Summary: After Lightning McQueen wins his first Piston Cup, he gets invited to an end-of-the-season party. Unfortunately for Lightning, everyone is a bit too loud for him to handle.
Word Count: 3,834
A/N: Thought I try uploading a fan fic here! I finished this yesterday and posted it in ao3 but posting here might be fun, who knows 🤷♀️ Also this kind of sensory overload has happend to me before in class once. I just Hope this isn’t too ooc for Lightning, I just really like ADHD Lightning. Also I had no idea how to end this too so I hope the ending is fine.
McQueen was being bombarded by lights, cameras, and people.
He had been doing great at races after the tiebreaker in California.
In fact, he just won a Piston Cup.
He was holding it in his arms as he answered the people’s questions. People were asking him things left and right. After a while though, he started to drown them out a bit. Really he just wanted to go home.
Home. Funny isn’t it?
He was put into Radiators Springs against his will and now he’s calling it home? It’s funny to him. He gave a small wave to Doc as he walked towards the press. When it came to finals like this, everybody in town came to watch him, and it made him smile.
“Alright, Alright settle down everyone. I’m sure he’ll have plenty of time to answer your questions in the upcoming interviews.” Doc said, pushing through the crowd to Lighting. Lightning smiled at him, and wrapped his arm around his, as they went to walk away. Lightning was grateful because the people were starting to get too loud and annoying.
He wanted to tell everyone to shut up for just a few seconds, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know when he’d get that silence but hopefully, it was soon. Usually, he doesn’t mind the noise and people. In fact, he lives for it. But sometimes it’s just too much.
Some of the people started to follow them, but Lightning shooed them away. Once it was just Doc and him, he let go of his arm.
“Thanks.” He said.
“No problem.”
Lightning looked over at his friends and ran into Sally’s arms.
“Lightning you did amazing!” She exclaimed, kissing him on the cheek. He let out a small giggle and said,
“Thanks! Look at it!” He jumped out of her arms to hold up the trophy.
“Wow, it’s bigger than I thought.” She said, looking at it.
Lightning did a little jump and then showed the rest of his friends.
“Well gosh darn Lightning! You actually did it this time!” Mater yelled, holding up his hand. Lightning smacked it and let out a small laugh.
“Yeah, no need to push cars to the finish line this time, so I got the win pretty easy.” He says smirking. Mater laughs and pats Lightning’s shoulder. “We’re gonna have a big celebration when you get back!” Mater shakes McQueen a bit, to show his excitement.
“Yeah, baby!” Lightning yells. Mater runs off for a second and Doc walks over to Lightning.
“I’m proud of you kid. Honestly. You did good.” He ruffles Lighting’s hair with a chuckle.
“Thanks.” Lightning says.
Sally walks over.
“We gotta go now Lightning. See you tomorrow.” She kisses his lips and fixes his hair a bit.
“Love you.” He says.
“Love you too.” She says. “See ya Doc.” She says waving.
His friends start to leave and it’s just him and Doc. He looks up at him for a moment, wondering what to do next. He heard people start to walk up to him. He rolled his eyes and let out a small groan before turning around and smiling.
“Lightning! Lightning McQueen! McQueen! McQueen!” People started yelling from all angles.
“What’s up?!”
“Do the thing!” Someone shouted.
“You mean this?” He swung his head around at the perfect angels so that his earrings flashed and shined. Doc stood behind him with his arms crossed.
“Hudson! Hudson Hornet!” Some people shouted and tried to get his attention. And soon everyone was talking, and it was hard for Lighting to hear what people were saying let alone process it.
“What?” Was being said a lot. His hands clenched and released his pants. He played with them as he was bombarded with questions. It was starting to annoy him. The fact that he couldn’t hear anyone clearly.
“How do you feel after winning your first Piston Cup?!” Someone asked.
“How do I feel? I feel amazing! I’m so grateful that I won this!” He yelled over everyone, bouncing on his tippy toes. Suddenly he was being dragged away by Doc, but the people still followed him.
“Uh, more details tomorrow.” He nodded while smiling.
“Where are you heading now?” Another person asks.
“To a hotel!” “He was pushed in front of the door of the car. He opened it and got in. And immediately rolled down the window.
“I’ll see you all tomorrow to answer more questions. Kachow!” He flashed his earring and gave the crowd finger guns.
“Hey, kid!” Mack yelled, running over to the door. Lightning turned his attention towards him.
“What’s up?”
“Some of the other racers are throwing this end-of-the-season party or something. They used to do it all the time I guess. Anyways, they were wondering if you’re going.” Mack asked, leaning on the door.
“What tonight?”
“Yeah. It’s starting pretty soon. It’s just gonna be the racers and some of the pit crews.”
“Uhm..” Lightning bounced his leg up and down as he thought about it. On one hand, he wanted to just go to sleep. But on the other hand, He did just win his first Piston Cup. What’s an end-of-the-season party without the Piston Cup winner?
“Tell them I’m going.” He says smiling.
“Nice. Okay, see you later kid!” Mack yells, walking away and waving. Lighting waves to everybody while he rolls up the window. Once he can’t hear anybody he sighs. He looks over at Doc.
Lightning couldn’t describe Doc’s face in one word. Or emotion.
He looked concerned, but also disappointed in his answer.
“What?” Lightning asked.
“You sure you wanna go to this party, kid? You looked a bit exhausted out there.”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’ll be fine. I wanna go.”
“Okay then. Do you know where it is?”
“Uhhh no.” He pulls out his phone and texts Mack.
“It’s at some bar they rented out. Here.” Lightning showed Doc and he nodded. Lightning put his phone away and slouched a bit.
Music played softly in the background. Lightning kinda wanted to turn it off, but he decided not to. It would make him look weird and only worry Doc more. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.
“You okay, Lightning?” Doc asked. Lightning snapped his eyes open.
“I’m fine.” He said sternly. And by that Doc knew he shouldn’t talk anymore. Lightning closed his eyes again. The more the music played, the more he didn’t really care. He drowned it out pretty easily. He almost fell asleep when he heard Doc say,
“We’re here.”
Lightning opened his eyes and sat up. The neon light of the sign glowed brightly. Lightning stepped out of the car.
“Listen, kid, I know they got drinks in there and everything, but don’t get too wasted alright?”
“Okay old man, whatever you say.” He says with a smirk. Doc chuckles and shakes his head as they walk up to the doors. Right before Lighting goes to open it, Doc stops him and puts his hand on his shoulder.
“You’re 21 right?” Lightning rolls his eyes and laughs a bit.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“You got your ID?” Lightning pulls it out of his pocket and shows it to him.
“Alright, just making sure.” Lighting opens the door and everyone goes quiet for a moment when they see who walked in.
Then everyone starts cheering and clapping and Lightning knew he was gonna regret this. But despite that, he shouts.
He watches Doc walk away somewhere else before going up to everybody else. He gives them high fives while making his way to the bar. He jumps on a stool.
“Beer please.” He says sliding his ID on the table with a smirk. The bartender nods and turns away to get one.
A racer walks over to him.
“So, Piston Cup winner eh? Kinda nice to see someone other than The King win one.”
“Oh yeah? That’s nice.” Lightning says, not really knowing how to respond.
“You’re still quite the rookie aren’t you?”
“Well technically, not anymore. But the stripes only came off my car like last season. So yeah, I guess you could say so.” He says, grabbing the beer that was just handed to him and taking a sip.
“Yeah, I guess so. You’re pretty good for how young you are.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay shut up, it's my turn to talk to the legend, Lightning McQueen!” Another racer says to the other one. He rolls his eyes.
“Alright, whatever.” He gets a drink, and Lightning turns his attention to the racer who just appeared.
“So, how cool is it having the Fabulous Hudson Hornet as your crew chief?” He asks him.
“How is it? It’s pretty great. He’s pretty funny, but he knows how to get me in the game y'know. He really helps me.” Lightning says, taking a last chug of his first drink and patting the table.
“Hey, another one please.”
“So no more flying solo huh?” The racer asks with a laugh. Lightning laughs along and shakes his head.
“Yeah, no. I found a good team.” He says, looking at Doc and waving rapidly. Doc looks over and gives him a small slow wave.
“Whoa buddy, you finished that first drink quickly.” The first racer says.
“Hm? Oh yeah.” He says, chuckling a bit. He continues sipping out of the cup with his straw. The racers went off to talk to other people. Lightning brings his fists up to his face and slightly covers his ears. It’s pretty loud in here. He bounces his leg up and down on the stool chair as he finishes his second cup.
“Another one please.” He says. He knows he shouldn’t drink too much, but it’s really good.
Doc looks over at him and sees him drinking his third cup. Hands over his ears and a bouncing leg. This kid really can’t stop moving, can he?
Doc shakes his head and takes a sip of his wine.
“I swear this kid is driving me nuts. He never stops moving. I’m surprised he can fall asleep at night.” He says to the other crew chiefs, which results in a group of laughter.
Other racers start coming up to Lightning and talking to him. The more people talk to him, the more the little guy in his head runs around telling him to leave. Where it’s quiet. But he ignores it and just keeps talking and ordering more drinks. He laughs along with the people who tell him funny things and has great conversations with them. Except he’s getting drunk. And the more he gets drunk, the more careless and reckless he gets. He starts tuning out people and then yelling random things when he tunes back in. No matter how much he tunes out the people taking, he can always hear the buzz and mumbling of everybody.
He remembered someone was talking to him and turned his head towards him. He felt dizzy doing that. He rubbed the bridge of his nose a few times.
“You good?”
“Y-yeah.” He responds, nodding.
“Another one.” He says, hand reaching out.
“This is like your 9th one.” The bartender says.
“I don’t care.”
“Anyways, I heard…” Lightning tuned him out as he stared at the table. His head was pounding. He felt sweaty and his eyes keep unfocusing. He saw as the next cup of beer was placed in front of him. He moves his mouth over to the straw to drink it before his hand slipped off his cheek and he almost bashed his head into the cup. He sits up and his stomach churns. He feels a weird warm feeling creep up his throat and immediately stands up.
“Sorry. Where's the bathroom?” He asked, stumbling to catch his footing. The bartender pointed to the back, and Lightning nodded. He rushed over to the bathroom, hitting tables the entire way there. Doc watched as Lighting stumbled towards the bathrooms.
“I’ll be right back.” He says, standing up and walking over to the bathroom. He opened the door slowly and heard soft sobs, and some coughing.
“Lightning?”
“Doc?”
“Yea it's me, kid. Are you okay?”
“I drank too much.” Then he threw up again. Doc walked to the stall where Lightning was and sat down next to him.
Lightning's face was a mess, he had tears running down his face, and there was drool on his chin. Doc sighed and rubbed his back.
“I told you not to drink too much.” He says.
“I know.” Lightning let out a sob.
“Are you done throwing up?”
“I think so.” Doc grabs Lightning some toilet paper and throws it at him.
“Here. Clean your face.” Lightning grabs the toilet paper and wipes his mouth and face. He throws the toilet paper in the toilet and flushes it. Lightning stares at the toilet as it flushes.
“I never liked throwing up.” He says.
“Come here.” Lightning turns towards Doc and hugs him.
“That’s what you get for drinking so much.”
“Oh shut up.” Lightning says with a chuckle. He buried his face into Doc’s chest, and Doc rubs his back.
“Why’d you drink so much? Just reckless teen behavior or for a reason?”
“I’m not a teen.”
“You know what I mean.” Lightning goes silent for a moment. Doc wondered if he was gonna answer him or not. He opened his mouth to ask again but Lightning said,
“It was too loud.”
“I thought so. Why’d you come?”
“Because I won.”
“Let me tell you, son, with the number of races I won, I rarely went to parties let alone get super drunk.”
“Wow, you were even boring at my age.” Lightning laughs, and Doc shakes his head.
“So, you gonna explain the whole, too loud thing?” Doc asked. Lightning sighed and said,
“That’s the thing. I don’t really know how to explain it. Like- everybody is talking y’know. And everyone has the moment when things are too loud, but this is where it’s different. For other people, when it’s too loud, it gives them a headache or hurts their ears. For me, it drives me crazy. It echoes in my brain, and it overwhelms me. And then I just want everybody to be quiet so I can have, I don’t know, a moment of peace or something.” He takes a deep breath.
Doc nods.
“I see. What that is kiddo, is a sensory overload.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Red told me before.”
“How? He can’t talk.” Lightning asks, sitting up.
“Sign language kid.” Doc waves his hands around and wiggles his fingers.
“Oh.” He says, tapping his leg with his fingers.
“Why don’t we leave? We can go to the hotel where it’s nice and quiet, and you can relax and stuff alright?” Lightning nods, and hides his face, embarrassed. Why? He really doesn’t know.
“You’re- You’re not gonna tell them the true reason, are you?”
“No, I don’t have to.”
“Okay.” Lightning nods, and grabs Doc’s hand to stand up.
“Can you walk straight?” Lightning wobbles on his feet before walking to Doc, zig-zagging and tripling on the way there.
“Yeah no.” He grabs Lightning’s arm and drags him out of the bathroom. Lightning winced once they left the room. He leaned his head against Doc’s arm.
“We gotta go now. Have a great rest of your night.” Doc said to everyone, knowing that not everyone could hear it. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting Lightning out of there. They stepped outside and were greeted with crisp air. Lightning shivered.
“It’s cold out here.”
“I know,” Doc said, turning on the car and opening the door. He helped Lighting in before getting on his side.
Doc turned the car on immediately and put the heat on. He muted the radio and looked at Lightning.
“Try going to sleep okay? I’ll wake you up when we get to the hotel.”
“Mkay.” Lightning mumbled softly, closing his eyes and curling up slightly. He rested his head against the car seat. He fidgeted with his pants as he tried to fall asleep. A little shopping trip won’t hurt. Doc thought. He made it to the store and rested his hand on Lightning’s shoulders.
“Hey kid,” he whispered. Lightning tried to shoo his hand away from his shoulders, his eyes still shut. “Kid listen. I’m going into the store real quick. You can stay in the car. I’ll be right back.” Lightning nodded as Doc left the car.
He locked the doors and walked up to the store. He went towards the back of the store. He looked at all the headphones before picking up some noise-canceling ones. He went to the checkout line and waited for the lady to scan the headphones. When she did, he asked,
“Do you think you could open those for me here? The kid is already overwhelmed, and I don't think that opening those would make it any better.”
“Of course, but I need the money first.” Doc nodded with a small sigh. He gave the lady a 50-dollar bill. Of course, there were better, more expensive headphones out there, but these ones seemed good enough for Lightning. The lady printed a receipt and gave it to him. While she looked for a box knife.
She found one and cut the box open. She took the headphones out of the packaging and put them in a bag, alongside the box.
“There you go.” She handed Doc the bag.
“Thank you.” He said, taking it.
“You’re welcome, have a nice night!”
“You too,” Doc said, walking away. He walked out of the store and back to his car. He hopped in and took the headphones out, setting the bag in the back seat.
“Hey Lightning, are you awake?”
“Barely…” he mumbled.
“I got you these noise-canceling headphones. They’re supposed to help with this stuff.” He whispered. Lightning looked over and gently grabbed them. He put them on his head.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Doc said, starting the car. Which Lightning didn’t have a reaction towards. Lightning laid his head back down on the seat, facing the window.
Doc turned some music on because if he was being honest, it was too quiet for him. The volume was low, but at least he had something to tap his fingers to.
They made it to the hotel and Doc shook Lightning gently again.
“Lightning.” He looked over,
“What..?” He mumbled, taking the headphones off.
“We’re at the hotel.” Lightning nodded and got out of the car. Doc grabbed the store bag and left the car too. Lightning put the headphones back on and held Doc’s hand as they walked in. They made it to their room. Lightning immediately plopped on his bed. Doc meanwhile, got some cold water and shoved it in McQueen’s face.
“Drink it.” He said. Lightning stared at him for a moment before realizing what he wanted. He took the cup and drank some water. It felt good down his throat. He sighed and nodded. Doc turned the light off, so the only thing illuminating the hotel room was the bathroom light.
“I’m gonna get ready for bed.” He said, making sure Lightning could read his lips if he knew how to.
Doc got into pajamas and walked into his bed.
“Don’t stay up too late, okay? Get some sleep. Goodnight Lightning.” Lightning watched him as he got into the bed and talked. Lightning understood some of what he said.
“Goodnight.” He said back. He drank some more water and looked around for something to do. He found a notepad and pen and grabbed them. He laid on the edge of his bed and started drawing.
~~~~
Doc opened his eyes and rubbed them. He stretched and looked at the clock. It was 8:45. Not bad he thought. He looked over at Lightning’s bed. He still had his racing suit on. The headphones were right next to him, and he laid on the edge of the bed, a pen near his hand. Doc got up to go to the bathroom. When he was done he grabbed the notepad and looked at it. There were a bunch of sloppy drawings of Lightning himself. Some drawing attempts at his car. And a few of Doc. That made him smile. He looked down at Lightning and watched him for a bit. His back rose and fell as he breathed. His hair looked like a mess. His mouth was slightly open so there was no doubt there was drool there. Doc looked away and put the notepad on the desk.
He turned the Tv on, making sure the volume was low. He clicked through the channels before stopping on a racing one. It talked about yesterday’s race and upcoming interviews with Lightning. Doc smiled and kept looking through the channels. He found a show that looked interesting and started to watch it. Really he was just waiting for Lightning to wake up, so they could get breakfast. Doc managed to watch almost one episode of his show before he heard Lightning groan.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned.
“Ugh… I have a headache.” He mumbled. “What time is it..?” He looked at Doc. Doc looked at the clock.
“9:16.” He replied. Lightning nodded and slammed his head back into the blanket.
“How you feeling, rookie?”
“Okay.” He said. “My head hurts. Also I'm not a rookie anymore.”
“Eh whatever,” Doc shrugged. “You want some medicine or something?”
“Yea…”
Doc got up and went through his bag. He pulled out some aspirin he had packed.
“Here.” He threw the bottle at McQueen. Which hit his arm. He lifted his head up and grabbed the bottle. He opened it up and took some. He popped them in his mouth, and threw the bottle back at Doc.
“Water.” Lightning said, rolling on the bed to the nightstand. He found his cup from last night with a little bit of water in it. He drank it.
“Wanna go get breakfast?” Doc asked Lightning.
“Sure.” He shrugged. They got ready for the day, before heading out.
“Oh, bring those. You never know when you’ll need them.” Doc pointed to the headphones.
“I think you can connect your phone to it and play music through them.” Lightning shrugged with a slight smile, and put them around his neck. The two men made it to a restaurant and ordered breakfast. Doc had eggs and sausage, while Lightning had pancakes.
“So, did those headphones work well?” Doc asked him.
“Yep.” Lightning says, smiling.
“Good.” Doc says, with a small smile.
“Uh..” Lightning started, fidgeting with his fingers.
“Thank you for these. I don’t know if I said that already. But, I like these a lot.” He said.
“No problem kid. Just wanna make sure you’re not too upset y’know.”
“Yeah. Thanks for that.” Lightning says, smiling.
Lightning doesn’t know what he’d do without Doc now. He’s surprised he'd lived so long without him. He grazed his fingers on the headphones, and smiled even more. He looked down at his pancakes and began to eat them.
↯☆~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~☆↯
Thanks for reading! (if you did)
Here’s the ao3 link if you want it for some reason
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
