Work Text:
It’s the urgency for him. The kryptonite-esque, electrifying lowness of the voice that he uses. The tension between them feels taut like a string, as if the moment he drops his gaze this tightrope of reason and emotion would snap.
Run away with me, he says.
Run away with me.
Pierre has never quite felt a compulsion like this, the sand that tickle the soles of his feet and invite -- no, urge -- him to push up from the bar stool and run away into the night, tie loose in the wind, shoes hitting cobblestones like dynamite, and Alex close behind.
(This is the alcohol talking. This is the alcohol talking.)
“And where would we go?”
It’s teasing. He knows the conversation, flirty undertones of hope and recklessness mixed together like a drugged cocktail, will bring them nowhere. They are two side characters in an epic, cast aside in the peripherals of the tale.
(Won’t it?)
“Does it matter?”
“Somewhere far.”
“Somewhere far,” Alex agrees, putting down his glass. It looks too small in his hands, which is a strange thing to notice in the heat of the moment.
(Maybe it’s not exactly the glass itself that has Pierre distracted.)
“You?”
“Somewhere with rubbish signal.” Alex barks a bitter laugh, something that jars Pierre a little. As if on cue, Alex’s phone screen lights up with an email notification. Pierre has experienced enough in this area to know that it’s a journalist, characteristic of the way Alex takes one glance at the screen and flips it face down.
The tension sparks like an unattended fire, left to fan it’s own flames. He stares at the barrel of his drink, thinking about what to say. It doesn’t take a genius to know that if he looks up, the flames are eating Alex alive. They grab at strands of his fringe, scratch at his forearms, and leave burns that scar.
(This is the alcohol talking. This is the alcohol talking.)
The flames lick at Pierre’s feet, his fingertips, the cuffs of his jeans. The warmth is a welcome sensation against the chilliness at this seaside bar that Christian has gathered everyone at to celebrate Max Verstappen’s tenth win and Sergio Perez’s signing.
“I’m sorry about your contract.”
Alex waves it off, and shakes his head. The corners of his lips upturn slightly, but his eyebrows furrow. It’s defeated. It’s dismissive.
“There’s always Formula E.”
Pierre knows better than to push.
(The moment is over before it began.)
-
There is something tragically poignant about the way this has played out. Two ex-Red Bull drivers, relegated to a corner of the bar with their backs turned to the music, a horrific remix of Tame Impala. The bar is well lighted, the fairy lights adorning the attap roof and the disco lights more than colourful.
Back to the wall, Pierre can barely make out the facial expression on Alex’s face. It feels like the whispers of a beginning illicit affair, the way the darkness cuts the edges on his face and runs along his cheekbones.
(The light doesn’t carry itself into their corner.)
(Make of that what you will.)
-
The night ends as it started -- quietly. For them, at least.
Checo leaves with some of his friends, graciously extending the invitation to them. Alex politely rejects, while Pierre does the same and congratulates Checo on the signing.
Max leaves on the shoulders of another friend, shouting to no one in particular in Dutch.
“My offer still stands, by the way.”
“What, to run away?”
-
(A little reminder: they are two side characters in an epic, cast aside in the peripherals of the tale.)
(A little, louder reminder: they will peel themselves from the pages, shaking hands and beating hearts, to run away to write their own little epic.)