#asterisk fics

When you're old enough to start karting, people talk to Mama and Papa at the circuit, and you stand, bored and impatient as you wait for them to finish so you can drive.

They say, You look so alike! to you and Mama, and they lean down to say, But you're fast like your papa, huh?

You stomp your foot, nose crinkled. Say, Mama's fast too!

They blink in surprise, but Mama smiles, soft, and when you get into the kart, you try to make her smile again. Try to be fast just like her.

-

You think that Vic looks like the plastic-wrapped ham that Mama gets from the store when she's a baby. Wrinkled and pink, too chubby to do anything other than gurgle and wave.

Once she starts to look more like a person, the comments start coming in: You look so alike!

On one occasion, someone, a laugh in their voice, says, Wow, you two must be twins!

You jump to your feet, face hot. Wag your finger, like Mama does when she's telling you off for making a mess, before she smooths your hair out and kisses you on the forehead.

No! I'm big, and she's just a baby! I won a race last week, and she doesn't even know her alphabet!

The person walks off with a chuckle, and you sit back down next to Vic, hard. Cross your arms. Blow a raspberry after them, because you know it always makes Vic laugh.

Vic squeals and bubbles in delight, blowing messy raspberries of her own.

You smile and blow another, the quirk of your lips making it come out choppy.

Vic reaches up, still grinning wide, and brushes a chubby baby hand down your nose. Your nose, just the same as hers.

-

Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa. He starts bringing you to the track more and more by himself, and you run to keep up with him, helmet knocking against your legs. Try to arrange your face into a scowl to mimic his.

But you're not so good at scowling, and when Papa yells at you for taking too long to undo the clasps on your helmet, fingers awkward, your face drops, and you look more like Mama instead, eyes wet and corners of your mouth turned down at Papa's harsh words.

Nobody ever tells you you look like Papa, but sometimes people tell you that you're fast like him. So you buckle the clasps on your helmet all by yourself and press your foot down on the accelerator harder. Hope that you can make Papa smile. Hope that maybe then you'll look like him.

-

Mama and Vic leave. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure; everything blurs together through your teary eyes.

Mama hugs you tight; gives you a watery smile that you try desperately to return, but the corners of your mouth keep wobbling, pulling down.

You watch hers do the same. Smile just the same as yours, like always.

When she leaves (when you leave), you wonder if she's taking your smile away with her. (You wonder if you're taking hers.)

-

You go to the track again and again and again. When you look in the mirror, you don't see Mama's smile, but you see her tired eyes, and you see Vic's brows pinch together on your forehead.

You see the way your hair starts to curl around your ears like Mama's does, now that she's not around to trim it for you, gentle fingers tucking it out of the way. Wonder, for a moment, how long you can go without cutting it—how much longer you can coax the curl.

Later that week, you spin off the track in your kart as the rain starts to patter down quick. Papa wrenches your helmet off your head as soon as your fingers fumble open the clasp. Rips off your balaclava; digs his fingers into your hair, gripping tight, hands large and rough.

You find yourself in front of the bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, trying to forget the way Papa's eyes had looked, cold as ice.

His blue eyes the same as yours.

-

The first time someone tells you you look like Papa, you can hear in their tone that it's meant to be a compliment—meant to be in good faith.

But you feel the scowl heavy on your eyelids and curled in your upper lip, and you always wanted to be like Papa, but you wanted to do it smiling.

But Mama took your smile with her when she left, and maybe you took hers too, but you lost it somewhere along the way, and now all you're left with is Papa's mouth in a hard line on the top step, and Papa's icy blue eyes in the mirror.

A voice echoes in your ears, light and unassuming: You look just like your father!

You throw up in the dark.

-

You don't know, at the time, that your final race in karts will be your last.

And you don't know, at the time, that it will be unfinished, incomplete—a disqualification and a championship loss and a tense eight-hour flight, sitting carefully to not disturb the silence and the bruises.

You don't know how it will end. You just sit in the kart, like always; fasten your clasps and knock down your visor, where nobody can see the scowl hanging heavy over blue eyes.

You go fast, like Mama. (Like Papa.) Like always.

But you don't know that it's the last time. And you'll go fast again, but you'll never again sink into your kart and see Mama behind you in your mirrors, chasing you down, smiling wide.

You move to single-seaters, and you go even faster, and you leave her behind in the dust. Leave her again and again and again.

-

You meet with Christian, one-on-one. He says that he raced against your mama in karts. Says that she was good. Really good.

He says that you race just like her.

(It's been so long since anybody said you were just like your mama.)

He says that he wants to give you an opportunity to do what he and she never did. To go faster still.

You take it.

-

Before Toro Rosso was Toro Rosso, it was called Minardi.

Your father drove for Minardi.

It was your father's last team. It's your first. He scored no points in their car. You score 49.

There's a team member who survived the Minardi buyout and stayed on for the dozen years it took for you to see your name printed on the side of an F1 car.

When you first meet, he tells you you're just like your father.

The rest of the team's introductions get reduced to static in your ears.

-

Your mama comes to watch you race.

The whole weekend, you wait for the once-familiar words to come, but they don't.

(You wonder exactly when you changed into someone unrecognizable.)

-

You win, and for a moment, it feels like maybe you evened the score. You left your mama behind a long time ago, but now you've left your father behind, too, a step below you on the podium and over a decade in the past.

But the interviewer calls you down from the top step and asks you about how proud he must be.

You can't help the way your mouth twists, and even though you try to lock the anger away tight in your jaw, it only brings you closer to him.

-

The engine dies and dies and dies beneath you.

It's your fault, every time. And you always keep your hair short, nowadays, but it's not short enough, because you can still feel your father's fingers on your scalp, on your wrists, on your chin.

Every time you get into the cockpit, you grip the wheel as tight as you can, like you can hold the car together through willpower alone.

Every time it breaks beneath you, you slam your hands down, hard.

(Every time you look at your wheel, it's littered with the deep blue ghosts of bruises.)

-

You hear it all the time, now—how you're just like your father. Too angry, too risky, too harsh.

You crash, and you crash, and you crash, and your father's hand is around your arm, too tight, and his voice is in your ear, words sharp, and his scowl is on your face, etched in deep.

Christian says something needs to change.

You walk home from the track, where you've fucked up again (again, again, again). Turn on all the lights in your apartment and stare at your reflection, hands gripping the countertop, tight.

Your father's eyes stare back.

You want to rip your skin off. But you know the resemblance runs much deeper than that.

You want to rip your beating heart right out of your chest.

-

Everybody leaves. Or maybe you do. It's hard to be sure.

You're the one who's still with Red Bull, but it's your dust everyone else is choking on.

Maybe you aren't meant to have something that lasts.

-

Kelly never mentions your father unless you bring him up.

In return, you never mention hers.

It's easy not to—when you look at her, everything else falls away. All you see is the most beautiful person in the world, the love of your life, eyes warm and playful, sweet lips coming in to meet your own. There are no traces of anybody else in her face, except for lovely little P, who has her dark hair and her dark eyes and her chin.

(P, of course, doesn't look like you at all.)

You never ask Kelly what she sees when she looks at you. You're afraid of the answer.

-

The championship looks within reach.

Your father is let back into the garage.

You thought you'd be stronger, now, than when you were a child, but it hurts just the same as always.

-

When you slam into the barriers, it feels, just for a moment, like coming home.

-

The pain, honestly, isn't that bad. You're well used to climbing into the car and ignoring the way your body screams.

Once you're on the track, everything drops away anyway, and the only parts of you that matter are your hands on the wheel and your feet on the pedals.

The pain isn't that bad, but your vision—that's a different issue. The circuit sways before you, blurring. You try to look for familiar landmarks, but all the turns are alien, twisting the wrong way.

When you climb out of the car, you massage your temples and breathe deep, but nothing works.

You hear a voice, and you look up, squinting. Across the garage, you see your father, face pinched tight.

You flinch. Your reflection flinches back.

-

When you win, your father pulls you in, and you pull right back. Claw your hands into the fabric of his sweater, tuck yourself into the crook of his shoulder the best you can with your helmet in the way.

He tries to pull away, but you don't let him. You keep your grip on him so tight it must be bruising.

(He's the only person who ever stayed. You only know of permanence when it hurts.)

-

You start seeing Mama and Vic more.

You start seeing your father less.

You grow your hair out, just a bit.

But you take your helmet off after pulling into the P2 spot, and you run your hand through your hair, unmussing it, trying to keep the scowl off your face, and your fingers catch—momentary tangle. Your fingers catch and snag and pull, and for a second, your hands aren't your own, though they're still familiar: large and rough.

At home, Kelly carefully snips your hair back into place, her fingers long and gentle and steady. Her voice replaces the one that's been looping in your head since parc fermé.

P pouts that she won't be able to tie your hair up into tiny pigtails anymore, and you can't find the words to placate her past the lump in your throat.

-

Lio has Vic's nose.

When you tell her, voice soft and reverent, she laughs, and it comes out like a sob.

Funny, she says, running a gentle finger down the bridge of yours. I thought the same thing.

-

P asks if she can go karting for her birthday. It's the first time you ever raise your voice in front of her.

(The words sound like they're coming from somewhere distant. Somewhere a thousand miles away, years ago.)

She blinks back tears, and you drop to your knees; pull her in close.

The apologies you kiss into her hair are choked out in a voice you've never heard before. (Your father never said Sorry.)

-

Some fan with a paddock pass and cell phone camera set to selfie mode catches up to you as you're walking to the garages with Mama.

Oh my god, they say, breathless, hand dipping down, eyes wide. You two look so alike!

Mama gets pulled into the picture too, and when you curl the corners of your mouth up, your joy is genuine.

You find the photo later, on X, and you stare at the imprints of you and Mama, pressed side by side. Your smile on her face; her smile on yours.

-

When you hold Lily for the first time, she's so small you're afraid you'll crush her, hands too large and rough.

But she slots into your arms, easy, and she blinks up at you, completely silent.

Hallo, kleintje, you whisper.

She looks like you, Kelly says.

You blink. Lily follows suit. Her eyes are clear and blue and wide.

She's so beautiful. She's so small.

The tears come before you can stop them. Salt water drips off the point of your nose, collects in the nook above your lips. Your throat closes, and your shoulders shake, but your arms around Lily are steady.

Kelly's hand is warm on your back.

Lily's gaze stays serenely upwards, locked onto you.

After all, it's not the mechanics and the team bosses and the pit walls he has trouble repaying his debts to. All they ask from him is that he wins, and Max can do that in spades. Has. Will. Sure as the sunrise.

There are harder things to pay back, though, than contracted employment, a car for a victory, a team for the checkered flag.

Like a marriage destroyed, and a family torn apart. A mother and a sister abandoned. A father who dedicated his whole life to Max, and then some. Every drop of blood and sweat, his blistered fingers piecing together the engine a mirror to Max's, tight on the wheel. Every cent he owned, plus more and more and more.

Max doesn't forget it. Can't.

The list of the people he owes isn't very long, but there are three names sitting heavy at the top, etched in blood, and Max doesn't know if he'll ever be able to scrub them away.

The car dies beneath him during the first race, but he pulls it through the second, speeding over the line, points gleaming next to his name, at last.

He'll be written in the history books for that one. Name never scrubbed out.

Max may not be paying Red Bull back quite yet, but he has time, and his paycheck still comes in, every cent accounted for. Contracts fulfilled—a car for a point for a dollar.

But Max is only seventeen, and his father has given him everything—everything—so when he says, firm and complete, that he'll handle Max's finances; that he'll divvy up the pot between them; that Max owes him, Max just clenches his fists around nothing, wheel not in hand, and nods.

Still, though. His father's name is not the only one on his list. And he made a promise.

"Can I have at least enough of the money to buy Victoria a bag? It is only for this once."

Max's father scowls, but Max hasn't done anything wrong—he's steadily repaying his debts. He's in the car, he's in the points, and his paycheck is sitting heavy in his father's bank account, scale finally tipping towards the green.

"Fine," his father snaps. "But you owe me."

(Maybe he doesn't know what he wants. Or maybe he just doesn't get what he wants. Maybe the championship slipped through his fingers because he didn't want it enough; maybe it was because he wanted it too much. The end result is the same. He's in Abu Dhabi, all chances for the title gone, lights too bright and no shaded visor to block them out.)

Nobody had thought it was a good idea. Brad and Christian and Gemma and GP had all tried to talk him out of it. His mama and Vic had called—had asked him to come home. Kelly hadn't said anything, but her eyes were sad when he left.

His father had been the only one who seemed to agree with his decision. He had huffed in approval; had said, Go ahead and show them. (Max hadn't said that he's not doing it to show them at all.)

The FIA may have suspended him from driving the car, but they can't force him to go to the hospital, and they can't force him to stay home. They can't stop his paddock pass from dinging him through at the entrance, and he walks past the garages and the reporters with his head held high.

Nobody at Red Bull had thought it was a good idea for him to come, but they still welcome him into the garage with open arms.

(Max had thought, for just the briefest of moments, when Christian had come to interrupt him and Brad on their way out of Jeddah, that it had been Red Bull to rat him out. That it had been GP or Gemma, lips pursed with concern; that it had been Christian, thinking about the team; that it had been the team, seeing him sway, and just trying to help.

Had thought, for just a moment, that it had been Brad—too close to Max's flame, and trying desperately to stop the spread.

But the raw devastation on everybody's faces had matched his own too well for that to be the case. Even through his blurry vision after failing the stupid fucking medical test, Max had been able to see that clearly.

He had remembered how Lewis had looked at him, before the podium. Head cocked, contemplative.

Max had thought, foolishly, that maybe Lewis had seen him—for the first time—as a human instead of just a car.

(Or maybe the thought wasn't so foolish. Hasn't Max been taught, time and time again, that to be human is to be weak?

Lewis had seen his humanity and had seen his weakness within it. Had seen that he wasn't a car, and had wrenched him out of it, seatbelts unable to keep him locked in place. Three-week suspension, and one week left in the season.

When the medical team in Jeddah had told him he could die if he went back on track, Max had had the brief thought that he'd rather be entombed forever in his car than never sit in it again.

But in the end, what he thought didn't matter. It never has.))

The FIA may have suspended Max from the car, but they can't suspend him from the UAE. And Max may have lost the championship in a quiet medical center in Jeddah, and he may have lost it in the wall at Silverstone at 51G's, but he'll be damned if he loses it in Monaco through a TV screen.

He needs to be here, this time, when Lewis waves his flag through the air. Needs to see it with his own blurry eyes.

(And maybe, he has more of his father in him than he'd like to admit, because he needs Lewis to see him, too. See him weak, and human, and out of the car, but still here. Eyes still tracking him down the road.)

Red Bull isn't running a second car this weekend. GP had refused to engineer for anyone else, and Alex had refused to take Max's car. Had refused to stage another dance, acting out Max and Lewis' battle. Had refused to sit in the seat Max had been wrenched out of, wheel still warm from his tight grip.

GP had refused, and Alex had refused, and Christian hadn't fought back as hard as he should have. 28 points behind in the Constructor's going into Abu Dhabi means the title belongs to Mercedes.

Again.

Max thinks Red Bull are being insanely stupid. Just because he's out of the running doesn't mean they have to be—they could still cinch the Constructor's if they're lucky. If Alex slid into the car, if GP coached him through it, if Christian made them. If they got lucky.

But they won't. They'll sit in the back of an empty garage, beside an empty car, and throw the potential of millions of dollars down the drain. All because Max can't drive.

Max doesn't quite get it. Doesn't quite understand why. And yet, something in his chest goes warm for a reason other than fiery rage. He may have failed his team, but they still love him despite it. They're still trying hard not to fail him back.

Fuck, Max wishes he could be in the car. Wishes almost as much for his team as he does for himself. Wishes he could have brought them to victory.

Instead, his side of the garage is empty and quiet. The car sits covered and untouched.

Max strokes a hand along it—an apology. He wonders if it would apologize back if it could.

(He almost hopes the answer would be no. He's heard enough apologies. But none of them can change what's been done. And none of them come from the only person he really wants to hear it from.

But Lewis wouldn't even give him so much as a smile when he was bright-eyed at seventeen, running clear out of Lewis' way in the middle of the pack. And Max still doesn't know quite what he did wrong to be in Lewis' bad graces back then, but now, years later, he could point to about a thousand.

He had thought, maybe, it had been because, when Lewis had looked at him, he'd only seen the car. Had thought, maybe, if he ever saw past that, he wouldn't hate Max quite so much.

But when he'd looked past it, just for a moment, Max had ended up wrenched out of the car, suspended for three weeks, championship torn from shaky fingers still clawing for the wheel. Lewis had looked past the car, and he must have seen something he hated even more, because Max would rather Lewis crash him into the wall and kill him than do what he did.

He can forgive Lewis for sending him into the barriers at 51G's, but he can't forgive this.)

Max watches every session in Abu Dhabi from the pit wall, and Lewis' car is the only one he sees on track.

And at the end of every session, he ignores every insect with a camera or a microphone, slinks back to his room (not his driver's room this weekend, because Lewis had reached his black-gloved hands down Max's throat and torn the driver right out of him), and throws up.

(He's not sure if it's due to the nausea or the rage. He's not sure he wants to know.)

Lewis tops the practice sessions. Lewis gets pole. Lewis thanks the team and signs the tyre and puts a black-gloved hand over his heart.

Max doesn't have a heart anymore. It was torn right out of him.

(Part of him was knocked loose in Silverstone—couldn't withstand the force of the impact. Another part was lost in Monza, and it was his fault, that time—his own mistake throwing up nightmares behind his eyelids.

He didn't lose a part of himself in Jeddah. He knows exactly where it is. It's in Lewis' black-gloved hands, trapped against his heart.)

Max sits on the pit wall during the race, in the spot GP refuses to occupy. Watches as Lewis starts, perfect. Watches as Lewis pulls away, perfect. Watches as Lewis pits, perfect. Watches as Lewis wins, and wins, and wins—perfect, perfect, perfect.

Checo doesn't even finish the race. Problem with the gearbox. It's not like it mattered anyway—even with two cars running, Red Bull would have needed a miracle, and those seem hard to come by these days—at least for them. But it still feels like a nail in the coffin, even with their hopes all already dead and buried.

Mercedes already had both championships won as soon as the FIA doctor had come back with the tests. As soon as Lewis had opened his mouth. As soon as Max's tyre had been clipped and the wheel had jerked in his grip, already past the edge of control.

Max sits on the pit wall, unmoving, feeling blank as people pat him on the back and offer him words of condolence. As smoke from donuts plumes over the track, as the cheers ring out, as the anthem plays (the wrong anthem, the wrong goddamn anthem). As Lewis presses his black-gloved hand over his heart, tears in his eyes, and thanks his team for everything.

Everything.

Eventually, Brad comes to pull Max gently out of his seat (GP's seat). Guides him back to his driver's (not driver's) room. Rubs a hand over Max's back as he throws up (nothing left inside him but bile). Asks Max, "What do you want to do?"

The season is finally—finally—over. Max breathes deep and chokes out, so honest it hurts his throat, "I just want to go home."

Max doesn't know quite how Brad gets them on a plane to Belgium within the hour, but he doesn't question it. Doesn't have the energy to—not when it means taking his forehead off the cool glass.

The flight feels unendingly long. And all he wants to do is sleep, but every time he closes his eyes, he can only see the racetrack. Lap after lap after lap, Lewis chasing him down; Lewis passing; Lewis inching ahead. Max tries to block it out—tries to paint the scene over black and count sheep. But all he can count are the seconds ticking up between him and Lewis as he falls behind; all he can count are the twenty-five points between himself and the title; all he can count are the thousands of tiny ways he let the championship slip through his fingers.

Eventually, they land. Tyres to tarmac, familiar. Lights on, seatbelt signs off, predictable chaos.

Max doesn't move. He's so sick of fighting every step of the way. The season's finally over, and he's lost, and he just wants to be home so badly, with his mama, but he can't lift his head away from the shitty airplane window.

It's not even cool against his skin. It's not even glass.

Behind him, he hears Brad shuffling, collecting their things. Hears when he must turn his phone on, because the sudden torrent of pinging notifications sound like an avalanche in Max's ears.

And, really, that's the moment Max should have known, but he's so sick of fighting, and it takes Brad shaking his shoulder and practically yelling his name for him to turn around and see the starry-eyed look on his face.

Brad says that he's won the championship. Says that he's World Champion. But he might as well be speaking French, might as well be speaking underwater, because the words sound like they should make sense, but they don't.

Because the championship was over when Lewis crossed the line in Jeddah in first, and Max barely made it back in second. When he tried to track a stupid penlight with his blurry eyes and just couldn't do it. When he spun out into the wall and never stopped spinning.

He's not World Champion. He finished in second.

Brad shoves his phone into Max's hand, and Max can't squint through the brightness to read any of the article pulled up on the screen, so he just stares at the image below the header—Lewis Hamilton, crossing the line in Abu Dhabi, sky a blanket of fireworks behind him, exploding with light. His black-gloved fist raised high in the air.

DSQ, Max manages to hear Brad say, words still coming from far away. Underfueled. Guess we finally found our good luck, eh mate?

(Is that all luck is? The misfortune of others? Did Lewis feel lucky when his tyre clipped Max's? When he looked at Max behind the podium, head cocked, and saw the person behind the car, no longer able to keep his fingers locked on the wheel, tight and unyielding?

Maybe luck is just karma in disguise, and maybe karma is just the world's cruelness come to life. Lewis had torn Max out of the car, and maybe he had still gotten into his own car in Abu Dhabi, hands steady on the wheel, but it hadn't mattered, because the championship was ripped away from him, too.

In the end, the final race meant nothing. Both of them wrenched out of their seats by powers beyond their control. An eye for an eye—Max blurry, Lewis blindsided. Scores even once again.)

Brad carefully extracts his phone from Max's grip, fingers warm. He's trembling, Max notices. He thought he'd be trembling too when he won, but it doesn't really feel like winning, crossing the line in second, squinting at a too-bright screen, taking your head away from the lukewarm plexiglass.

It doesn't really feel like anything at all.

(Maybe, when Lewis had reached down into his throat and torn the driver out of him, he had reached a little too far; pulled out a little too much. Maybe Max's three weeks of suspension are not yet up, and he doesn't know who to be without the car.

Maybe the champion within him had clawed its way out alongside all the bile, and all that's left is an empty ache. Championship won in Jeddah, but his vision too blurry to see it.

Maybe all that's left of him is what was taken.)

"Can we go home?" he asks. His voice sounds small to his own ears. Champions are supposed to be larger than life, but maybe this is still just a dream, counting sheep, because he feels so small.

Brad blinks. Blinks again. His eyes go soft, and his mouth pulls into a familiar twist.

"Yeah, mate. Let's get you home."

Max's mama is waiting for him in the airport. He sees her the moment before she sees him, and for just a second, he sees her nervous fingers, brushing hair behind her ear. Eyes wide in the crowd.

When she sees Max, a smile lights up bright across her face, and Max feels himself melt towards her.

(When he had been sitting in the clinical medical center in Jeddah—after the doctors had left, but before he could figure out how to will himself to stand—he had pictured their reunion in is head, for just a second. Had let himself imagine flying home; had imagined saying, Mama, I lost, and watching her eyes go soft at the edges, the corner of her mouth twitching, like it always does before she says, I love you.

Had imagined her saying, I know, baby, as she pulled him in close and stroked a hand down his back, gentle.

Now he's here, and she's here, right in front of him. No longer just a fantasy. No longer waiting on a miracle.)

"Mama. I won."

Her eyes go soft at the edges. Her mouth twitches.

She pulls her into her arms, presses him close. Strokes a hand down his back.

"I know, baby. I know."

Max tucks his head into the crook of her shoulder. Closes his eyes. Breathes deep—in and out.

He finishes the race and finally lets his brain switch from 'focused racer' to 'concerned friend.' Kills the engine and beelines it for his team on the pit wall, waving off the FIA employee who tries to remind him to get weighed.

They can disqualify him, for all he cares. That's not what's important, right now.

His engineer has no info. Just the same as there was during the red flag, before: Max is in the hospital, getting checked.

The Red Bull crew doesn't seem to have any news, either. Their faces are pinched with concern and rage. Christian is yelling on the phone. Johnathan is still speaking calmly on the radio with the stewards, even though the race has finished. Adrian has his face in his palms.

GP keeps checking his phone every two seconds, flipping it screen-up then placing it down. Lifting it up, putting it down. Foot tapping, biting his lip.

Sebastian hears a buzz, and then GP is practically sprinting down the pit lane towards the car park.

Sebastian knows better than to run after him and ask for a lift to the hospital. Knows he doesn't have the right.

Sebastian takes GP's chair, next to Hannah, who is looking through data like it holds the answers, somewhere, to how Max is doing. Asks if he can stay and wait for any updates with them.

She nods distractedly, and Sebastian clings to it like a lifeline.

-

It's sunset when Christian finally gets a text from GP, telling them that Max is on his way back to the paddock to grab his things.

Everybody else has left. Sebastian could tell that none of them had wanted to. All would have preferred to sit in the Red Bull garage all night, holding vigil, waiting for their son to return home.

But Christian, with nothing else to do after every phone call had been a dead end, had demanded that everybody else leave. Had told them to get their rest, because they'll be back on track in just a couple of weeks.

Had reminded them that it wasn't their fault.

Sebastian knows Christian doesn't believe it. Knows that nobody else will, either.

Christian had tried to convince Sebastian to leave as well, but Christian isn't his boss anymore. Hasn't been in a while.

The sun is setting, and Sebastian runs to the car park, leaving Christian behind. Paces back and forth at the edge of the curb and remembers, for just a flash, another sunset, another circuit, waiting for Max's car to drive into view.

Just like then, the sky is dark and the wind is bitingly cold by the time headlights cut through the lot. But this time, Sebastian approaches the car.

Max's movements are stiff. His face is pale. He's wearing a jacket, but Sebastian knows, this time with certainty, that his body must be decorated in a mosaic of bruising underneath.

"Max, are you okay? How are you doing—are you okay?"

Even looking at him, seeing that he's alive, Sebastian needs the confirmation. Needs to hear Max say that he's alright. That he'll be alright.

Max stumbles slightly as he gets out of the car, and Sebastian moves forward, grabs his arm to stabalize him.

Max's face contorts into a wince. He exhales hard.

How the hell had he been cleared for release?

They stay like that for a few moments, unmoving. Max breathing heavily, eyes closed. Sebastian thinks that there are other people around them—Max's father, his trainer. GP. Christian. But nobody moves, says anything. They just wait for Max to catch his breath.

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, Max straightens. Opens his eyes, blinks at Sebastian, squinting.

Pastes a smile on his face that falls apart at the edges, corners shaky.

"I'm okay."

And Sebastian, just like so many times before, has to accept Max's blatantly false words. Has to accept that, with Max, he always has to choose between two evils.

He runs a hand up and down Max's arm, gentle. Says, "I hope so."

Max's expression shutters, shaky corners pulling down.

He closes his eyes. Takes another breath in. Sebastian hears it catch before it should, too shallow.

He tells himself that he forgives Lewis, forgives Mercedes. Tells himself that it was just hard racing. That it wasn't anybody's intention for him to get hurt.

He tells himself over and over again, but his head's been a bit fuzzy lately, and he just can't seem to make the thoughts connect. Can't quite send the message deep enough into his skin for it soothe the simmering anger.

He avoids Lewis the best he can, avoids the media as much as he's able. Lowers his visor, where nobody can see his scowl; gets into the car and drives.

Even in the car, his suit feels too tight, his skin too hot. Every time he has to blink away another blurry wave, he grits his teeth and continues to burn.

He tries to remind himself to only speak when he has something constructive to say. Tries to remind himself that the team are only trying to look out for him, only trying to help. Only trying to win, just like Max wants.

Still, his head is fuzzy. The thoughts don't connect. Sometimes, he finds himself with his thumb on the radio button, spitting down the line, words sharp.

After every race, when he's in his hotel room, listening to his father's cold words, all he can hear is the venom that had been in his own voice.

He wants to put that fire under his skin to good use; rip his vocal cords right out of his throat.

He looks into the mirror. Puts a hand around his neck, nails digging in, sharp.

At first, there's only chilling silence over the radio, smoke and dust pluming.

GP counts the seconds. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. “Max, are you okay?” 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Max's radio clicks to life, his groans sounding like they're being punched out of him. "Fuck."

He pulls himself out of his broken car and sits slumped on the halo. Tries desperately to get air into his lungs.

Later, in the hospital, he blinks blearily up at GP, like he can't quite see him properly. His skin is pale, littered with bruises. His face is pulled into a perpetual wince. His breaths are shallow.

His hands, miraculously, are alright.

The first thing he says is, "How's the car?"

-

Twelve days later, they're back on track.

The car is fixed, and Max says he is, too.

Brad helps him into his race suit one arm at a time, gentle, slow.

He stumbles getting into the car, breathing hard as he swings a leg into the cockpit. Grips onto the halo as he lowers himself down into the seat, knuckles bone white, mouth a hard line.

He takes a moment, eyes closed. Breathes in, out. In. Out.

Gloves go on, helmet goes on—a new one, undented and without paint smeared over the top like blood. Brad helps him with the wires; murmurs soft, "Keep breathing."

Charles reminds Sebastian of Lewis a bit. Fresh on the scene and already shaking up the order, fighting for poles and wins, and slowly crushing his teammate underfoot.

Charles reminds Sebastian of Max a lot.

-

Sebastian heard, somewhere, sometime, when the whispers of Charles moving to Ferrari were still just whispers, that Charles and Max had karted together when they were kids.

When Charles joins Ferrari, he proves it to be true by how he fights with Max on track. No quarter given, going for every move like he knows exactly where Max will be next. Predicting his lines in the way nobody else on the grid can, although they've all been trying for years.

Sebastian, curious, pulls up the entry list for the race of Max's he had attended back in 2013, and, sure enough, Charles' name is there.

Sebastian pulls up the other races—the Cup on the side of the road, the DNF at the fuel station. Charles' name is there.

Sebastian wonders if Charles had ever seen Max's father pull him aside, grip too tight, spit spraying in his face. Wonders what he had done.

Sebastian shuts the computer and tries not to think of it again.

-

In the aftermath of Austria, Charles, fuming with righteous fury, face dark, mutters to Sebastian, "He is always driving too aggressively, too on the limit." Sebastian is about to agree, regale Charles with his own tales of fighting Max and coming off the worse for it, before Charles continues, "He says it is hard racing, but he is just being dangerous. He still acts as though his father will hit him if he does not do well."

Sebastian feels like his stomach has dropped right out of him.

"What—What do you mean?" Sebastian asks. As if he doesn't already know.

Charles' eyebrows pinch together. He swears. "Fuck. Fuck, forget I said that. That was not nice at all. I should not be bringing up such horrible things."

Sebatian lets the subject drop, stomach still in knots, the taste of bile lingering in his throat. But he doesn't forget it.

-

Charles continues to march steadily onwards, grinding Sebastian into the dirt with the heel of his perfect red boots.

Sebastian finishes behind him in the championship. The only other time that had happened was 2014, with Daniel. Daniel, who had become the new face of Red Bull once Sebastian had left. Who had himself left after Max had ground him into the dirt with his own red boots.

Match made in heaven, those two. Charles and Max. Teammate killers, hope destroyers. Demons on track; lit on fire and always burning.

-

Ferrari releases Sebastian from their clutches, and he feels like a lame horse that's been taken out back to get shot.

Or maybe he's more like the dead horse that's fated to an eternal beating, because they can't even do him the courtsey of shooting him yet—they drag it out the whole season, and Sebastian has to crawl and scrape for points as Charles follows on Max's heels, still biting for the chance at a podium.

Some days, Sebastian hates Charles.

-

Some days, Sebastian hates Max, too.

Some days, he can't quite decide whom he hates. Whom he envies. Whom he wants to rip out of the cockpit; whom he wants to get into the face of and scream, It's mine! Give back what you stole—it's mine!

Sebastian's blood is red, but he doesn't know what shade. Torro rosso; rosso corsa. Red car. Red bull.

Max and Charles collide on track, fierce, ferocious, and even when they end in the gravel, they still burn bright.

Sebastian watches. Thinks about how he would gladly set himself on fire for just one more chance to fight.

-

Max manages to pull out a win despite the Mercedes being in another class than the whole field, and Charles is able to drag their scarlet shitbox to the podium a couple of times, but never to the top.

Sebastian finds himself on the podium just once, standing below Lewis and fucking Checo Pérez, and it just feels cruel more than anything. Not quite enough; grasping at straws. Never enough.

It's only adding insult to injury when he's stuck on the third step, unable to disappear into the Ferrari garage to drown out the sound of the fucking British anthem as it plays again, again, again, again, again—

-

Sebastian still hears his own anthem every weekend. Anthem for the winning constructor, and it's Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-Benz, on repeat every Sunday until the end of time.

Sebastian still hears his own anthem every weekend, but it's not his anymore, not when he's down in P fucking 13 in the championship, points slipping through his fingers like water, like champagne, like blood. The notes of Das Lied der Deutschen are just a taunt reminding him of what he used to be.

-

It would be a miracle if he ever won again.

In his dreams, he crosses the line first, stands on the top step, basks in the glory.

In his nightmares, the announcer introduces the national anthem, only to be met with silence.

Sebastian doesn't have an anthem anymore. Mercedes stole his, and although Land der Berge, Land am Strome and Il Canto degli Italiani used to sound like home to him, Sebastian left one anthem behind and the other left him, and now his home is nowhere.

He hears them, and they belong to Max. To Charles. To everything he used to be; everything he no longer is.

-

Max and Charles spin off the track together, under the floodlights. Blaze of glory, painted red.

Max kicks the wall, tears off his gloves, frustration etched into every muscle.

Sebastian watches later, on the replay. How Charles slows, lets Max calm down as he maps the turns of the cars with his hands in the air.

Max isn't fifteen anymore. Doesn't need Sebastian to help him drag his car away from the circuit after the race. Never did.

-

Some days, when Sebastian is feeling particularly nasty, he thinks that at least he had helped Max. Had given him a meal, a warm car, a person to spend the darkening hours with.

Charles, in all likelihood, had only ever added to Max's collection of bruises.

-

Some days—more than any of the others—Sebastian hates himself.

-

Ferrari still drags him forward, dying horse on broken legs, squeezed of every drop he's worth.

In Abu Dhabi, they sit him and Charles across from each other, ask them to play just one more game before the season is complete. Before they can't make him do anything ever again.

Sebastian squints at the tiny faces of all his fellow drivers cut into neat rectangles and laid on the table before him. Everybody is a Musical Chairs of what never was, what maybe could have been. Right place, wrong time. Champions, if only they had the car. Cars who didn't have the right champion.

And maybe Sebastian only ever got lucky. Only ever won because the car dragged him over the line. It's what people say. And he never believed it before, when he was standing golden on the top step again, again, again; but now Charles is sitting across from Sebastian with the same car and triple the points, and maybe Sebastian's replica championship trophies should live in Adrian's cabinet instead of his own.

Maybe he was only ever golden in the right light.

-

It's hard to think of the drivers by their physical attributes, Sebastian finds. He looks at them and can't help but count them by their podiums, their wins. Their losses.

Sebastian stares at his own face as Charles tries to guess him, and wonders how much quicker Charles would win if he could ask anything else. Has he won a race? A championship? Four? Did he write his team into the history books? Was he golden?

Instead, Charles asks about the clarity of his eyes, and Sebastian snickers to himself, tries to pull himself out of the miasma inside his head, and asks Charles if his driver is pretty.

Charles stares intently at his tiny drivers, mind whirring. "I don't know!"

Sebastian wants to stop the game, push his tiny rectangular face into Charles' hands, and ask, Is he golden? Is he golden, still?

Wants to hear anything other than, "I don't know."

-

Max wins. Again.

Sebastian finishes right behind Charles, out of the points. P14. Not even close.

In the end, neither of them can touch Max. They couldn't back when he was in karts, and they sure as shit can't now. He's always one step ahead. Too fast, and only getting faster.

-