#this is sappy and a bit sad and soft and a HEA

[effervescentdragon]

sebchal + "Listen, I know you don't want to hear this, but my feeling for you still haven't changed."

hi anon ♡ i love you for this prompt, and im sorry, im kinda going through it these days. oops.

"Will you be okay," Britta doesn't ask, and he doesn't really answer. A shrug is not an answer, but she understands him anyway. She's spent too much time by his side not to know how he feels even better than he does.

"It is what it is," he says, and she nods and leaves him be.

Sebastian sighs, carding his fingers through his too long hair, and raises his head to look at the lights of Abu Dhabi for the last time.

"Are you being dramatic in your head, Seb?"

Sebastian can't help but smile as he turns. Charles comes to stand close to him, closer than he should, like he always did, like he always does. His face is wet with sweat, and his eyes shine beautifully in the lights of Yas Marina.

Sebastian remembers when those lights shone for his victory, and sends a prayer to the gods he's not sure he believes in.

Let them shine for his victory, too. Let them shine the brightest red and gold. Let him do what I could not. Please. Let him win.

"You know me," he says, and leans a bit on Charles. "Always too dramatic." He doesn't dare stay that way, not here, not under every camera in the world, so he pulls back. Charles frowns a bit, fiddling with his helmet.

"How - will you - fuck," Charles huffs, chuckling darkly, and Seb gets it. He doesn't know what to say either. He doesn't know how to feel. He doesn't think he feels anything, not yet.

It will hit him, like the victory hit him after, twelve years ago. It will all come, the torrents of emotion, probably when he's back home in his garden. It will come, the storm, and he will weather it, like he's weathered all the other ones.

"Seb," Charles says, then turns when someone yells his name. Seb doesn't look away from him, because this is the last time they can be like this. The last time they stand as equals, both in their race suits, both with their helmets, both just fresh out of the car, sweat and fuel binding them. "I have to go, fuck, but I have to tell you something."

Sebastian's first instinct is to stop Charles from saying it, because he doesn't want to know, he can't, he - he can't take it. Can't take either option of what Charles may say to him. He opens his mouth and reaches for Charles, about to stop him by any means necessary.

He makes a cardinal mistake, though. He meets Charles' gaze.

Charles' eyes are as green as emeralds in the night, and they are so full of emotion, Sebastian thinks he may drown in them like in an ocean vortex if he doesn't look away. Seb thinks Charles may be the only storm he wouldn't survive, if he stopped avoiding it.

"Listen," Charles says, and Seb doesn't want to, but he does listen. "I know you don't want to hear this," Charles says and smiles, and it's a horrible smile. Resigned. "But my - my feelings for you haven't changed."

Sebastian's heart skips a beat. Charles steps closer.

"You don't have to do anything, or say anything," he hurries to say. "I understand. I just think you need to know that, when you go away." Charles swallows, like saying the words physically hurts him. It hurts Seb. "When you are home, and saving the world from climate crisis, and raising - I think that's the word, raising your tomatoes, well." Charles smiles, and there is a lifetime of heartbreak in that smile.

"I will miss you every moment, on track and most of those off, and I will think of you, and I will always -" He falters, his eyes darting around until they settle back on Seb's. "I will always remember you," he says like he's saying something else.

"Please, take care, mon ami," Charles says, and pats Seb's forearm briefly, and then he's pulling away, leaving Seb speechless. "Goodbye, Sebastian."

Seb wants to say something, anything, but his throat won't work. Charles smiles again, and Seb feels like crying, but then he sees Mick and Esteban running to join them, and Sebastian tears his focus away from Charles and answers the boys as best as he can when they reach him, chattering about something or other.

His eyes never move from the figure in red walking away slowly, framed by the blinding fireworks of Yas Marina.

(Someone takes a picture of it, of Charles walking away. Sebastian wouldn't admit it, not to anyone, but he prints it out on his home printer in Switzerland, and tucks it into his notebook, the one he carries around with him everywhere.)

*

The seasons change.

He sleeps, and sometimes, he dreams of the lights of Abu Dhabi, and a smile that looks like heartbreak feels.

His phone is heavy in his hand whenever he opens that one text message thread. It's even heavier when he closes it.

*

The message comes an hour earlier, because Charles has never understood timezones.

Happy New Year, Seb. May this one be your best yet :) I miss you.

He looks at the screen until it goes black.

When midnight comes, he prays.

(Not for himself; but for a win nonetheless.)

*

The seasons change.

The new season comes.

Sebastian's fingers itch every race Sunday.

He perseveres.

(He prays, and tosses, and turns, and wishes, wishes harder than he's wished for anything in a long, long time.)

*

He wonders - if love is selflessness, why does it feel so selfish to love like this?

*

He manages to stay away until Monaco.

He can't help himself.

It's Monaco.

He stays at Lewis', and his friend says nothing about it, only gives him a pass to the Mercedes garage. Sebastian appreciates him so, so much.

He watches the whole weekend from the regular seats, only using his pass on Sunday. He doesn't see Charles properly until their eyes meet again, for the first time in half a year, over Charles' Ferrari on the grid before the race.

Charles does a double take, which means Sebastian did a good job of not being seen. His eyes narrow for a moment in absolute confusion, and the straw falls out of his mouth, and Sebastian has forgotten, how absolutely beautiful Charles is right until the moment he smiles that wide, happy smile of his straight at Sebastian.

He can't look away. He knows he may be a fool, and he knows this may crash and burn horribly, but he can't find it in himself to care when Charles is beaming at him, brighter than the sun above.

You just wait, sunshine, the words play in his head. You just wait.

Charles' eyes flick to his race engineer, who's telling him something and Sebastian is just about to move on, when Charles turns back. He mouths something at Seb, eomething he can't decipher. He frowns, but Charles just laughs. He points at his car, then at his starting number on the grid, and then winks.

He still can't wink. Sebastian finds solace in that.

Sebastian raises his crossed fingers, and Charles laughs again, happy and shining, and then people obscure his vision and he has to move, but he's alright with that. He makes his way to Mercedes garage, and Toto pats him on the back, then looks into his face and says "Try not to cheer for the competition on camera, please," and Sebastian just laughs heartily, and puts the headphones on.

*

When Charles raises his pointer finger up from the first place on the podium, staring straight into the camera and grinning through his tears, and George and Lewis both douse him in champagne immediately, Sebastian's laughter is lighter than it has been for years.

Interestingly enough, so is his heart.

*

He opens the text thread.

Do you have time for dinner with an old friend, Monaco GP winner Charles Leclerc? :-)

The reply comes almost instantly.

i do, actually!!!! how long are you here for?? :)))

Sebastian doesn't even think about it as he replies.

For as long as you want me here.

He doesn't even have time to be nervous before he gets the reply that makes him feel like, well. Like he felt in Yas Marina in 2010.

always, then. forever :)

[subasekabang]

Title: Anything To Make you Stay, Chapter 9 Rating: T Word Count: Total: 15,761, chapter: 2,136 Characters: Joshua, Neku, Shiki, Eri, Beat, Rhyme, Hanekoma, Kariya, Uzuki. Pairings: Josh/Neku. Warnings: Suicide, Major Character Death, Depression, semi-detailed depiction of dead bodies, mentions of ableism, one minor allusion to transphobia Summary: Joshua and Neku have been best friends since they were 11, but their friendship starts to fall apart after Joshua goes missing for a week, soon after his 14th birthday. Lies corrode the bond, and Neku’s vivid nightmares of finding someone’s dead body does not help. A year and a half later, they hit the boiling point. Always look before crossing the road, kiddos. Author’s Note: Autistic Josh and Neku! Afab demiboy Josh! Agender Rhyme! Usage of sign language! This was a fun fic to write please enjoy it.

Chapter 9:

Neku wakes up at Tipsy Tose Hall. Josh is already awake, of course. He’s  been like that every day so far. He stands up, brushing himself off.

“Ah, so Sleeping Beauty decided to wake up. The others are already up and about. Beat and Rhyme are heading over to AMX, while Eri and Shiki are seeing if they can head over to Molco.” Josh pulls out his phone, fiddling with it.

Neku pulls out his own when the text tone sounds. “Alright, Erase the Noise at Spain Hill. Should be easy enough.”

“There’s probably a twist to it. Noise feed off of negativity. Some people might be stirring up trouble.”

And off they go, solving the problems of Shibuyians.

While they buy some chili dogs, he takes a moment to stop and think. It’s strange to look back just a few weeks, and remember how much he didn’t care. He didn’t hate people, not with a bitter loathing for each person he met, but besides that friend of his, the rest of humanity could turn to dust, and he wouldn’t have batted an eye. Everyone else was gray, boring, not worth his time.

Now though… Now, he can look around, and see the colors, see the way everyone shines. He suspects that the Music he’s always heard might be related to this side of the world.

Rhyme was the first step. When Josh had that talk with Beat, Neku had his own with them.

They had been frowning, and when he’d asked, they’d said, “I can’t remember my brother.”

“Entry Fee, probably,” was his reply. “Mine was the memories of my best friend. I know I died after we had a fight, and I remember vague things, but otherwise? Nothing.”

They nodded. “It’s the same for me. He’s there, somewhere, but I can’t remember specifics. I hope he’s doing okay.”

“It’s like… It’s not a hole, it doesn’t feel jagged around the edges. More like when a radio is out of tune, or when graffiti gets faded to the point where you can’t see it. If I didn’t know about the Fees, I might not’ve noticed.” That’s a scary thought. Neku knew, at one point, that his friend had meant everything to him. To have this missing piece of his heart be taken forever? To not even realize what was missing? That would’ve been hell.

Then there had been a conversation with Shiki, while Josh was showing Eri some more sign.

“What’s the case between you and Eri, anyway,” he’d asked.

Shiki shrugged. “We’ve been best friends for a while. I’ve always admired her. She was popular, she was sweet, everyone loved her designs. I wanted to be a fashion designer like her. I made Mr. Mew myself, my first attempt at sewing something. Just before we died… We got into a fight, she told me I wasn’t meant to be a designer. I took that bad, it was my fault we–” she cuts herself off, takes a breath, and looks away. “She just meant my talent was as a seamstress. I envied her too much, I guess.”

“You can’t blame yourself for whatever happened!” he’d insisted. “From what it sounds like, she did a lot of the talking between the two of you. She could’ve listened better, thought before she spoke, and maybe that  fight would’ve turned out better.”

“Maybe…” her voice was hollow, unconvinced.

“Hey, listen. A little bit of jealousy gives you something to shoot for, as long as you don’t fixate on it too much. I marched off from a fight with my best friend, only to get run over by a semi-truck. There were things both of us could’ve said to keep it from ending up like that, probably. I dunno, I don’t actually remember much of the fight, cuz of my Fee, but my point holds.” He grinned, nudging her in the side.

Shiki smiles at him, bright and wide. “Maybe you’re right… Thanks.”

It takes longer to figure out Beat. Once he learns that he’s Rhyme’s sibling, it clicks into place.

On day 4, hanging out at the Crossing, they’d had a chat, Beat telling him about Rhyme, and what his home was like. “Our parents were always comparin’ me to them. Sayin’ why couldn’t I be more like Rhyme. ‘Rents didn’t care ‘bout my best, didn’t care at all, so I stopped carin’ too. Rhyme though, they never gave up on me.”

“Hey man, fuck ‘em. If that’s what your parents are like, don’t listen to them. You don’t need that. I’m sure you’ve got something you’re good at, something you like doing. Even if you don’t know what that is, we’re all gonna win, and you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out. You’ve got us now. All of us.”

Eri was harder to talk to, but between her limited signing and paper, they’d discussed guilt complexes and how listening, thinking, was important. He’d gathered she spoke a lot before, so maybe this was a chance to learn patience.

He didn’t know why he was taking in everyone else’s problems. It wasn’t his job to listen and give advice, he’s not a therapist.

But that what he does. These people, everyone, has their own little world, isolated, that they live in. He’d been isolated, before now. Sure he’d had his friend, but they never reached out to others, never tried to live instead of laugh at the caricature of everyone who passed by.

So helping Ai and Mina is less of a bother than he would’ve thought. He’s happy for them, when they make up and walk off.

Day 6 has Tin Pin. They all have a few hours to kill before the slam, so they spend it practicing, playing against each other.

It’s Josh and Neku’s turn to do the 1v1, when Neku decides to chat. “Hey Josh, tell me more about yourself.

“Any specifics you wanna know, dear, or are you just trying to distract me so you have a shot at winning?” Josh grins.

“I dunno, anything really. You mentioned a friend before, tell me about them.” He smiles at Josh, dropping the game of snark they play.

Josh’s grin falters, and he sighs. “He was… He was my best friend. My family was pretty shitty, between being autistic and gender and seeing the UG, I was not the perfect child they wanted. I was weird, kids at school didn’t want to be my friend, and Hanekoma was a good parental figure, but not really a friend. I met him a bit after I turned 11, after meeting Hanekoma, and by that point, I’d learned good and well not to tell anyone about what I saw. So we hung out, explored the city, joked about how other people were, but I never told him. I guess I was afraid that I’d lose him if I did.”

“If he was going to reject you for that, then he wouldn’t have been a very good friend,” Neku says, frowning as he loses another pin in the battle.

“I know, but I didn’t want to risk it. I was a coward. He was everything to me, and I don’t think I would’ve been able to bear the pain if he did reject me. I didn’t think he would, but there’s that voice in the back of my head, reminding of all the times others called me a freak. I didn’t want to be his voice.” Josh looks sad, eyes downcast, mumbling his words, posture shrinking as if to hide away from the world.

Neku feels a surge of emotions, and it takes time to pick them apart. Worry, deep in his gut, over how Josh could’ve ended up in the Game. Empathy (curse hyperempathy, it settles less like a washcloth on his heart and more like a case of cold, biting steel), because he knows the bitter sting of a friend’s rejection.

There’s something else, crawling up from the pit of his stomach and into his throat, a sickly, greyish green spider, spinning a web to clog it all up. It sticks, coating the sides and trapping the emotions inside.

He doesn’t know why guilt is flooding him like this.

Neku would offer Josh a hug, if he didn’t know Josh was touch-adverse. As it is, he pokes him in the side. “Well, we won’t abandon you. You’ve got more friends now, all of us. You won’t be alone anymore.”

Josh’s eyes flit up to him, to see the softness in his smile, the sincerity in his eyes, and he smiles back. “Thank you, Neku.”

The smile is quickly replaced by a scowl as Neku knocks his last pin away, and Neku grins over at him. “You got too distracted by being sappy.”

“Shut up and stop using underhanded tactics, or I’ll find a way to get you in more Lapin threads.”

He narrows his eyes. “You wouldn’t.” It’s not that he really minds, but the theatrics have become a joke now.

“Don’t test me.”

He laughs. “Fine, let’s slam.”

In the end, he takes home the win. Neku suspects Josh might’ve had something to do with Shuto’s malfunctioning equipment, but a win’s a win, and it kept them all in the Game one more day.

They all wake up in the Scramble, once more, for day 7. When six phones chime off in unison, they all grab at them, and let out a collective groan.

^The Game Master awaits you on the freeway. Defeat him. You have 600 minutes. Fail, and face Erasure - The Reapers^

“Well, that’s plenty of time to get ready. Once we’re all set, we should decide which of us will go first,” Josh says.

“You and Neku should be the ones to try first,” Shiki says. “I mean, you’ve both got the best chance, so if you go first, the rest of us won’t risk being Erased.”

Neku looks around, to see Eri and Rhyme nodding, and Beat puts in a “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

So they do the daily shopping (at Josh’s insistence), spending the ludicrous amount of time they have preparing. Neku insists they grind on Noise (what better way to prepare for a battle than to battle, after all?)

It’s late in the afternoon when they finally head down to the Station Underpass. Before they go too far, though, Neku stops and turns around to face them all.

“No matter what happens, you’re all my friends, got that? Once we come back to life, let’s all meet up at Hachiko, yeah?” he asks, smiling.

Eri nods, signing a yes with her hand.

“Of course!” Shiki says.

“You can count me in!” chimes Rhyme.

“I’ll be there, yo!” Beat says.

When Josh says nothing, they all turn to him. Neku raises an eyebrow, and Josh sighs.

“I can’t promise anything,” he mutters, “but I hope to be there with you all.”

“Good enough,” Neku says. “Let’s do this.”

Joshua and Neku walk forward, leaving the others behind to watch on, as they approach the Game Master (Ram Crotch, a voice in his head whispers. He holds in a laugh at the thought).

The most notable thing about the guy, besides the absurd belt buckle, is his usage of food puns. Who the hell says ‘Prepare to be spicy tuna rolled!’ before an epic battle, seriously?

After that, it’s just a matter of dodging attacks and hitting Higashizawa with all he can throw at him. Shockwaves, pyrokinesis, lightning bolts, all of it. He can feel Joshua fighting in the other plane, dropping all types of items down from the sky, from motorcycles to vending machines. He keeps his thoughts focused, syncs up his attacks with Josh’s.

The energy fueling their bond builds. The Music swells, reverberating between them, a crescendo of power, threatening to tip over. It blooms inside him, and he struggles to hold it back, waiting for the opportune moment.

It comes when Neku finishes dodging the balls of energy he flings about. White hot light ignites under his skin, as he throws his hand out and channels all that energy into an attack. Josh picks up on what he’s doing and does the same.

“Another world awaits…”

“And you’re going!”

The meteor plummets into Higashizawa, smashing him into the ground, plowing him down like he’s nothing. Which is exactly what he is now. Nothing.

The battle fades around them, and then they’re back in the UG, wearing matching goofy smiles. Adrenaline still courses through him, but now it’s being waylaid by relief. He has time to glance back at the others, eyes darting away from Josh for a second, before they’re all enveloped in a soft warm light, twirling around them.

They all disappear together as the light takes them to their final judgement.