Note: Wah, I'm on a bit of a kick. Those few who have watched me over the relatively fruitless span of my time here at FFN will note that this is a record--writing and posting two fics within a week of each other. Will the wonders never cease?! Anyway, this is rough, but I wanted to post it anyway. I'm pretty sure this is movieverse, again because I just love dumbbell Speed from the movie. He's such an idiot. I love him. He's a little OOC in this. I like to pretend it's because I was trying to write him in shock, but it's mostly because I still haven't established how to write him yet. D:
(For reference, Richter Douglas is a character that I'm throwing around in my head. He's a fixer like Cruncher Block, but he's trying to revive the business. Since Speed exposed so many big players in the Grand Prix, it's been hard to convince any one to play that game for the past couple of months. Douglas wants to bring it back, mostly because he's a sadist, and he's targeting the strong-willed idealists first. THIS IS ALL ROUGH.)
Title: Defensive Wounds
Summary: Accidents happen, on the track and off the track.
Rating: T, for blood and some language.
Soundtrack: None!
If he ever saw Richter Douglas again, he would personally remove the fixer's brain through his nose, legality be damned. The little skeeze kept to himself mostly, but X was certain he could arrange a brief, violent rendezvous.
A little guilt tugged at him. Here was Speed, hyper-ventilating, forehead pressed against X's chest and fingers wrenched into his own hair. The boy needed comfort. A hug or something. All X could think about was finding Douglas and making sure he lost all basic motor functions. Barely a yard away from their feet was the only biker who hadn't booked it when they saw the Shooting Star coming around the bend. He was a strapping guy, decked out proper in leather and studs, and he probably would have proved something of an issue for X were he still breathing. At the moment, however, the motorcyclist was lying face up on the ground, never again to tame his prodigious facial hair.
X set a firm grip on Speed's shoulders. Speed was shaking hard, breath coming faster and mouth moving like he wanted to speak, but only thing coming from his throat was the occasional wheezing whimper. "Speed." X said as coolly as he could manage. "Speed. Speed, you need to relax."
Breathing faster and faster.
"Speed."
The boy ducked his head, hands still twisting into the hair just above his neck.
"Speed, I need you to breath. Listen to me. You need to slow down."
He managed to squeeze out, "I ca--I can't--" before panic tightened it's grasp on his lungs.
Pressing his lips together, X knelt, tugging gently at the other's shoulders until they were at eye-level with each other on the ground. Black-gloved hands moved from Speed's shoulders to his face, and X only now noticed the broken skin at Speed's nose and lip and the bright red blood seeping into and out of his mouth. He hissed, "Shit. Speed, you need to breath. Just like me, are you watching? Just like me now, Speed." And X inhaled and exhaled gradually.
It took a few moments for Speed to slow down enough. He would almost slow down, then his throat would catch or he'd accidentally swallow blood or spit, and they'd have to start over again. Even after he relaxed enough to move and breath at the same time, he spent a minute or so dry heaving. X left him alone for that, taking the time to observe the body. A blade--a switchblade, what a surprise--lay abandoned near the dead man's feet, no doubt the weapon that had slashed the biker's leather coat. No doubt the weapon that brought the behemoth man down. A smirk came unbidden to X's face, but he squelched it at the strangled sound of a voice.
"Oh god...oh god, I killed him."
Turning and taking slow steps to the boy, X asked procedural questions. "What happened?"
"I don't know, I don't know--"
"You do know. How many were there?"
He gasped again, and X tensed at the thought of another pseudo-asthmatic episode. However, Speed managed to get control of himself and replied: "Six, seven..."
"How many, Speed?"
"I wasn't counting them!" He blurted, hands shooting to the back of his neck again. "More than five! Less than ten! Bigger than a breadbox, I don't know!"
"Okay, okay--," X lifted his arms, palms up, "--I need you lucid, kid. You gotta tell me what happened here. Stand up. Come on, up, let me look at you." He watched as Speed shakily rose and pulled his arms down, away from his head, away from his face. His yellow driving gloves were turning orange, and X wondered whether the blood staining belonged to the same owner as the gloves themselves. "Talk to me, Speed."
Blue eyes darted back and forth. "I just--I needed to get out, I needed to...to breath. I guess. I don't--I don't know." He was making a point to look at X's hands. Then the car. Then his car. "I wasn't paying attention. I heard the motors, but I didn't think--I didn't think they would come here. Ow. Stop--ah."
"Don't be a wuss." X murmured, brusquely twisting the sleeve of Speed's t-shirt further up his arm. Blotchy bruises emerged from beneath the white fabric. Defensive wounds. Same sort of marks trailing along his right shoulder. "They grabbed you."
"Yeah."
He abruptly reach across the smaller driver to press against his diaphragm. It wasn't a hard press, but Speed curled around the hand and took a step back.
"Ah! Stop, stop it!"
"I need to see if you're okay."
"I'm not!" He stepped further back, and X couldn't decide if Speed was moving away from him or from the biker on the ground. "Racer X, I just killed somebody! I f--I just killed that guy! The hell am I supposed to do?!"
Lips pursed, X tucked his head down. The best way to answer this. "Accidents happen Speed. You know that. On the track, off the track. It's the same thing."
Speed shook his head, hunching over. "It's not the same, sir. It's not the same, it's not."
"Did you kill him on purpose?"
"No. No, no."
"Did you murder this man, Speed?"
"No!"
"How did he die?"
Speed just stared at him, eyes wide.
"Tell me how he died, Speed."
Silence.
"Speed."
"...They all left. They ran away when--when they saw you coming." Lower lip quivered, and one hand came up to hide it. "He didn't run. I was on--down, on the ground--they dropped me. Dropped the knife, and he came down--" Speed's head lolled back, eyes dashing from one cloud in the sky to the next, and he took a quaking breath. "--I didn't mean to hurt him so much. It was just--and--it was all I could do, and I did it. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
X sighed, a terse sigh that he hoped communicated apathy. It was his fault. He shouldn't left Speed by himself, not with things as they were. Not that he could tell Speed that. He was going to have to grow up sometime. X honestly would have preferred that someone less involved than himself could have been the one to help Speed through this particular step.Theoretically, who better than your brother to help you through emotional crisis, but X hadn't been a brother for a long time. Hell, he hadn't even been emotional for a long time. There was no way he could do this right. He decided to stop trying.
"The only thing you can be accused of is stupidity. You shouldn't have been out here alone." A silence. "This was an accident, Speed. The sooner you process that, the better. It's not your fault." A silence again. "Do you understand?"
"...yeah. Yeah, I guess."
"Good. Now, stop crying."
"I'm not."
"You are."
Speed tugged off one glove and gingerly wiped his eyes.
"...Let's head back. I want Minx to have a look at you. Your family won't be pleased if you're seriously injured." X turned sharply on his heel and began to stalk towards the Shooting Star.
Three steps forward, and he heard, "We can't just leave him here!"
X didn't even look over his shoulder. "Yes. Yes, we can."
"We have to call the hospital or--or the police or something!"
"He's dead. There's not a lot they can do."
"We can't just leave him!" The boy's voice cracked.
After a moments pause for thought, X shook his head gently. "We will. We're also leaving the Mach 6."
"No."
"I'll get ahold of Detector on the drive. He'll take care of this."
He could practically hear Racer trying to decide if this was the right course of action. X didn't feel like waiting for his decision. He continued walking, fairly confident that Speed trusted him enough to do whatever he said to do. It helped that the boy was in shock still; he probably would have trusted whoever came along with any pretense of niceness.
Sure enough, X was halfway back to his car when he heard Speed begin to scuffle after him. He was in the driver's seat a good two minutes before Speed made it to the vehicle. X watched as he sat down and pulled the seatbelt over his body. The boy was favoring his stomach, his right side, his arms. A mental note to have Minx look over those areas carefully.
He turned the key. The car thrummed to life, and Speed said softly, "Thank you, Racer X."
"...for what?"
"For showing up when I tried to call you."
"...it's what I do."