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artistic-writer · 5 years

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Sparking the Pavement :: Prologue

Beta’d by the awesome @hollyethecurious

Sparking the Pavement - When a motorcycle is leaned enough to drag the pegs, floor boards, exhaust or other metal parts on the road resulting in a shower of sparks.

Racing was like nothing else in the entire world. The rush of the wind as it hit the protective leathers, pushing the supple material into the limbs hidden inside, trying with all its might to dislodge a rider that would never let go. The rumble of the engine between thighs that gripped at the machine so tightly, muscles had formed on top of muscles there, powerful legs almost touching the ground on every corner, riders only braking momentarily before thrashing it out of the bend under the throaty roar of the bike.

They didn’t control the superbike. It controlled them.

Killian Jones had been racing his entire life. When he was barely old enough to speak, his father had sat him on top of his dirt bike and that was it. He was hooked. No child felt fear, and Killian was no exception, having fallen off everything you could have ever imagined. But each time he would get up and dust himself off. He took the pain, the scrapes, and the broken bones, to fulfill a family legacy that he was the most proud of.

The Jones family were winners. They had been winning motorcycle races in England since before he had even been born. His grandfather was a winner. His father was a winner. His brother was a winner. Killian began racing in the low classes, smaller engines that were easy for him to handle at his young age, but they were never a challenge. Soon he joined the Superbike Championship, following in his older brother’s footsteps and moving his entire life to the United States to better his career. But Killian was a pro, already, and he soon migrated to the next class of power, Moto2, the youngest rider to ever do so.

A few successful seasons in Moto2 saw Killian beating riders of a much higher calibre, including Liam Jones. Nearly five years older than Killian, his brother Liam had been the World Champion in Moto2 for seven years running, and when Killian won his first race, beating his older brother to the finish line by fractions of a second, the journalists couldn’t wait to get into the after race press room. The brothers were good about it, teasing each other at press conferences until they became a strange celebrity attraction at every event. Brothers had raced side by side before, but no younger sibling had ever been more successful, and the press lapped it up.

That year saw Killian taking the title from his brother, a feat no one had managed for nearly a decade, and he was almost immediately head hunted by Repsol Honda. They were a big team, with a much higher spending capacity than Killian’s previous teams were used to, and they were also MotoGP. MotoGP was the top of the tree, the highest point any rider could ever hope to reach in a professional racing career, and somewhere Liam had been trying to get to his entire life. He wasn’t hurt, or angry when Killian had told him he was moving to MotoGP, instead he was the proudest he could ever remember being of his little brother.

Killian’s first few seasons saw him finishing well. In his first year of MotoGP, Killian finished fifth overall, a good win for the team who had taken such a gamble on a rookie. But Honda’s vision and the potential they saw in him was not in vain, and that same year, Killian won the Rookie of the Year award. It gave him a massive boost, and spurred on by words of encouragement from Liam, Killian managed fourth in his second year.

However, the good times were not to last.

In 2005, Liam and Killian were dealt a blow. Their father, Brennan Jones, the man who had taught them both to ride and had given everything he had to make sure his boys were given every opportunity they could have to succeed, died. It was quick, a random car accident where Brennan had suffered a massive heart attack at the wheel and crashed into the side of a bridge. Both of the brothers were distraught, the funeral coming and going quicker than either had ever expected, but it made them more determined than ever to finish their seasons and make their father proud.

The same year, Liam finished his season out on top, adding a new World Championship title to his repertoire. The Superbike Championships were becoming tough competition, newer, younger riders coming in every year and pushing him to the limits of his capabilities. It had been a tough year, Liam barely able to grieve his father whilst having to answer question after question about Brennan’s accident in post race press rooms, so after the last race of his season, Liam announced a sabbatical. He was going to take a year to find himself again, spend some time with his wife Elsa and their daughter Hayden-Rose, and return to racing for the 2006/7 season.

Killian also finished the 2005 season out on the podium, finishing the last race of the season at the Californian circuit, Leguna Seca, in first place. It was an emotional win, tears from both brothers hidden behind the spray of celebratory champagne. Killian finished the season overall in third, his highest ever championship standing and just two places behind the season champion, Neal Cassidy. Cassidy had dominated MotoGP, winning consecutive seasons for the last two years, and Liam was sure that he had seen a tiny bead of nervous sweat from his brow when Killian had come so close to taking his title that year.

The 2006 season was a little slow and Killian got off to a poor start. During the second race of the season, during an overtaking maneuver, he had touched wheels with Cassidy and was sent flying over the handlebars of his bike. Luckily, thanks to his high grade protective gear and the fact he was thrown clear of the bike, Killian escaped the crash with just a broken hand. It wasn’t serious, and race medics cleared him for further races, but Cassidy wasn’t as lucky. After the race, fuelled by rage and adrenaline, Cassidy had been given a black eye and a broken nose by Liam Jones, accusing him of dirty race tactics and dangerous racing.

It didn’t matter though, because later that year, during one of the closest battles for the championship title the world of motorcycle racing had ever seen, Killian Jones came back from a fifty one point deficit, to beat current title holder Neal Cassidy in the very last race of the season. It was close. Too close to call. Jones had beat Cassidy to the finish line with just 0.002 seconds between them, taking the title, huge prize pot, and Neal’s pride all in one fell swoop.

Killian Jones was World Champion, and now, thanks to a very public tantrum by Cassidy, everyone knew his name.

Being the youngest ever World MotoGP Champion was everything Killian could have ever imagined. Money, fast bikes, fast cars and even faster women took over his life. He was famous, and for far more than simply being the younger brother of Liam Jones, and now the spotlight was firmly on him. Everything he did was in the limelight, sponsors were smothering him, everyone desperately trying to get a chance to pay him to wear their logos.

Cassidy was not amused. Everything Killian now had, had been taken from him in the blink of an eye. The media played into their rivalry and in a way, they both used it to their advantage off the track, but on the track they were more serious. Killian was a racer, a true gentleman, but Neal was exactly as Liam had feared; a rat. He took every opportunity he had to exact legal and yet dangerous moves during a race to try and run Killian onto the gravel, but Killian was two steps ahead of him, taking another title, much to Cassidy’s distaste.

Liam had returned to the racing circuit as promised the following year. During his time off, and seeing the possible potential from an all Jones racing team, Liam had been approached by Honda’s MotoGP division. They had asked him to be Killian’s new racing partner, the team seeing that the brothers were more than just two World Champions. They were unstoppable. With both brothers under their wing, Honda won the constructors championship in 2007 as well as claiming a one/two victory for both their riders.

Liam’s come back to racing had earned him a podium place finish in nearly every race, losing only to his younger brother. Racing Killian was fun, and it brought back memories of why he had loved racing in the first place. There was no malice, only two brothers competing at a sport they both loved more than anything else. At the end of the 2007 season, Liam stood on the second step, proud to have lost to Killian, who took pride of place at the top, another World Champion title under his belt at just twenty seven years old.

Neal Cassidy had finished third, but at over fifteen points behind Liam, he hadn’t even come close to the brothers success.

It was a whirlwind, everything happening so fast that when Killian got a call from Elsa one sunny afternoon at practice, he was more than unprepared from her words.

“It’s Liam.”

Killian’s heart had plummeted, the dread in him stomach rising to his throat and constricting his airway, his own anxiety strangling him where he stood on the blazing hot tarmac. He was thankful for the sunglasses he wore because they shielded the tears that had welled in his eyes, but they couldn’t hide the flush of heat that crept over his cheeks so they matched the colour of his team shirt. His words had the entire paddock looking in his direction, the strain in his screeching voice making every mechanic down their tools and listen, their own hearts in their mouths.

A near miss. That’s what the doctors had called it, but both Killian and Elsa had come far closer to losing what they loved most than they had ever wanted. Liam had been in a crash, on his day off no less, the car coming out of nowhere and him, unable to stop, flying over the hood and sliding into a concrete pillar. Luckily he was in his leathers and not travelling very fast, but his motorcycle was ruined, written off in the impact. The doctor’s had said Liam was only alive because of his race training on how to fall in a crash.

Coming so close to losing his brother was eye opening for Killian. He never wanted to hear Elsa cry like that again, or listen to the quake in her voice as she had told his eight year old niece that her father was never going to race again. Killian thought he detected a hint of relief in her voice, finally able to have her husband safe and in one piece, something he knew Elsa had worried about since Liam had moved to MotoGP. Moto2 was safe, it made sure he was home each night, even if they did live in a trailer for most of the year. MotoGP was more power, more accidents and more deaths each year than any other tier of the racing world.

Elsa worried for her husband constantly, and Killian had only ever wanted that. Not that he had anyone to wait for him. He wasn’t even dating. He had no time, very little to himself between racing, travelling and practice, sponsorship deals and photoshoots, but nearly losing Liam awoke something in him that even he couldn’t deny. It was time to stop sleeping around with pit girls, overzealous fans, and anyone else who wanted a piece of who he was. None of those encounters were real and Killian knew that if he had never been famous, they wouldn’t have even looked twice in his direction.

Liam had married his childhood sweetheart and Elsa had stuck with him through all of the good times and the bad. That was what Killian wanted. Someone to worry about him as much as Elsa did about Liam, someone to care, but also someone who knew his world, and respected his need to race. He needed to be on a bike. He was happy being last, even to Neal Cassidy, but Killian would never be happy without the sound of an engine in his ears and grease under his fingernails.

Liam retired just into the 2008 season, his professional racing career coming to an end because of the injuries he had sustained in his crash. He would get on a bike again, but he would never be cleared to race, and he was okay with that. At thirty two years old, he felt like he had missed enough of his daughter’s life, missing the little things that made his life worth living. Liam had missed Hayden-Rose’s first steps, her first words, and her first day of school. He wouldn’t miss a single moment more.

Barely two races into the season, with sixteen left in fifteen different countries, Killian was without a teammate. His team had been good to him, and he trusted their judgement, especially when they announced a new kid on the block as his new race partner. Will Scarlet was his name, another young up and comer from England that the team hoped would follow in Killian’s footsteps now that he had filled Liam’s.

Will Scarlet was a little cheeky, sometimes cocky, but he was willing to learn from a rider more experienced than him, and that was all Killian could ask for. Will’s arrogance worked to his advantage, in practice and during races. Unlike so many before him, Scarlet let go of everything he had ever learned climbing the race ladder, knowing the MotoGP was something else. It was where riders were made, where champions were born, but he also knew that if they didn’t listen, it was where riders died.

There was barely any sort of age gap between them, so Killian and Will really hit it off as friends. They had more in common than they realised at first, bonding over England and often getting lost in jokes only they would understand from their homeland. Will also met Liam, who since his retirement had been bitten by the bike bug once more, but having promised Elsa to never race again, had taken a job as the team’s mechanic. He knew more about the bikes than anyone, and his experience as a rider gave him a unique insight into how the bikes could be tweaked for maximum performance. Soon, the Jones-Scarlet team were unstoppable, and at the end of the 2008 race season, Killian stole yet another title from Neal Cassidy.

And again in 2009. 2010 saw him joined on the podium by Will, both riders finishing out their seasons in first and second place respectively. They were the ultimate riding duo, other teams trying to poach them at least twice a week, but Killian and Will were loyal to Honda, the team that had made them and giving them so many opportunities.

Things were good. But every good thing has to come to an end eventually.

#sparking the pavement #stp #prologue #moto gp #motorbike rider!killian #motorbike rider!emma #CS fic #CS au #CS FF

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