#but arent

Alain… borrowed Niki’s cycle. 

To be perfectly fair, it wasn’t like he could ask the man. After the fifth (or was it already the fourteenth? Alain had lost track of time) day where Niki had found him huddled up, sleeping next to the rig of the new car, the Rat King had cracked and ran out of (his own headquarters, mind you) in frustration. 

(And that was why Alain had to find  out about Ayrton’s news by himself, two days later.)

His schedule… If he was a more honest man, Alain would have said it was a wreck. But he was not, and his life is perfectly fine where he needed it to be. 

(It only occurred to him, in the mess of the thirtieth coffee powder, drowsily waking up with his face pressed to the cool metal of the car, that he hadn’t checked his phone in days. 

Notifications, worried texts, he scrolled past them, he didn’t want to think about Ayrton if he could avoid it. Yet Fate enjoys screwing with him, so at the top of it all was, 

“Ayrton Senna majorly injured in fight with Williams.”

A flash of red lights,

One. 

A flash of the second.

Two. 

The third.

Three. 

Returned to the seat that sat above the track. Watching. Waiting.

When you first saw it. You don’t believe it, it was like watching a scene of the show, staring at the television and watching images that were not real.

Because it was all just a scene, a part of the show.

Reality only comes in the people around you, the gasp and running, the expressions of the faces in the garage, and the aftermath. Truth only hits after. 

Back in the airport again, watching the screen.)

His eye was forced open when he almost crashed into the wall, missing it by a narrow centimeter. Alain cannot get distracted, it was too dangerous down here, and the cycle was a monster of a machine. 

(But how could he think of anything else when Ayrton is still up there? In the hospital room, stuck between two strings, a still image on a screen that Alain could only watch.)

The walls were becoming less and less recognizable, but Alain knew he had been around here before. It was the first time (or second, if you count jumping out of headquarters into a ditch part as one) after escaping his apartment and getting jumped by a random man. 

Quite an embarrassing moment, now that Alain thought about it. The world champion had almost gotten beat up by a random alleyway thug. No wonder Niki was always giving him the judgemental look when he was training with him. 

Pressure built up in the side of the head. He was getting close, he was sure of it. Either that or the lack of sleep and reliance on powdered caffeine was finally taking a toll on him. 

He stops the cycle at the alley where Niki had first found him. The dent was still there, shamefully enough. Alain ran his finger over it. The body wasn’t there anymore. The thug must’ve left (or Niki had come back and disposed of it). 

What was Alain supposed to do now? Awkwardly stand there until he is given a sign? What kind of sign?

He shouldn’t be here, he should be back at the headquarters, finding a way into getting into that infirmary and getting to Ayrton. He should be sitting next to Ayrton, just like his partner had been for him. 

(‘Follow the ringing,’ a familiar voice said. ‘It will lead to something that the both of us need.’)

Firmly, he shut his eyelid close. What did the ringing sounded like?

There were not many sounds in this part of the Underground. It was an abandoned zone, long gone and forgotten, with only the eerie shifting of debris instead of pedestrian’s footsteps and the whistle of the wind as their words. Of course, you could hear a squeak and scurry of the rats afoot. 

Niki was never far from his home. 

But Alain wasn’t there for that. On the edge of the Underground, he heard it. The ringing.

It did not sound like the large church bells that rang every Sunday back in his old town, nor was it the whining ring of the alarms of headquarters. It was the ringing you heard in the silence, the one that goes on and on, a deafening kind that is only heard by you. 

Focusing on it increased the pressure in his head, but he nudged the discomfort away. It is not far, he thought, he is not far from the source. 

Earlier, Alain had passed by the collapsed route he had taken when he had rescued Lewis. If the ringing had been guiding him somewhere, perhaps he should follow it.

It was only a few alleys down that the ringing became unbearable. Loud and deafening, the ache became knives that stabbed at every side of your head. Alain rested, no, forced his head against the wall, trying to dull the pain. 

(‘You want to save Senna? Find it.’)

That was right. Ayrton was in the hospital currently, undoubtedly in unbearable pain. Balanced, once again, between his rival that was far greater than even Alain. 

He cannot spend every time worried, or complaining, or just standing there. He has to face the music and stand. 

In this case, the music is an ear-splitting nightmare, a song that was trying to blast words into his brain, but it was there and Alain must follow it. 

Alain studied the walls around him. There was something… off about them. They did not fit with the other walls he had just passed, as if they were, what was it? Recent? 

Yes, rubbing his ringers against the dark bricks, these walls were fresh. The dark soot on them wasn’t ashes, but instead painted intentionally. But why?

Camouflage. An animal’s way of hiding itself from predators. What could be so important that they had to hide it in the Underground? And more importantly, enough for the figure to finally break out of their riddles to tell Alain about it?

There was also something familiar about these walls too…

He looked to the side. In between the two walls, there was a small crack that could, just barely, fit Alain. The headache had finally begun to dull, but it sent another knife at the thought of going inside.

Alain must be getting closer.

If he was any more of a claustrophobic man, then he would be scared out of his pants as he crawled through the crevice.  It was worse than the alleyway, with the two walls pressing against you, and an overlooking darkness surrounding you at all sides. 

Luckily for him, he had been stuck in a small, metal death trap for around two hours every other month for more than a decade. This was fine enough. 

His left arm banged against something hard, and he looked down. The object was hard to see in the unlit space. It was level and cold against his fingers. Running his hand down it, he figured it must be some kind of beam. A door handle?

That meant there had to be a door here. But why? What was the point of building a door that couldn’t even be opened or accessed? Alain took his other hand and felt the wall behind him. That was right… The material of the wall was slightly different from the other ones he had passed. Newer. Different. 

This will have been built later, as if to hide something, or rather, block something. People? But who would have come down here? 

There was no way Alain could pull the door open, and no matter how much he pushed, it seemed not to budge. Time to do it the messy way. 

Reaching for the lightsaber (And it was a lightsaber, okay? No matter how much Niki or anybody tried to tell him that  there were no sci-fi movies here, it was a lightsaber. Fair and square. George Lucas made it first before you stole it, Niki.), he switched it on, careful to check where it was aimed. The world instantly turned blue, as a thrum of light cut through the irritated ringing. 

The door was made of glass, but it was messily boarded up with wood and nails. Cautiously, he took the saber and sliced past. The wood and glass fell apart instantly. He used the butt of the saber and pushed it through. It fell with a thud. 

Alain poked his leg through first, before slowly moving through the opening. The world was still dark, so he kept the lightsaber on as he looked around. It looked like he entered the main entrance, as he saw the welcome booth in front with a sign that was already halfway to falling off from the ceiling. 

He almost tripped down the steps but managed to catch himself on the railing. Something creaked, and this time he did almost jumped out of his pants. 

Where to go now? The hallways split off in two ends. He bet it would only branch off more from here. 

Alain ended up following the ringing to the right hallway. His footsteps still felt loud in the empty room, despite using Niki’s technique of quieting their noise. Mindlessly drifting around, his feet seemed to move themselves as his thoughts floated off to an office in the sky. 

Was Ayrton awake now? Alain had never found out his exact injuries. Even if he did wake up, would he even be the same? What if he couldn’t walk because of something more terrible than Alain thought, like a loss of a limb? Like—

He wasn’t even able to watch the No.1 hero’s fight; McLaren had filed for it to be taken down right after. All he knew was that Ayrton had been taken down by Piquet in his first battle with Williams. And wasn’t that ironic? Maybe it was always Williams, always the team that was his end. 

The dream man was right. Alain was doing a terrible job at this. He’s failing constantly, irreparably now, and how had he even been so cocky to think he was succeeding in the first place?

But what could he do? Nothing, nothing at all except follow the rambling of the shadow of dreams into a place of who knows where. 

(The day was haunted before the race had even started. There was a tension that changed, thick in the air. Wrong, wrong, wrong, it screamed, and they all heard and told themselves they no one else heard it. It was almost like the ringing, constantly in the back of your mind, ringing, ringing, and ringing.

It hadn’t felt wrong three days ago. Though Alain had been down in the base, a hundred kilometers away, high on whatever caffeine had been in those packets and on a mission to stay out of his own head. 

Alain had at least been there in Imola. Where had he been this time? Running. Running. 

(He’s always running.)

The atmosphere sank, like a vacuum was taking all the air away. Choking, Alain was choking, where was the air?!

He was in some sort of garage, Alain realized. Not like headquarter’s garage, this… this was his McLaren’s garage.

Spinning around, he studied the whole room. No, this was… This was McLaren’s original headquarters. It has the same walls, the same floor, the same door and even the table is in the same place. He had been walking through McLaren’s headquarters. 

Walking through a ghost of home, he thought, because it was and it was not. The room was grey, not in Ron Dennis’ clinical fashion of a hospital but in the shades of a morgue. A mess it was too, an opposite to the usual order. There were papers that covered the walls and the floor, pieces of metal scattered along the tables and cluttered around. It was cold here too, worse than the biting winds of the Underground because at least a coat or an engine could scare it away. Here, the cold was not physical but something that settled in your veins and stayed, chewing at all the little warmth that you held inside. 

And the ringing! Ceaseless and unabating, it was not even ringing at this point but a long, relentless scream of noise. A song without tune or melody, screaming and crying. It was like the cold hand had come and took Alain’s head, crushing it against its hooked fangs. 

A copper taste filled his mouth. Taking the hand that wasn’t holding the saber, he brushed his finger against it. Dark, black in the blue glow of the saber, blood. 

Coughing, the blood filled his throat, and he fell to the floor. The saber switched off and rolled away, but not before hitting something with a heavy, metal ‘clang’! 

The world was swimming around, the sound of a ringing and dark copper mixing in between the images of two worlds. A thrum of a garage, he thought faintly, as he crawled with all his power forward. His hand touched the dusty floor, then the hilt of his lightsaber, then a heavy box. 

A shifting sound, like the engines all around, or the engineers screwing in another bolt. And white! Like the sun, white and blinding, screaming and crying and dark copper and–

... - --- .--. - .- .-.. -.- .. -. --. -. --- .-- .-.-.- .-- . .... .- ...- . - --- .--. .-.. .- -.-- .-.-.-

‘The blood is dark copper,’ Alain thought faintly as he watched the blood drop slowly against the concrete floor. 

That didn’t make sense. Blood was red, scarlet fresh, maroon if old and crusted over. Not the brownish gold of copper. 

‘Trock,” he thought as he buried his head into his arms. ‘I’m going insane. He coughed again, lifting his head off, more dark ichor falling onto the desk. “Trock,” he laughed, “Trock! Trock! Trock!”

He contemplated the skyline of Woking. How ironic. Alain had survived the bombings younger than a kid, the ashes. He had made it all the way to the McLaren’s roster, then the younger rookie, and then the champion! Yet here he was, coughing up blood, all alone in his office at what, three hours before the first? 

‘This is how I die,’ he thought madly, ‘because of Senna’s stupid stunt and a black red cannon.’

He didn’t remember too much. Just the last remnants of the fight, a shake off of the team’s hands, and a straggle to his… apartment? But how had he ended up here? 

There was a knock at the door, and Alain rasped “you can come in.”

A small creak of the door, and a red foot stepped out. Red, not McLaren’s red, this was Ferrari… 

“Lauda,” he said coldly, or at least tried to. It was too funny, he thought hazedly, too funny and ironic that he was going to die by Ferrari’s hands. It felt like just yesterday they had given him the offer. “Here to finish the job.”

The Austrian only stared. “I didn’t think it'd be this fast,” he muttered after a while. 

“What? Your newest toy?” He was trying to hold his head up high, but the world was going by too quickly. So dizzy… “So what do you want? Here to apologize before it's too late? Scared of the guilt? Well, I’ll save you the trouble, it’s not your apology I want.”

Lauda scowled, but the concern was in his eyes.“And I’m not guilty. You’re the one who jumped in front of it.”

“Then why are you here?!” It was supposed to come out angry, but it sounded too tired. “Just to waste my time?”

“You’re dying.” Lauda’s face was serious and calm. 

He couldn’t help it, Alain chuckled. “You are a very intelligent man.”

A fist slammed against the table. “No, Prost!” Lauda yelled. His features grew incensed, enraged, more angrier than Alain had ever seen him. “You are dying. Do you understand that word, Prost, the true meaning of it?! There is no coming back from death, so why are you simply just sitting here?!”

Alain looked at the man. Truly looked at him. Half of his face was covered in bandages, and not all of the red was the Ferrari suit he saw. “You're hurt,” he commented, concerned. He tried to get out of his seat, but he almost fell back to the ground. “Lau- Niki, what are you doing here? You should be at the hospital now.”

“And you haven’t even seen McLaren’s doctors yet! You’re just letting yourself rot away!” Niki was at his side, studying him. “There could’ve been a chance before, but you squandered it away.”

Lauda’s eyes were too honest, Alain couldn’t bear to face them. Easier to look at the window, where the city shimmered away, unconcerned of the fate of its hero.

 Woking sure was beautiful at this time of night. At least, the parts that you saw. No, it was beautiful in the way a mask was beautiful, hiding away the uglier, darker parts of the face no one wanted to be seen. “You know why.”

Lauda pursed his lips. “You knew.”

A smile. “You’re not that old, and I’m not too young. I know what that light was.” The sun had been gone for a long time, only a small crescent of a moon and the endless iridescent lights of the city remaining. “Why are you here Niki?” Alain asked again. 

“Didn’t you see my text?”

What text? Alain palmed his pockets. “I don’t have my phone on me, I think I left it at my apartment.” He rubbed his hand against his face. “Honestly, this entire day has been a mess for me.”

Lauda was disquieted. “What have you been doing the whole day?”

“I honestly cannot remember for the life of me. Just flashes and a haze, mostly the battle, and just…. Being here. I would’ve gone and said… whatever needed to be said to whoever.” Got his apology from Ayrton at least, one last punch in their battle before he went. He would’ve loved to see the look on the man’s face. “But it’s too late now. I don’t even think I’ll make it halfway there. So I’ll ask you this one more time, Niki.” It was too early and too late, but Alain didn’t want to die still saying the man’s surname. “What are you doing here?”

The rat of a man just sat there, still. If Niki had it in him, Alain would’ve bet the man was almost nervous. “I’m here to say sorry. And before you say anything,” Niki interrupted him, their eyes meeting. It was what he saw in them that made Alain stop. Honesty (and when would you have expected a truth from the rat). “I know you don’t want it and it won’t do anything. But I need to say it. I saw the signs, I should’ve done something, should’ve warned someone. You, at least.”

A twitch of Alain’s lips. “I doubt it would’ve done anything. Senna would’ve attacked regardless, as long as he saw the gap.” He sighed and looked at Niki, too injured and too tired for a man of this age. But they all were, weren’t they, and Alain was a little too hypocritical to say it himself. “Thought it would’ve been over after the war…”

“You can’t say anything about the war, kid,” Niki huffed. “What were you, two?”

A raise of an eyebrow. “Get your math right, old man, but yes, I didn’t fight.” He coughed again, and more copper droplets fell on the floor. “Yet here I am, still dying from it.”

“More than a decade at least,” Niki said quietly. “That’s how long it took for them to forget.”

Silence filled the space as they stared off into the distance, Woking’s shimmering lights a lie and a memory. Underneath it all were the people, all still forgotten as the world moved on to the next fight, the next battle, the great game that they both played. 

“Niki,” he rasped.

The man didn’t say anything, but he turned his head to look in his direction. 

“Promise me something.”

Niki rolled his eyes. “What is it? Ayrton I bet. Want me to kiss him for you?”

“What, no–” Niki was distracting him and Alain couldn’t forget this. “No, Niki. Promise me that you won’t let them forget.”

“Who?”

Orange. Yellow. Red. Paints of colors to try to cover up the ghost town beneath. It was  a failure. “The teams, the heroes, the public, the FIA. Everyone. Don’t let the people forget.”

“Less history repeats itself.” Niki finished humorlessly.

Alain stumbled up until he was back onto his chair. The simple movement drained the life out of him, and he sagged into his seat. “But most of all,” he added, so soft that he doubted Niki could even hear it, “don’t let Ayrton forget.”

“Forget, forget what?” Confusion was etched all over Lauda’s features.  “What is so important that he can’t forget?”

The bloodstained lips perked up. “The reasons we are heroes. Why we are in the fight.” Alain continued to gaze into the skyline of the English city. Not even home, but when had France been home? “Money, fame, power, or the thrill of the game. Because there is nothing like the fight… and because we can’t—” he choked again on the blood.

Niki’s hand fell on his back.  “Because we can’t forget,” he finished. Alain stared at their reflection. “And I won’t let them forget your sacrifice, even if I cannot tell anybody.”

“Ferrari?”

“Ferrari.”

“Trocking contracts, hmm? It’s no matter, legacy doesn't matter in a world that does not remember why. Promise you’ll make them remember—” He fell into a hacking fit. Niki’s face was blank. When it was finally over, his eyes were watery. “The cost of blood… And the cost of his eye.”

“I swear it.”

Alain took one last look at Woking before closing his eyes with a frown. What a melodramatic sight, dying on his office desk. He’d thought he died somewhere more romantic, perhaps in his lover’s arms, or even tragically on the battlefield. He did not expect to die, bleeding out on the place he did his paperwork at.  “Do you ever wonder what you’d be if you weren’t a soldier?” he asked the Ferrari hero. 

There was a long pause, and Alain had wondered for the briefest moment if he had already moved on to the other world. But Niki’s voice brought him back. “I have thought about running an airline.”

He leaned his head onto his chair. It was an uncomfortable seat on most days, but now it was like sitting upon clouds, so soft and beckoning. He’s so tired. “Do you have a love of planes?”

 “Always had, even through the war.” Alain nodded, but he doubted the miniscule movement could even be seen. He was not going to open his eyes after this, was he?

He heard, more than once, that your whole life flashed through your eyes before you died. What a lie. There were no cinematic memories, no horrifying pictures or welcoming arms of a loved one, it was just dark. 

And maybe that was the comforting part of it. 

There were no blinding red and white lights in the sky, no ashes that dusted your feet, no tears and doubts. There were no empty songs at the end, no hollow faces. There was no game, no fight, no posters of heroes that were smacked on every blood stained surface. There was no constant war in his mind, debating, calculating numbers of things that shouldn’t be calculated. The numbers of lives and how many points a shot would get him. 

(There was no him.)

It was quiet and it was dark. 

It was peace. 

“How about you?” Niki’s lowered voice asked. 

The ringing had finally left his ears. It is replaced with a soft beat. His heart? It almost sounded like…

“I always like the thought of being a driver.”

It sounded like the  thrum of an engine.