Chapter Text
Ruben had dragged Sonny back to the UK, back to APX GP.
Sonny knew he had it coming. It honestly was just a matter of time. It had to happen eventually. Leaving at the end of the season, after just winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, without even saying goodbye to Ruben. Yeah, it basically was like daring Ruben not to come after him. And he knew damn well that after all that happened, there was no way Ruben would let him go that easily.
Honestly ? He understood Ruben. Their dynamic was kind of funny. The way everyone seemed to know something was going on between them two but that no one could put words on it. Was it friendship ? Brotherhood ? Love ?
Sonny knew the answer, he knew where it had been buried, he just didn't want to go back there to get it back. And he truly believed that Ruben would be better off without him anyways.
He hadn't meant to hurt Ruben while leaving like that. It hadn't been his intention. He just couldn't stay after the Las Vegas crash, not while his back was killing him again, and certainly not after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Yes, Sonny did win that race. But the amount of contacts he had during it, how sensitive his back already had been. Staying would've been the worst choice.
Not saying goodbye to Ruben had been part a choice, part an obligation. Pretending in front of Josh and Kate was easy, they couldn't read him like Ruben does. They couldn't take one look at him and know that Sonny wasn't able to feel his feet under him, that his back was threatening to take him down any moment. But Ruben could.
During the celebration they had been happy, full of adrenaline, Ruben probably didn't notice. They saved his team, they won the last race, he had finally made it. But if Ruben had been able to peek at Sonny after that celebration, he would've dragged him to a doctor or would've taken care of him. And Sonny hadn't been able to face that back then, truth was he still wasn't able to.
Winning that race had been perfect, he finally had been able to touch it again, the feeling of peace that he always chased while racing.
Well— He always is at peace while racing but this had been another peace. The kind you never want to leave. Sonny was so glad he had been able to reach it again. Because there had been a time where he never thought he would've been able to get in an F1 car again.
After Jerez, he had been convinced he would never been able to walk again, that he would never have been able to race again. And certainly not in F1. And he had made peace with it, or at least he told himself that.
Anyways, it's dumb to think about those times again, he knows damn well now that he won't race in F1 again. He knows he doesn't really have much time left.
He had participated to a few other races before Ruben dragged him back.
He remembered how he felt on that dirt track. If only he had been strong enough, maybe he would've been able to end it all there. On a dirt track. Just like the way it all started.
He never would've thought that the simple fact of racing on a dirt track again would've been able to make him so nostalgic.
There's a lot of things about himself that he never would've thought possible.
Especially the fact that when Ruben had picked him up and that he had pulled him into his arms, it had been, like the feeling of finally coming home. And it scared him, since when did he crave affection ?
Maybe it had nothing to do with affection but all to do with the guy who was giving it ?
It had made him want to bolt away. Just like a lot of other things. Especially—
He didn’t want to think about it, he had to find something else to think of.
They were at some bar right now, everyone was there, Ruben had insisted on Sonny coming.
He had said that it wouldn’t be normal to have a welcome back night with everyone if the guy they were welcoming back wasn’t there. Sonny had tried to argue, saying that he was tired, that it could wait. But Ruben had always been able to see right through him. It just were excuses because he didn't want to be seen.
So Ruben knew how to get to his weak spots.
"It's Josh's and Kate's idea." Ruben had said. "The kid couldn't shut up about you during the time you weren't there, when I told them I was leaving for a little while to drag you back, he was so excited I had to ask his mom to invite him somewhere on the night I was leaving because I was too scared that he would follow me."
Sonny smirked. Yeah, JP, despite their constant bickering, he really liked the kid. He had potential, he could be one of the greatest if someone sometimes reminded him where cockiness gets you.
About Kate, well Sonny hoped she wasn't expecting him to flirt or hookup with her again. It's not really that he wouldn't want to. It's just that he hadn't been honest with her.
Yes at first he really liked her, yes he kept flirting with her because that's his two ways of being around people. He's either being a bitch and keeps being mean to people, or he flirts with them.
And during that time he also had been avoiding thinking about Ruben, about what they were, about why Ruben really got him back.
The flirting had been great. But when it got messy, drinks, sex. That had been during the period where Sonny knew that he would leave at the end of the season. He had already made his choice back then.
And the main reason of his choice had been Ruben, because Sonny couldn't stand being around him while hurting. Because he couldn't afford to be seen. And being near Ruben while hurting meant being the center of the attention in every damn room.
And yeah, it was selfish, but getting that close to Kate during the end of the season had also been a way of putting some distance between him and Ruben. Because if they had been close enough during that time, with his fucked up back, he would've stayed. He wouldn't have been able to leave, not now that Ruben knew.
He saw the way Kate was looking at him now, under the dim light of the bar. Maybe he shouldn’t have told her goodbye and kiss her ? Maybe he should’ve been clearer on the fact that he wasn’t someone you want to love or to care about.
Sonny shifted his attention back to the loudness of the bar, he hadn’t ordered anything yet. He was thankful that no one had mentioned it.
He was looking around the table, slowly taking in all the people that showed up just because ha was back. Hugh and Rico were busy with cards and their drinks, each one of them had a pyramid of 6 cards in front of them. They were waiting for other people to join the game.
Sonny knew that game all too well. He had played it too many times to even count. He couldn't fight the feeling in his gut. The urge to play the game too.
He grabbed his deck from his jacket pocket, his fingers falling into a familiar, rhythmic shuffle. A charlier cut, a simple snap and riffle. He just had to keep his hands busy enough. He had to keep his brain focused on doing something as easy but demanding as shuffling cards, so he wouldn't have time to think of the other things going through his head.
He looked away only to notice Jodie. She was sipping something that seemed like an apple juice. At the look on her face, she was clearly judging Rico and Hugh about their drinking game.
Dodge, who was next to her, explaining the rules to her.
"Listen you can play the game and not drink any alcohol that's not a problem. You can keep going with apple juice."
Kaspar got up saying that he had to go back to his kids. He said he was happy to see Sonny again and also threatened Sonny to put a German curse on him if he dares to leave again. Sonny laughed and politely nodded at Kaspar.
Around the table, more and more people were joining Rico's and Hugh's drinking game. Josh had said he was in, Kate too, at some point everyone said they were in except Ruben and Sonny.
"I'm driving tonight fellas" Ruben answered and they immediately cornered him about the fact that wether you drink alcohol or not, you can always play a drinking game.
Ruben was laughing, he was sitting next to Sonny, their knees brushing every once in a while.
"What about you old man ?" Joshua asked Sonny and suddenly all the heads at the table turned towards him.
Sonny smirked. Drinking games always had been his favorite things to do at night.
For a moment, his eyes met Ruben’s. Those deep brown irises that once made him believe anything was possible were now a mirror he couldn’t afford to look into.
He quickly looked away, focusing back on the cards in his hands, shuffling them slower now.
"Yeah I'm in" Sonny answered to Josh's question.
What ? It wasn't as if he had been sober for a long time. And what would Ruben complain about ? Alcohol had been there for Sonny more often than Ruben had been.
Thinking about how bad he had craved the feeling of being drunk this past months made him wonder how this all started again.
When did it all get so bad ?
The summer of 1982 had been the best childhood memory Sonny ever had. And the worst at the same time.
During the school year of 1981-1982, Sonny was in eight grade, that typical transition year between middle school and high school. Which meant that Sonny was skipping some classes if they weren't that important so he could go to the garage with his father and repair or build cars with him.
People don't really care if a thirteen year old skips some classes in Reno, especially if the kid is building cars with his dad, they care if he's busy smoking weed or drinking but the little blonde kid who spends his free time in a garage isn't a concern to anyone.
His mother never liked it though, which is totally fair, it's only normal to want the best education for your son, to want him to get the same chances as other kids instead of being obsessed by cars just like his father.
But ever since Sonny turned eight, he had always spend some nights at the garage with his father, on weekends they drove to races and each time they would come back Sonny was smiling like he was the happiest child in the world.
He didn't have that much friends, since he only went to school for classes and that most of the time there he was thinking about racing, he wasn't very skilled socially. He was in a garage or in a paddock, he had friends who were 20 years older than him.
During the whole school year, Sonny and his dad had built a dirt kart from scratch. They had even designed it, on one side they had written Hayes and on the other side 7, why 7 ? Because it took them seven month to finish that dirt kart.
Nevada itself is kind of isolated, but Reno wasn't that far from Northern California, it was easy for Sonny and his dad to travel to Sears Point or Laguna Seca on weekends. So even at thirteen years old Sonny had already seen a side of the racing world.
On weekends, when they weren't going to see some races, they sometimes went to the dirt track that was 20 minutes away from the house, they took the kart with them and Sonny drove. His dad and him had walkies and that's how Sonny learned racing. On dirt tracks, somewhere in Reno, with his dad.
All of this had been for one goal. During the summer, there was a kid's race, on a dirt track. And Sonny's father was really excited about it. A bit too excited because on that day, he had put a enormous bet on Sonny, he had put 20k on Sonny's car, on the fact that he was sure that Sonny was going to win that kid's race.
Mom came too, at the race, Sonny was so nervous that he cried for fifteen minutes before the race. He had confessed in Margot's arms that the fact that dad looked so happy, that he looked so confident in the fact that Sonny was going to win, had been enough to scare Sonny of not being enough.
And on that day Margot had promised him that he always would be enough.
If only he had known, he wouldn't have gone in his dirt kart.
…
The outcome of the race had been known before it even ended.
Sonny was doing really well, his dad was proudly smiling when he heard the people talk.
"Man that Reno kid is really great !"
There was another kid in the race, one that had a dirt kart that probably was more expensive that their house. That other kid, named Manuel, wasn't great.
His kart had pieces that cost a fortune and that Sonny's dad wouldn't have been able to get for Sonny even if he wanted to. And that kid was driving dangerously. He was making Sonny fight in the corners, Margot gasped each time Sonny responded with a reckless move.
She didn't like seeing her son fight like that in a kart in the dirt. He's only thirteen, can't he do regular sports like other kids ? Maybe something like swimming ?
No, of course Sonny had to be so obsessed about his father that he would always do his best to make him proud even when the odds were against him.
But when Manuel went straight into Sonny's dirt kart on the last turn, Sonny crashed. His kart ended off track, then collided with a haystack. It was done.
Sonny was crying in Margot's arms, his father wouldn't look at him. He kept apologizing over and over again. But Sonny's father wasn't mad because of Sonny, he was mad because Manuel just made Sonny's first official race a nightmare. And because he just lost his family's life savings.
It was only a month later that his father had taken him to the hometown race. It was during the night, probably because it was easier to do illegal things at night.
Sonny didn't know about that 20k that his father had lost on a bet during his race, he knew that since that race his mom and dad kept arguing. He knew that his mom pleaded them to not leave the house that night.
He remembers the way she had cried asking him to tell his father that he didn't want to go.
Except that Sonny wanted to go. A 13 year old kid who loves racing is offered to get in the car with his father during a dirt race in the middle of the night ? No one would've said no.
Sonny spent the rest of his life wishing he had said no.
Sonny's dad had been weirdly tense on the drive there, sweating more than the usual, muttering to himself and sometimes checking his phone. Sonny had just assumed it had been because him and mom just had afight before they left.
That race was illegal and dangerous for a reason, Sonny didn't know all of that, just like he didn't know that his father signed up for it knowing the risks because the guy he had bet with a month earlier was Manuel’s father, Alexis. He had been the one who gained 20k when his son crashed in Sonny's dirt kart.
An now here they were, because Alexis had said that if Sonny's father raced with Sonny that night, that Sonny didn't throw up in the car and that he won the race, he could have his 20k back.
Would 20k be worth the life of a man ?
After a few laps, his father lost control in a turn. It was the first time ever that Sonny had raced in a real race car, the first time he was in a car that was rolling.
When the car came to a stop, the smell of smoke hit Sonny immediately. The car was on fire, his father had his legs trapped in the car.
Sonny was choking on the smoke. His father was telling him to leave him, to get out of the car and to not look back.
Sonny said no, of course he said no, why would he say yes ? He's not letting his car die in that car.
Everything happened so fast, his dad gave him his watch, told him to never race with it, so he'd always have something to come back to.
Sonny was losing his strength, his lungs were burning. He was too hot, he was crying.
Seconds later, strangers were dragging him out of the car, he tried to fight it but what can a 13 year old do against adults twice his size ?
He lost consciousness a few minutes after that, the last things he heard that day were the screams of his father.
His father who was burning alive because Sonny hadn't been able to win his stupid race.
…
When Sonny woke up, his mother was by his side, she was crying, he was in what seemed to be a hospital.
"Where—" Was the first word he had been able to say.
Margot looked up at him and hugged him as tight as she could.
"Where's dad ?" Sonny asked, his voice broken, his lungs still aching.
His mom sobbed even more. Holding him against her. Sonny didn't understand. He didn't want to understand. It wasn't possible.
Dad was alive right ? He was just— Sleeping a little because of all the adrenaline right ?
His blue irises searched his mother's green ones.
She swallowed hard.
"Dad didn't make it sweetheart"
Sonny's world stopped.
It wasn't the first day he reached for a bottle, but it was the first time something broke enough inside of him to make him want to reach for it.