Chapter Text
Celebrations were always much of the same, even if its particulars shifted from city to city. After a while, Sebastian felt he could map the rhythm of it all. The post-race debrief (and with it, its jagged, taut-string-run-dry sort of undertone), tidal rush of photographers, the press commitments, and then–the inevitable slide into a night that belonged to the crew more than the drivers.
Singapore was no exception.
Both garage’s mechanics had started drinking. Bottles of Tiger beer stood in uneven rows on every available surface, some still sealed, others beading with condensation. Most, long emptied and left abandoned. A few engineers had dragged two tables together so they could pile plates of satay skewers and fried noodles high enough that food scraps spilled onto the carpet. Someone had even pulled a speaker into the corner. The bass booming a blared playlist that shifted violently between German techno and top fourty Sebastian didn’t quite recognise.
He stayed on the periphery, nodding when he was expected to, lifting a glass to his lips without swallowing much. He could perform cheer easily enough at this point. Grin for the photograph and accept the claps on his back, maybe even let Christian hoist his wrist into the air when he reminded everyone that it was not just a win but a perfect grand slam–from their one and only weltmeister.
Pole, win, fastest lap, led every lap. On paper, it was spotless. In practice, his body still vibrated with the same taut hum as the car had beneath him a few hours ago, the after-effect of mechanical violence refusing to recede, reminding him that something, someone, was missing.
Mark wasn’t there.
Given the right circumstances (and the perfect number of drinks), was the sort of abscence that should have been easily ignorable. Men missed parties. Drivers with bruised egos and faces tight with disappointment often absented themselves, but this was different. Mark had not only missed the podium, he had missed the chance to present himself at all–even fleetingly, underneath the strobing lights, in between the scattered drinks and baggies of white–in the one space where the team levelled itself out.
Even bitter rivals tended to circle back into the fold when there was champagne and noise and anonymity in the crew’s collective exhaustion. That was how it had always been.
Sebastian found himself returning to the empty point in the room where he thought Mark should have been standing. He imagined him against the wall, bottle in hand, leaning with that peculiar stiffness he always seemed to carry. Maybe even talking in clipped syllables to one of the Australian mechanics who clung to him with loyalty.
He turned to watch the others instead. Daniel was folded almost double with laughter, shoulders shaking. One of the younger engineers was clapping in rhythm to some song, cheeks blotched crimson. Christian had commandeered a chair and was balancing precariously on its back legs while recounting a story Sebastian had heard him tell in Monaco two years earlier. They were comfortable in their little slice of oblivion.
Sebastian wished it was that easy for him; slipping into the garden of Eden. .
Soon enough, someone shoved another drink into his hand. He took it with a forced smile, and then let the liquid sit on his tongue without swallowing. He thought of asking someone directly where Mark was, but to pry himself open like that–will others to catch him wondering–
He swallowed his drink, then. Vodka Crans always like shit. He could really use a Redbull.
Sebastian began to trace back memories, as though the accumulation of pasts spent might produce clarity. Bahrain, when Mark had stood beside the boy during a long delay and simply rested a hand on the back of his neck. He’d always been handsome–in a rugged, salt-of-the-earth sort. Where Sebastian’s hands were small, still soft even when calloused over, Mark’s were roughened from birth, holding him down even when the world rumbled below him. The very same hands that were now steadying someone else. An unmoveable constant. An anchor.
Silverstone, when Sebastian had glimpsed them in the motorhome. The boy’s fingers tapping compulsively against Mark’s wrist, and Mark simply letting it happen. He even hummed–timed to the beat of the soft tapping, perfectly in sync, moving in a rhythm that was wholly their own. An unmoveable constant. An anchor.
Spa, where Oscar had stood in the rain at the edge of the paddock and Mark had wordlessly offered his own jacket–even when it left him drenched, mere seconds after. The boy was shivering under the cold, and even then, covered in the insulation of a borrowed rain jacket, Mark still gave him another piece of himself. He looped an arm around Oscar’s shoulder, and pulled him close to his side–to his heat–muttering to his ear as his lips trickled rain down to the boy’s shoulder. An unmoveable constant. An anchor.
Pieces without context. Fragments without order.
He turned to scan the crowd again, even when he knew Mark wouldn’t suddenly appear, and caught Britta moving through the room.
Ever the workaholic, a true bull–if he’d ever seen one, her headset still slung around her neck. She always seemed half tethered to duty, but tonight, at the very least, he could see streaks of blonde damp and clinging against her forehead. She was carrying a drink that sloshed perilously close to spilling, and sported a hazy smile. If there was anyone that deserved to have fun around here, he was glad it was her.
Sebastian stepped into her path without warning, flashing her a nonchalant quirk of his lip that he hoped seemed casual. Britta had a superpower that wasn’t awarded to most men–she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking, even before he thought it.
“Have you seen Mark?”
She stared at at him for a moment, brow raising. “What, tonight?”
“Yes, he’s–he’s not here.”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Probably busy.”
“Busy,” Sebastian repeated, biting back an open scoff, “Right.”
“Something with someone.” She sipped, grimaced at the taste. “His kid, I think. I don’t know. Sounds more petty to me, probably.” Eyeing him, she kept her glass by her lips to hide the burgeoning smirk. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t–”
Before he could continue, Britta clapped him on one shoulder, and leaned close to his ear, “Remember why you pay me the way you do?” She met his eyes again and shook her head, walking away with one head craned back, shouting out. “You’re a shit liar!”
By the time midnight bled into the early hours of the day, the party had only grown messier.
A group of mechanics had started arm-wrestling competitions. Someone had split open a bag of confetti left over from a sponsor’s event and now it stuck to the damp carpet, clinging to shoes and trousers. The music grew louder, then softer, then louder again depending on who was closest to the speaker.
Sebastian moved among them; more outsider than celebrated man of the hour. He couldn’t help noticing how easily the others gave themselves over to noise and drink. They make it look so easy; to laugh laugh until their faces went blotchy and shout until their throats grew hoarse. To not have a care in the world.
It was the hardest to, he’d found, not have a care in the world–when you’re the one sitting on top of it.
When at last the group began to fragment (some departing for rooms, others for bars, most for vague promises of food–he could definitely do with some more of those satays again) Sebastian let himself be swept along with one drifting cluster.
It was Daniel who suggested a walk, though Sebastian only half-heard the details. Something about air, about needing to stretch his legs. He happily (as much as his forced grin said) followed–partly because it was easier than resisting, and mostly because the pressure of the party’s noise had grown unbearable.
Outside, the heat slapped against him once more, an all-too-familiar, almost overwhelming force. He felt it in the car, and again, stumbling out the club. Singapore’s night was thicker than most of the thinned dryness of Europe; air as heavy as it was humid, carrying the tang of the sea that carried inward. The group was stumbling in loose formation, with some some breaking into song, and others linking arms for balance. Sebastian walked a few steps behind, eyes fixed not on his colleagues but rather, on the world around them.
The city was wide awake. Humming, as the veins of the earth–vibrant streets–still thrummed with life, welcoming them with the faint fragrance of garlic and chilli. He could spot the Hawker stalls lingering open on the corner, steam rising from pots of broth. His stomach grumbled, insistent against the alcohol thrumming in his veins.
Their group argued briefly about where to go; last round of drinks at another bar, more champagne popping at a new club, end the night in one of the Hawker stalls with mountaining of food, before someone mentioned the gardens.
Sebastian had heard about them, glimpsed photographs perhaps, the strange vertical trees glowing against the skyline. The thought thought of fabricated trees seemed–well, alright, he supposed. Enough strobing lights to occupy the hours until sleep. At least these ones would be high enough to not hurt his sight.
There was agreement, laughter, then a sudden surge of movement. While his body wasn’t heavy with alcohol the way theirs were–having only sipped cautiously all night, never enough to blur the edges–his thoughts were anything but sharp, and his limbs were anything but nimble.
Already, from the distance, did he see the structures loomed. Supertrees; impossibly tall, their branches spreading out in engineered symmetry, glowing with a palette of purples and blues that looked borrowed from another planet. As they all neared, the vague scent of foliage replaced the street’s exhaust fumes, layered with the damp sweetness of orchids and the earthy undertone of soil still warm from the day’s sun.
The group openly, voices rising in drunken awe. Phones were pulled from pockets, flashes of light disrupting the calm. Someone tried to climb onto a low wall for a better photo and was pulled down again by a laughing colleague. Sebastian trailed behind them, his pace slowed without conscious decision. He tilted his head back, following the lines of the Supertrees up into the darkness. Their crowns threaded with fibre-optic veins of light; magnificent in its mechanical beauty. Only a close second to the she-beast that was roaring under his reigns, just a few hours ago.
The others moved ahead, scattering into pairs and trios, drawn toward different corners of the gardens, and Sebastian took the opportunity to mutter to the nearest of his colleagues–thankfully not fully slurring his words–saying that he would walk on his own for a while, that he would find them later.
Surely enough, his words barely registered through their haze. A vague wave of acknowledgment was enough.
And so, he was finally left as a twosome. Just him and the city–away from the lingering thoughts of Mark, and whoever he was spending the night with.
He walked the path without direction, only allowing his steps to be guided by light. The ground glistened faintly where moisture had gathered. Leaves brushed against the path, their edges sharp, others broad and waxy. Above him the Supertrees pulsed in slow cycles of colour, shifting through blues into violet, into crimson.
It was there, in that disorienting half-light–that he saw them.
At first, only two silhouettes moving along the curve of the path ahead. One taller, broad-shouldered, the other smaller, slighter. Their hands were linked, swinging faintly as they walked.
Sebastian slowed, breath catching without reason. The taller figure leaned down, said something inaudible, and the smaller tilted his head in response. The rhythm of the walk faltered; the smaller stopped, hands rising briefly to his face. The taller turned fully toward him, their joined hands tightening.
“It’s just the lights, pup. Nothing else, hm? It was just much at once, that’s all. You don’t have to take it all in at once. Just breathe, like I taught you, remember? Together.”
The voice that trickled itself to Sebastian’s subconscious was low and just shy of ragged. Accented from the farthest edge of the world from his little village of Heppenheim. Familiar, in a way that it had often been slewn his way in a biting, often openly scathing sort. Familiar, in a way that it was a voice he would recognise anywhere, anytime, in any state of mind.
“I doesn’t … it doesn’t stop. It’s in my head.”
Sebastian shifted slightly in the shadows, damp bark of a tree against his back. The image pressed hard into his mind, drilling itself into memory: Oscar’s teeth against his thumb, the half-bitten skin reddened in a circle of pressure. There was a neediness that he recognised, the same sort of trembling he once felt, only a handful of years earlier–when he was a boy, as Oscar is now, looking up at a man, and seeing the entire world.
“I know,” Mark’s voice was muffled, yet just enough for Sebastian to make out the words. The soft, and soothing tone, the sort that smoothed at any rubbled edge. “But you’re doing fine. Look–just us here now, yeah? No noise we can’t walk away from. You want to sit down?”
There was a pause, then. One long enough for Sebastian to imagine hesitation. Perhaps, even, a quiet refusal. A second passed–which felt like a century packaged into a passing moment in time, really–before a sound emerged. Not quite a word at first, only breath caught against itself, until:
“Don’t go.”
Mark’s reply came with a knowing laugh. One that carried more warmth than anything else, of an affection rewarded to one.
“Not planning to, kiddo. You’ve got me, don’t you? Always have.”
Sebastian’s stomach tightened. Discretion had never been his strong suit, and at this point–he didn’t know if he wanted to call out for the boy, or for him.
Oscar’s hand dropped at last from his mouth; the red imprint of teeth visible even in the false glow above. His fingers twitched faintly, then settled against Mark’s wrist where their hands joined. His breath shuddered, chest rising and falling slowly steadying to a steadied, gradual rhythm.
“You’re safe,” Mark murmured, voice loud enough enough now that they reached Sebastian without effort. “Doesn’t matter how bright it gets, how loud it gets. We’ll find the quiet.”
Another silence stretched, filled only by the faint trickle of water from some concealed fountain.
“Why does it feel worse at night?”
Mark hummed. A sound of thought.
“Because everything’s sharp at night. Lights cut more and sounds carry further. But sharp doesn’t mean dangerous, hm? Just different. Like you, like us. And we’ll work around it like we always do, won’t we?”
Oscar nodded faintly, head of delicate, brown locks tipping so that his head rested for a moment against Mark’s shoulder. Mark reacted instantly. Quick to angle his body to support it without breaking stride.
Like us?
Sebastian drew a slow breath and held it, kept the air swirling in him until his chest ached. He pressed the edge of his tongue against his teeth, and for a flicker of a moment, his mind betrayed him, dragging up the memory of Suzuka years earlier.
A brief clasp of Mark’s hand against his shoulder before a storm of questions came at them. The grounding weight of a presence that loomed over his own, reminding him of the years that Mark had carried over him–a youth he had only barely had a taste of. He had not realised then what it meant–to have had an unmoveable constant, steadying by his side. An anchor.
He blinked against the bright edges of the canopy, eyes suddenly stinging.
“It’s still in my head, dad–”
“Then let me hold it for you a while.”
His eyes flicked once more to the boy, seeing the faint slackening of shoulders, the small tilt of head as he allowed Mark to guide him, a fragile equilibrium returning.
And in that tilt, in the damp glow that caught across the boy’s cheekbones, was when Sebastian saw something he couldn’t quite understand.
Mark had leaned in, closing the distance between himself and Oscar. His hands tightened around the soft material of the hood up most of the younger’s body, and under the pearlescence of the Supertrees, and Sebastian as their only witness, did he make the boy moan–
A soft, whiny gasp, swallowed only when their lips met in a hushing embrace. The boy’s hands curled themselves, far too eager, around Mark’s shirt to pull him closer, lower to his frame.
It should have been beautiful–if it was anyone else who had allowed their lust get the better of them, if it were just two strangers that he came across, stumbling in the dark. It should’ve been beautiful, if it weren’t his teammate, and the boy that called him dad. It should’ve been really, really fucking beautiful–if it didn’t make Sebastian’s stomach tighten and coil, somewhere between complete disbelief and disgust and something other he couldn’t quite name.
Whether for the boy, or for himself, he didn’t know. He didn’t have any right, or any rhyme or reason why he would even feel anything for–whatever this was, and especially for the boy. They’ve only shared a few passing words–of which had imprinted itself onto the very fabric of his culpability. Dad, this. Anchor, that. When he’s near, I know where I am.
Running a hand over his eyes, forcing the alcohol, the sleep, the alcohol out his blurred gaze, Sebastian tried to focus on the two once more–only to find nothing, standing in their place.
In its way, there only left a faint, twisting in his gut, and the bitter taste of bile that had crawled its way to the back of his throat, and all Sebastian knew at that moment, was that he’d stumbled in far too close for comfort, and that he definitely, has had too much to drink.
And, perhaps most certain of all-he had to get the hell out of here, before he would speak on something even he didn’t even know was real, let alone understand. Something he’d surely regret.
He pushed away from the trunk, the roughness biting at his palms, and moved down another path, away from their figures, away from the pull of their voices. Each step sounded loud to him, but thankfully, the fates were kind, and no other passing faces had turned their heads.
Everyone was sealed in their own world, insulated by something that couldn’t be scathed by a wandering eye. Let alone by someone who didn’t understand–who didn’t want to.
Not if it meant remembering that it was his eyes that once looked at Mark the way the boy’s did. Not if it meant realising that it was he who was once–