where you’re going.”

“Are they going to—” Tommy swallows, and wet his lips. “Are they going to call a free pass?”

“Already did. For Wilbur.”

Tommy exhales a breath, and pretends the missed opportunity doesn’t sting. He supposes if he’d gotten the free pass, it wouldn’t matter much. Sure, it’d make up for the lap he’d lost while having an breakdown, but it wasn’t like he planned on winning anymore. He might not even place higher than last place. There are only twenty laps left, and right now, he’s the train’s caboose.

“Sorry,” Techno adds, as if sensing his disappointment. “It was going to be either you or him, but he’s closer to the front, and—”

“Wait a second,” Phil interrupts, and Tommy keeps steering around the track as the comms fall silent. He can see the tail end of the crowd of cars, now. If he wanted, he could easily speed up and slip back in amongst them. There’s Karl’s neon purple bumper, and Skeppy’s turquoise one glinting in the sun. They’re using up the top of the track, but it’d be easy for Tommy to take the lower half and slip around. It’s wide open.

The question is, does he want to? There’s no way he’s going to lap everyone in that crowd before the race is over, so really there’d be no point. He wouldn’t be gaining any places, or points. Besides, he really didn’t want to get stuck again.

He fidgets his hands nervously as he waits for Phil to come back.

“Wilbur’s giving you the lap,” Phil finally speaks. Tommy's mouth pops open, but he continues, rambling a mile a minute, “He told his chief he’s going to try and lap everyone on his own, as soon as the yellow flag’s removed. He doesn’t want the beneficiary.”

“What?” Tommy chokes out.

“He’s gonna pass all those cars, and run an extra lap, all on his own? There’s only twenty laps left.” Techno tacks on. “How?”

“He could do it,” Tommy says, shifting to press the gas a little harder. He can see Wilbur’s spoiler, scintillating blue as he rounds Turn Four up ahead. The pacer car is already in front of them all, but Wilbur had managed to make it halfway through the pack before their positions were locked. “He set the record for fastest lap around this track, and he’s already halfway through the crowd up there. If he can make it all the way through, I know he can drive faster than any of them on this course.”

“But in less than twenty laps? He’d have to work his way through the field once, speed around the entire course to catch up, and then work his way back through the entire field again.”

“He could do it,” Tommy repeats.

The edge of the pack looms closer and closer. Tommy knows he could slow down if he wanted to, but he’s going to get stuck behind them with the pacer car anyway, so he keeps pressing until he’s close enough to see the tiny, blueberry muffin decal on Skeppy’s rear, then hangs back. Not close enough for a draft, but just close enough to feel like he’s not lagging completely behind anymore.

“Yellow flag’s going down,” Phil warns, “get ready for everyone to start going fast again.”

“Got it.”

He tightens his grip around the wheel, and watches Wilbur’s car start to push forward. The crowd cheers as the yellow flag is lowered—shouts and applause so loud that even Tommy’s picks them up through his helmet’s padding. He wonders if they know what Wilbur is about to do. He wonders if they know what he does:

If anyone can lap the course quick enough to catch up, it’s Wilbur Soot.

It takes Wilbur two more laps to make it through the second half of the field, which has to be a record of some sort, but nobody mentions it through the comms. He pulls up behind Sapnap, who’s leading, and Techno relays how he’s trying to pass but keeps getting cut off.

Tommy chews the inside of his cheek nervously as the lap number ticks from 182 to 183. Seventeen laps left. Seventeen laps for Wilbur to pass Sapnap, fly the whole track, and make his way back through the sea of cars a second time. With that sort of time, every second counts. And every second Wilbur spends stuck behind Sapnap is another second wasted.

It’s also Sapnap.

“He’s trying for a slingshot, I think,” Techno says, mic crackling. “Sapnap keeps shifting out of the way, though. Cutting the air before he can use it.”

“Doesn’t he know Wilbur’s a lap down? He’s technically in last place right now. Right after…”

Me, Tommy means to say. But the word catches in his throat. Even after everything his team’s told him, all their patient reassurances, it’s still hard to admit he’s about to lose. He’d never been so far back in position before. Not since junior league.

“Yeah, I’m sure he does, but he’s not letting him pass regardless. He’s trying again, but Sapnap’s leaning into his space. He really doesn’t want him to get through.”

Tommy sucks in a breath. This is how he’d wiped out at Auto Club. He’d been trying to pass up Sapnap, and Sapnap had been trying to intimidate him by taking up space, and he hadn’t listened. What if the same thing happens to Wilbur?

“He’s going left again,” Techno narrates, and Tommy’s hands squeeze tight around the wheel. “Left, left, Sapnap’s moving to cut him off— Oh.”

“Oh? What do you mean ‘oh?’ What happened?”

Cheering bursts through Tommy’s headset as Techno’s voice crackles back to life. “He psyched him out and went right. Watch your tail. He’s coming for you next.”

All the tension bleeds from Tommy’s shoulders, and he laughs. Of course Wilbur made it around. He’s Wilbur Soot.

“He’s going to have to work pretty hard if he wants to get past me,” he says anyway.

It’s a joke, and he can hear the way Techno’s mouth cracks into a smile.

“He doesn’t stand a chance.”

Wilbur catches up within a lap. One second, Tommy’s rearview camera is clear, the next, Wilbur’s bright blue car is flashing in the background. It’s the fastest Daytona lap in history, and Tommy doesn’t need a Guinness World Record to confirm that for him.

Wilbur pulls up beside him, and Tommy has one second where they’re on equal footing before Wilbur pulls ahead and plunges back into the crowd. He doesn’t go as fast as before, though. He pauses as he makes it in, and holds there instead of continuing to pass. Like he’s waiting.

“What is he doing?” Tommy asks, squinting at the blatant lack of cars in Wilbur’s way. The back of the field is normally congested, but there’s no one standing in his way right now. No one seems to have realized how quickly he’d caught up.

“I dunno,” Techno says. Even he sounds confused.

Tommy drifts left, sliding into place a few paces back from Wilbur. He can’t clearly see into the cockpit, but he can make out the outline of Wilbur’s helmet through the tinted glass. What is he doing?

“He wants you to follow him.”

Tommy blinks as Phil’s voice suddenly erupts over the line.

“What?”

“He– His chief is here, and he’s saying he wants you to follow him.”

“Follow him where? What? Why?” Tommy stammers. There’s a whole field of cars in front of them. Did Wilbur somehow miss that this is exactly what he’s afraid of?

“You don’t have to,” Phil says, “but he’s saying… He’s calling you a child. Um…”

“Tell him he’s a bitch,” Tommy automatically responds.

The line goes silent for a moment, then Phil’s voice pipes back up. “He says he probably earned that one.”

“He did.” Tommy laughs, and it’s genuine. “Does he really want me to follow him? How close?”

There’s another pause, then, “Close enough that someone won’t try to cut you off. He says… he’s not letting you finish last. He wants to keep racing you in the Cup, and that can’t happen if you get eliminated. But Tommy—and this is coming from me—you don’t have to do that. Eliminations don’t happen for a long time. This is just the first race, and we haven’t even talked about if you want to stay or pull out or—”

“I’ll follow him,” Tommy interrupts, already speeding up to get closer to Wilbur. He has to slip past Skeppy, but that’s no challenge. He’s had practice in passing people up since he was eight, and unlike Sapnap, Skeppy doesn’t play dirty for his position. Tommy can feel safe slipping around him.

He slots into place behind Wilbur—so close that he really is drafting this time—then he waits.

Wilbur goes slow. There are only fifteen laps left, but he takes his time picking through the crowd, and keeps to the edges so Tommy doesn’t get trapped. His driving has a weird sort of rhythm to it that Tommy had never noticed before. He speeds up, then slows down, and when he takes corners he starts pressing on the brake much later that Tommy’s used to. He can’t tell if he’s being predictable because this is a track he’s used to, or if he’s doing it to make it easier for Tommy to follow. Whatever the reason, it makes it much easier for Tommy to relax as he gets the hang of the groove, and stays right behind Wilbur.

For laps and laps, they continue this way. The counter ticks upward in the middle of the track, flashing bright red numbers as they reach the one hundred eighty-ninth lap, and breach into the nineties. Ten laps left. Only ten, and Tommy finally feels comfortable breathing on the track again.

As they whiz around the speedway, he averts his eyes from Wilbur in front of him to look up at the stands. There, at the top, is the bright pink poster from Michael. He can just barely make out the kid’s springing, pink-tipped hair as he sits on someone’s shoulders. There are massive, noise-cancelling headphones over his ears, but he’s waving the sign above his head with vigor, and flapping his arms as if he can hear the crowd perfectly, and wants to cheer just like them.

Purpled had told him, a week ago, that there were people who were excited just to see him finish. No matter what place he’s in, they’ll still be cheering for him by the end of the race. Michael, with his sign, proves that there’s at least one of them out there. There are two more in his ears—Phil and Techno. Wilbur, in front of him, makes four.

His old chief never would have been one of them, but Tommy—as he presses on the gas and feels the draft pull him in like a magnet—decides he doesn’t particularly care what his old chief would think. Not anymore. He’s got a new crew, now, who are better. Who are nicer. He has people that look at him and think, he’s like me. People who won’t be disappointed by the fact that he didn’t come first, because they’re too busy celebrating the fact that he got back out there in the first place.

He’s not doing this for his old chief anymore. He’s not here to try and prove himself to a man who never cared about him in the first place. In fact, he’s not here to prove himself at all. Not to his crew, or to Wilbur, or even to himself. He doesn’t need to. Not anymore.

“There’s a group coming up, Wilbur’s saying,” Phil warns through the radio. “It’s sort of big. He’s going to pass it, but if you’re uncomfortable, he doesn’t want you to keep following.”

“Okay.”

There are five laps left, and enough cars left ahead of them that Tommy doesn’t bother counting them all. Wilbur presses forward, and Tommy lets him go, breaking the draft.

This is it, he thinks as the lap ticks from 195 to 196, and as Wilbur starts pushing his way through the cars ahead. Aimsey is amongst them. So is Purpled.

This is it, he thinks, long after Wilbur’s car has disappeared ahead and the laps have dwindled to two.

This is it, he thinks as he rounds Turn Four of his final lap, and the voices of his crew team pipe up through the radio. First is Techno, “Almost there, kid.” Second is Tubbo, “Yeaaah! Bring it home, Boss Man!” Third, after stealing the headset back, is Phil, who says, “Go on and finish this thing.” Tommy can hear the smile in his tone.

He presses the throttle as far down as it’ll go, and zips under the checkered flag to the sound of his entire team cheering.

Fourteenth. That’s the place Tommy winds up taking. He follows everyone else back onto Pit Road after finishing, and as soon as he pulls into his box his crew is surrounding him, cheering and jumping as if he’d just placed first. It’s makes his eyes and nose sting with the onset of happy tears, but he’d already cried enough that day.

He yanks himself out of the cockpit, and stumbles right into Phil’s waiting arms.

“I’m so proud of you,” Phil says, curling Tommy into himself and squeezing impossibly tight. Tommy clutches back. “You finished! You crossed the line!”

“I did. I finished,” Tommy replies with with a half-hysterical, mildly overwhelmed giggle.

Phil hugs him even tighter, and Tommy sinks into his shoulder with a sigh. It’s been so long, too long, since he’s had a hug like this. He thinks he needed it.

Of course, the split second he thinks that, Tubbo comes tearing through the crowd to practically jump on his back, yanking him away from Phil’s protective hold. Tommy laughs as his best friend clings tight, and listens as he starts rambling on about how he knew Tommy could do this, and that he’d absolutely demolished the competition out there—“Like, seriously, Ant Frost’s ego will never recover”—and how impressive coming in fourteenth place was.

Techno is next. He offers Tommy a fist bump, and then a hug, in which Tommy nearly suffocates because he’s squeezed so tightly. He’s released before the darkness can start encroaching in, though, and as he scrambles for breath, Techno tells him he’s the best driver he knows. It feels good.

“Innes!”

Tommy’s head whips around, scanning the crowd for the familiar voice. He doesn’t have to look long. Wilbur, flush-faced and curls flying in the wind, weaves his way through the sea of other racers, interviewers, and pit crews to get to him. He’s got his helmet under his arm, and only one of his gloves has been removed—he must have just gotten out of his car.

He comes to a stop in front of Tommy, and Tommy watches the emotions as they flit across his face. Anxiety, relief, and finally a crushing wave of guilt that sinks his entire expression. Tommy’s never seen Wilbur look like that before. Not on TV, and certainly not in real life.

Wilbur steps forward, then seems to think better of it, and holds himself back.

“Tommy,” he says, voice cracking, “I’m so— I can’t— I mean…”

He shifts awkwardly between his feet, opening and closing his mouth as if he’s going to say something, but can’t quite figure out what, yet.

Tommy decides to figure it out for him.

“Did you place first?”

Wilbur’s mouth snaps shut. Mutely, he bobs his head.

“Good. I knew you would.”

Tommy makes a fist, and extends it out to him. When Wilbur doesn’t immediately meet it, he gives his arm a little shake.

“Come on, Big Man. The least you can do after giving me half a panic attack on the tracks is give me a fist bump.”

Wilbur’s expression melts. He raises his gloved fist to knock against Tommy’s, but doesn’t stop there. He pulls him in, wrapping his free arm around him and squishing him to his chest.

“I’m so so sorry,” Wilbur says over his shoulder. “That was all my fault.”

Tommy shakes his head against Wilbur’s chest. “Not your fault. It’s my own brain, innit?”

“Yeah, but I influenced it. I shouldn’t have fucking said all the things I did to you that first day. That wasn't fair of me.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Tommy admits, pulling back from the hug to offer Wilbur a half-hearted smile. “There was… a lot. A lot more than just what you told me.”

Wilbur’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t push for more. Maybe he sees the pain in Tommy’s face, the way his smile wavers ever so slightly, and decides it’s better not to ask now, while they’re in potential view of so many cameras. Maybe he thinks to ask would be to overstep. Maybe it’s simply because the announcers have started hollering over the speakers to the crowd, and it’s loud as fuck. Tommy doesn’t know. Whatever the reason, Wilbur nods like what Tommy’s saying makes sense, and adjusts the helmet in his hold.

I’M STILL SORRY, he signs.

Tommy raises a hand and signs back. THANK YOU.

For a moment they stand there, rookie and record-breaker, basking in the fervent cheering of the crowd. It’s the same feeling Tommy had experienced at the hotel when he first saw Wilbur, and in the garage when he met Michael—a feeling of sameness. Of understanding. He’s like me, Tommy thinks, and this time he’s pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

Wilbur takes a step back, jutting a thumb over his shoulder to where his crew is inevitably waiting for him. I SHOULD GO, he signs. NOSY REPORTERS ARE GOING TO WANT TO INTERVIEW ME, GET ME TO RETELL MY WHOLE SOB STORY.

Tommy rolls his eyes, and Wilbur smiles.

SEE YOU LATER? Tommy asks before he can leave.

Wilbur nods. SIT BY ME IN THE GROUP INTERVIEW. I’LL SIGN SWEARS TO YOU AGAIN, AND PAY YOU IF YOU SAY THEM IN YOUR ANSWERS.

Tommy laughs. HOW MUCH?

A FREE MEAL AT FIVE GUYS?

DONE. I WOULD HAVE SAID THEM FOR FREE.

Wilbur grins, and waves as he slips away. It’s not long before he’s swept up by reporters and cameramen, probably all eager to know what it was like to have to make up a full lap, and to still somehow come out on top.

Tommy sighs, and turns back to his section of Pit Road. Phil’s in the garage, arms gesturing wildly and face lit with a beaming smile as he speaks to one of the mechanics. Techno’s sitting on a chair in the back, helping Tubbo sort through some tools and put them away. They have to clear everything out by tonight so they can hit the road tomorrow for the next race.

That is, if Tommy decides to stay in the series.

He wanders his way into the garage, and finds a chair in the corner to sink into.

He could drop out. Phil told him it was his decision, and that no one would blame him if he decided he wasn’t ready for this level of competition yet. They could work their way up. Start training again instead, compete in a couple of smaller races, and gradually work him back up to being comfortable around so many cars. None of them were sure if this was a one time thing, or if it’d be terrifying for him every time, but they wanted him to be comfortable. If dropping out of the Cup was what that took, they were prepared for that.

He doesn’t want to drop out, though. He wants to keep going. He wants to race, not because he has something to prove or because he’s scared of what will happen if he says he wants to stop, but because he loves it. He loves this, and he wants to keep loving it. He wants to take this thing he loves and peel all the demoralizing paint off of it until it’s his own again. He wants to show people that that’s possible.

But if it takes dropping out to accomplish that…?

A hand appears in front of his face, palm up, and Tommy raises his chin to meet Tubbo’s eyes.

“Come on,” Tubbo says, grinning. “I know where they’re keeping the snacks.”

Smile slipping across Tommy’s face, he takes the offered hand.

If it takes dropping out to accomplish that, at least he knows he’s got a team who will be by his side every step of the way.

Tommy swears during the group interview, and Wilbur takes him out for dinner afterward, like he promised. They get two burgers, two fries, and Tommy insists on a milkshake. After a long argument over whether or not saying the word “dickbagel” in a private interview qualifies him for ice-cream, he gets a medium. It’s chocolate.

They get it to-go, and hike up the speedway’s stands to eat on the top row.

“God, this is the best food I’ve had all day,” Wilbur sighs, sinking into the chair he’d been resigned to when Tommy stole his spot.

“If you don’t count the breakfast I upchucked in the bathroom this morning, this is the only food I’ve had all day,” Tommy says around a mouthful of french fry.

“Andddd appetite gone.”

Tommy grins, and reaches over to snag one of Wilbur’s fries. “Well, if you’re not hungry…”

Wilbur makes a strangled, affronted noise in his throat and yanks his fries away. “Hey! These are mine!”

“You just said you’re not hungry!”

“I said my appetite was gone. There’s a difference.”

“There’s literally not.”

“There is.”

“Is not.”

Wilbur shakes his head, and his offended facade cracks as a huffed laugh escapes his lungs. “I can’t believe I went from winning the Daytona 500 to arguing with a child.”

“I’m eighteen!”

Wilbur bursts out laughing—the same, bubbly, infectious laughter Tommy had fallen victim to days ago. It echoes across the empty stands, and soon Tommy finds himself giggling along.

After the laughter subsides, they sit in the quiet, watching as the sun dips lower and paints the sky a bright, vibrant tangerine. It’s comfortable. It’s peaceful. It’s the most silence Tommy’s mind has known in days. Weeks, maybe.

Well… almost. There’s one thing that’s been bugging him since the race. A question he’s been meaning to ask, but with the loudness of Pit Road earlier, and the interviews afterward, and all the press Wilbur kept being dragged off to speak to, he hadn’t found a chance.

“Wilbur?” Tommy asks, and it comes out thick and funny-sounding because of the milkshake still coating his tongue. “Why’d you come after me?”

“Huh?”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow, ketchup-drenched french fry freezing halfway to his mouth.

“When I pitted? Why’d you stop too? You didn’t have to.”

“Yes I did.”

“Why?”

Here, Wilbur falters for the first time. It’s almost like he’d been speaking on autopilot, before, and had just gear shifted into manual. He pauses, genuinely thinking about his answer, and Tommy waits patiently as he lowers his fry back to the cup in his hand.

“I guess… uh, I dunno. It just felt wrong to keep driving, ‘cause you—” Wilbur waves his hand up and down at Tommy, just like the first time they’d been up here. This time, his eyes don’t stick to the single hearing-aid still clipped above his left ear. “—you remind me of myself, sometimes. And I mean, obviously, because I practically projected onto you when we were last up here. But it’s like… I know how you felt. I remembered my first time being back on a track with a bunch of cars all around me, and how overwhelming that was, and I just… it’s a shit feeling. I didn’t want you to feel that way. Especially not because of something stupid I’d told you.”

Tommy ducks his head, feigning taking a sip of his milkshake so he doesn’t have to respond right away. Wilbur seems to take that as invitation to keep talking, though, because he continues.

“You know, even I got a little nervous this race.”

“You did?” A drop of chocolate milkshake abruptly flings itself off Tommy’s straw as he yanks away from it. Wilbur’s mouth quirks up.

“A little. It’s scary, y’know? Wrecking makes you realize what’s at stake every time you hit the track.”

“How do you deal with that?” Tommy asks. He hopes he doesn’t sound like he’s begging, but he is, a little bit.

Wilbur shrugs. “It gets easier. You gain confidence back after a while, and learn to ignore the thoughts telling you you’re going to fuck it all up. Your mind heals, just like your body. It just takes a bit longer.”

Tommy sinks back into his plastic chair, and huffs. “Can it heal faster? Preferably before the next Cup race?”

Wilbur laughs and knocks their shoulders together. Tommy shoulders him back, harder, just because he can.

“Are you going to keep racing the series?” Wilbur asks curiously.

“I dunno. I want to, I really do, I just— What if I can’t?”

“What if you can?”

“Fuck you. You sound like my eighth grade algebra teacher.”

Wilbur snickers again, and Tommy smiles, insecurities and anxieties shrinking back down. He slurps his milkshake until the sound is hollow and empty, and then again, just to be annoying. But it’s nice. It’s nice to sit up here with company, for once, and to not feel like he’s drowning in his own head. It’s nice to know that, when it eventually gets late and dark and Tommy has to come down, there are people there waiting for him. There never used to be people before. Or, if there were, it’d never been a good thing. It meant he’d done something wrong; there was something he needed to fix; he hadn’t been good enough, and now it was time to learn why.

Tommy sighs, and Wilbur nudges their knees together.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

For a moment, Tommy hesitates. He’s never told anyone but his parents about what happened with his old chief, and even then, it’d had to be dragged out of him over the phone while he sat curled and crying in a dark hotel room. The reporters have all speculated, of course, and articles upon articles were released spitting headlines like ‘The Wild Duo’s Split’ and ‘Rookie Racer Ditches Crew Chief,’ but he’s never actually spoken about it with anyone. Not even with his new crew, although they seemed to have made their own assumptions about what sort of person Tommy’s ex-chief had been anyway.

“My old chief,” Tommy starts, and Wilbur’s eyes widen before he settles down in his chair, promising his full attention. “My old chief never would have let me relax up here. Not after the race I just ran. If I was still with him, I’d be in the mobile home right now on a simulator, running laps. He hated when I came anything but first, and even when I did place first, there was always room for improvement. Which, I get that. Y’know? There’s always room to do more, be more. But he expected me to be perfect, and I don’t— I don’t know how to be that.” Tommy pauses, blowing out a breath. “I know for a fact he never would have stood for what I pulled on Pit Road today.”

“What, you mean having an anxiety attack?”

It sounds more important coming from Wilbur’s lips. More serious. Like it was more than just something Tommy “pulled.”

Tommy wilts under the sudden pressure of Wilbur’s stare. “I mean— yeah? He just, he would have been so mad. He used to make me run laps on foot for every mistake, and practice until three A.M. on the simulator, and lecture me on how I was just a stupid kid who was never going to amount to anything if I couldn’t try harder, listen better, and—”

“And you stayed with him?” Wilbur cuts in, incredulously.

Tommy’s voice had been shrinking, fading off as he listed some of the punishments he used to take. He doesn’t realize it until Wilbur speaks and his voice sounds like waves crashing at the beach. Loud breaking through the quiet.

Tommy shrugs, and gives him the best version of a guilty smile he can muster up. “I had to, now didn’t I? He told me nobody else would want me, and I needed to be wanted, or at least be tolerated, because I wanted to race. You can’t race without a crew chief. Everyone knows that.”

For a moment, it’s completely silent. Wilbur sits there, uncharacteristically quiet, and Tommy runs his fingers awkwardly up and down the lining of his bright red jacket. It’s not his racing uniform. That’s back at the motor home, safely tucked away inside his closet. This is just his. A gift from his mom, actually, upon his acceptance into NASCAR. It’s warm and soft, and has his name painstakingly embroidered in gold on the right hand sleeve. Tommy Innes. Not the rookie, not number nine, not a failure. Just Tommy Innes. Who he’d been when he was four and decided he wanted this for the first time, and who he still was now. Who still, despite everything, wanted to get in a car and drive.

I’M SORRY, Wilbur signs, circling his chest. Tommy doesn’t know why he chooses to sign it, maybe it feels better than breaking the silence, or maybe it’s a force of habit. Either way, he signs back, IT’S FINE.

Wilbur shakes his head. “It’s not.”

“It’s not,” Tommy quietly agrees. “But it’s okay, because I have Phil now. And Techno. And Tubbo. And they let me come up here after races, and make emergency pit stops, and let me decide if I’m staying in the races or not. And they also let me exploit you for milkshakes,” he tilts his empty shake cup toward Wilbur, and Wilbur’s nose wrinkles in a poor attempt at annoyance.

“You didn’t exploit me. We agreed on the curse words in exchange for food, and you said them.”

“Wilbur, do you seriously think I said the word ‘dickbagel’ during a private interview? Tubbo made it up.”

“You lied to me?”

Wilbur’s mouth pops open like a goldfish’s, and Tommy bursts out laughing.

“That’s it,” Wilbur says once he’s finally recovered. He dramatically stabs a french fry into his ketchup packet, and waves it toward Tommy, dripping red. “I’m so beating you in our next race.”

“You already beat me in this one!”

“I’ll beat you in every single one, out of spite.”

Tommy scowls. “You can’t do that. I’m winning next time.”

“Lies. Did you not just see me lap the entire speedway today?”

“I could do that.”

“Uh huh.”

“I could!”

“Child. Child—”

“Watch out, Wilbur Soot. I’m gonna break all your records. Like twigs,” Tommy says, then he raises a ‘B’ sign to his chin.

Wilbur’s taunting chant turns to an amused smile, and Tommy has that single second of warning before he’s reaching out and ruffling Tommy’s hair with a greasy, salty, fry hand. It’s disgusting. He can physically feel the grains of salt trickling down onto his scalp. But he smiles anyway, and when Wilbur pushes a longer strand back from where it’d been hanging over his hearing aid, he lets him.

“I have no doubt you will. You’re a legend, Tommy Innes,” Wilbur says fondly.

Legend is a big word, Tommy thinks. He doesn’t quite feel like one. But he doesn’t feel like a failure either.

Not anymore.