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CB braces himself for the crash well before it hits. He shuts his eyes tight, imagines the crumpled engine well before it caves in on itself as it collides with the wall of the tunnel, flinches well before he's catapulted forward from the force of it all. There's a sickening crunch followed by an even more sickening silence, and he only opens his eyes when he hears Control announce the 'accident', only notices how white his knuckles are when he remembers he needs to let go of the boxcar in front of him.
He wishes his body could get used to the routine. He hates having to hold back tears that he doesn't understand.
Greaseball pushes his way through the crowd that's been slowly forming and CB doesn't even have to look up to know, because there are gasps and sighs and whispers of it's him from all sides of the wreckage. He wishes Greaseball wasn't here to see him like this. He feels a firm hand touch his shoulder and he realises, again, that he still hasn't let go of the boxcar.
"You okay?"
He nods, far too overwhelmed to speak.
"Come on, CB, let's go."
Greaseball slings CB's arm over his shoulder, not bothering to be gentle; as they begin to leave behind the shattered remains of his handiwork, CB wonders if Greaseball knows who's to blame.
When the relationship is made public, when the rumors are finally confirmed, the two of them are inseparable. They're the talk of the trainyard, naturally, the bad boy diesel engine and the sweet little dining carriage. Greaseball's always physical, peppering her cheeks with kisses, leaving marks down her neck that brand her his; Dinah's the romantic, complimenting him constantly, hanging onto his every word. And yet there's something distant with Greaseball, something empty and fake behind his so-called passion- something, CB thinks, that only he's able to notice.
Everyone else in the yard is fooled by their love, but CB won't let himself be- after all, nobody knows Greaseball better than him. Even the ever-clingy Dinah is too dolled up to realise how frequently her dream train cheats. She's far too wrapped up in a fairytale to notice that the inconspicuous red caboose loves her diesel more than she ever could.
CB's the third wheel, at the back once again, every moment spent with them just reminding him so.
Crashes become cathartic. It's Dinah's face he sees when he shuts his eyes.
Electra arrives for the championship, complete with entourage, and CB can't stop staring, can't remove himself from a new world of red, white and blue. Every time the engine talks it's as if he really is magnetic, the way everyone in the trainyard seems to keep close by, the way none of them seem to want to leave. When he finally musters enough self-control to look away, to focus on anything other than the electric train, he realises that Greaseball's alone for the first time in weeks, staring too.
"Do you like him, GB?" Now that Dinah isn't there, his filter disappears and the question comes out before he can stop himself. Before Greaseball can even answer he turns to meet CB's gaze, and the caboose feels the bitterness sting in his chest, feels his throat stop fast.
Greaseball shakes his head firmly, arms crossed tight, but CB knows that burning look in the diesel's eyes better than he knows himself. It's the same look he sees on Dinah's face when her beloved diesel train flirts with other girls, the same look he imagines he himself gives each time he sees the happy couple together, and the same look he knows he himself gives right before his vision goes black and his brakes screech and the sickening crunch echoes for minutes on end.
When he tears his eyes away from Greaseball's he looks back over at Electra, feels his heart stop and chest heave when he's met with red, white and blue, when he sees the very future looking in his direction. He realises, then, that he's stuck at a crossroads between two people he could never match, two people that are light years beyond him, two people that he simply can't control.
"I don't like him," Greaseball says at last, "I hate him." But CB knows better than to trust plain words.
I hate you both, he wants to reply, but he knows he doesn't mean that. All he can taste is thick bile in his throat.
Greaseball disconnects Dinah right in front of his eyes, and if it hadn't been for Electra's untimely arrival, it would have been the most victorious moment in the entire national championship. He can't help but watch as she weeps, hysterical and heartbroken, lying on the ground with such despair that he almost wishes he had more sympathy to give. He almost wishes that he could understand how she opens herself up so easily, how she's able to give so much emotion to someone who hardly cares.
Maybe that's why he loves her.
No.
Maybe that's why he doesn't love me.
Suddenly everyone's fighting over Pearl like children over a toy, and as ironic as that is given their own situation, CB can't find the laughter. Instead he listens, observes, tries to focus on the details of the meeting and not the Hip Hoppers' hideous accompaniment.
Poppa dropped out because Dustin wore out his boiler. Rusty wants to race in the final, despite mass disapproval. Electra and Greaseball both want Pearl to race with them- which, of course, he already knows, and he's already been feeling bitter about. More arguing, more fighting. More useless drama. It's getting on his nerves.
He looks over at Electra and Greaseball, who are almost nose-to-nose now, trembling with suppressed anger- and suddenly it all falls into place, everything he needs to do to gain everything he's wanted, and he has to hold back the laughter that threatens to spill out of him. He looks away from them, eyes up his target. Their target, now. Rusty is vulnerable, but he doesn't have a shell. It won't be hard to earn his trust and break it. More importantly, It won't be hard to earn Greaseball's trust, following that. Electra's, too.
Suddenly he's bursting into the argument, telling them all to let him race with Rusty, telling them all to trust him, and they do.
CB's hands shake as he adjusts his radio, knuckles white, eyes shut- sure, it's no crash, but if he fails this, crashing into something is the first thing he'll do. Channel after channel comes up with nothing but static, and he almost gives up, almost convinces himself that electric trains don't need radio, definitely convinces himself that electric trains don't need--
"CB?"
His whole body relaxes into the sigh of relief he gives, cheeks hurting from the width of his smile.
"Speaking. Electra, we need to talk."
"About what?"
CB almost doesn't want to reply, wants to listen to him talk forever, but that's yet another impossibility when it comes to the two of them. He tries not to breathe out too loudly before he speaks.
"The race. Look, I can't tell you about it now, we're on a public channel-- it's too risky. Could you meet me here?"
A click. He's been muted.
He's almost convinced that Electra has abandoned him. Bitter tears spring quick to his drained and shadowed eyes, but mere seconds later he picks up muffled conversation on the other end- surely the electric train and one of his components. He listens more intently, recognises Wrench's jarring tone alongside Electra's much smoother speech but can't make out what she's saying- in his opinion, she's most likely telling him where to go, advising him what to do. Bossing him about.
They don't fit at all, he thinks, and it calms him.
Another click brings him back to reality- and, thankfully, back to Electra. "I'll be there in ten minutes. Stay where you are."
It was a simple job, really. Without a long line of freight trucks in front of him, he only needed to apply enough force to stop one little steam engine in his tracks, and it proved much easier than any of the other ‘accidents’ he'd administered. He's grinning now, unable to keep his eyes away from the cowering steam engine below him, unable to ignore the almost sadistic pleasure that courses through his veins.
Greaseball looks down at Rusty, observing his injuries, before lifting his head up and smiling wide.
"Hey, CB, you did that good."
The pride that spreads through him is overwhelming. He's still reeling from it all later on, light-headed and gleeful, replaying the praise over and over and over in his mind, when Electra stutters onto the radio channel he's been eavesdropping on out of boredom.
"CB! CB! Dinah went and made a disconnection!"
Electra needs him. His chest heaves again and his feet move before he can even think about where he's going and suddenly even Greaseball's approval doesn't seem that groundbreaking.
Switching sides during the race was a mistake. It's been several minutes since the crash and CB can't feel his legs, can't bring himself to look down at his dented, broken body. Instead, he looks slowly up from his helpless position on the floor, looks up at the two engines who brought him to this point, and all he sees are strangers.
"You shouldn't have raced with him in the first place," Greaseball growls, pushing a broken Electra away with all the force he has left, limping and exhausted.
"You shouldn't have raced at all," Electra snarls back, stumbling forward and pushing Greaseball away even harder, loose wires sparking and crackling through exposed wounds and skin.
CB shuts his eyes tight, can't muster the nerve to look at them again.
It's far too late at night to be awake and yet he's far from asleep, kicking a piece of coal at the back of an empty shed, wincing at the pain in his leg as he does. He was fixed only a week ago now and yet he almost feels back to normal, despite having been suspended from use for the near future, despite the burning ache in his joints that never goes away.
Electra and Greaseball are still in service, but have distanced themselves from the rest of the trainyard as of late. The two once-admired engines try hide their reluctant partnership from the few that still respect them, but yet again CB's not fooled. He knows full well that they spend their time together for a reason, broken and scarred and starved of attention and praise, just needing someone to understand.
Sometimes CB wishes they'd have remained enemies, just so they'd realise who their biggest supporter's always been. Only pain remains, though, reminding him of the crash no matter what he does- thanks to his injuries, he no longer has a means of catharsis, of release, of trying to forget. Sometimes he wishes the crash could have killed him. Sometimes he wishes he'd never been made.
There's a quiet moan that breaks the silence and CB turns his head immediately towards the source of the noise. Behind another shed some feet away are Greaseball and Electra, and they're kissing, but now they've seen him, and he's running, but they've managed to catch up with him--
He's sobbing into Greaseball's chest, Electra's hands firm on his shoulders, letting everything out for the first time in days to the very people he wants least of all to see right now- or so he thinks. He doesn't know anymore. He doesn't know anything anymore but the feel of their arms. They're right there in front of him and he can't let himself know, can't let himself remember when he loved them, or else his heart will shatter into a million pieces.
CB's eyes are shut and his knuckles white with strain as his fists slam into metal plating, tears burning hot as they stream down his cheeks. The two other engines try to speak, but his sobbing drowns them out, mingles with their voices like white noise. The whole ordeal is perhaps the last thing akin to a crash he'll ever achieve with his broken chassis, and this injustice to his last remaining way of coping only serves to fuel his anger. His punches do nothing. He's weak, he's always been weak.
Suddenly he stops- or at least, he's forced to stop when Greaseball grabs his arms tight, only inches away from a now re-dented chest. If he feels pain, it doesn't show on his face- but CB doesn't see something empty and fake in Greaseball's eyes anymore. Something's new, something's bare and warm and threatening to spill out if he lets himself get any closer.
"Stop it."
CB does as he's told, lets his arms fall limp to his sides- and when Greaseball gently tilts his head up and kisses him, he doesn't object. A crossroads flashes behind his eyes.
When their lips finally part, there's a smile on his face, a strange and twisted smile, but he's crying much harder than before.
"Don't you dare do this to pity me," CB says, tears still streaming down his cheeks- but he turns on his heel, stands on tip-toe and kisses Electra, too.