Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A marionette tugs fruitlessly on its own strings, always aware of the stronger hand that holds it fast. Pawns on a chessboard have a mind of their own, refusing to listen to the desperate instructions of the player. The steering wheel turning, without anyone to hold it.

Yuki knows time is evading him. The second RedBull seat does not belong to him anymore. Privately, he thinks it never did. He was only ever meant to temporarily occupy it while they frantically searched for someone better, who could wrangle the car like Max. Someone like Daniel, except they’d missed their chance with him. Daniel was gone, another in a long list of teammates Yuki had lost. This time, he will be the lost one. At the end of this year, he will not keep the seat. Maybe he’ll never get another one. Maybe this time next year, he will be competing in another racing series. He will mourn the dream of Formula One, which he had seized with two hands five years ago. But you can’t grip onto something that isn’t solid. The dream is evaporating like a cloud, and he will be left to rot, spending the rest of his motorsport days being steadily forgotten.

He doesn’t want it to be true. But he’s not stupid. Yuki has always been realistic. He has always known exactly what he’s worth, ever since his father rattled it into him at five years old. Five years old, and it was drummed into him. If he wasn’t on the top step of the podium, then it was not a success. It was a failure, and he should have done better.

His father hasn’t spoken to him in over a month. 

Yuki’s finger slips on the phone screen, swiping away from the pages and pages of news articles speculating on who’ll replace him next. Why he was ever even promoted in the first place. His phone on the soft carpet, the beautiful streets of Baku out of the window. And Yuki breathes. He sits there, mattress dipped under his weight, and he breathes. He wants to stop. He wants to count how many seconds he can hold his breath for, as his vision blurs then fuzzes dark at the edges, the desk chair in front of him eclipsing into two, three, four—

Yuki gasps for air, blinking dizzily. The darkness recedes. There’s only one desk chair. And he’s still breathing. Without thinking about it, without thinking about anything at all, Yuki collapses backwards into the blankets and promptly falls asleep.

The next morning, Pierre finds him in RedBull and brings him coffee. The scent of mild, fresh orange follows him, the neutral beta scent barely noticeable. But Yuki has always smelt it easily. Pierre and him haven’t spoken in a little while, so it surprises him. He vaguely remembers their last proper conversation aside from brief texts and social media comments. The Netherlands, after Pierre finished last. Yuki had been so relieved at his measly haul of two points that he’d barely had the presence of mind to feel sorry for Pierre. But he remembers the dead, disappointed look in Pierre’s eyes. He’d flown home the same day, and stared in the mirror to see the same emotion in his own reflection. It had been so similar to the memory of Pierre’s that he’d shivered, skin erupting into goosebumps even in the warm air of late summer. 

Coffee in hand, Yuki glances up at Pierre, who stares simply back. 

“Thank you.” Yuki says, at the same time Pierre goes, “I saw the articles.” 

Yuki winces, cardboard cup crumpling slightly in his fist. The liquid inside is ice cold, and numbs his hand. It’s almost satisfying. “Oh.”

“It’s not fair.” Pierre says, staring at his shoes. Yuki follows his gaze down. They’re particularly hideous, but judging by the huge logos emblazoned on them, it’s something to do with a sponsor.

“So you don’t think that I’m doing shit?” Yuki asks, sarcasm dripping. “You can say it, Pierre. Everybody knows.”

Pierre’s jaw tightens. “It doesn’t matter.” he bites out. “You’re fast. I know you are. I raced with you for two years, against you for almost three now. Competing in RedBull, against Max… Trust me, Yuki, I know what it’s like. It’s fucking hard.”

“You made it out though, didn’t you?” Yuki laughs bitterly. He raises his eyes to meet Pierre’s, a grim smile pinned tight on his face. “I will be stuck in this team until they get rid of me, and then I’m finished. There’s no way out for me.”

The orange scent sours, and Pierre turns and walks away without saying anything else. Yuki laughs to himself, although he’s not sure what’s funny. He takes a sip of the coffee, and stops laughing abruptly when he recognises his usual order. He’s not really sure how to feel about that.

Yuki is left alone with his thoughts for a few more moments before a team member comes to collect him for some media video he’d clearly agreed to at some point. He really needs to remember to read his emails more often.

Yuki is never going to open his emails again as long as he lives. 

An email from who he presumes is a reporter, who’s managed to get his personal email:

Olivia Diaz

to me

Hi Yuki! Olivia Diaz with PlanetF1 here. Can I get your thoughts on this? Is there a truth to the rumours? Looking forward to your response. 

Attached as a link to yet another news article, one which is crudely titled “Isack Hadjar WILL Replace Yuki Tsunoda To Partner Max Verstappen In 2026 - The End to RedBull’s Nightmare!”

Yuki deletes the email and does not think about it for the rest of the day. Olivia is looking forward to nothing, he thinks savagely, gritting his teeth. But he can’t deny it sets him on edge. Although Yuki is the first person to admit he needs to be realistic and be conscious that the possibility of keeping his seat next year is slim, it makes him nervous. He still has a chance, after all. But it seems like the motorsport world is giving up on him. And that includes the fans, apparently. On second thought, Yuki re-opens the email app and blocks [email protected].

Staring at the number six, Yuki thinks it makes perfect sense, actually.

“You are staring at your phone like it’s personally offended you.” comes a voice from behind him, lilting in a familiar French accent.

“It has,” Yuki informs Pierre. “Some journalist got my personal email.”

Pierre pulls a face. “Too bad, man. What’d they ask you?”

Yuki falls silent, chewing on his lip. “Nothing worth answering.”

Pierre doesn’t push, merely throws a careless arm around Yuki’s shoulders. “That’s the spirit. Don’t listen to a word any of them say. What do they know?”

“What do they know?” Yuki echoes quietly, a small smile taking over his face for the first time that day.

They keep walking, talking about nothing until they stop outside Alpine’s entrance. Yuki clears his throat, glancing at the shiny interior within.

“I hope qualifying goes well for you.” he says lamely, eyes tracking upwards until they land on the motifs of the drivers emblazoned on the side. Pierre’s horrible haircut and smiling face next to Franco’s. Pierre’s hair is longer now, curling at the ends. It’s similar to how it was in the two years Yuki knew him best. He wonders if it’s still just as soft. He remembers wrestling with Pierre after a stupid argument, getting a handful of his hair. They’d separated panting, the social media team laughing and filming it all. Yuki’s skin had tingled in the shape of Pierre’s handprints, after. And he could smell it. He was covered in Pierre’s scent, could smell his own sweet apple scent on Pierre. He hadn’t even meant to release his pheromones, and by the look of Pierre’s flushed cheeks, he hadn’t meant to release his, either.

They’d never spoken about that.But Yuki still remembers, down to the last note, how their scents had smelt mixed together. How perfect they’d smelt together. How right it had felt. 

“Yeah, um. You too.” Pierre says. They look at each other, something like mutual understanding in their eyes. Then, without another word, they go their separate ways. 

Qualifying does, against all odds, go somewhat well for Yuki. Through the myriad of red flags, he learns that Pierre didn’t make it out of the first round. And it’s not that Yuki isn’t happy to have gotten into Q3. Sixth is his best qualifying position all year. But there’s something about the way Liam in the Racing Bulls scraped a third which sets his teeth on edge. 

He meets Pierre again as they leave the paddock for the day, and falls into the familiarity of the routine. He and Pierre used to always leave at the same time, until recently. It’s nice for it to happen again. He walks, and listens to Pierre rant. 

“—Ruined my qualifying, fucking stupid of me,” he bursts, orange scent turning bitter. “Then Franco crashed, and it was over. There’s not a hope for the race tomorrow.”

Yuki is silent. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s had his fair share of bad qualifying, especially this year. Imola comes to mind, in particular. 

“There’s a chance of rain tomorrow.” he says finally. “Don’t write the race off yet.”

Pierre gives him a look. “Says the guy who qualified sixth.”

“In a RedBull. My teammate got pole.”

“...”

“I guess we’re both having a shit time of it.”

“Mm.” Yuki agrees. A bout of weariness suddenly hits him like a truck, and he wants nothing more than to just collapse and go to sleep, quite possibly where they are standing outside Pierre’s car. 

Pierre swallows, eyeing Yuki with a sidelong glance. “Want to come back to my hotel with me? I brought my console.”

Yuki forgets all about sleep. So he nods, opening the passenger door. “Absolutely.”

Sometimes, when Yuki sleeps, he dreams about people. Mostly, they’re faceless, eyes milky white and features blurred, like someone had taken an eraser to them. But occasionally, they take shape. Often, they’re about his father. Sometimes, his mother. Once, Pierre. 

Make that twice, now. Pierre stands in front of Yuki, his blue eyes cold and impersonal. There’s no hint of the Pierre that Yuki knows — This Pierre is just a mannequin wearing Pierre’s face, his hair, his skin. It’s horrifying, but Yuki can’t look away, can’t look away from what Pierre would look like if Yuki didn’t know him.

If Yuki didn’t know Pierre. The vision of it is awful, worse than anything Yuki’s experienced. It’s worse than when this dream happens with his mother, or his father. He doesn't really know his father anyway. And he’s always had the strength to push the vision of imposter-mother away.

But he can’t do that with Pierre’s imposter. It’s too much. It’s too much, and he can’t breathe, he can’t look away, he can’t do anything, he can’t, he can’t—

“Yuki.”

“...”

“Yuki!”

A sharp slap to his cheek, and Yuki rockets upwards, eyes flying open. Pierre ducks just in time to avoid being flattened by the speed at which Yuki moves. He pants, staring at Pierre. The real one. He’s real. Yuki can smell his own scent, the apples rotting with anguish, alongside Pierre's. The orange is burnt and caramelised to the point of unpleasantness. Pierre is scared.

“Jesus.” Pierre says, eyes wide and scared, like Yuki’s a wild animal. 

Yuki blinks. “What?”

“You were… dreaming, I think. You were crying. It was… It was disturbing.”

“I wasn’t crying.” Yuki snaps. 

“Yuki.”

“I said I wasn’t fucking crying!” Yuki leaps from Pierre’s hotel bed, where he’d clearly fallen asleep last night. “I wasn’t crying. I don’t cry.”

Pierre fixes him with an indecipherable look. “Okay.”

“I’m… I’m going to go.” Yuki says, backing towards the door. 

Pierre doesn’t stop him. 

Sometimes the figures say things. His imposter-father doesn’t say anything he hasn’t heard from the real one before. 

His mother doesn’t speak. In Yuki’s visions of imposter-mother, she always dies. And Yuki is forced to listen. He never wakes up before it happens, and never until it’s over. He always vomits in the morning after he has these dreams.

Imposter-Pierre has never spoken. 

Yuki is scared of the day he does. 

When he gets back to his own hotel, half an hour later, he realises how awful he looks. His eyes look puffy with tears, rimmed with red with dark shadows accentuating them. His skin is pale, and he looks hollow. Dead.

Yuki doesn't know what is happening to him.

Chapter Text

Sunday is not a good day for Pierre. He finishes ahead only of his teammate, after a less than thrilling battle where both of them were too afraid to get their elbows out. It simply wasn’t worth scrambling for second-last place and wrecking the car. Again, in Franco’s case. And he’d already had a close call with Alex. 

Unspoken understanding is between the two of them when they pull themselves out of the car in parc fermé. Franco pulls Pierre into a brief but tight hug, and they make eye contact through the gaps in their helmets. Franco looks like Pierre feels – completely miserable and at war with their own cars. Pierre feels the weight of the next three contracted years heavily.

They’ve fallen far since last year, and they already weren’t doing well. The double podium last year was amazing, but impossible. Sometimes, Pierre can barely believe he and Esteban managed to pull it off. He’ll always treasure that podium.

But it’s clear that history will not repeat itself this year. 

Pierre should feel grateful. At least he’s secure, locked into Formula One for three more years, while beside him, Franco fights for his future, slipping further and further into self-doubt and anxiety. He should feel grateful. But all he feels is despair. He’s put years of hope and and tireless work into this team, and it seems like it’s gone nowhere. 

Blindly, he walks forward, his eyes snagging on a familiar figure up ahead. The dark blue of Yuki’s race suit and the maple leaves guide him onwards. And Yuki stops. And he turns, and stops walking. And he waits for Pierre to reach him.

As soon as he does, Pierre throws his arms around Yuki, breathing heavily. He doesn’t care that there’s cameras around, or that they’re in plain sight of everyone around them. It’ll probably come back to bite him later. They hug each other tight for a what Pierre hopes was a socially acceptable time, before Yuki gently extricates himself, gripping Pierre’s shoulder. 

Pierre swallows, trying to get himself together. “Well done on sixth.”

Yuki regards him. Through the visor that Yuki’s left down, Pierre can see the relief in his eyes. Yuki really deserves points, especially in the battle for his seat. It’s then that Pierre realises that Yuki and Franco might be more similar than he thought. He wonders suddenly if he ought to check up on his younger teammate more. 

“It’ll get easier.” Yuki says bracingly. 

He isn’t sure if Yuki was talking to Pierre or himself.

During their week off between Azerbaijan and Singapore, Pierre doesn't really know what to do with himself. He goes to visit his family for a few days, but he can’t stand their constant sympathy and flies back home to Milan. He runs a lot, and sleeps a lot. He meets up with Yuki three times. Twice on purpose, and once they bumped into each other heading out of the neighbourhood at the same time, and they did their run together. It was good. Pierre returns to racing with a lighter heart and a whole lot of determination. It’s a new, fresh weekend, and he can make the most of it. Push the car. Make no mistakes. 

Yuki looks somewhat happier, too, which Pierre is relieved to see. They don’t get time to talk on Thursday, but Pierre knows that look, when Yuki is laser-focused and concentrating. 

They both have the same goal this weekend: push as hard as they fucking can. 

On Friday, Pierre walks into Franco in the garage as he rounds the corner, apologizing immediately. 

“Sorry man,” Pierre says, massaging his shoulder slightly. He gives Franco a once-over, frowning slightly. “You good?”

Franco shrugs, looking miserable. “Fine. I just… I need points this weekend. Because if- if I don’t, then I know it’s me. You’ve scored points in it. It must be my driving.”

“It’s not your driving.” Pierre interrupts. “The car was… decent, at the start of the year. It all went to shit after Silverstone, pretty much. There’s nothing we can do about the car.”

“But it’s different for you.” Franco avoids Pierre’s eyes, an almost haunted look on his face. “You have a long contract. I need these points. Or they’re going to replace me with Paul. They might even do it anyway, points or not.”

And what is Pierre supposed to say to that? Comfort his teammate, tell him it’s not true when it is? Give him false assurances? That points are possible in this car?

And guiltily, deep down, Pierre knows it’s not even really about Franco to him.

It’s about Yuki. It’s about Yuki, RedBull dangling a contract in front of him, ready to snatch it away at any given moment. 

It’s about Yuki, and the way Pierre sees Yuki reflected back in Franco’s eyes.

It’s always about Yuki. 

And clearly, it’s affecting him. They still haven’t talked about… whatever had happened that night at Baku. The memory hasn’t left Pierre’s mind since.

Yuki had fallen asleep after only a couple rounds of the game, the loud gunshots emanating from the screen doing nothing to rouse him. Pierre prised the controller from Yuki’s limp hands, pulled the duvet over his body. He’d watched the rise and fall of Yuki’s chest for a while, unable to tear his eyes away even though Yuki is very clearly fine. Then, Pierre had kept gaming solo, his headphones on. He was intensely focused on sneaking round a corner when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Almost immediately, he pulled the headphones off around his neck and twisted around to face Yuki. And…

Well. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice earlier. Yuki has thrown off the duvet, his skin tinged pale and sweaty. He’s twitching, grabbing fervent fistfuls of sheets, wringing them. And then, he cries. Not loudly. But tears worm their way out of his closed eyes, sliding sideways into his hair. Pierre can’t bear to watch anymore. The stink of terrified omega fills the room, so vivid Pierre can practically see piles of rotted apples dotting around the room. 

“Yuki.” Pierre says urgently, distinctly aware that his own cloying fear-scent will be clogging the room. 

“Yuki!” he tries to reign his scent in, to no avail. The emotion is too great, and the pheromones keep flooding from him. Yuki still isn’t waking up, so Pierre does the only thing he can think of. 

He delivers a slap to Yuki’s cheek, hating himself for even doing it. For hurting him. But it works, because Yuki’s eyes open wide and he shoots upwards, narrowly avoiding Pierre, who ducks with the instincts of a Formula One driver. 

“Jesus.” Pierre says, staring at Yuki. He’s not sure how to act, what to do. He’s never… he’s never seen anyone like that before, at least not in their sleep. Nobody close to him ever experiences particularly bad nightmares, so this is unprecedented to him. 

Yuki wrinkles his nose, presumably at the thick scent of fear and distress in the room. “What?” he asks. 

“You were… dreaming, I think.” Pierre says carefully. “You were crying. It was… it was disturbing.”

Yuki’s face changes, flashing between fear, confusion, anger and back to fear again. “I wasn’t crying.” he snaps, although the tear tracks are still firmly stamped on his face, shining in the dull hotel room light. 

“Yuki.”

“I said I wasn’t fucking crying!” Yuki exclaims, scrambling from the bed and assuming a defensive stance by the door, like a cat poised to jump. “I wasn’t crying. I don’t cry.”

“Okay.” Pierre mumbles, looking at Yuki. He’s feeling so many things at once; concern, fright, sadness, uncertainty. It’s too much, but Pierre zeroes in on Yuki. He wants to say something to make Yuki stay, but he can’t think. So he stays silent, and lets Yuki slam out of the hotel room. He didn’t even hear what Yuki said before he left. 

Pierre blinks, zoning back in to Franco in front of him. He stammers slightly, clapping Franco on the shoulder. “We’ll see what the car can do tomorrow.” 

Great work, Pierre. Now it sounds like he has no faith in Franco. Which he does. But with the car… Pierre has doubts about what the car can do. When they came into this season, everyone assumed that Sauber or Aston Martin would have the worst car. 

But everyone knows it. The fans know it, the media know it, the other drivers know it. The team knows it. Pierre knows it. Franco knows it. 

The worst car on the grid is not Sauber or Aston Martin. It is definitively, undoubtedly, the Alpine. 

Pierre doesn’t want to say it’s a surprise, but Franco comes last in the first of three free practices. He himself comes thirteenth, which isn’t the worst. But it’s definitely not where he wants to be. Maybe he could have gotten better laps in if George hadn’t crashed, but it doesn’t matter now.

“Yuki?” he asked on the radio, trying for nonchalance. There’s a moment of silence, before John says, “P9.” And he doesn't ask any questions. 

“Okay.” Pierre had said. 

The second free practice is interrupted again, by Liam this time. Franco, for his part, is effectively last in the free practice, considering George only did six laps. Both of them did more laps than almost everybody, desperately chasing better lap times. In the end, Pierre had only been good enough for sixteenth. And again, Pierre had asked how Yuki got on. 

“Eleventh” was the reply. 

“Okay.” he’d said again.

And look, Pierre knows that free practice generally isn’t reflective of race pace. Like, there’s no way Fernando, who came first in Free Practice One, is winning the race on Sunday. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t disheartening. 

When Pierre leaves the paddock that day, sitting in the hotel room in silence, he thinks about Yuki, as is happening more and more these days.

He wishes Yuki were here, playing video games with him and punching him in the arm every time Pierre fucks it up. That was their routine in AlphaTauri, to release the stress of the day. He misses it.

Pierre is woken by a heavy knock on his door. He lies there for a moment, blinking blearily and wishing death on whoever’s awoken him at — he checks his phone — one in the morning. He debates just not answering the door, but hauls himself up out of bed with a sigh and trudges over to the door. He squints through the peephole only to see Yuki through it. Without a second thought, Pierre unlocks the door, and—

Yuki is asleep. At least, that’s what it looks like. He sways from side to side, fist still raised in the air like he’s going to knock again. His eyes are wide open but blank, still blurry with sleep. 

Sleepwalking, Pierre recognises, moments before Yuki blinks and appears to wake up. 

“What the—” he half-yells, before catching sight of Pierre before him 

“Pierre? How the fuck…?”

“You were sleepwalking.” Pierre interrupts. “You knocked on my door.”

Yuki yawns, holding a hand up to prevent Pierre from talking again. “Jesus. Sorry. I thought this was mine.” he mumbles, but glances up at Pierre with a cheeky smile. 

It falls immediately as Yuki pats himself down, then it turns to a sheepish one. “Um, I don’t have my keycard on me.”

Pierre lets out a strangled sigh. “Yukino, what am I going to do with you? Come in.” he grumbles, stepping aside. Yuki wastes no time, bounding in and throwing himself onto Pierre’s bed. 

“We are not sleeping together.” Pierre says warningly, but there’s no heart in it. Truth be told, he doesn’t care about sharing a bed with Yuki. It’s not like he takes up very much space, and plus, it’s sort of nice. Ever since Pierre broke up with his last girlfriend, he’s missed sleeping next to another warm body. Not that Yuki's supposed to be a replacement for a girlfriend, but the point is, it helps Pierre sleep better. 

And, well. It is also Yuki. He's not just anyone. Nothing is ever going to be weird between them, especially not after the last time this happened. So Pierre clambers back into bed beside him, groaning. 

“I don’t know how I can get back to sleep now.”

“Sorry.” Yuki says, not sounding sorry at all. He throws Pierre a cheeky grin. “Need me to cuddle you?”

“Shut up.” Pierre rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I’m already letting you into my bed, I’m not going to let you interrupt my precious sleep with your yapping. Yuki, go to sleep.”

“Fine.” Yuki relents.

“But you do love my yapping.”

Pierre stares at the ceiling. “I love it during the day.”

“Noted.”

“Go to sleep.”

Yuki finally appears to listen, before Pierre breaks his own stupid rule and asks him a question.

“Do you… sleepwalk often?”

Silence. 

Then, “No.”

Yuki doesn’t speak again, and within a few minutes, Pierre can hear his soft snoring through the darkness. It takes Pierre a little longer, his eyes glued to the window as the world starts to lighten. 

It’s just approaching sunrise when he finally falls asleep beside Yuki, his own breaths joining Yuki’s in a gentle chorus.