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heliads · 2 years ago

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Where I Can't Follow

Lewis Hamilton isn't sure that he wants to retire yet, but when the rest of the world seems so sure of the opposite, it's hard not to feel his confidence shrink. In times of stress, then, is it really such a surprise that he would go to Seb for help?

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Lewis Hamilton has been thinking. About a lot, actually, but mostly about expectations. Everyone in this strange alternate shade of reality known affectionately as Formula One have started to shift their expectations for him. It started when he didn’t win a single race in all of 2022. It started when his car suddenly wasn’t crushing everyone else by leagues.

There has been an undercurrent of whispers in the paddock about whether or not Lewis will continue his contract with Mercedes at the end of the 2023 season. It was never in doubt before, or not as much in doubt as this. If there were whispers before, Lewis always made sure no one’s doubt was strong enough to influence him.

This is different, though. Lewis can feel his age in a way he never has before. He thought that time could only ever bring him maturity, knowledge, maybe even that humility people used to encourage him to develop– but he props it up with every step now. Aching bones, twisted back. He is not as young as he once was, and that is both for the best and for the worst.

Fernando was about 37 when he retired for the first time. He returned, of course, but he took a break anyway. Michael Schumacher was 37 too, also had a comeback. Sebastian– Sebastian is 35 and gone somewhere Lewis can’t seem to find him. Lewis would like to see him here again, but useless hopes don’t bring back friends or rivals or the strange sort of both that happened to him and Seb.

So where does that leave Lewis, then? On the outskirts of infirmity? This whole thing is sort of ridiculous– Lewis is 38 now, far from decrepit and elderly, yet everyone’s treating him like he’ll break a bone if he’s pushed down the stairs. Maybe that was why Fernando came back, both boredom and also the hesitance to make it seem like his best years were already behind him.

Lewis supposes he could go and talk to Fernando about the retirement dilemma, but that feels like giving up, in some weird way, so he keeps his mouth shut. There is, of course, the one person that Lewis would really like to speak with, but Sebastian is quite far away from him at the moment.

Sebastian. Of course Lewis is lying awake at night and thinking of Sebastian of all the rivals he’s had over the years. Lewis has had the pleasure and curse of meeting many a young upstart with something to prove, but for some reason Seb is the only one who’s ever stuck around in Lewis’ head long enough to make an impression.

The preference goes both ways, actually. Lewis is the only driver on the grid with Sebastian’s personal phone number, he’s the only one who can show up unannounced and expect Seb to both be there and happy to see him.

The thought of visiting Sebastian out of the blue does something strange to Lewis when it’s actually a possibility. It makes him think of one time last year when Lewis had actually taken Seb up on his offer of an open welcome instead of brushing him off.

It wasn’t as idyllic a trip as Lewis’ nostalgia for the past will let him believe. Lewis had offhandedly mentioned that he was travelling away from his place in Monaco for a bit and Sebastian had offered for him to drop by if he was in the neighbourhood. Lewis wasn’t remotely close, but something in Sebastian’s tone made him switch around a flight or two and then there they were, out on Seb’s back porch like they’d known each other from their cradles to the present day.

Sometimes, Lewis wants them to have been friends for longer, even beyond the tumultuous string tying them together before they got over themselves and started liking each other properly. Lewis lingers over photos of a teenaged Seb taped up on the refrigerator and wonders how he forgot how sharp that grin used to be, too many teeth showing for one smile and all that. The expression has softened on Sebastian now, it fits better in between the skin of his cheeks, but Lewis misses the infuriating adolescent Seb had been anyway.

They’ve known each other for decades now, but Lewis wants more. He cannot help it, the wanting is in his blood: the need to win a race, the urge to keep his career moving forward, and now, the most recent want of all, this all-consuming desire to keep Seb with him for as long as Lewis can physically manage it.

Comparing the Polaroid with the genuine article just down the hall, Lewis feels an unruly monologue crash through his head, heavy with wanting and twice as burdensome on his heart. There's a kid that you're supposed to know, I think. He was supposed to have been me. We were meant to grow up together, but if you ended up being born several countries out of reach, that can't be held against you. All the same, I’m certain that it was supposed to work out better than it did.

Then again, maybe it was for the best that Lewis had not known Sebastian as a child. Look what he did to Nico, after all; look how he fucks up the best parts of his life. Still, Lewis gets the feeling that it might have been different had Seb been the snarky boy by his side instead of the junior Rosberg. Did they not survive their rivalry? Did they not survive it all?

Sebastian comes to get him soon enough, chastising Lewis for getting caught up in someone else’s photos (if you want to stalk me, Lewis, there are enough pictures out there on the Internet already, at least have some style) and gesturing for Lewis to join him out back. Lewis watches the sun progress through the sky, and just when his guard is finally lowered, Sebastian slips a knife in between his ribs.

When Lewis first hears Sebastian form the words, he thinks it must be the start of some awful joke. I think I’m going to retire at the end of this season. He almost starts to laugh. See, this is the sort of thing Seb would have done, eyes sparking with malicious humor from underneath a Ferrari cap, maybe even a Red Bull. Lewis would have rolled his eyes and told Sebastian to stop trying to scare him like that. Maybe he would have even threatened to tell the tabloids so Sebastian would have to keep talking about it in press conferences until the beaten horse had long since died.

But they are not young men anymore, and Sebastian is no longer grinning down at him from the top step of a podium, and so Lewis knows with a glum certainty that he is not joking. The truth of it sits lodged at the base of his stomach, heavy and cold and terrible.

Seb looks over at him. “Say something.”

Lewis can’t. Sebastian sighs, and for a brief, fleeting moment, Lewis can imagine exactly how the other man must see him: stubborn, morose, an old sap unable to accept the terms of his own world grinding on without him. For once, Sebastian would be in agreement with the media, and that breaks Lewis’ heart more than he expected.

And then Seb’s face splits in a self-satisfied smirk, so goddamn Seb-like that Lewis’ throat closes up, and he tells Lewis that he’s glad of it. “That just means that you’re not sick of me yet,” Sebastian says, a touch of self-deprecating humor lancing through the words just sharp enough to startle, “and that’s good news to me, I suppose.”

Lewis had tried to argue this, meant to ask Sebastian to name one instance Lewis had been sick of him (except perhaps Baku, although they are both satisfied with that result by now) but Sebastian had interrupted him, encouraged Lewis to finish his drink before the ice melted, and so he did. After that it was easier. The necessary words did not have to be spoken to be understood.

Lewis had wondered for weeks afterwards if he should have said something after all. If Lewis had known the right thing to tell Sebastian, would it have stopped him from retiring? The rest of the visit had been more than good, but at the end, it had been an excuse for Sebastian to tell him that truth, and they both knew it. Sebastian had still left. Sure, it would have been worse to find out from that depressing Instagram post like everyone else, but Lewis feels no better off with his knowledge. It just meant he had to sit with that sadness for longer.

Lewis had not understood why Sebastian would want to leave their ring of exactly 20 glorified car jocks for a quiet afterlife, not even after last year, but he thinks he’s starting to get it now. The urge to tear down his legacy like ripping up construction paper keeps flickering through Lewis’ head. They want him gone, don’t they? They have since the start. He might as well give them a show while he’s at it, it’s what they’ve always wanted.

Maybe that’s why he finds himself reaching out to Sebastian again. Seb gave him a warning when he left, Lewis found it right to do the same. Some part of him mainly just wants someone to shake him around the shoulders and tell him to get his head in order. Seb could do that too. Sebastian can do a great many things. The hold he has on Lewis is astonishing. That would explain why Lewis spent so much time last season talking about how Sebastian would most certainly come back. He could not find it within himself to accept the loss otherwise.

I am going to destroy myself, Lewis decides in the middle of the night to an imaginary Sebastian, I am going to destroy myself and all I have created, and I want you there to see my castle burn. You do not have to put the fire out. I just want you to know that it was me who did it and not anyone else.

The warning would be right, after all. If Sebastian suspected foul play, he would never let it go, and if this retirement is truly what he wants, who is Lewis to take that from him just because he needs an ally? Of course Seb would release a statement or ten if it seemed like Lewis was under fire. He is good like that, good in a way that makes Lewis want to never let him go.

Lewis types out one text message, makes it as inconspicuous as he possibly can. Sebastian responds within the hour, a screenshot of an upcoming flight to Lewis’ location. Lewis wonders if Seb can see through him as plainly as he did with Seb last season.

And then Lewis is opening up the door to his place and Sebastian is grinning at him, making fun of his wallpaper or something gloriously simple like that, and it is like no time has passed at all. Something relaxes in Lewis’ chest, a muscle he hadn’t realized he was contracting. It’s okay. Sebastian still wants him. This. All of it. Even without the forced proximity of the track.

He pours drinks, and they idly talk about small news and whatnot before Lewis poses the question that’s been burning on his tongue, well, for months.

“How did you know, man?” Lewis asks, “How did you know it was time to leave?”

Sebastian tilts his head back, blows out a low breath. “That’s a tricky question. Why?”

Lewis studies the glass in his hand very carefully. “Just. You know. You wonder sometimes.”

Lewis can practically sense Sebastian sitting straighter, the suspicion growing. “You only wonder if you’re thinking about going. I thought you weren’t interested in that.”

Sebastian is wonderful at fighting the world. He'd spit in anyone's eye so long as it was right, and doubly so if it was wrong, too. Lewis doesn't want someone to defend his honor, though. He just wants someone to listen.

That might have been harder at the start, back when they were just a few years past the end of boyhood, but they are older now, more prone to contemplation. Sebastian kicks up his feet on a nearby ottoman (he had the grace to take his shoes off at the door, Seb has learned by now how Lewis gets about stuff like that) and he listens to Lewis’ injustices turn from a well-organized and repeated mantra to rambling complaints.

At last, when Lewis pulls quiet back over himself like a favorite piece of clothing, Sebastian purses his lips thoughtfully and carries on. “Are you going to leave, then?”

Lewis blinks in surprise. He hadn’t thought that Seb would even name that as an option, Lewis had always been so adamant about staying until his eighth world championship win at least. He supposes he had been hinting at it all this time, and of course it is what everyone else is wondering, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Sebastian wants to know, too.

“I don’t know, really,” he says at last, “I think I want to keep going, but that depends on who’ll have me. Contracts, you know.”

Sebastian, of all people, knows how contracts can go. Lewis still tastes a smattering of anger on his tongue whenever he passes Mattia Binotto in the paddock. Seb taps his finger against his glass like he’s summoning a dinner party to a toast, then sets the vessel down on one of Lewis’ nearby coasters. Recycled wood. He tries when he can.

“Don’t retire,” Sebastian says, “Not quite yet. It won’t be the right time.”

Lewis wants to ask if it was the right time for Sebastian, but he doesn’t know that either of them would be able to come up with an adequate answer.

Instead, he sighs, turns his head towards Seb again. “Do you miss it?”

It’s a ridiculous question, and were it asked by anyone except Lewis at this moment in this place, Sebastian would probably despise him for it. Seb knows Lewis enough to recognize the lack of condescending tone laced within the question, though, so he smiles and gives him a good answer this time.

“Parts. Some of it I’m glad to leave. Others were harder.” Sebastian pauses, then admits it, what they’ve both been wanting to hear. “I missed you most of all.”

An impatient part of Lewis makes itself heard before he can stop himself. “I’m here now, though.”

“I know,” Sebastian says softly, “I know.”

Lewis knows it too. That will make it okay when he has to leave, when they will both be pulled to their respective corners of the earth once more. At some point, he will be able to come back, and they will be the same as always. Nothing has changed. That heals Lewis more than he thought possible.

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