#tags!!!

If you were to ask Alex how many times he had met Zak O’Sullivan, an F2 driver for Williams before this, he’d probably be able to count them on one hand. That’s not to say any of those times were unpleasant but… well, the boy wasn’t someone Alex ran into a lot. 

But they were at a Wiliams event in London—a large bustling city. Easy to get lost in, in more ways than one—and the much younger driver was sitting next to him, smiling such a wide smile that Alex thought his face might split. And it was nice. 

The event was half indoors-half outdoors and Alex can’t make up his mind if that had been a good decision as it was currently in an absolute downpour outside. The rain pelted the large, double-paned windows in the event hall with a howling gale, obscuring anything farther than the other side of the parking lot with a thick fog. And yet, Alex was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Zak like it was normal. 

“Wow,” Zak says, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head towards the window. “It’s really pouring out there isn’t it?” 

Alex leans back in his seat and glances at the downpour like he couldn’t hear it clearly banging on the roof above them. “Yeah, it really is, isn't it. You’ll have to be sure to get home safely.”

Zak laughs a small laugh, tipping his head back and eyebrows furrowing into an almost confused expression. His black pin-straight hair is slightly frazzled from how long they had been at this little get together—something to do with sponsors, no doubt. The Brit’s nose crinkles in such a way Alex can only chalk up to youth, and flashes another wide-toothed grin. “There’s nothing that’s going to hurt me out there. It’s just a little bit of rain, that’s all.”

Alex talks to him for quite a while longer, until Luke and Logan find them still tucked away from the bustle of reporters and people they had to speak to. The Thai driver catches Logan’s eyes as they glint a miraculous gold in the low light before the blonde blinks and they settle back into their normal seafoam green. 

After three encounters with beings that were… not quite human like himself, Alex should have known to trust his gut better. 

He considers that moment, there on an uncomfortable bench, looking out at the rain, to be the last real moment he saw Zak O’Sullivan alive.

-

The rain was pouring down impossibly harder now and Alex half-regretted bringing his umbrella with him because it was doing jack shit to keep him dry. Beside him, Lily had pulled her thick coat over her head in an attempt to clear her vision through the haze of water clinging to the air he could see her squinting through the rain. 

Alex thinks that maybe he should’ve considered bringing the car. But honestly, he had been too lenient in his routines lately and what was a few blocks in the rain anyways? Hell—apparently—that’s what a few blocks was. 

Briefly, he wonders what Logan did when it rained—when the Everglades flooded. What did Logan do when his fur had been soaked through and all the prey had scattered for shelter? Did he go home? Could he go home? Alex guessed it wasn’t his place to ask—the same way it wasn’t his place to ask Luke about the Feywild. Perhaps there were just things humans shouldn’t know and he was alright with that. 

Lily suddenly stumbles in her steps, just a pace behind him, and inhales the most horrifying gasp of air Alex had ever heard from her. He whips around at the ready, for what he doesn’t know, but he’s quick enough to see her staring down a side alley, gaping widely at whatever was down it. 

The rain pelts at his back and his hair has long soaked to the root, bangs hanging low in his eyes, and there is a mantra playing in the back of his head that tells him over and over again to go home. That they didn’t have time for this. Alex wanted a warm shower and the fuzzy pajamas he packed specifically for relaxing after what was essentially an entire evening of press duty. 

He rolls his tongue over his teeth and the inside of his cheek where he’s sure the muscles will be sore from smiling all day. And yet, he still moves backwards to see what Lily was looking at. 

Sure enough, there was something spewn in the alleyway—a human figure, mostly collapsed against the ground and the old brick wall of the building next to them. It’s a sad sight that unfortunately wasn’t uncommon, especially in larger cities like London. Alex had been raised with money, and therefore hadn’t given much thought to the people stuck out in the cold and rain as a kid. Still, his mouth twists in sympathy as Lily nudges him forward. 

The rain was cold. There was no use in letting someone freeze. He passes the useless umbrella to Lily. 

The Thai driver is halfway down the alleyway, calling softly out to the collapsed figure, when he catches sight of a white ‘W’ embroidered on the figure's dark fleece jacket. Williams. Something clicks.

Logan? No, the American had already been halfway to sporting his fluffy winter coat when they left, canine teeth on display and hair course to fend against the weather. Luke? No, the young fey was staying… Alex didn’t actually know where Luke was staying, as true to his nature, he often talked himself in circles. But Alex knew it wasn’t out this way. Lia? Surely not, hair was too short and that girl’s hunting skills were exceptional—seal skin or not. Franco? No, couldn’t be—

“Oh, shit,” Alex cusses, a tight hiss of air as he cleans the dark hair from the face of the teenager in front of him. Sure enough, familiar eyebrows and long eyelashes greet him, mouth drenched in a thick liquid that Alex is sure isn’t rain. “Shit, shit, shit—Zak!”

He turns and shouts back to Lily, who even through the rain looked scared. “Get EMS! It’s Zak!”

Two fingers deftly push into the teen’s pulse point on his wrist, but a part of Alex knows he won’t find anything. Zak’s skin is so pale it almost looked blue. And his eyelids didn’t even flutter as Alex shoved his far too-limp shoulder despite the fact Alex is sure he can see the boy’s eyes through his thick veil of eyelashes. He isn’t as warm as he should be, even accounting for the rain. And the—the—

The polite thing to do would be to look away. Zak was a strong kid—barely nineteen. His birthday had only been a few months back—and had never so much as backed down from a challenge, on track or otherwise. But this? God, this wasn’t a challenge. 

Alex can’t tear his eyes away from the bloodied mess of a throat and mouth that sat on Zak’s proper shoulders. 

There’s something else, too, besides the blood. Something much darker and a little thicker. It didn’t mix with the rain like the blood did. 

He swallows back bile in the back of his mouth. Zak doesn’t move. His chest doesn't stir. 

Under the skin of his wrists, the teen’s veins are silent. Alex’s heart beats fast enough for both of them as he shakily slides his fingers from Zak’s arm to a patch of still intact arteries in the junction of his neck. 

Someone drops down to the ground next to him and Alex is ready to explain the situation to a paramedic when he sees it was Lily who had planted herself beside him. She’s halfway through shedding her coat and her hair was plastered with water. She catches his eyes and gives him a panicked look. “I couldn’t get a signal through the rain. I’m going to try to stop the bleeding.”

She drapes her long coat over Zak's body like a kid asleep at a party. It wouldn’t do him any good but Lily doesn’t know that, does she?

He opens his mouth to tell her… something—probably that there was no pulse. That he’d most likely been dead for a good while now and there’s no way they were saving him, paramedics or not—when there’s pressure on his wrist. There’s four, long, thin and cold pressures on his wrist. 

Lily gasps next to him, eyes wide and bordering on horror. “Oh my god, Alex, he’s alive! I thought he was dead—he’s alive!”

She rushes to wrap her thick fabric coat around Zak, struggling to get it over the broader shoulders of the Williams junior. She’s talking to him, shushing what is so obviously dead and silent, and reassuring him that everything was fine. Her hands gently folded the arms of the coat over the gaping wound in the boy’s neck, choking slightly as the still warm blood smeared on her fingers. 

Alex can only stare.

There’s still no pulse under his fingertips. There’s still no warmth in his skin. And as Alex looks down to where his wrist was held in a death grip, something looks back. 

Large, dark pupils blown wide and surrounded by the silver color of a waning moon. Just a sliver in the sky. Cavernous eyes empty with a look of desperation. Of something that looks far too much like hunger. 

Zak’s eyes weren’t silver. Were they?

Alex is granted the chance to swallow the spit in his mouth heavily before the dead teenager lunges—grabs at the fabric of his shirt and desperately claws at it, trying to tug him closer. Trying to drag him down. 

“What the fuck? What the fuck—” is all Alex can get out as he scrambles back against the brick. 

Zak follows him, eyes wide and glittering like liquid mercury, nails scrabbling along the lines of Alex’s rain-soaked clothes. His bloodied mouth opens in a noise that could only be known as a hiss. It’s fucking inhuman. 

Next to them, Lily lets out a shout and tugs on the fabric coat she had wrapped around the boy. Zak flails for a moment as it catches around his still dripping, gaping throat before he collapses back onto the ground with a wet thud. 

The young Brit’s chest heaves something deranged—like he couldn’t breathe right and Alex guessed he probably couldn’t because his fucking throat was missing. He thinks he’s going to puke. Instead, he stays plastered to the brick wall behind him as his limbs, paralyzed with fear, stay rooted to his side. 

“Oh god, oh shit.” Those are the only words Alex’s brain could seem to produce as his hand gently starts to gesture to Lily to get up and away from the poor boy. 

She stands, just as shaky as he was, and Zak lets out a wail from where he laid on the ground. 

It’s a soft noise. A quiet, desperate one. 

Something tugs in Alex’s chest. The teenager’s eyes are still huge and Alex doesn’t quite understand because Zak's eyes weren’t grey, were they? He racks his brain again and again for some semblance of recognition. He comes up blank. Were Zak’s eyes grey? 

The boy’s breath still rattled like old wind, and the wound in his throat had begun to leak something other than blood. But Zak’s hands still trembled—weakly reaching out like a child—and what had started as a hiss or growl had quieted down into almost a chirping. A cooing. A crying. 

He drops back down to his knees before rationality takes hold of him again and Zak doesn’t waste any time as his cold fingers twine themselves into Alex’s utterly soaked shirt. 

Zak’s black hair was stark against far too pale skin and it stuck flatly to his forehead. And he just… Alex’s hands quivered as he grabbed the coat that hung off Zak’s shoulders and tugged it higher up on his neck, covering the sticky wound that should definitely be affecting how the boy moved but for some reason simply didn’t. 

“Are you—Zak, are you okay?” Stupid question. Stupid, stupid question. Of course he wasn't okay because he was starting to bleed through the thick cotton fabric of Lily’s coat and it wasn't stopping. 

But Zak only clings to him tighter, pulling his body up closer to Alex’s chest and burying his face in his rain-soaked team kit. 

He looked too small when he was curled up like he was. Too thin. Frail like a corpse. Alex feels his beating heart stutter in his chest. 

Zak's eyes flick upwards not a moment later, eyeing him cautiously while letting out a small trilling noise from somewhere deep in his still gurgling throat. 

Yeah. Yeah, Alex thinks he's going to puke later. 

“Okay.” He finds himself saying, swallowing thickly around the sour taste of bile in his mouth. Alex thinks—or tries to at least, hies head still swims with a constant ‘what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck’. “Okay, we're going to get you to a hospital, Zak. Alright?” 

The teenager's grip on his shirt tightens in an instant. A grand display of strength as Zak twists his fists into the fabric and yanks until Alex is pinned. 

Death is not something Alex was familiar with seeing up close, but the clouded grey look in the younger drivers eyes shone with something other than life and, from this minute distance, he could smell the coppery scent of blood in the air. 

“No.” 

Alex blinks. Maybe he hadn’t heard right over the high noise of the rain. “No? No, what? No hospital?” 

Zak shakes his head, mouth working uselessly and dripping whatever wouldn't mix with the blood that drenched him. His pale skin stretches as he turns to the side and spits a large wad of whatever it was out of his mouth—the substance is thick and clings to the boy’s lips and chin. 

His eyes flutter shut and then open with a renewed vigor. “No. No hospital.” 

There's a long pause as Alex finds the strength in him to pull away from the death grip Zak had on him. The younger driver lets him go with only a little bit of resistance. 

A moment passes. All Alex can hear is the pouring rain around them and the wild rhythm of his heavy breathing. 

“Can we take him back to the hotel?” Lily shifts forward, away from the wall. Away from potential safety. She holds her hands out as she approaches closer, like she was approaching a spooked animal. Gently, Lily settles on the stone pavement beside them. 

Her eyes rake over the yawning wound for the umpteenth time. Alex sees her swallow and breathe in deep. “You're talking—that’s-that’s good! That means you aren't dying. But we need to get you out of this rain. We need to see how bad this actually is.” 

Zak’s body is cold where it's pressed up against Alex. His breathing had slowed to shallow gasps, spaced too far apart to survive, and as the Thai Brit presses his thumb to the boy’s wrist again—nothing beats against it. 

Something awful settles in his stomach.

“Hotel?” Zak asks, voice small and hoarse and bordering on some other noise that Alex wants to call a click. A sharp chirp. 

His now pale eyes drift over to Lily, still so wide and shaky. Zak squints like he can't see her all that well. She's not sitting far. 

Alex doesn't blame the kid, though. The rain still soaked them heavily, and kicked up mist so thick even Alex was struggling to see the street at the opening of the alleyway. 

He shivers.

Fuck. They need to move. 

“Yes, just for the night.” Lily reaches forward to reassure the teenager in front of them. “We go to see a doctor in the morning. You're going to get sick out in this rain, and so are we, so we need to get moving. We'll go to the hotel.” 

Zak blinked owlishly for a moment. Then, he nods. “Hotel.” 

Alex meets Lily's gaze over the boy’s shaggy dark hair as they stand and heave him up to his feet—Zak stumbles and leans closer into Alex’s flank.