Dream’s favorite part was the adrenaline.
It spread through his body in a red-hot wildfire, caught his veins all the way down to the tips of his fingers where they shook around the steering wheel. It made his breath ragged and audible above the rev of his engine, felt akin to the high he got on something else illegal—but if he had to choose which one was better, it’d be this. He’d probably pick racing over anything.
For Dream, it was the perfect way to settle disputes. A clear winner, a surefire end, something fair so long as their cars were both good enough. And Dream’s cherry red supercar was always good enough to race—with how much time he spent taking care of it, it was bound to be. It only ever came down to his opponent’s ride. And theirs was usually good, too
Dream was rarely someone struck by road rage, rarely the idiot who caused an accident because he couldn’t manage his temper and had to prove something to a stranger on the road. He preferred the races that were planned, the ones that gathered a crowd on the sides of the road all cheering for one or the other. The ones that were, as Dream liked, to settle disputes. When he’d get a little too pissed at his friend and they’d bet to race on it, to spend some extra time doting on their cars only to line up and do something dangerous.
Maybe it was safer when it was planned. Still illegal, but safer. Even if it was only just a little.
And Dream got in a lot of petty fights with his best friend Sapnap. A hot-headed raven with a fast car to call his own and hands that were itching to get on the wheel. He rivaled Dream in impulsiveness, rivaled Dream in that soul-binding feeling of getting in the driver’s seat of a needlessly fast car and staring down that yellow line. They both lived for the thrill of it—and for the past two-odd years since they’d spent drowned in this illegal mess, it’d become the only way they’d manage to settle arguments.
Like when the TV in their apartment fell off the wall in the dead of night and they raced to see who’d pay for the replacement. Or when Sapnap accused Dream of stealing the money he kept under his mattress and Dream insisted that he didn’t, and a stupid race felt like the only way to end their mutual silent treatment.
Or most notably, when Sapnap stole Dream’s girlfriend and they raced each other for her. She’d been half as crazy as they were, crazy enough to stand on the yellow line and wave the checkered flag. Crazy enough to even let two idiots speed their too-expensive cars down the road to see who’d win her lips around their cock, crazy enough to spin around and watch them go.
Sapnap won that race. Dream couldn’t be mad about it.
But sometimes, they were just bored. Bored enough to be idiots. It happened more often than either of them would care to admit, but slogs of nothing often got them both in the driver’s seat of their supercars. Maybe those races were the most fun, because the burning hot adrenaline wasn’t warring with reckless fury, and Dream could let it fill his body with unbridled want all on its own.
Those were the races planned the most in advance—because there wasn’t a rage-sensitive time limit—the ones that drew the biggest crowds of friends and randoms looking for something illegal and fast. The ones with the loudest engines and the most screaming, the ones where picking sides was a matter of favoritism and not whose part of the argument made the most objective sense.
