#I WAS JUST THINKING ABT THIS AKDHFHG IDK

[coalessscence]

when Remembrance was little, when her parents were still there, they worried about her. of course every parent does, but this was different. this was brought on by a very specific situation, by a series of events that they felt were out of place. careful and concerned for their new child and their bright future in their new little family. why doesn’t she smile? why doesn’t she seem happy? why does she seem so.... different. is there something wrong? they were bounced from specialist to specialist and some terms and phrases were thrown around, but nothing was concrete. don’t worry, the specialists said. just give her time. she’ll learn. she’ll fit in.

ripped from the life of her little family young, too young to remember such experiences much at all, Remembrance found herself in a new life, with an even littler family. just her and Uncle Johnny. and his crew- and the lifestyle they all led. a life hardly meant for a young child and over populated by men and testosterone, a world which, when collided with women, emphasized sex and femininity and the hotness of the models in skimpy clothes and high heels on the race track looking for a driver to take her behind the grandstands, primping her hairsprayed helmet and hoping her lipgloss didn’t melt away in the heat. two clashing worlds Remembrance never connected to, sheltered away in her little world with Uncle Johnny and his crew.

Dana was short, but always smiling. she put her long hair in ponytails and had chipped nail polish on all the time. she smelled like sweat and stale perfume from hours before, and she always had a cheerful word, even when they lost. Freddi was tall and lean, and wore combat boots that it was always too hot for. her short hair was always messy and she lived in a pair of greasy coveralls. she was quiet, but not exactly stoic. she packed a punch you didn’t cross.

Bert was stocky, with grease-stained hands and a receding hairline despite behind just behind middle age. he always had mints in his pocket but no one ever wanted any. that never stopped him from offering them. Jeff was lanky and long-legged; long hair tucked behind both ears all the time and a cigarette dangling from his lips or fingers whenever he was at rest. surprisingly determined but always a little detached; it was he who stumbled across their prodigy, Jerry. a kid just out of high-school with freckles dotting his skin and little to no experience in the driver’s seat who wanted to get in on that hot racing action.

this ramshackle, rough-edged team. they are the people that Remembrance grew up around. she trusts them, and she learned a lot of what she knows about cars and car culture from them. in a way, they helped to raise her. she respects them- she feels (mostly) comfortable with them. and she can't say that about very much of anyone, so that is saying something about their connection.

the gritty 1960s played out like a film on a grainy camera. a wide eyed, serious faced little child with her hair kept short, if a little uneven, by Jeff’s mostly steady hand, who learned what she knew about ‘women’, even if she never felt like one, from Dana in a camper trailer on the racetrack and who rode on Jerry’s shoulders to grab hotdogs before Johnny ran down the blacktop in his latest ride. a dark-haired child who handed Gary the tools he asked for, memorizing their technical names, who sat in silence eating lunch with Freddi every other day and enjoyed it. who sat stiffly in Johnny’s lap in the evenings, not because she didn’t love him but because she didn’t know differently.

was it unconventional? of course. did she regard it fondly?... of course.

and then Johnny was gone. one accident gone bad, and just like that- gone.

after Johnny's death, she sort of just faded away from them. not that they ever felt that they'd had her in the first place- but they'd had something, and then they didn't anymore.

Remembrance's car, while built for racing, is street legal. she drives it everywhere, not just on the track. it isn't that great on gas, but it does alright, and it’s the seventies- who cares. gas is sixty cents a gallon. and if she can only afford to own and maintain one car, this is going to be the one she owns and maintains.

she knows better than to take it with her when she goes to new york and heads undercover. because it's something that she, dare i phrase it so boldly, loves and she doesn't want anything to happen to it. she's put a lot of effort into it- she and Johnny put a lot of effort into it- and she wants to make sure it stays safe and loved and in good hands. 

at a loss as for what to do with it, afraid to sell it and even more afraid to leave it sitting somewhere whilst she is halfway across the country, she leaves a note for Johnny's team at their ramshackle garage when she knows that they won't be in, designating a time when they can come to pick it up, asking them to keep it safe. when they arrive at the set location, the car is there with the keys, and Remembrance, unbeknownst to them, sits across the street in a coffee shop, sipping her black coffee with a mostly blank expression. 

she watches as they look around to see if she’s nearby, and eventually, Dana slides into the driver’s seat and one by one, the others step into the car. as it pulls away down the street, with the last people she’d ever been connected to in it, a new sort of hardness settles in behind her eyes. when they turn the corner, her heart does too. 

Remembrance never learned to fit in, and she knows she never will. she’ll never have connections beyond the energy of her hand clenched on a shifter handle, and maybe that’s because she’s never needed them as much as it is that she’s never understood them.

maybe that ramshackle team had the only pieces she’s ever let go.

maybe she’ll never let go again.

#🏎️ the 'wheelman' | MUSE (remembrance) #🏎️ car & driver's connection | HEADCANONS (remembrance) #⌲ o o c #I WAS JUST THINKING ABT THIS AKDHFHG IDK