Chapter Text
The first time he sees Lightning McQueen, it’s quite unusual.
Normal people don’t crash into other normal people’s towns. And they certainly don’t expect everyone to know who they are.
Which, at the beginning, made him feel a little silly. Is your name Mater, too? A mediocre attempt to 1.) establish a common base of humor, and 2.) to find out his real name.
And sure, maybe he’d always be a nickel short of a dollar, but not knowing some random guy’s name shouldn’t have been held against him. Now, flashing himself in the eye with the mirror of his rear view… he could be to blame for that.
Lightning McQueen appears to be someone special. His presence demands attention in a bratty, prestigious way. He knows who he is, and what he wants.
It appears that way. But under layers and layers of this facade he's tacked onto himself, even Mater can see the yearn for something more, a desire to be heard.
Besides, that’s everyone’s dream in the chase of fame.
He’s never going to call it love at first sight because that’s horrendously untrue and frankly bullshit. He’ll be the first one to admit the guy is attractive- shining, strawberry blond hair and sharp blue eyes- but he’ll never admit something more.
It’s only by the third or fourth day where he discovers something lingering behind his vision, tucked behind his brain and wrapped in cobwebs. It’s a desire too, and whenever he looks at Lightning McfuckingQueen, it thumps with life. It sears through its jail of isolation and it presents itself in his vision with a neon sign, screaming, notice me!
Mater ignores it. It’s not something he’s good at, but he ignores the signs. It’s plenty easy to pretend to be clueless.
He ignores the way Lightning laughs, his voice seeping through his skin like a river elixir. He ignores the way he’s starting to come around, that blunt, harsh mask cracked and shattered on pavement. He can ignore all of that for only so long.
It’s the fourth or fifth day when he finally decides to put a label on it. He talks it over and over again, and he decides there’s no harm in admitting he’s attracted to Lightning, and that’s really it. It might be a little emotional, but he’s never been the overly emotional type.
The moment he discovers exactly what he’s dealing with, is the same time Sally discovers it. For herself.
Everyone deserves happiness. It is one of his core principles, along with farting noises are always funny and never open a pack of gum in a packed classroom. These things stick with him no matter where he goes, and he upholds each one with dignity.
So, he prioritizes Sally’s happiness over his own. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Even if Lightning decides to stay, for whatever noble and unfathomable reason, he’s not going to look twice in the direction of a dirty tow truck driver. And that’s okay.
Mater forgets about his crush or whatever childish term is in style these days and encourages Sally to pursue the hotshot. On the other hand, he leads Lightning in the right direction, the moment he sees hearts in his friend’s eyes.
They’re just best friends. Mater wouldn’t call it any type of love, even platonic, because he’s aware of how temporary the world is. So he’ll call him his best friend, because that’s the one thing in life he’s pretty positive no one loses.
Sally and Lightning call it love a few weeks later. He’s excited beyond words. He takes full credit for it. They laugh at him- that’s the point. People are supposed to laugh at him. It’s his purpose, and he’ll serve it till the end.
His friendship with Lightning draws the line at that. It’s not love.
-
Lightning McQueen has lingered in his corner of the world upwards of three months now. The off-season has come and gone, and he’s off racing for a lord-knows-what-trophy.
(Really? A Piston Cup? Could they have used a worse innuendo?
(All too drunk the night before Lightning left, Mater offhandedly mentions, “Well, you have fun winning yur, uh, peniscup.” And when Lightning McQueen tosses his head back laughing like that, his limbs languid and his eyes somewhat glossy from the liquor, Mater’s never felt so smitten. He just stared at him, blaming it on the alcohol.
He’s dimly aware in that moment that Sally looks at Lightning the same way and suddenly his drink felt much less appetizing and he couldn’t bear to look at Lightning for the rest of the night.)
It wasn’t his fault these old geezer racers named everything with urine in mind.)
No one’s heard from him since yesterday, which isn’t a big deal at all. Luigi, Guido, Fillmore, Sarge, and Doc accompany him on his trip out-of-state. They’re his pit crew, and along with Mack, Lightning takes them everywhere.
Venom coats his tongue whenever he speaks to Sally. He feels like a terrible, awful person, and that goes against his core principles again. If he’s so deranged and unhinged he’s surely hindering someone else’s happiness. His secret brings him closer and closer to collapsing, but he ignores it because that’s one thing he can do right.
He dreadfully wants to impale himself with the hook of his tow truck that night at dinner when Sally looks tired and distressed, whittling on about something that Lightning said before he left.
“—and things just aren’t the same anymore.” She finishes, swirling around her cocktail with about seven ingredients Mater can't pronounce.
“Well, that doesn't sound good, Miss Sally,” Mater replies casually, feigning disinterest even as his heart pounds uncertainly. “Why do ya think that?”
Sally sighs, leaning on her palm. “The off-season was nice and all, but we both have busy lives and he doesn’t know how to differentiate between serious situations and one’s where he’s allowed to make jokes,” she complains.
Mater frowns, taking a swig of his bottle. “Him and me both.”
She rolls her eyes humorously. “Is that where he gets it?”
He shrugs in response.
“My friend from California was telling me how her aunt died a few days ago, and Lightning—“ she shakes her head. “—walked into the room and went, ‘hey, pass the weed’ like he’s back in high school. Can you believe that?”
Mater forces another sip of brittle beer down his throat to smother a laugh. Privately, he’ll have to admit to Lightning later that that was in fact hilarious, but for now, it’s best he plays the good guy. “That’s messed up.”
“Tell me about it.” Sally sits back in her chair with a loud exhale. “I want to be treated like a partner, not a friend. I understand that’s his way of showing affection, or whatever, but it’s not for me.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable,” Mater nods. “But you should really try just talking to him ‘bout it.”
He’s not going to lie- the idea of them splitting is tantalizing in every forbidden way. Everyone deserves an equal chance at happiness, and if they aren’t happy together…
Who is he to complain if it doesn’t work out?
Sally taps her fingers on the table. “I will. More than anything, I just want to stay close with him. He’s a fantastic friend.” Her eyes soften. “You would know that.”
“I do,” Mater hums, finishing the last of his drink. “I can talk to him for ya, y’know. He’ll probably tell me anyways, seeing as he tells me most things.”
It’s a subtle brag to his traitorous brain that constantly hounds on him for this idealization of Lightning. It reminds him he’ll never be close enough to Lightning to call it anything more than friendship, and then Lightning goes and tells him every detail of his life. Mater knows far too much about how morning after the Fourth of July went, bent over the toilet and heaving while Doc called him a wuss.
(“For how much shit you talk on the track, I never expected you as a lightweight,” Lightning quoted Doc to Mater the next morning. “Such a joke. I’m sure I could out-drink Doc any day.” To which Mater shook his head, and reminded him of the old beer festivals Radiator Springs held back in the early 90’s as a ploy to attract more customers.
It did quite the opposite- Doc got a little carried away, and suddenly there was no more booze and everyone discovered the tank they should have sent to fight wars overseas.)
Sally politely declines. “I appreciate the offer, but if he tells you anything, I trust you to tell him how to handle it,” she chuckles. “I don’t like gossip.”
Mater crosses his arms behind his neck. “Suit yourself. But, uh, I gotta ask, how do you want him to handle it?”
“I don’t… know, yet,” she admits, perhaps a byproduct of her cocktail concoction. “But when I do, I’ll tell him myself.”
“You got it.” Mater whistles a tune as it drifts from the Wheel Well bar. “Well, I sure hope it all works out, however you want it to.”
Sally smiles at him, something genuine yet so melancholy. “Yeah, me too.”
Lightning comes back later that week with tales of grandeur. His upcoming race had been canceled for the weather, but he expertly and proudly won his first two races.
Mater can see the pride in Doc’s eyes when Lightning announces that. He even sees that look in Sally’s eyes as she hugs and kisses him sweetly.
It’s at that moment he wonders if he dreamt up the entire conversation at the Wheel Well solely for his own pleasure. But, soon enough, he finds himself laying on his back in the impound lot, staring at the sky beside the one and only Lightning McQueen.
“Sally means a lot to me,” he finally breaks the silence after a while. “But I don’t see her as anything besides my friend. Is that awful?”
He’d knocked on Mater’s door just a few minutes earlier, sunken eyed and wobbling between both feet. It was alarmingly clear he had either drunk too much already, or had a scuffle that was fought over something significant. Mater was beginning to infer it was both.
Mater graciously decided not to drink, however, as he supposed someone had to be sober for this conversation.
It’s a little awful, he wants to admit, but the lovesick part of him wants to sugarcoat it something sweet and direct away all blame.
But before else, he’s his friend. And he’ll be nothing but honest to his friend. “It’s a little awful, yes,” he gives in, ignoring the way Lightning’s blue eyes flash with worry as he turns to face him, “but it’s better you realize it now than down the road.”
“I hate to think I’ve been leading her on,” he frets, and subconsciously scoots closer to Mater. Mater casually slings an arm around his shoulder, if only to bring him some semblance of comfort.
“You haven’t been,” Mater assures him. “Y’all just at different points in life and y’all got different paths to follow. ‘Tis alright if they aren’t the same one.”
Lightning tucks himself into Mater’s side with a sigh. “But does she know she’s on a different path, too?”
Mater debates telling him everything Sally told him. His loyalty to Lightning was stronger, of course, whether because of his romantic misfires or their stronger friendship, but Sally explicitly told him she didn’t like behind gossip. Passing her words around freely did really seem like gossip.
“What was y’all’s talk about?” Mater asks instead, content with rubbing the racer’s shoulder.
Exhaling loudly, Lightning answers. “She thinks I see her as my friend and not my partner and I think—” he swallows sickly. “I think she’s right.” His voice wavers a little.
“That’s okay,” Mater coaxes. “You don’t gotta tell me.”
Lightning laughs quietly. “I already do tell you everything, Mater,” he admits. “What’s one more thing?”
Mater chooses to skip past that question, instead circling back around to the task at hand. He didn’t need Lightning to know that Mater had secrets of his own.
“This ain’t gonna be easy,” Mater warns him gently. “But maybe y’all would be better off as friends.”
It truly pains him to say it. There’s two sides that grapple for dominance in his brain- one that chants to the world how selfish and convoluted he is, eager to break his friends apart at any notice just so he could live with less guilt over his childish crush, and the other that just wants his friends to be happy.
The first one wins only in private. The second one wins every other time.
Lightning mutters something to himself, content with staying at Mater’s side. Mater rubs circles into his shoulder.
Mater’s unused to this side of him. This strange, clingy, yet somewhat sweet side of him that never sees the light of day. He’s unused to it and his heart pounds like crazy and as much as he might adore his best friend, he really wishes he didn’t in this moment.
He feels like he can hear the thump in his chest.
Instead of commenting on anything like that, Lightning whispers, “you’re right. You’re a good friend, Mater. Thank you.”
His presence never leaves. Mater never cared for masculinity— it was utterly pointless in this isolated town, as everyone tailored their identities to however they pleased— but he’s aware of the ingrained stereotypes that Lightning appears to carry around with him at every interval.
The fact he was appearing so vulnerable really showed just how much this town had done for him.
Mater closes his eyes and prays he’s said the right thing. He hopes above nothing else that he didn’t just fuck up an entire future, much less the future of his closest friends. He would never live with himself.
The roof of the impound was never the comfiest or safest place to sleep, but as a hungover and alarmingly attractive guy tucks himself into his side, Mater thinks it’ll have to do for now. He doesn’t have the stomach to move him.
Even then, it’s not love that drives him to stay on top of the tin roof. It’s far from it. It’s not, and will not, be love.
-
The Cozy Cone did not experience parties this early in the day, Mater notes with distaste.
Lightning had left even earlier than that and disappeared into Sally’s house. Mater was left with reeling thoughts, battling his morals, and scraping his sore body off the tin roof of the impound. He showered promptly afterwards, and went to go cause further trouble throughout the town.
His search stopped, however, at the motel.
He squints through the windows, glass gleaming and the blinds drawn to ward off visitors. He registers numbly the possibility that his friends worked through their differences, and as much as that should please him, it sends a spark rushing along his bones.
Suddenly, the door swings open, Sally laughing loudly at something Lightning said while he tags along with a dopey smile. They catch Mater’s confused expression, giggling more.
“What’s the occasion?” Mater asks, hitching an eyebrow.
Sally crosses her arms across her chest, throwing Lightning another glance. “We’re friends!”
“Er— what?” Mater scratches the back of his neck.
Lightning waves his arms and does some janky, knock-off jazz hands and Sally mirrors him. “We broke up!”
Mater just stares blankly. “Congrats?”
“Yes, congrats,” Sally repeats with a soft grin. “I know you talked to both of us, so thank you.”
“Um, you’re welcome, I guess,” Mater mumbles. “Glad it… worked out? Or didn’t? Hell, I dunno.”
Fishing keys out of his pocket, Lightning flashes Mater a devious, do-no-evil grin. “Whaddya say, buddy? Wanna take a drive with me?”
Mater shrugs. “Sounds good to me.” Sally pats Lightning on the back, then ducks back into the Cozy Cone without another word. Mater still staggers, unbalanced from everything that’s been tossed at him, that he barely registers climbing into Lightning’s ninety-five.
He hardly let anyone ride in the passenger seat of it, especially not during the season. So this was some special occasion, or maybe Lightning was finally losing his mind.
“So, friends,” Mater brings up idly as Lightning revs the car down the street. “Just like that?”
“No strings attached,” Lightning beams. “Now I have my two best friends in the entire world and no stress!”
Mater clasps his hand over his chest as if it’ll kill its contents. He never stops feeling guilty for his own feelings. Even if it's his core principle, he often shoves off his own chances at happiness just so everyone gets along. He wouldn’t risk losing any percentage of happiness for anything more.
Hell, he’d never even taken someone on a date. And judging by the few relationships he’d ever seen, he wasn’t even all that sure they were worth it. Ramone and Flo, of course, were perfect idealizations of anything romantic, but how common was their situation?
Besides, Mater wasn’t romantic. He couldn’t flirt like Sally and Lightning could. He couldn’t astound anyone with his looks or his personality. All he was good at was being there.
“Are you okay, Mater?” A soft voice prompts, and when he catches Lightning looking at him like that with his lips pursed and his cheeks flushed from the heat and his arms taut and toned from gripping the steering wheel-
He’s the death of me, Mater thinks ruefully, at the same time he thinks, I’ve got to let it go.
“Yeah, just thinkin’, you know me,” Mater chuckles, biting his tongue fiercely as if it attempted to say otherwise. Lightning flashes him another kind smile, and returns his focus to the road as they reach the Butte.
“Y’know things won’t be awkward with Sally, right?” Lightning suddenly blurts, pitching the car hard to the left. Mater sways dangerously in his seat, clutching for the handle on the side.
“I know,” Mater responds, leaning into yet another tight turn. “What I don’t know is if I’ll make it home in one piece for dinner,” he worries with a healthy amount of humor.
“Sorry,” Lightning eases off the gas. “Something about this car, man. The need for speed or whatever.”
The car rolls to a stop in the middle of the track, and Mater graciously accepts the pause to catch his breath. “The need for death, more like it,” he exhales loudly.
Lightning laughs, really laughs, and the sound of it brings Mater’s heart pounding in his ear and a matching cackle to his own mouth. They sit like that for a while, gasping for air in the enclosed space. As the silence grows promising and they regain their wits, they make eye contact and repeat the process all over again.
They return back to town late in the evening, and Lightning sets off with the goal of sleeping in his own bed in preparation for his trip the next day.
Which leaves Mater, pent up on what can only be described as a muddled mess of hopeless romance and gay lust, to cradle a bottle of alcohol in shaky hands and desperate lips while Sally watches with her own.
She graciously spared him the details of her break-up with Lightning, although his impressionable heart may have liked to be spared the heartbreak.
He swirls the liquid in the bottle, humming a tune lazily as they observe the Wheel Well. Happy friends and couples crowd the tables, and peaceful melody drifts over the speakers. Sally clears her throat. “I know you’re probably sick of it…” she begins, her words slurring already.
Mater waves dismissively. “I don’t mind. Really,” he adds at Sally’s apprehensive look.
“Well, okay,” she sighs. “Did he seem off to you? I’d hate it if he was hurt, y’know.”
“No,” he says carefully, genuinely, letting bitter liquid drip down his throat as he pauses. “He’s taking it the same as you.”
“Good,” she smiles. “Okay.”
“It astounds me sometimes,” she continues slowly, “how much he trusts you. I’ve never seen two people more… I dunno. In sync.”
Mater blinks, the lights blurring in his eyes and the melody blending into an indecipherable drone. “Maybe that’s why I like him,” he tips his bottle back towards his mouth, the smell washing over him as he closes his lids to take a sip.
Sally stares at him, mouth agape. Mater looks at her curiously, and at once it dawns on him, the haze boggling his mind clears at once. “Oh, shoot,” he chokes out, wiping his mouth on his arm. “I didn’t say that outloud now, did I?”
Her face is utterly unreadable as she nods. “It all makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?” He digs, white knuckles curled around his wrist. “It’s not at all what it looks like.”
His heart clenches uncomfortably as her face morphs into a smirk of all things. “You like him.”
“I mean, yeah, I suppose so.” Mater leans both elbows on the table. “What makes sense?”
She continues to smirk. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice. How long?”
With his deepest, and probably most embarrassing secret laid out to see, he reckons nothing could go worse. “I dunno. The beginning.”
Finally, her face turns more sympathetic. “You did it again, didn’t you?”
“Did what?”
“Gave up,” she says plainly. “Gave up so that I was happy.”
“Well, it’s what I’m best at,” Mater attempts to defend, but she just sighs. “I’m sorry. You weren’t to, uh, find out or nothin’.”
Sally leans back in her chair, her glass discarded on the tabletop. “I really don’t care.” She pauses. “Not like that, hold on,” she giggles. “I care about you and your feelings, I don’t care that you like my ex.”
“Okay,” Mater exhales. “I didn’t want to break y’all up or ruin nothin’. Really. It was not my, er, intervention.” A heavy weight rises off his chest at once, and he feels like he can breathe again because Sally doesn’t care. It’s okay.
“Intention,” she corrects with a smile. “I know, Mater. You’re not like that.”
He smiles back at her. “Coulda had me fooled.”
“So,” she taps the table as the waitress scoots by, getting them both another drink. “Are you pursuing it?”
Mater shrugs, unable to stop the spreading crimson that decorates his face. He’ll blame it on Arizona’s incessant heat and the influence of alcohol, but both of them know better.
He thinks of Lightning, suave in the driver's seat, hair swept back behind his ears. His smug smile in every picture he’s seen of him in the papers, his gentle fingers against his wrist, blue eyes catching in the sky—
“Mater?”
“Sorry,” he finds himself apologizing again. “That, er, answers that question, don’t it?”
Sally grins at him over her glass. “Yeah, it does.” She takes a drink the same time he does. “I always thought he was a little… fruity,” she admits with a flourish.
“You think?” Mater hitches an eyebrow. “Now I’m interested.”
“Yeah,” she draws out. “I don’t know for sure. I can ask.”
Mater yawns as the haziness returns. “You’d do that for me? Without making it seem obvious or whatnot?”
Sally nods. “Sure, yeah. I can.”
They soak in each other’s presence with ease, glancing out over the overlook. He spies the highway, and he’s reminded no matter what, life goes on.
Setting down his now empty bottle, Mater stretches. “I oughta catch a ride with Guido,” he gestures blankly. “You wanna come with?”
She checks the time. “Yeah, probably for the best.”
Unsteadily, they make their way over to Guido, who berates them endlessly for their wasted appearance (“C’mon, Guido,” Mater attempted to persuade him, “It’s a one time thing, unlike last week, or the week before that one.”). He graciously drives them back to town in Mater’s truck, cutting his own evening short to do so. They both thank him endlessly, and soon, they split off in multiple directions.
Mater’s never been so glad to be home, overwhelmed with the fever of his drunken high and alarming confessions over the course of the night.
His skin gleams with sweat as he pounds down a glass of water and a well deserved pack of advil. He’ll hate himself tomorrow, but he does enjoy the fun (and honesty) of a good night. He rinses off in the shower, slips into an old t-shirt, and climbs under the covers.
Mater’s thoughts run rampant without reason, blurred from rationality and barred from the lull of sleep. By morning, he’ll forget or regret this all, and he’s not entirely sure which one is more realistic.
Of course, the main object of his brain’s spotlight is Lightning McQueen because god forbid he survives a few hours without infatuation.
Warm under thin linen, he wonders what it would be like to taint him under his hands, to wash away any trace of his city boy righteousness he carries without fault.
To run his hands along perfect, pale skin; To run his lips across slanted, smooth collarbones.
Picturing him wrapped up in these very sheets, breathless and flushed.
A shiver washes over him, a fever in his bones and a chill across the hairs on his arms. He can’t think that way about Lightning, about peppering him with hickies where the sun won't see.
I’m a mess.
He could accept his differences in stride. Nothing would need to be serious between them- it never was- and he could treat him right and give him the love he deserves; Although, it’s not love.
It’ll never be love, he thinks scornfully, sinking into his mattress with a hatred of what he’d become.
It’ll never be love to Lightning McQueen, why should it ever be love to Mater?
So that’s what he calls it. Something short of love. Infatuation, maybe. A hope, a desire. Nothing more.