menhara

His sight is constantly moving, wobbling and swirling, betraying him while he moves. He's becoming quite good at hiding the fact that he can't see whenever he moves his head a bit too abruptly or turns too fast. He knows that the shadows he constantly sees in the corners of his eyes aren't real, but he has to look at them anyway, just to be sure.

It started after the crash in Silverstone, when he went into the wall and hit both, his knees and his head, while his whole body shook, trying to take the impact. Heavy Concussion, they told him in the hospital after a plethora of checks on his entire body had been conducted. It would be best not to enter the next race, the risk of aggravated post Concussion symptoms was too large and Hungary too soon, they had warned him. He had gotten into the car anyway, too stubborn for his own good and refusing to let the points he had over Hamilton slip from his fingers. They had done that anyway after he had only barely scraped into the points.

The car had jumbled his brain too much immediately after a crash. It's a wonder he even made it through the weekend with the way the searing pain was threatening to split his head every other minute. He'd hoped that the summer break would be the way to heal, to let his head calm down and let his eyes stop playing tricks on him.

It… didn't work. The summer break was pure torture, the bruises only slowly healing, the painting on his chest and back disappearing, while his head pounded in protest whenever he looked at a screen or turned too fast. But he may have lost important points in the last few races, but he was still leading the championship. It wasn't completely lost yet, so he spent his days looking at data and training, ignoring his screaming head.

His eyes only start acting up a few days into the summer break. Or that's when he first notices at least. Maybe the pain had blocked everything else out earlier, so that the blurry vision was only noticeable then.

He was staring at some telemetry, trying to find areas to improve on for Spa when it occurred to him that the page he was trying to analyze was stubbornly refusing to come into focus. He'd tried everything, even taking a walk to rest his eyes for a bit, but all he managed was making the headaches worse, the pain bad enough to make his eyes well up. That's when he'd given up on trying to read the telemetry.

Two days later he'd stood in his kitchen, making a smoothie after training, body aching, this time vaguely pleasant, when he'd seen the first shadow. It had been in the corner of his eye, moving at the edge of his vision. After that they don't go away.

He knows that it's nothing but an after-effect, the post Concussion syndrome hitting him full force, but it's still weird. It's not even a real shadow that he sees, just blacked out spots in his vision. He's thankful that it's at least not at the front of his vision, that would be a lot harder to hide. And more dangerous to get into the car again like that. It doesn't change the fact that he's constantly being surprised by people who are simply coming from his side.

It's at its worst immediately after a session or race, when his entire brain feels scrambled, pain behind his temples, pounding. He can't trust his eyes not to trick him anymore. Sometimes he sees things in the black spots that aren't there. Sometimes they simply don't show him anything and he is completely blindsided when someone grabs him, or claps him on the shoulder.

When he first notices it happening it's during a race while he's turning into a corner. Before he had managed to push the pain away while in the car, nothing more important than him and the machinery. It's a fast corner, G-forces pressing him to his seat, pressure in his head automatically even worsened. And his vision goes black.

After he stumbles out of the car, unsure if it actually happened or if it was just an illusion, something his brain thought of to trick him again.

It doesn't happen again in the next few races, black spots clouding his vision at most. It's during Cota, in the last few laps of the race, sweat sliding down his neck and adrenaline rushing through his veins after another battle with Lewis, that his vision fades again. He turns the car into the next corner, the tarmac bumpy underneath him and it goes black. It's like a film creeping over his vision coming out from the black spots until he can't see anything, but the occasional lights on the cars he's supposed to start lapping now.

He trusts in his knowledge of the track, the feel of his tyres on the tarmac, but there's nausea creeping up his throat and anxiety erupting in his body. He can't see. It's the most terrified he's ever been, worse than Silverstone, when he didn't know up from down, control totally lost, worse than seeing his father stand above his mother, fists raised, worse than watching someone else crash and knowing he can do nothing. His voice on the radio must be unsure and shaking, he's sure, but there's nothing he can do. He refuses to DNF so close to the end and instead trusts in GP's calm steady voice to guide him over the finish line.

He doesn't know how he finished the race without crashing, pressure building behind his eyes and in his head, threatening to make him pass out. He stumbles when he gets out of the car, but at last the veil of black fades a bit. Instead the headache returns worse than before, hammering in his skull. Brad steadies him, hand on his arm.

“What's wrong, did something happen? Is it getting worse?” He sounds worried. Brad knows about the headaches of course, the only one who maybe knows the full extent of them. He shakes his head, but flinches at the movement. His trainer thankfully gets the hint.

Sebastian hums. "Well, they are very different answers. When I left Red Bull, it was because I felt every day that I was stuck on a sinking ship and that my life was disappearing from in front of my eyes. The car was not as good as it had been, and with Daniel doing so well, it felt as if the team was not all on my side anymore." Sebastian doesn't worry about sounding big-headed about that—if anyone would understand, it's Max.

"And when I retired, it was because... It used to be, when I was at home, I would dream about racing. Of course, I enjoyed my time at home very much, and I tried to not think about work. But I would always be excited to go back, and when I fell asleep, I would be thinking about the next circuit and how I would take the corners. And then... It became that when I was away at races, I started dreaming about being at home."

"Red Bull used to feel like my home. Also."

Used to.

It used to feel like Sebastian's home, too. It really did. Even after he'd left it.

In 2016, in Barcelona, Land der Berge, Land am Strome had played, and Sebastian had frowned, confused for a moment why they were playing the German anthem for Max, before he remembered.

He wonders—if he asked Max now to hum his own anthem, would he be able to do it without slipping into another tune?

"When did it stop feeling like home?"

Was it when the ship started sinking? Or when nobody listened to Max when he told them they should steer themselves out of the storm?

"Everybody is gone now. It is... It does not feel like Red Bull anymore. It is like I look at everybody's faces and I do not recognize them."

Or was it when his crew all departed and left Max alone to deal with the water flooding in?

Anthems aren't everything. Some days, more than anything else, Sebastian would miss the sound of too-loud techno music filling up the crevices between the whirring of wheel guns and roaring laughter.

When he left, Sebastian's ears rang in its absence.

Are Max's ears ringing now, too?

"And when you sleep? What do you dream about?"

Max sighs. Sighs like he already knows what he should do next, even if he doesn't want to accept it.

Sebastian doesn't think he had really accepted it when he chose to leave the first time—leave Red Bull. But he knows he had accepted it when he chose to leave the sport for good.

Knows, because somewhere along the way, he started scrunching his nose in annoyance when he passed by the Red Bull garage. Stopped listening to the anthems at all. Because between one song and another, his favorite tune became the soft sound of his daughters' breaths.

But Max shouldn't have to leave F1. He's not ready. Here he is, asking Sebastian for any reason to cling to why he should stay. He wants to stay.

But life is rarely fair. And Formula One is even less so.

"I dream of something that is no longer there. Always, I dream of home, and I am so happy; but then I wake up, and there only is..."