Idle Engines

December 12th - 9 weeks till Exhibition 

“Now this is fancy.” Mylo’s voice echoed through the open space of the garage before a smack was heard.

“Don’t touch that.” Claggor chided him, and Vi suppressed a chuckle as the group made their way over to their designated area.

The garage was split into three defined sections, with the far interior wall housing larger equipment that was shared between the crews. On the floor lay three metal setup plates about 20 feet apart from one another. The leftmost housing the 48, Talis, while the middle was taken up by the 11, Kiramman. Both cars still being heavily worked on despite the lack of occupants currently in the garage. Vander had insisted they get an early start, so they nearly had the place to themselves at the moment.

The final setup plate held her car. Most of it, at least. Mainly consisting of the bare bones that were required from specific suppliers and a few HexTech-specific pieces. On paper, it was a fully functioning stock car but lacked any driver or crew-specific modifications. 

Just because a car was supposed to work didn’t mean it would.

RASCAR had made the decision to have specific suppliers for the bodies and main aspects of the stock cars in an effort to allow lower-funded teams a running chance. 

The effectiveness of these newer models had yet to be fully seen. It was still insanely expensive to fund a team, and the limited suppliers for parts created a bottleneck effect where demand outweighed supply. 

Regardless, the group had made it through most of the tour of HexTech without any trouble—if Mylo breaking a lamp in the waiting area didn’t count. Viktor had laughed off the incident and assured them it was fine as Vander tried to offer to pay for a replacement. 

Vander was Vi’s crew chief. Essentially a coach for the group that assured cooperation and communication as well as making sure their car reached RASCAR standards. He oversees decisions and makes sure everyone and everything is running at top gear. The backbone of a functioning crew.

Mylo was the crew’s tire changer; despite this clumsy nature outside of the pit, he locked in on race day. A true speed demon with an air gun. Claggor was her spotter. Vi’s eye in the sky that coordinated movements and kept Vi up to pace on where the other cars were in relation to her and what they were doing. Acting as Vi’s safeguard to help her make the correct movements and avoid wrecks while managing to make either defensive or offensive moves on the track. 

The rest of her crew would be filled out by HexTech hires that Vi had every intention of overseeing. She needed to know and trust her crew. At the end of the day, her success depended on them as much as herself, as well as her safety. Going in circles at high speeds surrounded by other cars wasn’t exactly the best time to run into vehicle troubles.

It’s the very reason her pit crew is mainly comprised of family. She knew they had her best interests in mind with every action. And, in the face of hot tempers and stressful situations, they always managed to pull together or at least apologize at the end of it all. Usually.

A large, warm hand engulfing her shoulder pulled Vi out of her musings. “Your sister coming?"

Vi shook her head. Jinx hadn't worked on her crew in years, but it never stopped Vander from asking every season. 

"She'll come back when she's ready." He gave Vi a nod that looked more like he was trying to convince himself than her. "It’s going to be a good season, kiddo.” 

Smiling up at her adoptive father, Vi voiced an agreement.

Vander had taught her how to drive at a young age, supporting her through her years of kart and sprint car racing as she spent years climbing through the series from a young age.

The man himself, never making it past the semi-professional circuits where he scrambled for funding before having to pick up a job elsewhere and eventually adopting kids of his own. 

The four of them, Claggor, Mylo, Jinx, and herself, fell in love with different aspects of the sport as Vander fanned the flames of the group’s shared interest. 

As kids, Vi would wear dirt paths into the grass of their lawn as Mylo and Jinx butted heads as they tinkered with one of the spare karts. Often due to Jinx wanting to modify it to some degree while Mylo tried to argue the ineffectiveness of it. Claggor would either climb his way onto the roof or, later, after he’d fallen off one time, sit on a ladder Vander had gotten for him as he walkie-talkied maneuvers to Vi. 

Clapping her hands once to gather the group's attention, Vi couldn't stop the smile overtaking her face. "Let's win some fucking races." 

By lunch the garage was alight with energy. The other crews had trickled in throughout the morning, getting to work on the other cars. 

Music filled the room, energizing everyone as they buzzed around the cars like swarming flies. Currently, Mylo and Claggor were standing off to the side discussing something with Sky—the woman that had joined the welcome committee when Vi first arrived, she was Viktor’s assistant—as Vi attempted to tighten a temporary metal sheet in place on the underside of the car. 

She was lying down on a car creeper, feet planted down to try and keep still for enough leverage to tighten the screw. The angle of the plate wasn't allowing her to get the screwdriver straight on, so with a grunt, she tilted her head to try and see out from under the car. 

"Yo, black boots." Vi called to someone that was milling around the area. "Toss me that short flathead on my bench."

Said boots stopped before making their way over to Vi's open workbench and then returned. Just as Vi was about to grunt out a thank you, the owner of the black boots knelt down, and blue eyes and a scowl filled her limited vision from under the car. 

Kiramman held out the shorter driver, and Vi grunted with effort to hold the plate in place as she closed the distance to take it from her.

"Viktor and Jayce want to have a meeting with the whole team." Kiramman informed her, leaning back onto her haunches but not standing back up. "They ordered pizza for everyone." 

"A meeting about pizza?" Vi questioned jokingly as she worked the screw into place. 

The other woman's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "I can't imagine that's the topic of discussion." 

Gripping the frame of the car for leverage, Vi pushed out from under the car. Her creeper coming to rest next to Kiramman, or more precisely, under Kiramman. Far too close. The woman had been leaning down in her seated position in order to see Vi under the car. With Vi's sudden exit and a janky wheel on the creeper, Kiramman's face was directly above her own.

Quickly wiggling the creeper away from blue eyes Vi might get lost in if she kept staring too much, she cleared her throat. "I was joking." 

"Oh." The corner of Kiramman's mouth dipped down a fraction further. It was the look. The look Vi had been trying to figure out. "Right." 

Vi sat up, her brain unwilling to cooperate while seeing that look in person. This close, it made her feel dangerously off balance.

She wiped off some errant grease from her palm onto her pants. "Thanks." 

Thanks for what? Vi wasn't entirely sure. Getting the screwdriver or letting her know about the meeting both fit. Luckily Kiramman didn't question her, taking the remark as a conversation ender and standing up with a nod before she walked off.

Sitting down in the large meeting room was, well, it was fucking awkward. Vi couldn't help but steal glances off to her left, where Kiramman sat surrounded by her crew. 

Seeing the look in person was only making her more anxious to figure out what the hell it meant. It didn't seem particularly aggressive, but not exactly friendly either. 

It was so bad even Mylo was giving her confused looks as they waited for the meeting to start. And if Mylo was noticing Vi acting weird, then she was acting really weird. 

Vi's right knee bounced like a jackhammer under the table. Just as Claggor turned to her, probably about to ask what was up, Talis caught the attention of the room. 

"Thanks for taking some time to meet today, everyone. I know it was a bit last minute." 

Viktor sat beside him, seemingly content in letting Jayce handle the meeting. 

"I wanted to take an opportunity to properly, as a team, welcome our newest driver and her crew—Vi." 

There was scattered applause. Vi saluted the room with two fingers to her right eyebrow. 

"Vi will be piloting…" Jayce lost his cadence of voice as he reached over towards Viktor, who handed him something. "HexTech's number 6 car." 

He tossed the object to Vi, who surged forward in her seat to catch it. 

Turning it over in her hands, she realized it was a hat: dark blue with gold mechanical detailing along the bill and a bold white 6 on the front.

Jayce went on talking for another 20 minutes. Mostly housekeeping and crew-related news that Vi tried her best to not completely tune out. 

"Last thing," he continued, "the team Christmas party this year will be at my place; feel free to bring your families along." He looked down at Viktor before adding, "Oh! And the pizza we promised is in the lounge." 

Excited pizza-related murmurs were joined by a choir of chairs moving as people started to file out. Vi joined them as quickly as possible, not wanting to give Claggor—or, God forbid, Mylo—a chance to call her out for her earlier behavior.

"Ew," Jinx exclaimed after Vi had gotten done telling her about her day that evening. "You do have a crush." 

"It's not a crush." Vi denied around a mouthful of takeout food. 

December 16th - 8 weeks till Exhibition

HexTech operations center was quickly becoming Vi’s home away from home. She and Mel—Vi had met her a few days after she started; the woman was terrifying and seemed to be juggling just about everything here—had managed to hire the rest of Vi’s pit crew rather painlessly. Mel was a genius at finding people who worked together well and knew what to look for in her hires. All Vi really did was look over everything and give the go-ahead. 

Sevika, an older, grumpy woman, was going to be the gas woman, fueling the car at pit stops. Loris, a wall of a man, her jackman, was responsible for getting each side off the ground for the tires to be changed. Gert, the youngest of the team, the tire carrier that supplied and put the tires in place for Mylo to zip on and off. 

The group was working out well enough so far. They’d done a few practice runs for a baseline to improve on a few days ago. Vander had a smile on his face the whole time as they flew around the practice electric car Vi had driven on her first day. 

“We might just have a shot at being the fastest crew out there this season.” Vander beamed at her that same afternoon. “I’ve never seen Mylo so focused. And Loris, that guy is quicker than he looks.” 

They all had a certain grit to them that Vi always looked for in her crew. The only problem Vi could see festering at the moment was Mylo’s incessant need to show off in front of Gert. She’d have to let Vander deal with it if it did become a problem; it was his job, after all, to make sure they all worked in harmony. 

It was shaping up to be a great season.

Vi strode into HexTech operations with a pleasant anticipation for the day. She liked to start off her mornings in the gym. Working off the tired energy into an excited buzz that got her through the day better than any coffee ever could. 

Being a professional driver, she didn’t technically have to be in shape, unlike other sports. But there were advantages. Aside from more fortitude against the blazing temperatures that the inside of the cars skyrocketed to, if you kept your weight under required minimums, you could add ballast to counteract the difference. This let teams place the weight wherever they wanted in the car, optimizing its handling with a more distributed weight.

Most drivers tended more towards a lean build to achieve this. Vi had always been partial to gaining a little extra muscle, though.

It always came in handy when picking up girls after all.

An added bonus to morning workouts here was that it was always empty. The personal trainers on staff didn't get in till almost noon, and Vi had never even seen as much as a sniff of anyone there when she was. 

Even the parking lot was barren this early in the morning. A few cars would join her own occasionally. The only steadfast one being a black sedan that Vi had never not seen parked in the same exact spot to the point she was hedging that it had just never moved since she started, night or day. More than likely, a company car that saw little to no use.

That was her working theory until today.

Today, Vi stood frozen in the gym doorway, hand gripping hard enough on the door handle that it groaned in protest. 

Kiramman was in the middle of the room, clad in tight yoga pants and a black sports bra that did little to hide anything, with her back to Vi. The kicker? She was doing a fucking split. 

Despite her best attempt, Vi couldn't stop her eyes from trailing down the lean muscles in Kiramman's back, then back up and over her bare shoulders to her neck that was-

She must have sensed Vi’s presence, because Kiramman turned her head towards the doorway, eyes widening as they locked onto Vi. 

"Shit- sorry, no one's usually-" Vi really hoped the heat creeping up her own neck wasn't visible. "I'll leave!" Vi, too loudly, announced, deciding jumping ship was easier than finishing a coherent explanation.

Turning on her heels with the intent of exiting before Kiramman had a chance to reply, Vi didn't quite make it out in time. 

"It's fine." 

Slowly turning back around, Kiramman had shifted to be sitting with her legs out in front of her, weight being held up by her hands planted behind her back. Vi forced herself to look just past Kiramman, hopefully close enough that it appeared like she was looking at her without being tempted to keep trailing her gaze downward. 

"Cool… cool." Vi shuffled inside the room, looking anywhere but at her fellow driver—her teammate. 

Normally, Vi had no problem talking to hot women. She enjoyed it really, the banter, the teasing, all of it. But Kiramman had a way of sending Vi on the back foot. She needed to get her shit together because at this rate she would not be surviving a whole season of this.

Whatever this was. 

Finding a spot on the wall that was particularly interesting and, more notably, as far away from Kiramman as she could get in the room. Vi began her warm-up stretches. With any luck, the other driver was finishing up, and Vi could put this whole, entirely too awkward, situation behind her.

It seemed the universe, better known as Caitlyn Kiramman, had other plans. "Do you know anything about toe links?" 

"A bit." Vi answered, refusing to turn around as she flexed out the muscles in her arms into a cross-chest stretch. "Why?" 

"I was trying to tighten up my rear end, and I'm worried I might have overdone it." 

Your rear end looks perfectly tight to me. Vi's mind helpfully supplied. "I can take a look." She responded instead. "Why not have your crew look?" 

There was a pause. Vi rolled her shoulders, relaxing out of the welcoming burn of an overhead extension.

“Maybe I was looking for an excuse to ask you.” Kiramman blatantly flirted.

Yeah, Vi was definitely not going to make it out of this season alive. 

An hour later, Vi’s head was in the rear tire well of the 11. (She’d skipped more than half her workout routine in order to get to the garage as fast as possible without seeming too eager.) Flashlight lighting up the area behind the brake rotor, she let her fingers run across the toe link. On the backside, near the far lug, her fingers caught a sharp edge. Contorting her body around for a better view, Vi could make out a hairline fracture.

"Yup, cracked it." Vi informed Kiramman, who stood behind her, as she untangled herself from inside the wheel well. 

"Shit." Kiramman hissed out.

Vi chuckled as she pushed herself to a standing position. "I'm surprised you work on your own car." 

"Why?" 

"You're a Kiramman." Vi replied with ease before she could think better of it.

A stretch of silence was the first warning sign that Vi had messed up. 

"And?" The scowl etched on the other driver’s face should have been the second sign.

Instead, Vi shrugged; she’d never been good at biting her tongue; why start now? "You know, the whole holier-than-thou thing." 

"For your information, I've worked hard to learn as much as I can to help my crew." Vi definitely messed up. So much for the whole teammates thing. "I'm the first one in and last out every day. You all think I'm stuck up and privileged because of my background, like 90% of drivers at this level don't have some kind of connection to get them here." 

Vi stood her ground, unflinching despite the vitriol of the words. Kiramman wasn’t exactly wrong. A lot of drivers had connections that helped them get up to the highest level of competition in RASCAR. The sticking point was that no one started out racing in the cup series. They all paid their dues and raced the lower levels to prove themselves. That is, everyone but Kiramman.

"I didn't just wake up one day with the ability to drive, I worked just as hard as everyone else to be here." Kiramman's fists clenched at her sides as she spoke. 

Vi rolled her eyes. This was the Kiramman she'd been expecting to meet. It had just taken a little longer than anticipated for it to come out. “I bet Mommy’s money really helped with that.”

Kiramman reeled back a fraction before her face steeled over in a way that sent a chill down Vi’s spine. 

"Am I interrupting?" 

"No." Kiramman turned towards Viktor, who had seemingly caught at least part of the argument, and started off towards him. "Can you have the shop send over some new toe links?" Then she looked over her shoulder to glance back at Vi. "Seems I overstepped." 

He gave her a nod as Kiramman blew past him in her march before he looked over to Vi, still rooted in place. Vi cast her gaze to the floor at her feet, a crease in her eyebrows. 

"What a bitch." Jinx gasped as she dug around the pizza box for her next slice. 

Vi shrugged. "Kirammans, what are you gonna do?" 

As it turns out, what one is to do is be passive-aggressive. 

In Vi’s defense, she didn’t start it. But she was also definitely not above it. 

It started out small. Suddenly, Kiramman was in the gym every morning when Vi arrived. Two weeks without a whiff of having to share the gym in the morning suddenly uprooted by her insistent appearance.

The annoying woman would be playing some classical music on the speaker system that had Vi wanting to pull her hair out. It’s hard to get motivated to work out when Mozart is lightly tickling a piano for what felt like twelve hours straight. 

Vi’s first solution was to start using her headphones, blasting the bass loud enough that any cello symphony got left behind. That worked for about a day before Kiramman caught on. The gym turned into a Bach rave the next morning. Any attempt to drown it out with her headphones only left Vi with ringing ears and a whole lot of shouting for the rest of the day. Claggor had suggested she get her hearing checked.

So, Vi started arriving earlier with the intent to get there before Kiramman and claim the stereo for herself. 

Her previous sleep schedule was a small price to pay to see the look on Kiramman’s face when she arrived—5 am, Vi learned after having gotten up at 3 am to make sure she was there first—to see Vi blasting, at an appropriate volume, some hard rock as she lifted weights. 

The victory was short-lived as Kiramman just started arriving earlier the next day to combat Vi’s tactic. Could Vi just have started going to the gym later? Absolutely, but that wasn’t the point. This was war.

Eventually, Vander had pulled Vi aside to make sure she had been getting enough rest. She’d assured him she was. Leaving out the part where she’d started taking midafternoon naps to supplement the early mornings. 

Slowly, their pettiness started to slip outside of their morning gym workouts.

If Kiramman was trying to talk to her crew for a briefing in the garage, Vi would find the noisiest equipment she could and start hacking away at whatever was closest. Usually a tire that Vi had decided needed to be removed immediately, despite Mylo flying over with a million questions along the lines of, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ 

When Vi got takeout for her crew for lunch because she didn’t want to leave out her family in her lunch plans. Kiramman made a whole display of taking out all of the HexTech employees for a lavish dinner after work on her. 

Vi made up an excuse to miss it.

If Vi was being honest, she wasn’t sure why exactly they were at each other's throats like this. She’d overstepped in their last conversation, sure, but this seemed deeper than a simple verbal argument. Vi was never good at backing down, though, and if they were fighting, she was damn sure going to win.

Regardless of the reason, it all came to a head at a driver meeting at the end of the week, where they both forgot about the passive part of their argument. 

“RASCAR just released the official schedule for the season.” Talis excitedly reported. The group consisting of Talis, Viktor, Mel, Kiramman, and Vi sat in a small meeting room. They all were gathered at a table that Vi was sure cost more than anyone should be able to justify.

“Exhibition will be in Pallas.” Viktor supplied, passing around a report that went over the track’s details and rules. 

Vi groaned. Pallas had a short quarter-mile track that was just a flat oval. It was narrow with little room for passing, meaning placement in qualifying could make or break your day there. AKA it was boring. “I hate Pallas.”

“I thought you enjoyed racing against no one.” Kiramman quipped. 

Vi looked over the report with muted interest, doing her best to ignore the taunt. “I enjoy being able to pass and actually race, not go around in circles in a conga line.” 

“I wasn’t aware you knew how to pass, given your record.” Kiramman prodded. Vi shot a look at Kiramman, who was preoccupied with the report. As if it was of more interest than their conversation.

“Can we get back to-” Viktor tried to interrupt, but Vi had had enough of whatever the hell Kiramman’s problem was. 

“Oh, I forgot, you never had to struggle, did you? Mommy made sure of that one. All those years in school must have been so hard for you.” 

“Guys?” Talis questioned, his gaze filtering between the two with growing concern.

Kiramman scoffed. “You wouldn’t know skill if it hit you square in that thick skull of yours.” 

“At least I don’t go around flaunting my wealth.”

“Why are you so obsessed with my background?!” 

“That’s enough!” Mel shouted above them. Vi grumbled but backed down, crossing her arms in the process. Kiramman followed suit with a—very uptight, if you asked Vi—huff. “Viktor.” 

Viktor cleared his throat, taking control back of the conversation. “As I was saying. We’ll need to focus on handling, short tracks won’t get too much speed, so we need to implement draft and positioning as best we can.” 

“What’d you have in mind?” Jayce asked, doing his part in ignoring the tension still clinging to the room. 

The rest of the meeting went by… fine. If Vi nodding along and refusing to speak anymore alongside Kiramman just outright ignoring her presence any further counted as fine. They didn’t argue again at least.

Maybe the few days off for the holidays would help cool down any lingering tension.

“It’s a good thing you two didn’t bone.” Jinx commented, causing Vi to choke on the pasta she had prepared for them. “You’re like exact opposites.” 

“Can you not comment on my sex life?” 

“Oh, so you’re allowed to ogle over a girl on the TV for days, but I can’t say bone?” 

“Yes.” Vi nodded. “Exactly that.” 

Jinx huffed but dropped the topic.