essere ferrari

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It had been over a year of desperately trying to wriggle his way into Jackson Otto’s good graces. He’d both succeeded and failed over the past few days, so to even consider that Jax might mean anything else beyond a mere toleration of Dante’s apology, was too much for his sleep-addled brain to process. Or perhaps he didn’t have the courage to hope that he meant anything more. It would be highly inappropriate, never mind nigh impossible for him to wrap his head around.

He hesitated a beat too long at Jax’s question.

Dante had never had to question whether or not he’d be alright before. He was always alright. The strong, dependable cornerstone in everyone’s life. He’d be remiss to let down on Jax on that front, not after a whole weekend of failing him. Of failing to show up for him.

“I’m always alright,” he said, plastering a tight smile onto his face.

As soon as Jax turned and headed to the mat to stretch, Dante took a moment to let his eyes fall closed, inhaling deeply.

He could pretend all he wanted that the two of them could now endure a normal training session, Dante’s apology accepted and all that. But there was nothing normal about the charged static in the room right now and the tugging sensation in Dante’s chest that was pulling him over towards the mat. He turned, just in time to see Jax wince as he lay on his back.

“Your shoulder?” he asked. He bit his lip softly. “Be careful.”

He knelt down in between Jax’s spread legs, the other man’s knees bracketing Dante’s hips in a way he was sure neither of them had thought twice about before. Dante because he was a professional and Jax because he had probably been busy conjuring up creative ways for Dante to die in his head. Right now, he braced himself on all fours above Jax, hand skating to the back of one knee, the way he’d always done for a hamstring stretch. This time, his fingers shook a little. 

“Did you hurt your shoulder?” he asked quietly, staring down at Jax.

He sucked in a heady breath, lightheaded as he canted his head back, banishing Dante from even the edges of his vision. He'd gotten through worse PT sessions like this. After all, he was used to other people manipulating his body. It was mechanical, the burn in his back muscles or the resistance his aching legs and hips gave. Even his sessions with Asher had grown monotonous. His first few had been thrilling, Jax breathing shakily to retain some composure. After that, he'd pushed his way through them, vague and disinterested. There was nothing intimate about that sort of touch.

Except, this time, it was impossible to ignore the way Dante's body crowded his. He squirmed a little, a sharp exhalation of breath punched from his lungs as Dante's fingers brushed the inside of his knee.

"That tickles." he blurted out, his traitorous body all too malleable under Dante's hands. He lifted his head slightly, eyes locked with Dante's own.

"No, it just twinged." he promised, downplaying it a little. He shook his head from his place on the mat, mussing up his hair in the process. "I'll be fine to continue."

He flexed his fingers, digging the pads into the spongy material of the mat, trying not to think about Dante on top of him.

"I can take it."

It wasn’t your regular run-of-the-mill tiredness. He knew how to deal with that. He worked a job that took him from country to country in what was, ostensibly, a traveling circus. In between work, he was at the gym or treating his favourite grocery stores like the last man standing in a zombie outbreak, sweeping the shelves of all the ingredients he could to make whatever dishes he had bookmarked on his phone. His hobbies included rock climbing, running on the beach and throwing himself off cliffsides for an adrenaline rush. He knew what it was like to expend all his energy and let his head sleepily hit the pillow at the end of a long day, having pushed through any tiredness thanks to a pure, unadulterated zest for living. But he’d never in his life felt so deflated.

Unsure what to do when he was lacking the same drive that had helped him go chugging along after all these years, he almost feared what Jax would say next to him. It might finally be the one thing that sent all the plates he was spinning crashing to the ground. 

Admittedly, the question did make him wobble. Why do you want to be here?

Dante looked at Jax, hurt. He almost felt betrayed by Jax asking him such a thing. Having Jax ask him a question like that felt like the past year or so of his life had all been for naught. But then he caught the look on the other man’s face, and realised that Jax needed to know the answer, solely for his own benefit.

Dante held the other man’s gaze and dry-swallowed the last of his doubts. They hadn’t gotten him anywhere good lately.

“Because I want to take care of you,” he said softly.

Teeth sinking into his bottom lip, he turned Jax’s next question over in his head. Bash would always be more than just a friend to Dante, but if Jax was asking him the question in a certain manner, he knew he had to answer truthfully and in accordance to that. 

“Just a friend,” he confirmed, because although there had been a time where he loved Bash, and he always would in some capacity, that love had settled into something that looked a lot different than it used to. He knew that if Bash heard him say those words, it would hurt the other man and that was the last thing that Dante wanted. He’d gotten far too adept at hurting the people he cared about this past weekend, and he had to tread carefully now, balancing the truth with what Jax wanted to hear. Bash was his friend, and that was all the two of them would ever be again. He only hoped Bash himself could make peace with that one day.

The moment Jax’s hands found Dante’s face, gently cradling it between them, he stilled. He looked up at the other man, more out of shock than with intent. Jax had never touched him like this before and, for the first time in a very long while, Dante realised what it must feel like to be fragile. 

“He’ll be alright. I hope. Eventually,” he said, his voice wobbling. He believed that Bash was strong enough to come back around and get on his feet. He only hated that he had been of no real help to him in London.

His own fingers trembling, Dante fought against the urge to do something as silly as nuzzle into Jax’s palm. They were both navigating uncharted territory here, and as sweet as Jax was right now, Dante couldn’t forget the look of utter distaste on the other man’s face when he’d first clocked him that morning. 

Clearing his throat, a little awkwardly, Dante attempted to instill a bit more pep into his voice.

“We should get you started with some stretches,” he said, gesturing to the mat beside them. “I’ll help you.”

A flood of unchecked, previously untouched feelings came rushing to the centre at those words. It threatened to overwhelm him, threatened to send him sinking to the floor. He wanted to cry, letting himself weep for all those years he’d put his body through impossible high force speeds, lacklustre diets, chiropractors and physical therapists who winced when they saw the shape his mangled and mottled body was in. He wanted to weep for the men he’d let toy with his heart, and his emotions. For the years he’d spent away from his family, clinging to Elias and Annie because they were the closest thing he had to a family here. He wanted, so bloody badly, to be taken care of. He wanted it enough to let Dante do it.

He tried his best to even his breathing, even though his heart was jackhammering in his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this nervous. Not standing on the asphalt before a race, or flirting with some strange man in a bar. Who knew Dante Lee would be the thing to bring him to his knees?

“Good.” He murmured, feeling guilty for even thinking it, never mind verbalising it. He’d spent the last year and a half terrorising a man who had only ever been kind to him. He dragged his thumb across the rough stubble of Dante’s cheek, wondering if this was the last time he’d get to do this. He wasn’t sure if this was the beginning or the ending of something, everything felt so desperate, so final. The point of no bloody return. 

“Will you be alright?” He asked, because deep down, he was selfish. That was the thing that would keep him awake at night. And right now, he wasn’t sure if Dante would be alright.

His eyes widened a little, the clearing of Dante’s throat making him spring back a little, hands trembling in mid-air as he fought to gain his composure. It felt like Dante had clicked his fingers and sucked all the air out of the room, the return to normalcy anything but normal.

“We don’t have t-“ he started. A better person would tell Dante to go home, rest. He’d make up some excuse for why his PT session didn’t go forward. He’d lie for Dante if he had to. But he heard the false cheeriness in his voice and swallowed, knowing the other man only wanted to go on as if things were normal.

Like any of this was normal.

“Alright.” He gave up, awkwardly lowering himself to the mat. He flopped back with a carelessness that jolted the pain in his shoulder, a frown touching the corner of his lips. 

A look of complete and utter horror crossed Eli’s face when Jax claimed that they had more in common than they thought.

For a split-second, he forgot they were talking about Matty. His insecure, traitorous little mind seemed to suddenly fire through every single interaction Jax and Annie had ever had, and he briefly wondered if there had been a time where his secret worries about their friendship being something more had actually been a definite threat. There had been far too many times when Eli had, and he meant this modestly, been informed that he was Ferrari’s latest prodigy, an answer to their prayers in the face of Jax’s downward spiral after a few unlucky seasons. At the time, he’d tried to be at least a little pleased, but there had been times where he was guilty of thinking that just because Ferrari seemed to think of him as a first-seat driver, he’d never stand a chance of garnering any attention from Annie as long as Jax was there.

What was a pale, anxious British boy meant to do in order to impress the girl of his dreams when the majority of her time was taken up by a handsome, tan, muscular Australian? His worries had been pushed aside the moment he and Annie had actually gotten together, but they reared their ugly head now and he couldn’t help but wonder if Jax meant…

Wait, no. Jax had just told him he was gay. Eli’s concerns were washed away like a bucket of soapy water had been chucked on them. Of course Annie and Jax had never gotten together. Jax was talking about Matty.

Oh God, Jax was talking about Matty.

Eli clapped a hand to his forehead and let out a pained groan. As a teenager, face pocked with acne scars and a wistful expression every time he looked at his TV screen, he’d have done anything to have found common ground with Jackson Otto. This was pushing it a little far.

“Can we please never talk about us both sleeping with Matty again?” he whined, maybe a little too petulantly.

“Wait, have we all slept with Matty?” came a deeper, smug-sounding British voice. Eli blinked his eyes open and stared at Dante, thankfully in a shirt and boxers now, leaning against the doorframe to the motorhome’s tiny living space.

“What?” Eli exclaimed, jaw dropped. He thought he and Matty told each other everything, and didn’t know if he preferred this piece of information being omitted or not.

His gaze darted back and forth between Jax and Dante. 

“Jax said you’ve got a good thing going, so neither of you can sleep with Matty again!” Eli pointed out, accusingly. Perhaps too accusingly for someone who also had a good thing going and had no plans to sleep with Matty again. But hey! Matty was his best friend!

“You guys are making my brain melt,” he said, weakly, wilting dramatically against the wall.

He was about to promise that, yes, this was a secret that he would take to his grave, one he would absolutely never bring up, not even on high holy days, or important anniversaries, no matter how funny it might be, when he heard a noise over his shoulder.

A warmth flooded his stomach at the sight of Dante, emerged from his hiding place with a cocksure smile on his face, hair messy from where Jax had been hungrily carding his fingers through it. He let out a bright laugh, Spiderman-pointing at Dante.

"You too?" he asked, deciding in that moment to find this very, very funny.

Eli had, if it was possible, gone even whiter.

"I hereby promise not to sleep with Matty again." he said, putting his hand over his heart, boy scout style. He couldn't help the smile that tugged the corner of his lips up. This was the lightest, if not awkwardest, he'd felt it ages.

"As much fun as it is to stand here and link the common threads in our sexual history, I was kind of, uh..." he started, gesturing his head towards Dante in the doorway. "Busy?"

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Dante: It’s not happening.

Dante: They can’t.

Jax: Not really.

Dante: Not really.

Jax: No.

Jax: I started seeing someone a lot better for me.

Dante: It’s not happening.

Dante: They can’t.

Jax: Not really.

Dante: Not really.

Dante: It’s not happening.

Dante: They can’t.

Jax: Not really.

Dante: Not really.

Dante: It’s not happening.

Dante: They can’t.

Jax: Not really.

Dante: It’s not happening.

Dante: They can’t.

Dante: I don’t bloody care.

Dante: They’re not putting you through that.