Chapter Text
July 22nd, 2012. Grantham, England.
It was champagne, the real kind, not the lame oversweet syrup they’d let them have on podiums and wins as a consolation prize for being just barely at the top of the bottom of the world.
It was an ugly place, being the best amongst the worst. Sweet but sickening like fake champagne, just a reminder that you could not have the real deal just yet and changing anything about that was not in your hands, but in time’s large and manacled paws. You’ll grow up, eventually.
Eventually, which is not now.
Now was a small moment, with that small but heavy bottle clutched in his small but heavy fist, but Max felt like a true champion for once. He felt a little taller than he really was.
And if he closed his eyes, he could imagine a bit of a larger crowd and a larger circuit, and the bubbly bittersweet thing on his tongue tasted just ripe enough.
He felt a little shorter than he was, however, next to him. George’s victory was only in KF3, Juniors, one entire division between he and Max. No amount of laps could make that awkward mess of limbs that called itself a boy catch up to Max—there was an invisible wall between them. And yet the boy was his same age, wearing the same half-unzipped race suit he was, wearing the same smile he was, maybe even a happier one than Max’s.
He was a good half-head taller than Max, and he’d already been here the year before, he’d overheard him chatting about it—or maybe he just knew because dad told him, he wasn’t sure. Back-to-back European champion, it had a nice ring to it. If only they ignored the KF3 part of it, and the part where Europe was not The World.
But still it was sweeter than usual, hanging outside the paddock, cold glass bottle on his lips and fellow champion to share it with.
They hadn’t said it, but it felt special, when dad had taken a picture of he and George together and he’d grinned and said look at these winners. It’d felt special when George’s father, an always-frowning grey haired tower of a man had come over to peek over dad’s shoulder and laughed proudly at the photo on his phone screen; special when they’d told them boys to go have fun, celebrate, be boys— we’ll come pick you up in a few hours.
They didn’t talk about it, but they knew it was.
Different, somehow.
They didn’t know each other like that, but they knew enough. He’d caught George stealing some of his bug-eyed glances at him and dad from across the paddock, when they argued because Max wasn’t trying hard enough; when Max had nothing better to do he’d try to imagine what George had done wrong this time, if it was the terrible lap times or the attitude or both.
Secretly he’d wondered if George had fixed those, and now he supposed that, with that trophy in hand, it meant he had. But that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that it was. Special. They were. Boys, for a few hours.
Everything was still damp, the grey sky kept the post-rain humidity trapped in English soil and nobody was outside anymore save for them two, watching the road at the horizon end of which a couple of road cars had disappeared, their fathers inside them.
A few hours. We’ll be back.
It was like in Montechiari when dad had left to talk with someone important, except back then Alberto had been showing him pictures of his Pokémon card collection and Max hadn’t been paying much attention to George, who was digging holes in the ground with a stick while they waited. Because he was a Weirdo.
So it was only normal that Max didn’t want to be there with him that much, but Nico wasn’t here and Alberto was mad at him and everyone else was Ben who he would punch in the face if he saw; Charles, who he wouldn’t punch (he didn’t want Charles to bite him. Again.) but would rather not talk to; and George, who was George and a little weird and smiling too hard, but better than all the others.
And besides, boys didn’t have to be told twice. To celebrate.
George’s hand on his shoulder, and then hey I know a spot, and they clinked their bottles together and drank, because the rest didn’t matter.
There was a spot—if you could call it that—a grey back-alley somewhere behind the track, although here everything was grey, it wasn’t an alley thing, more like an England thing. Eugh.
The older KZ boys would come here and smoke cigarettes to get some sense of rebellion in between awful lap times and the constant rain—he and George didn’t have cigarettes today, but they made up for it swigs of alcohol that neither of them felt like they were supposed to have.
Half-champions, half-bottles.
The floor was wet enough for the bone-chilling cold to slip into the suit, and it was empty and eerie just as their bottles were full: almost, barely. But they filled the place with awkward laughter.
A few minutes in, tipsy laughter.
Max wondered how either of them had managed to get drunk; wondered if alcohol could really make people feel all of those sweet confusing things, like that urge, that urge to—
What he’d forgotten to account for, back then, was that he was small as well—and the first time Max got honest-to-god drunk just a year later, he would find out that it was not the alcohol at all that would make another boy’s eyes sparkle so prettily or another boy’s lips so tempting to kiss—but by then he’d have forgotten this evening happened; mostly because it’d have turned sour in his memory, with the win being ultimately handed over to Ben and everything.
But he didn’t know that yet.
And all that would remain of the evening he shared in a secluded damp alleyway behind the Grantham karting track with a fourteen year old George Russell and two kid-sized bottles of adult champagne was the vague feeling that it was a strange, strange memory to be a part of, and the certainty that remembering more than that would mean terrible things from them both.
When they reached the bottom of their respective drinks, Max found out what it was like, for the first time, to make a fool of himself trying to stand, and found out that George Russell, two-time European KF3 champion, had a really pretty way of laughing his arse off about it.
“Shut up,” Max groaned, leaning on the wall for balance. He was blushing furiously, and trying really hard to figure out a way to un-blush.
George was looking up, and he was smiling, grinning like watching Max do something ridiculous was as good as winning the world in a fucking lottery ticket.
Max didn’t even know what they were talking about anymore, only knew that the way George talked about it made Max want to kiss him almost as bad as he wished he had finished P1.
“I bet you can’t even stand up either,” Max taunted, but it came out slurred, and George’s smile was gone and he was rolling his eyes now.
He swept up onto his feet cool and effortlessly, which would’ve almost been impressive if not for the fact that he proceeded to lose motor control of his legs and kicked his empty bottle of champagne onto the middle of the alley, shattering it in half, spluttering the sorry, bubble-less remains of his victory on the already damp floor.
It was Max’s turn to laugh, and George’s turn to glare at him with drunken grief, like it was a puppy he’d kicked.
“Nevermind that,” Max managed to slur, “let’s race.”
“Race?” George frowned, looking towards the now-empty track; in the distance the idle karts that would lay in wait until the next practice sessions—not here, and not soon enough for Max’s taste. The rest of the world would complain it was too early. “Now? That’d be reck—”
“Running. Idiot.” Max sniffled, choking back a laugh and the overwhelming urge to grab the gangly, younger boy by his collar and snog him. He was drunk enough to be allowed to think about that, he told himself.
“From there,” Max pointed to the end of the alley, marked by a wire fence with green paint peeling off the metal, “to here.” He pointed right before them, at the broken bottom of George’s bottle and their new makeshift finish line. “First to touch it wins.”
George’s nostrils flared, and his mouth parted open like he was going to protest. That’s so dangerous, Max, he could already hear in his stupid little accent; he was already loading the you’re a pussy, George, in the back of his throat when George decided to surprise him. Pleasantly, for once.
“Alright. What does the winner get?”
Max hadn’t thought that far ahead, in all honestly. He’d have thought winning was prize enough; settling the imaginary score between them that Max had only dreamed up the moment he’d seen George’s trophy looked the exact same as his. The moment he’d learned that ungainly boy from England knew how to smile, actually—just not at Max. Until now. Until now? Max had no clue. Max wished he had a clue.
He smirked, trying to peel himself off the wall, trying to look a little less dizzy. “Whatever he wants.”
George’s eyes seemed to sear through him. Hunger. Max wondered if it was for the same thing. Max wondered if straight boys ever looked that pretty. Max wondered if it was fair.
It was not a good time to find out how hard it was to run and be drunk at the same time, but it wasn’t like he’d had many other chances to learn—it was starting to drizzle again and the ground felt like it was trying to grab his feet and yank them under with each step, and sometimes he saw two stones where there was just one, which made it really hard to focus on the running part of it.
He just told himself he was letting George get a head start, but he was drunk enough to be honest with himself and know he was lying about that; he was trudging through that alley like a duck on land and for once, George was ahead and gazelle graceful and too fast for it to really be a contest.
Max would like to think that he put up a good fight, and that he was trailing right behind George when the race leader stumbled onto the broken bottle—triumph—crack.
But Max had no way of knowing for sure. He’d slipped too, almost at the same moment as George had won and—blood, there was blood on George’s hand and a gasp that sounded an awful lot like glass breaking more. It was also the day Max found out that blood red and champagne bottle green make for a really ugly combination of colours.
“George!” he cried out even though George was right there right there in front of him and thiswassuchaterribleidea and there was so so much blood and that looked like his hand would come off and was that bone? Tendon? so much blood and Max’s head felt heavy like he’d forgotten to take his helmet off except nothing was protecting him and his stomach wanted to jump out of his gut— - -
A wave of darkness circled the outskirts of his vision, George’s panicked face in the centre and his mouth hanging half-open and trying to scream but not managing to; and suddenly all Max saw was the grey sky, then millions of colourful little dots swimming around in the dark, somewhere behind his eyelids or maybe endless night.
The next thing he saw was a face, blurry and nameless, then George’s. “—okay Max? Wake up oh come on—oh!”
Max had never felt so nauseous, but someone—George was helping him up and then he had a wall to lean on and maybe he would not puke after all.
“That was scary,” George whispered to himself. Max agreed, nodding weakly.
He snatched George’s hand out of the air, where it hung awkwardly as if unsure of what to do next, and took a good look at it. He clasped it in his own hands, tracing the lines and the ridges until he was sure he found nothing. Nothing but palm and fear and something giddy blooming in the depths of his gut.
Then George was kind enough to let him grab the other. Pristine. Nothing. Nothing between the knuckles and on the lines of his hand and the outlines of the backhand but skin over meat over bone. Untouched. And so Max touched it and touched it just to make sure. No blood. No wound.
“But you got hurt,” Max said, not sure anymore. “Where?”
George laughed, but there was something nervous about it. Max didn’t know if he felt so dizzy because he was drunk or because there was something very wrong happening.
“It was only a scratch, Maxie.”
That made something in his chest somersault, the casual—casualty of it and the almost-affection; something that Max wasn’t sure was his heart or something he didn’t yet have a name for.
“But I saw…” Max wasn’t sure what he saw anymore, and he wanted to look at George instead. “’twas a bunch of blood. Or something.”
George laughed again, and this time it sounded fine. “You really are drunk, goddamnit.”
Max opened his mouth, then closed it, then wondered if George would think he was lame. You scared me, he’d have said, but even then and even drunk he knew how weak that would have sounded.
So George spoke for him instead. “Just that itsy bitsy bit of blood made you faint? Bloody hell, I didn’t know the champion was a wuss like that.”
He tilted his head, baring his fangs at Max, and Max felt corralled like an animal in chains. It was exhilarating.
“Fuck off,” he growled, trying to get up again; but his limbs were floppy and weak and there was still the nausea. “It’s the alcohol, not the— that.”
“Sure,” George smiled, soft and making Max feel all fuzzy, crouching next to Max on the raspy and uneven wall. His race suit made a soft sound against the humid ground. The drizzle was tiny kisses on his face and it made George’s hair all wet and messy like some surfer’s he’d seen on TV.
Max felt it. His heart, or whatever that thing in his chest was. About to try and crawl through it when their shoulders touched.
He wondered what the strong thing to do was. And he did not know.
“So, I won,” George began, like it was casual. “Whatever I want, huh?”
It took a moment for Max to remember what he meant by that, and—hearing it from George’s mouth felt like he was imagining things again, like he was being pushed to the verge of unconsciousness by that circling darkness.
His mouth went very rapidly dry. “Y-yeah,” he stuttered, then cursed himself for it. “Whatever” you want.
Max knew what he would’ve asked if he won and why he even had the idea in the first place, and suddenly, it was very embarrassing. He felt stupid, for wondering if there was a chance George was thinking the same; for turning over to look at him and hoping that his lips would move to say that he wanted to kiss Max too.
Instead, George was silent. Grim, almost. Solemn.
Too solemn for what a boy fourteen years old and just barely driving a kart any better than a bumper car should’ve ever had to look like; like he was some old king who’d been handed the fate of his land and impossible odds against evil.
Like he was about to pull the damn sword out of the pedestal.
He looked grown. Like that, Max could almost imagine him standing in front of a home crowd the size of the ocean that separated this place from his home, waving to them with the practiced elegance of someone who’d had the time to get used to it; parading his second place trophy around.
The first place one, of course, would be for Max.
And they would be drenched in champagne, both of them from head to toe, and they’d still have more than half the bottle to go, and maybe they could finish that one somewhere in their big boy motorhomes and then they could kiss, really kiss, and even—Max felt himself blush again. He should stop thinking about that.
“I want you to keep it a secret,” George hammered the brakes on Max’s train of thought. “Never tell anyone. Please.”
Max schooled his face into stone, hiding the disappointment. It was the first time he heard George speak like this, like he’d been lent a voice that could only scream and he was wrestling to make it whisper.
It should’ve been the last.
“Tell what?” He looked at George’s face for answers, and found none.
It was like that for an awkward long time: George obstinately silent, Max trying to puzzle together the meaning of words that could have been anything and maybe even the rain or the wind. Until he looked where George was looking.
It was still there.
On the ground, where George had broken it, the half-bottle hadn’t moved. Under it, the ground was stained. Spittle of champagne and of rain, and yet—and yet there was something thicker, dark and rust, still seeping into the asphalt trickle by trickle.
That would leave a mark. That was a lot of blood. That was a lot of blood. That was a lot of blood.
Max sucked in a breath, and it tasted humid and of copper. “Okay. Okay.” It wouldn’t be hard. No one would believe him, not even himself. “I promise.”
He only remembered a rainy ride back to somewhere that wasn’t home, and glancing out the window, lips half-pressed to the cold glass. He had so many stupid questions, but by the time he fell asleep, he’d forgotten all of them but one:
If I didn’t have to keep your secret, would you have wanted me to kiss you? You can have both me and my silence, you know. You won twice.
By the time he woke up, even that one was gone.
????? ??? ???? ??????
Did you think you could forget forever? No matter, no matter.
It digs its fingers into the warmth inside itself. It shivers. It’s cold, cold, cold, so cold. It doesn’t know how to breathe, but it doesn’t need to. It could live as well. It could live anywhere, anything, anyhow. Its feels its face cry.
Too many years you have neglected. This. Oh, yes, it is a good quality, to get lost, to forget, doubtless. You will become one of the greats. No doubt.
There is no home. There is no home, it hisses again. In the old tongue. Its tongue, that of its people. This body has not spoken it before and it will not speak it again, it swears.
Young, you are. So young. Your brothers and sisters have seen hundreds of lives. You have seen two. You are a child, angry. Be angry. You will live.
Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up I don’t know you. I don’t I don’t I don—
You do.
“George?” It’s mum’s voice. “Dinner’s ready! Will you come down?”
It whimpers. Quietly. It thinks of home the other home where everything was warm and it did not have to worry. It thinks of eighty-two years that passed like one long day, smelling of sulphur and bowel, and it wants to vomit. It thinks of the face of a boy and the terror the terror the terror Max must have felt. He doesn’t want to go back there. Back home. There is no home.
“Yeah mum! Coming!”