[OOC] Alright. I debated for quite a while whether to post this or not. It's a lot of what, I suppose, you'd call "filler", hastily written by both Cen and myself. On one hand, it'd go much better in the archive, as it's got nearly nothing to do with the racing. On the other, maybe it might be fun to see what my lot got up to while waiting, and it seems, rather different from most other people! We go back to shortly after the conclusion of Round 2:
[BIC]
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Ordinarily, there was something very awkward about taking a bath with your co-workers. But steeped in the cultural tradition and strict etiquette, and above all else, the mandatory serenity, of the remote onsens high in the mountains, it was nothing but peaceful.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Peace was not on the agenda of uneducated buffoons such as Sam, the Australian equivalent of a redneck NASCAR driver. Already building up a litany of offenses the locals were far too polite to chastise him for, he was already eager to lengthen the list, leering at the ladies, making dick jokes in a voice reserved generally for the mosh pit, not showering before attempting to enter the baths, not showering twice, then towel slapping Kai’s, Strop’s and Tesla’s butt before Hannah pre-emptively gave him the boot and sent him headfirst into the hot spring, where he proceeded to splutter and scream that his face was melting.
Strop chose, for the moment, to ignore everything, and slowly bob in the water, little bubbles rising from his nostrils and breaking the water surface. He felt the aches and pains of the night’s abuses ease away, not least the sore spot on his cheek where Vos had, in his characteristic fit of rage, commandeered his phone while slamming the Kodiak’s door, and then Strop’s head into the Gryphon Gear truck, ordering what sounded suspiciously like the murder of one of the Normandy staffers. He tried to expunge the image of Vos’ eerie grin from his mind. There was not a scerrick of good in that man, the only consolation being that the same applied equally to his employees.
This reverie was rudely interrupted by Sam splashing about, then stepping on him, then hauling him out of the water. “Strooooop” he whined, “Be my wingman.”
Strop fixed him with a blank stare. “Um, why?”
“Because Kai doesn’t want to!” From the knees up, Strop suddenly felt very cold as the dripping water fairly turned to icicles, so he shook Sam off and returned to a satisfactory depth, that was to say, almost completely submerged. “I mean, why do you need a wingman?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He pulled Strop’s face to line his sight up with the ladies at the opposite end of the baths (only Strop, being horse-folk, had a rather different line of sight), who were doing their best to ignore them and also seemed to be attempting to hide behind the veils of steam rising from the water. “This is prime hunting turf! The setting is steamy, everybody’s nearly naked already, all I need is someone to back me up and I can score the hottest Asian girl ever.” His eyes glazed over and his mouth hung open in some vapid impression of an internal ecstasy.
“Okay Sam, three things,” Strop explained with all the patience of a sleep-deprived race driver. “First, that’s kind of creepy racist. Second, contrary to popular belief, you’re supposed to behave yourself in an onsen, and third, I’m not into picking up not least because I already have a girlfriend.”
Sam’s face fell slightly at the latter point, so he whirled around to Kai again. “Then you! You must be my wingman! It’ll be just like the old times!”
Kai shrugged in thought. “Yeah… nah.”
“Why not!?”
“Because it’s stupid,” said Kai, picking his nose.
Sam spluttered for a moment, speechless in the face of the steadfast dismissal of his raison d’être. “T-T-That’s not true!”
Kai sighed, then turned to look Sam directly on the face with exaggerated sincerety. “Okay. Well, just so you know, I have a girlfriend, so please excuse me for not joining you in your quest to pick up.”
Sam scoffed, turning up his nose and planting his hands on his hips. “Yeah. Right. Strop just used that one.”
Kai didn’t flinch. “It is actually possible for more than one person to have a girlfriend at a time. Especially when it isn’t the same girlfriend.”
Sam’s face slowly fell as it dawned upon him that Kai wasn’t necessarily yanking his chain. “…come again?”
At this juncture, Kai suddenly reverted to a cocky grin. “Ask Tesla to be your wingman. She’s way better than you at picking up.”
Sam frowned, “That isn’t the point-“
“Maybe you should ask Jaws, he’ll take really good care of you!”
There was a big splash as Sam charged with a battle cry and dunked Kai’s head into the water. Shortly thereafter, two stocky Japanese fundoshi-sporting men marched into the hot spring, clamped a burly hand on each of Sam’s shoulders, and forcibly marched him through the paper doors, the latter protesting his innocence all the way.
________________________________________________________________
Ten hours from Tokyo to LAX, and it felt like a whole lot longer.
Noah was content to be fiddling with his ipod. Hannah and Tesla seemed to be doing alright, picking up from where they left off talking about Tesla’s bedroom decorations. Strop wasn’t a fan of flying (at least, not in a giant tin can thirty five thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean), but he came prepared, first by shotgunning not sitting next to Sam, and secondly, armed with a packet of temazepam and boom, lights out. Now he was blissfully dead to the world, leaving Kai sandwiched between Sam and the unfortunately much maligned stereotypical obese person who doesn’t quite fit into a cattle class seat. To make matters worse, not only did Sam insist on hogging the window seat ‘for safety reasons’, but he also had the bright idea of drinking ALL THE COFFEE while in the boarding lounge, and now he was clambering all over Kai to get out to go to the toilet every thirty minutes.
Finally, fatigue got the better of him and on Sam’s tenth visit to the toilet, his lids hung heavy, sinking shut as he drifted mercifully into slumberland. The incessant whirr of the plane engines and faded into nothingness, and he became intangible, as hands gently closed around his shoulders and shook him awake again.
“Wha-“ Kai blearily scowled, to see Sam staring at him with an uncomfortably earnest expression.
“Bro, you don’t have to say you have a girlfriend if it’s really a boyfriend. That’s just not right!”
Kai blinked and shook his head, this time uttering a far more articulate: “What?”
“I understand man! I’m tolerant!” Still grasping Kai by the shoulders, he gave him a little shake. “You can’t just go hiding things like that, when it’s perfectly natural.” He then hesitated, before lowering his voice and looking down and to the side. “Some of my favourite porn has ‘boyfriends’ too.”
“I… the…” Kai stared as the gears ground in his head, then he jumped up with a start, smacking into the larger fellow next to him. “WHAT!?”
Sam shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, I mean, I understand you not might want to tell your colleagues, but you can tell me, I’m your br-“
Kai held up his hand, cutting Sam off. “Why are you talking about porn?”
The look of sheer confusion Sam sported at this question was nearly as worrisome as the direction it was taking. “Oh, uh, I don’t have a lot of experience with Thai Ladyboys, but some of the porn is-“
“Okay, STOP.” Kai clamped his hands on Sam’s mouth. “This, this here, is why I didn’t tell you.”
Sam plucked Kai’s hand off his mouth, looking hurt. “Whaddya mean? I’m being understanding!”
“No,” Kai said firmly. “You are doing that thing where you keep talking without filtering through your brain first.”
“But I thought about it a lot!” Sam protested.
Maybe that’s the problem, Kai thought to himself, realising that reply wouldn’t get them anywhere, so he cut to the chase. “Look. When I said girlfriend, I meant girlfriend. As in an actual girl. Just ask the others, they’ve met her.”
For a moment, Sam’s face had an expression Kai had never seen before. Instead of the cocksure grin and all the earnestness of a bro-code faithful, he saw genuine confusion, no, not confusion, some kind of fear in those slightly parted lips, that furrowed brow and icy blue eyes unaccustomed to searching for something they had never seen. Then just as quickly, the expression was gone, and Sam was clambering over Kai again. “Budge over, I gotta pee again.”
Kai groaned, cursing the universal law that prohibited smoking on commercial flights. He turned to see Sam disappearing into the cubicle, and looked at the empty seat beside him. “Screw that,” he said to himself, unclipping his seatbelt and sliding over into the window seat, resting his head against the window frame in a futile attempt to sleep.
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Strop disliked Los Angeles.
He had nothing personal against much of its inhabitants. But for what it stood for, what it really was, a dirty, smoggy symbol of class segregation and poverty oppression, and caricatures of every material and superficial aspiration epitomised by one of the most cynical marketing institutions in the world, whose air he couldn’t breathe, water he couldn’t drink, and cereal he couldn’t eat without finding at least twenty grams of sugar in it. And yet, he was just as guilty of being sucked into and indulging of the pleasures of the spawn of that machine that allowed the glamorisation of madness and excess. After all that was the value and the attitude that drove Gryphon Gear, even as much as he wanted to say that it was purely in the pursuit of building something beautiful. Something beautiful that had way too much power to be used on the road and went through about forty thousand dollars worth of tyres a year.
But no, he did not like Los Angeles, and after waiting for ninety minutes to get through customs, waiting around in LAX for another three hours was not how he wanted to spend the spare time they had to get to Utah. Nonetheless, everybody else was in the same boat, that was to say, Noah, Hannah, Tesla, Sam and Strop. They were seated at the typically overpriced airport café, sipping on their third coffee each (Strop was drinking hot chocolate), spotting the occasional Barely Street Legal participant wander past and out the exit with their bags and their keys in hand, wondering where the hell Kai went.
“What the hell could be taking him so long?” Strop grumbled.
“I dunno,” Tesla mumbled into her hand, which was propping up her muzzle, her tail lashing about listlessly. “You think he got in trouble at customs?”
“Bloody well hope not,” Noah, just as grumpy as Strop, muttered. “Though I wouldn’t be surprised, the kid just looks like trouble.”
“Oh really?” Hannah, her face mashed onto the table, the power of coffee clearly flagging, mumbled. “Well, I guess he does look a little like he’s on drugs…”
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“Do I look like I’m on drugs???”
Seated in a hard plastic chair in the little room adorned by an obviously two way mirror, Kai gesticulated at the TSA officer whose back was turned to him. Certainly his appearance, bags under his eyes, that small cut on his cheek he sustained under hard cornering during one of the races that he couldn’t stop picking at because he couldn’t access his smokes, his frazzled hair and pale withered complexion, and the t-shirt which he still didn’t realise he was wearing inside out, didn’t help his case, but then again surely that went for just about anybody stepping off a ten hour flight.
The TSA agent didn’t reply, merely shuffled a few bits of paper before turning around and staring at Kai. In the lapse of conversation, Kai fidgeted, looking more agitated by the second. Finally, the TSA agent pushed forward a photograph of a flashy red sports car. The Mephisto. His baby.
“Is this your vehicle?”
Even if Kai hadn’t replied, the way he stiffened in response, then stared at the TSA agent with such intensity would have given it away. What he said, however, just made things worse. “She better not have a scratch on her.”
“Mmhm.” The TSA agent gazed at the photo, before nodding. “That’s a pretty flashy car you have there. Doesn’t even come up on our database.”
“And this has something to do with why I’m sitting here how?” Kai clenched his teeth, before hiding his hands under the table when he realised they were shaking visibly.
Again, the TSA agent refused to answer his question (what was new), instead folding his arms and staring Kai down. Kai initially stared back, then thought the better of it and retreated, scowling. “It says here that the purpose of your entry to the US is a road trip through the US. We find this highly irregular, given your travel history as well as the fact that even if you were here for a car show, SEMA already wrapped up a fortnight ago.”
“I’m not interested in going to SEMA.” Kai groaned.
“Evidently not,” the TSA agent continued. “I’ll tell you what we’re thinking. We’re thinking that you aren’t here for a road trip, and that this is not your car. Frankly you look far too young to own a car like this, especially if you travel economy. We think that you are delivering this car to somebody else, but a car like this, and a delivery like this, raises our suspicions that this is a trade of untoward purpose, and are concerned that you are susceptible to other risks.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all week.”
And I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous things considering what I’ve been really doing, Kai added in his head, but had the good sense not to say aloud.
“Most commonly, these risks pertain to the concealment and the delivery of drugs. You exhibit several of the symptoms of a person who is suffering the toxic effect of a drug overdose, so we’re concerned that drugs you have concealed on your person may have leaked from their containers.”
“I, what!?” Kai shot back from his chair faster than a spooked cat. “I told you, I’m not on drugs!”
“Please be forthright with us,” the TSA agent said, adjusting the fit of his gloves. “The consequences can be fatal. If you tell us where you hid the drugs we can remove the substances and have you medically treated promptly. Else, we would require you submit to a cavity search…”
“No!” Kai shrunk back against the wall. “No way man! You can’t do that! That’s assault!”
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Kai’s face was a black mask of rage as he stormed through the terminal towards the waiting crew of Gryphon Gear.
“Oh look who’s here,” Noah deadpanned. “So nice of you to join us.”
“So, did they think you were on drugs?” Strop joked, elbowing him in the ribs. Kai twitched. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snarled, only for Sam to pile it on. “Oooh, did they do a cavity search?” he titillated, drawing giggles from Hannah and Tesla.
Kai whirled around, bloodshot eyes wide open. “NO!” He shouted, drawing startled stares from half the people in the terminal. “Let’s just get out of here.” With that, he plowed through the throngs of travellers as fast as he could walk, leaving the rest of the crew straggling behind, swapping bemused and bewildered looks.
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Strop did not like Las Vegas for what it symbolised, either, but by this point in time he realised it would be a shame if he let something like that ruin his entire road trip through the US.
A sea of neon greeted the convoy as they rolled down the main drag in the diminishing light of the twilight hours. It was impossible to tell exactly which hour, because the sidewalks were always bustling with people, walking to and fro and in and out of casinos and hotels, the occasional superhero, hooker, and Elvis among them. Likewise, at least here, their cars did not stick out nearly as much in the land of extreme flash, though they still drew plenty of second looks and the occasional blurry cameraphone photo. In the much more anonymous F-350, Tesla’s paws and nose were plastered to the window, eyes wide and lights dancing in her irises.
“Oh wow, so many all you can eat buffets!” she fairly squealed.
“Oh wow, you’re going to go from a thin-fat dog to a fat-fat dog,” Noah, riding in the middle, snarked, only to be doffed on the head by Hannah. “No body shaming!”
“And you said I was size-ist!” Strop crowed over the radio.
Passing all the fancy hotels and opulent fountains and neon signs of girls in skirts and cowboys, they pulled into the driveway of the only place that would allow people to rock up and check in without a booking at the witching hour: a twenty four hour drive in motel with a decent car park. The rooms were simple, but they had clean beds, bathrooms with showers, and wireless. A brief but animated argument over how to distribute four rooms between six people ensued, in which it was clearly established that Tesla got her own room because she snored, Hannah got her own room because she said so, and Sam got his own room because he was a disgusting human being whose bedroom habits ought not to be shared with other people.
“Oh, that’s okay guys, I won’t be sleeping anyway!” Sam winked and nudged the other guys.
“Shotgun the spare room then!” Noah immediately shouted, worming away from the winks and nudges.
Strop and Kai eyed each other, having managed through lack of initiative to score sharing a room. Finally, they simultaneously shrugged.
“I’m going to get something to eat,” Strop declared, just as Kai declared, “I’m going to check on my car.” They walked their separate ways, Strop promptly being grabbed by Tesla and dragged to the nearest All You Can Eat buffet.
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Kai did not know why he was skulking, but something about the night just made him so inclined. Also, perhaps, something about the way those stupid TSA guys questioned him at the airport freaked him out. The only solace he took was that nobody could possibly know the Mephisto as well as he did. His baby.
He traced his hand over every curve and line, every panel, running fingers along the inseams of the monocoque body shell. He popped the hood, inspecting the header, the various pipes and the caps for the intercooler, the water reservoir for any signs of tampering, but fortunately the engine bay was so cramped he knew that it was impossible to do anything without winching the entire block off its mounts. Moving past the rear of the cabin to the rear splitter, and his fingers hit something foreign.
Flicking his pen torch on, he saw a small black box, stuck fast to the inside edge of the rear bodywork, just above the gap for the giant splitter. With an annoyed grunt, he reached in and gave it a brief yank, and it came out. Those bastards. More to the point, he had to get rid of this somehow, throw those flunkies off his tail, and hope he wasn’t already being tailed.
Kai weighted the tracker in his hand for a moment, a wicked idea forming in his head. A minute later, he was walking down the street in search of a car with a Canadian plate. He spotted one. Some poor tourist having taken their Toyota Prius to Vegas, and would now leave with a bit more than they expected. Hopefully they weren't doing anything illegal, otherwise they would be regretting that when they left. He looked around, as innocently as possible, but something else stopped him from moving further. It was the long green body of The Hulk. Oh, that would be great. That would be horrible, but it would be great. He weighted the tracking device in his hand again, staring unblinking at the Hulk and remembering their little... fight for dominance. And Reece and his hungry grin. Would serve him right. Kai looked around, searching for the big, loud croc. He didn't find him in the crowd, making it the perfect moment... But it would be counterproductive to add the tracker to one of the contestants. It could mess with a lot of things. He huffed annoyed, looked around again and decided to add it to the Toyota instead.
Well, the Hulk was something. Kai decided to take a closer look, now that he had found it anyway. Despite it being a fat American, with its stupidly thin tyres and way too much power to be an even remotely reasonable ride, it was still... interesting seemed like a good word. He did want to drive it again. To- He stopped for a moment, trying to find a better reason than the one his sleep deprived mind was giving him, but it just seemed right. Show it who was the boss. Even if it tried to kill him again, it was annoying to be reminded of his failure to drive that stupid car round the track. And it was doing... better than expected, wasn't it? Perhaps he was too quick to judge... Kai touched the car lightly, looking through the windshield at the driver seat and-
"Hey!"
He jolted and spun around, a palm connecting with the side of his head before he could even register what was going on. He was hoisted into the air by the collar and slammed into a wall he wasn't sure where was in relation to anything, completely disoriented.
"Whaddya think you’re doin’?!" He didn't get to orient himself, nor answer, before a fist drove into his guts and almost kicked him into sweet darkness. Kai gasped for breath, trying to curl up despite the gravitational issue. "C’mon, spit it out." He was slapped a bit lighter, apparently in an effort to get him semiconscious again. He opened his eyes and through tears saw the maw of Reece a bit too close for comfort. "Just lookin', man..." He croaked, feeling lightheaded from that simple effort.
Jaws glared at him with those reptile eyes, completely emotionless, before apparently deciding it was an appropriate response. Kai didn't get put down, however, but was instead treated to a vice of a grip around his shoulder as Reece practically dragged him back to look at the car.
"She's quite a car, isn't she?" Jaws said, a bit too much feeling in his words. Kai just nodded to the best of his ability. "Yeaaah..." Jaws sighed lovingly and stared at the Hulk, then he remembered reality.
"Don't touch the car." He growled and let go of Kai. Then he swung around and lumbered his way back to what looked like a back alley club.
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“Shit.” Hannah frowned.
“That bad huh?” Strop looked up from his plate of god-knows-what salad. The lights in the buffet were so dim that he pretty much couldn’t see what he was eating, but truth be told, he wasn’t sure what he was tasting either. Tesla, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care, everything was disappearing into her maw faster than dirt into a Vortex hoover. As for Noah and Sam, well, Noah had gone shopping, and Sam had gone hunting, so to speak.
“No, not that.” Hannah tossed him her phone. “The weather report.” Strop looked down, and immediately also said, “Shit,” this time drawing Tesla’s attention. “We better let everybody know.” Tapping away at the screen, he drafted a message, encrypted as usual, and sent it to all the contestants of the Barely Street Legal League.
- - -
URGENT BULLETIN: please check Utah weather conditions. Currently snowing, followed by 2 days of rain. Temperatures between 5-40F. Salt flats will be unsafe to race now, as are the roads. We will meet at midnight, Nov 18 local time instead, once rains have stopped.
Until then you're free to do as you please. Note that staying overnight on the Salt Flats themselves is prohibited, so we suggest finding suitable accommodation until then.
- - -
Having hit SEND, he drummed his fingers on the table. Two more days in Vegas. At least Sam would be thrilled. Kai, like himself, he wasn’t so sure.
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Continuing with the theme of furtiveness, it seemed, Kai snuck into the motel lobby and sat at the computer, beneath the ALL CAPS sign reminding him this was a public access terminal and was only to be used for wholesome things. Behind the desk, the receptionist, a hawkish elderly lady, sat tinkering with her computer, but Kai knew she was really staring suspiciously at him through the eyes in the back of her head.
He shook his head and told himself to come off it. It was just a Skype call. Trembling, he logged in and moved the mouse cursor to Video Call. A deep breath, one click, a nervous wait, and Bianca's smiling face toned in on the screen.
"Hi!" She waved on the screen, a bit of lag interfering, but it was better than nothing. A lot better.
Kai returned her smile and wave, just watching her bounce excited in her chair. He eyes were shining with happiness, her face having a bit of a glow that the internet connection wasn't interesting in catching properly. Her hair flowed down around her face, and she just...
"I miss you so much." Kai mumbled into the mic.
“Cheer up, you’ll be over here in a few days!” her effusive smile almost lifted his spirits, made him forget his current quandrary, this silly pathetic state. But only almost.
“Yeah, about that…”
_________________________________
Strop poked his head into his room, seeing a pile of blankets, pillows and duvets in the middle of the bed, which seemed to include his own. He could only guess what lay within.
"Kai?"
There was a muffled response. Strop eyed the discarded clothes, and sniffed distastefully.
"Are you jerking off?"
"No..." Kai responded a bit clearer, and rather annoyed, though still muffled by the pile. Okay, probably not choking the chicken then. But as mopey as Kai had ever been in the past because of things, this was a low he didn’t quite expect.
"Are you crying?" Strop asked instead.
"... No..." The response came, the annoyance gone, and all the sadness left. Strop racked his brain for an answer, before the penny dropped.
"Did you get to talk to Bianca?"
"Mm..."
Strop hesitated. "How is she?"
"Fine..."
This was getting nowhere. “We’re thinking of catching Cirque du Soleil. You wanna come with? It’ll be mad awesome.” He sniggered, “Alternatively you could go shopping with Noah.”
“Have fun,” was all Kai said.
Strop planted his hands on his hips, pursing his lips and contemplating his next move. Finally, he settled with, “I know how badly you miss Bianca, Kai. I’ve been there before, especially with E being overseas for her post-doc.”
“Good for you,” Kai sniffed.
Purposefully ignoring Kai, Strop plowed on. “But one way or the other you have to realise if you stop yourself living when you’re away from her, you’ll just miss out and be left with a bunch of what ifs and regrets at experiences you deprived yourself.”
There was no answer.
“So with that said, you’re going to have fun while we wait for the weather to clear up!” He then started throwing the blankets off, revealing Kai curled up in fetal position, wearing only his t-shirt and boxer-briefs. “You’ll thank me later!” Grabbing Kai by the ankles, he hoisted him off the bed and dangled him over the floor. It was at this point that Kai started protesting, but being so mopey and listless, his resistance was limited. Once deposited on the floor, Strop loomed over him, jeans and a jacket in hand. A mild horror etched itself into Kai’s face as he realised that Strop would go so far as to dress him if that was what it took.
“Give me that!” He snapped, snatching the clothes away, hastily cramming his legs into his jeans, grumbling all the while.
It was going to be a long two days.
Sun Nov 16, 2014 7:32 pm 
