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aknosde · 1 year ago

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roundabout

Jann Mardenborough & Steve Mardenborough // Jann Mardenborough & Jack Salter // Injury Recovery // Father-Son Relationships // Growing Up // Emotional Hurt/Comfort // Concussions // family is hard when you've been a fuckup 98% of your life // 5.8k

ao3

—————

The second time Jann is involved in a crash, there is no possible way for him to misconstrue it as his fault—though the fact that no one dies most certainly helps.

It happens like this: Jack tells him there’s a hairpin round the next bend, and in front of him O’Riley’s car (4th place) twitches. It’s an odd thing to see, because it almost resembles a glitch, besides the fact that Jann is very much in a real race and also the fact that his brain is nagging at him—this means something. He’s on O’Riley’s bumper, set to surpass him at the turn, and then O’Riley goes twitching the other way, falls back, snags Jann’s wheel (it blows instantly), drags him to the side where they go ramming into a third car (Moreno, 6th place, his mind helpfully supplies as his spoiler goes through his passenger window) and at several hundred miles an hour they’re sent like some twisted human centipede into a concrete fucking wall. By this time Jann’s been detached from both O’Riley and Moreno, which means he has the pleasure of spinning out back into O’Riley, nosing into the wall at a 45° angle, effectively preventing him from benefiting from any of the safety-crunch he would have had if he could’ve rear ended O’Riley like any other car that gets into a pileup.

There’s fire, and the smell of gas, and Jann climbs out of his broken window—the door’s bent shut—sporting some kind of instantaneous headache-nausea combo before he sees the lick of flame and O’Riley screaming in his passenger seat. Jann does what anyone else would do when they’re sporting what will later be diagnosed as a grade three concussion, four bruised ribs, whiplash, and a patella fracture: he spits the blood out of his mouth and pulls O’Riley out of his car.

Persol sends him a tiktok edit of the ordeal later, underwhich he writes: fuckin badass. (They leave out the part where the ringing in his ears—Jack—got so loud that he threw up on the track before the ambulance pulled in, which is significantly less badass).This is after the customary half dozen panicked voicemails of course, Jann is never lucky enough to escape those.

The good thing, if you believe there can be a good thing in a mess like this, Jack says while his ER docs are deciding whether he needs to be sent to the ICU or not, is that it was only a free-race at the beginning of off-season, so in contrast to the Nürburgring chaos (Jack calls it a “mishap,” heavy on the American accent and the pause before it) he has more than three weeks to “do the whole recovery thing”—also Jack’s words. It’s good Jann has someone to think about this for him, because he’s high off painkillers that can only be described as “that good shit” (Danny) and also a concussion the likes of which he hasn’t seen since his stint as a keeper in third form—he’d grown 5 cm in a month and rammed his head into a post; it had been awful, and overall signified a turn for the worse between him and his dad. It’s at this point that Jann starts crying, as those with severe concussions are won't to do, and Jack begins freaking out over how much pain he’s in until Danny comes striding over from whatever extremely important business he’s found himself in a hospital in Ireland and bothers to ask what’s wrong. Danny’s got a very proportional face and a clean cut accent that makes most people want to answer his questions, and Jann is extremely suggestable at the moment, and somehow he manages to clear the situation up slurring every fourth word, though it must be in a particularly devastating manner because he has a vivid if vertigo-inducing image of Jack putting his head in his hands and Danny squeezing his bicep kindly. And then Jann spaces out until the doctor comes back in, because concussion.

In the end he is put in the ICU—apparently it’s possible for brain injuries to get worse after you receive them, and he’s subjected to round-the-clock monitoring to make sure he doesn’t slip into a coma or something equally bad—but after the first twenty-four hours they move him into a step-down unit and everyone stops freaking out quite so much—'everyone' primarily being Jack and his mom, who’s been calling every three hours. There, he’s allowed to continue his pastimes of sleeping, headache-having, and picking at his food without quite so much interruption, which unfortunately leaves him quite bored. He’s not the only one, either. Every time Jack says “stop”—followed by touching your face, you fucker or trying to look at your phone or squirming or I’m gonna sit on your goddamn hands—he looks just that little bit more sick of the place, and even Danny’s let slip complaints about the fluorescents and shoddy wifi amidst his flirtationship with one of Jann’s nurses.

By the fifth day—Jann’s been moved out of the step-down unit and into a normal ward—when they know that his knee is healing fine without surgery and that the best he can do for his ribs is try not to sneeze, Danny starts gunning for an early release that Jann’s doctors seem happy to appease. He’s handed a packet about identifying symptoms of post-concussion syndrome and the painkillers they’re prescribing—fucking opioids, not like they ever screwed anyone over or anything—that Salter immediately plucks out of his hands to flip through, and told to wait for the discharge paperwork that same day. It’s waiting for the paperwork, reading the packet, that Jack suggests Jann stay with his family instead of alone at his apartment.

His apartment is a too-large, two-bedroom between downtown Cardiff and his parent’s place, a quick jog away from a gym he likes. It’s too big because Danny told him to invest in the extra space for some reason Jann has no hope of understanding when his month and a half at university makes him the highest educated in the family, and after a quick argument about it—“Think of it like having a guest room.” “My room will practically be a guest room.” “For the love of God, Jann–”—he’d decided that Danny knew more about that sort of thing and that he could blame the whole thing on him if something went wrong, anyway. This is not to say that Jann has no fondness for his apartment. Having his own place was always an unachievable dream as he got older, itching to get out from under his father’s distrusting eye, so no matter how uninhabited it might be he’ll always choose it over bunking in his childhood bed, Mam’s waffles be damned. He may love them, but his family is unbearable. Jack usually picks up on that.

“I know, Kid,” he says. Okay, he’s still picking up on it. “But you need aftercare”—he shows Jann a page of the packet in demonstration, though it’s too far away for Jann to read anything—“so either you give your guest room to me or one of your friends for the next three weeks–”

“No.” Jann’s been trying to get Jack to take a vacation for the past year and a half (ever since he learned he hadn’t had one in twice as long). Jack is not giving that up to play nursemaid. Audrey and Persol have uni and work that Jann’s all ready convinced them not to stave off to visit him.

“–or, you stay with your folks.”

It’s not much of a decision at all.

He and Jack split from Danny once they touch down in Cardiff and take a cab to his parents’ house. He’s unreasonably anxious in the back seat, good knee bouncing so furiously that Jack gives him another “stop that” over the newspaper he’s reading, and he knows increased anxiety is a symptom or whatever, but that doesn’t make pulling up any less nerve wracking.

The house is just as it always is: paint peeling along the door frame, small front porch sagging over the non-existent garden, curtains over the kitchen sink open. Jann focuses on getting out of the car while Jack pays fare, tosses a “thanks, Drive” to the front seat when Jack collects their things from the trunk.

“Ready?”

The cab has pulled away. Jann can’t remember when coming home stopped being a good thing, but it’s been so long that he doesn’t think twice about it. He shrugs.

“Yep.”

Only Mam’s home. He unlocks the door with his own key, prepared for Jack to leave him with his instructions and prescriptions and orders to not move for three weeks, except she’s sitting at the dining room table on the phone and when he comes in a great grin spreads across her face and she apologises to whoever’s on the other end and hangs up. She pats him down, a bit like an airport security officer, and then cups her hands around his cheeks and says, “I missed your face, love.”

Maybe being home isn’t so bad; she’s always happy to see him.

Jack greets her with a kind, “Lesley,” and they hug hello. She instructs him to put their bags down, anywhere’s fine, and then shoos Jann and his knee splint off to the couch because she doesn’t like the look of it while she makes tea and returns to her call. Jack keeps him company for a bit, passes him a mug and turns the TV on until Mam hangs up, and then leaves Jann to stretch out and listen to them putter around the kitchen. Jack and his mam get along like a house on fire in the same way that Jack and his dad get along like a house being flooded, which in both cases is rather reminiscent of Jann’s relationships with each of them. He gets invited over for dinner in record time, and then they take turns asking about work, and Jann gets to fall asleep to the comforting noise of idle chatter and dishes being done.

When he opens his eyes, Coby is looming over him.

“You look like shit,” he says perceptively.

Jann knows. He sleeps approximately eighteen hours a day and perpetually wakes up exhausted, hasn’t been able to correct his posture for five days, his emotions swing back and forth like a fucking pendulum, and he’s covered head-to-toe in bruises. And Mam’s not wrong, the splint looks pretty mean.

“It’s almost like I was in a crash.”

Coby shrugs, which Jann knows is mostly for show because he was always in the background of Mam’s calls. “Supper’s on,” he says and promptly disappears from Jann’s view.

Jann rolls onto his side and groans quietly, every abrasion making itself known, though most particularly his ribs, who don’t like him putting pressure on them right where they’re sensitive. He pops his head over the back of the couch to check the clock on the microwave—it’s eight, so he’s late for his dose, which explains the points of searing pain. He identifies where his bag’s ended up too, under the coat rack, and hauls himself off the couch to pull his meds out, a herculean task though it may be.

“Hey,” Jack says when he spots him, pulling the Y out in a way that means he’s happy and has had a drink. Jann’s dad shoots a dirty look at him and then, spotting Jann over Jack’s shoulder, takes an urgent step forward.

“You’re up.” It’s a statement. Jann nods. No one moves for a moment.

“Right,” Jann says, hands in his pullover front pocket. “I’m just going to”—he motions towards his duffle and makes an awkward, balancing-act of a bend down towards the side pocket for his prescription because he can’t bend his left knee.

“Christ, I’m sorry Kid,” Jack says, crouching down beside him and reaching for the bag. “I completely forgot to wake you up.”

“It’s fine,” Jann says, making a flicking motion so Jack will let him get his shit himself. He can’t quite keep the pain out of his voice when it feels like half of his body is very precisely being run over by a steam roller, and he sees Jack frown out of the corner of his eye. “Not on you. I set an alarm but my phone got screwed with the time difference.”

He’s standing again now, and both his father and Jack frown at this, like the idea of Jann taking care of himself is alien to them—which, insulting. He frowns back. Jack shrugs and turns ‘round to continue help set the table, but his dad watches him as he downs his pills.

It takes twenty minutes for the meds to kick in, which Jann knows because he’s about a third of the way through his plate when he starts feeling better and then a lot worse. One thing they don’t tell you about opioids is that they can make you really fucking nauseous at the drop of a hat, and Jann had been in pain and dealing with the headache that is Jack and his dad in the same room, and he hadn’t taken the anti-nausea drug. He sets his fork down—it clinks against his plate—and closes his eyes for a second, willing the feeling to go away. It doesn’t. He stands up, abruptly he knows because his chair scrapes against the floor and Mam looks at him strangely, and makes as calm and quick of a path to the bathroom as he can manage. He doesn’t have time to close the door before he retches into the toilet. Two other chairs scrape against the floor.

“Jann.” That’s his dad. If he were anyone else it would be a concerned question but because he’s Steven Mardenborough it’s a command: respond.

“I’m ‘right,” Jann says, like he isn’t audibly throwing up, and kicks the door closed before anyone decides to join him in here.

A second later there’s a knock on the door. “Kid?” There: concerned question.

“I’m fine, Jack,” he says after a minute, trying not to press his face to the toilet seat when he’s sitting on the floor and exhausted and has the idea to just hang his head inside the bowl. God, his neck hurts. He sounds unconvincing, he knows.

“You sure?”

“Leave him be,” Dad says, as if he’s not also hovering outside the bathroom door.

“I’ll leave him be once I’m convinced he’s actually all right.”

Jann misses last year when his dad was grateful for everything Jack had done for him, and not weirdly territorial of Jann whenever he’s within five meters. They begin arguing about what he needs and how would you know that in the hall, which escalates quickly into he's my son and then where have you been. No thought seems to be spared for Jann himself, who's managed his duties masterfully (for a rookie, at least) since he was was brought up from the academy. There's a particularly loud he's made it this far because of me that makes Jann want to do something stupid like punch a wall.

“Jesus,” Jann curses instead, though there’s nobody there to hear him. Maybe because there’s nobody there to hear him. His dad wouldn’t like it. Mam should not have invited Jack over for dinner; she should’ve left Jann to fall asleep on the couch and gone back to work without comment.

He flushes the toilet and clambers to his feet, holding onto the edge of the sink so he doesn’t do anything stupid like stand up too fast and fall over or lose his breakfast too, and brushes the acidic taste out of his mouth with a toothbrush he’s used maybe three times in the past year. His shelf in the bathroom cabinet is untouched. When he’d left for uni the rest of his family had taken over it immediately but now everything is where he left it at Coby’s birthday, collecting dust. He’s never been away from home this long, at least not before GT Academy, though that’s more because he never had anywhere else to go, not because he can’t get enough of this house. Listening to Jack and his dad going back and forth he knows he’s definitely had enough of this house.

Dad and Jack are still arguing furtively when Jann yanks open the bathroom door—behind them his mother is still at the dining table next to Coby, grimacing and clearly not wanting to touch the situation with a pool cue.

“Quit that, won’t you,” he says, annoyed, and they fall quiet, only now realizing that everything they were saying was audible, apparently. They’re both frozen for a second, and then adopt contrasting looks of concern. Jack’s leans empathetically queasy while Dad’s more closely resembles a boxer who is also a general practitioner; both rake on him.

Both their mouths open, doubtlessly to make sounds of concern, but Jann cuts them off. “I’m fine, and more importantly I can take care of myself, so why don’t you stop lurking around the toilet as if you can help someone throw up and go back to your suppers. The only reason I’m even here is so if I fall down I won’t hit my head again and die, leave the rest of it up to me.”

“How about some space, fellas,” Mam says, getting up and patting Coby on the back. Coby is practically grinning; Jann doesn’t think in all of his years of a contentious relationship with his father he ever dressed him down so thoroughly, and even now he feels the urge to get out of the house as quickly as possible before retribution strikes. Jack is also still, but not nearly as important; they disagree plenty.

After another moment Dad and Jack seem to realize how close they are to him, and they take two very obviously counted steps back, leaving Jann just enough room to squeeze between them to the kitchen. Coby is still watching them, looking a little entertained.

“I’ll get you some water,” Mam says, brushing her hand down his arm and then squeezing him into her side like when he was seven and worried about a match or thirteen and fretting over a presentation at school. She’s smiling tightly, a little amused and a little concerned, though she keeps it to herself. “What do you need, love?” she asks more quietly.

He doesn’t know exactly. He feels flayed open, raw, everything around him a little too much. He settles for “space,” making a gesture to the mess of grown men in the living room. She chuckles lightly and presses a tall cup of water into his hand.

“Try the porch. Fresh air’ll be good.”

Jann nods, makes for the door and flicks the back of Coby’s neck on the way, though with his cup in his other hand he has to be careful about balance.

It’s night, well and properly now, and the neighborhood is lit by oranging street lights and cracked blinds. A cat crosses the street towards him and he clicks at it for a moment, beckoning it to come closer, which it does, if just out of his reach. He digs his fingers at the foam of his splint, itching through it, and then stops when he presses on a spot that is definitely not meant to be pressed. Incidentally, this is also the moment Jack comes out the front door.

“Hi,” he says.

Sometimes Jann can hear how he used to be famous in his voice, especially when he’s coming up on someone. If he’s not angry or schmoozing, his greetings come out all ready sheepish, like he knows he’s been recognized. It’s a little stupid, but it’s also a little endearing—that even the great Jack Salter can be humbled in the face of normal social interaction. He sits down heavily next to Jann on the porch; they aren’t high up, his feet touch the mulch below.

“Hi,” Jann says back. He takes a drink.

“How are you feeling?”

Jann raises an eyebrow purposefully over his cup: you’re really starting with that?

“Sorry, you’re right, I’m sorry,” Jack laughs, scraping a palm over his jaw. “After last year, I guess… I’m just used to Danny and I being the only people in your corner. I’ve been hovering, and untrusting, and I’m sorry.”

The situation’s more complicated than Jann would like. Nuanced, Audrey has called his relationship with his parents—his dad in particular—lounging on a hotel bed with a piece of her hair wrapped around his finger, the same as her relationship with her grandparents. They’ve always loved him irrefutably, that’s indisputable, but there’s no denying that for most of his life they haven’t been his biggest supporters, especially when it came to racing. He’s gone back over that a lot—the one in a million chance he came out on top of versus his parents’ logical concern. Jack is more difficult to pin down amidst the mess. He criticized Jann a lot throughout GT Academy, openly admitted to working towards the downfall of all his students, but since winning that final race he’s always had Jann’s best interests at heart. And he’s right: on the road, and especially that first year, he’s been Jann’s number one supporter.

Being twenty is terrible, Jann internally laments. He’s an adult but he’s young. He’s skilled but relatively inexperienced. He can take care of himself but sometimes he needs help. It seems up to the proper-adults in his life to decide when he’s grown up enough, which is infuriating, because if they trade off watching over him he’s never going to get the damn process over with.

“Can’t give me up? You do realize it was you who recommended I come home, yeah?”

Jack sighs, lifts his thumb and index finger to his forehead and presses slightly, his typical this little shit is being a smartass pose. Jann grins smugly, though Jack isn’t looking.

“Yes, I realize that. You do realize I’m apologizing, yeah? ” he mimics. Jann rolls his eyes.

“What’d you and my dad get into, then?”

Jack waves his hand, which is code for stupid shit I don’t want to talk about. It’s enough to dissuade Jann from probing about pointless parties and interviews and press briefings but it doesn’t work when his own father is part of the equation.

“That’s not gonna work, old man,” he says, and Jack sighs again. He’s really good at sighing, would probably have podiumed at it if the world cared about that sort of thing.

“Me and your dad both care about you very much,” Jack grinds out, sounding like a recently divorced parent despite the fact that he didn’t meet Jann until he was nineteen. “We found some mutual ground.”

Jann realizes that that’s probably the best he’s going to get from Jack, so he lets it drop. They sit on the porch in companionable silence, Jann working on his water and Jack coaxing the cat once he spots it behind their neighbors’ bins. His knee starts bothering him again, probably because he threw up the painkillers. It’s a problem without a solution, because opioids are dangerous and he has to wait for his next dose, so his only option really is to be as still as humanly possible. He’s just polished off his cup and adjusted how he’s sitting so his shoulder doesn’t ache quite so much when Jack gets the cat to jump up on the porch.

It leaps between them, curious about Jann’s discarded, probably twenty year old cup, and Jack reaches out to pet it. It has a collar on, which means it’s probably not flea infested and this is probably fine. The cat backs up until it hits Jann’s thigh, and then turns around to look at him curiously; it sniffs his joggers and paws at him tentatively. Jack decides to take advantage of its apparent concentration to pet it again. It hisses this time, but instead of pulling back Jack begins scratching it gently. For a good five seconds Jann is sure that Jack is about to get his hand clawed off, but then he finds a particular point beneath it’s collar and it melts against Jann’s leg, purring loudly. Jack uses this opportunity to reach for its tag: Steffan.

“Hey, man,” he says to the cat, scratching it harder.

“How’d you do that?” Jann asks, perhaps a little bit insulted that his neighborhood cat surrendered to Jack before him.

“Jus’ takes some effort,” he says absentmindedly, invested in the petting process. Steffan rolls onto his back and then stands up, Jack removes his hand, Steffan licks his paw.

“All right, then,” Jack says, standing up. Unnecessarily he does so on the porch, instead of stepping into his family’s poor excuse of a front garden out of some strange Midwest-American sign of respect, so he’s looming over Jann as he works though his departure checklist. “I should get outta here, but call if you need anything—I’ll be close. You’ve got an appointment with your GP Thursday, make sure to forward her notes to me. No training. I’ll meet you at your place in three weeks if there isn’t anything sooner.”

He pats down his pockets, as if searching for something he’s forgotten. It’s their goodbye hug, Jann realizes, a strange element of their routine born of the fact that Jann is very rarely away from Jack for more than a day or two at a time. Three weeks does seem a little monumental.

He gets to his feet gingerly, wincing, both of which Jack notices, reaching for his forearms and guiding him up purposefully. “How ‘bout we get you inside,” he says, ducking down to grab the abandoned cup and pushing Jann lightly towards the front door. Jann takes the cup from him.

“I’m good, Jack.”

Jack looks at him—wearing not exactly a frown, but something equally examining, equally concerned; Jann tries to let it roll off of him. He looks to the scar under Jann’s eye and the healed break in his nose from Nürburgring, the bruise on his temple from where he was thrown hard enough that the padding in his helmet turned inconsequential and the split in his lip from last week. He knows how he looks, least of all because Coby had no problem telling him earlier this evening.

“Okay,” Jack says with a small but sure nod. Every risk Jann takes, there’s a point where Jack just has to trust him, and it looks like this is the point for tonight, even if the risk only exists in Jack’s head.

Jann steps inside; Jack holding the screen door open with the toe of his boot. They hug.

“Get some rest, all right?”

“Sure,” Jann says, like he wasn’t planning to down as much acetaminophen as he can without killing himself and going to sleep but is considering it now.

Jack nods, he doesn’t like saying goodbye for whatever reason, so Jann calls out “See you later, old man,” as the screen door slams shut, Jack on the sidewalk.

Exhaustion returns with his exit. Jann closes the front door and his mam points towards the plate she’s saved for him on the counter, though he shakes his head at it after thinking about it for a moment. She pats his hand sympathetically and returns to her crossword, and Jann makes for his room. He’s uninterrupted by his father, surprisingly—he and Coby are watching a match on the couch, unsurprisingly. Coby shoots him a glance, which is essentially sixth former for “you ‘right?” and Jann nods before slipping down the hallway.

He’s been in bed for almost two hours—long enough for the ice packs Coby dropped off on his way to bed to warm—when his dad cracks the door open. Jann’s room is a mess, partially because he has pretty limited range of motion and partially because he left it like this and doesn’t like his parents touching his stuff, which makes him twice as self conscious as his dad peers in.

“Alright?” Jann asks, getting an elbow beneath him. His blinds are open and the orange light from the street is coming in, washing over his room and onto his father’s face. He’s prepared for a fight, no matter how little he wants it.

“Jus’ checking in,” his dad says, peculiarly, voice heavy. It’s probably nearing midnight; he doesn’t usually stay up late. “You sorted?”

Jann motions to the small army of prescriptions on his nightstand. The alarms on his phone have been fixed. He’s attempting to sleep until his next round of pain meds but it’s not working out very well, not that Dad knows that.

“I’m–” Dad starts, voice gruff. He motions, silhouetted in the dark, and then gives up and comes in the room, closing the door behind him and picking carefully through the darkness. He choses a spot on the edge of Jann’s bed and promptly sits on his knee, which isn’t entirely his fault since Jann’s lying on his side.

“Fuck,” Jann bites, his dad already standing again, fretting far too much for Jann’s liking.

The difficult thing about their relationship, ever since Jann quit football, is that his dad is distant and protective of him in turn, always in an extreme way, and Jann never knows when one will turn into the other. When he was in school it would manifest in long silences, often emanating disappointment from his dad’s end, and then a poor mark or a cracked phone screen would unleash an overbearing dictatorship of mandated studying and an after school job. Now, Jann will go weeks without hearing so much as a peep from his dad until Mam gets annoyed and pushes her phone into his hands, and then sometimes he’ll come see a race or call out of the blue or Jann’ll bring him lunch, and he won’t shut up for hours or will just emanate a deep seated pride that Jann has no clue what to do with. That’s what he wanted as a kid, but now that it’s here it feels alien.

“Shit, shit,” Dad curses quietly. “What do you–? How can I–?”

“It’s fine,” Jann gets out, sucking in a breath. It feels a bit like his knee is splintering into a thousand little pieces, but it’s also felt like that every day since the crash so he figures he might as well let his dad off the hook. He turns onto his back. “Just– Be careful.”

Dad takes this very seriously, and gingerly resumes a position on Jann’s bed. He looks odd sitting on the edge, too bulky an outline compared to the slight lines of Jann’s room, an alien presence. He himself isn’t odd, though. He sits with his hands folded between his knees, looking off at something in the distance seriously. At his heart, his father is a storyteller Mam always says. It’s true; some of Jann’s best memories of his childhood are sitting on the living room rug or tucked into his dad’s side with Coby as he replayed a great match or the summer he spent working on the docks. He was meant for more than the freight yard, they all know, but Jann thinks he might’ve been meant for more than the pitch too.

“I… apologize, for this evening,” he says eventually. Jann waits, quietly, for whatever more he has to say. Dad takes a deep breath. “You have to understand, I’ve been raising this kid for most of my life.

“He’s quick as a whip, smart, and so, so talented.” There’s a smile in his voice, that pride again, and Jann has to resist squirming. “All I’ve ever wanted for him was a good future: something steady and reliable, where he could make something of himself, be…happy with himself, because life taught me those things weren’t guarantees. But things, they didn't turn out how I thought they would. For the longest time…”—he looks knowingly at Jann, an almost sly smile playing across his lips—“…he seemed to fight me on everything. There were many downs before there were ups.”

“I understand,” Jann says, because he doesn’t know how much longer he can listen to this. It’s unfair, the way it’s clear his father has had so long to sit on this while Jann is completely unprepared.

“Don’t interrupt,” Dad scolds, a turn towards typical. He continues. “I didn’t understand him, how he could point his drive somewhere so pointless, and I was worried he’d end up like me. When he left, out of my reach, I was afraid he’d fall somewhere I couldn’t catch him. And then, he almost died, and then, he almost died again.” There’s a lot missing in between there, Jann thinks, not to mention the dramatizing, but Dad seems to know he’s about to protest and swats at him. “I know I haven’t always been your biggest supporter, and for that I’m sorry–”

“You’ve all ready apologized for that,” Jann reminds him. Dad glares. “Sorry.”

“–but I have always, and will always, care about you, and I can’t be there to do that all the time, so perhaps I go a bit overboard on occasion. I am sorry for not managing myself better tonight.”

This is perhaps the most roundabout way for his father to make the same “sorry for hovering” apology as Jack, but it’s also so… Steven Mardenborough that Jann can’t imagine it having been done any other way. It also, alarmingly, explains a lot of Jann’s childhood. Not in a way that makes him feel better about it, but in a way that makes him see his father’s side of it. Jann’s been a fuckup most of his life, but he never thought of his father as one; it seems his dad has a different perspective on that. Doesn’t mean anything’s miraculously fixed.

“I understand,” Jann says a second time, quietly, sincerely.

He’s crying, he thinks, his vision blurring around the edges and breath hitching. His head hurts. Dad can hear him, thumbs a tear from under his eye and hugs him to his chest in a way that finally relaxes Jann’s shoulders. He exhales, an echo of Le Mans.

“I fucking hate concussions,” he says, arms wrapped around his dad’s neck.

“Watch your mouth.” Jann laughs wetly into his shoulder. Then, “You scared me, boy.”

“I know,” Jann says, even if he didn’t realize how much until a few moments ago. “I’m sorry.”

They pull away naturally, and Jann sinks back into his spot, a little closer to sleep.

“I’ll give you your space,” Dad says pointedly, something Jann would take as an insult if he were any less tired, if his dad hadn't just apologized. “Tell me if you need anything.”

Jann knows he won't, but it means something that his dad offered. It’s more than he’s done in the past.

“‘Night.”

"Goodnight, Jann."

#niche fandom hello #regular followers pls ignore that this is fic for a biopic i don't wanna talk abt it #max.txt #fic: roundabout #gran turismo #gran turismo fic #not even gonna tag characters cause i feel weird. okay bye #max.fic #i know nothing abt racing does it show

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