[Summerslash07] These Lettle Wonders (Eddie Irvine, Michael Schumacher)
Title : These Little Wonders
Author : hiro_chan
Rating : PG
Character Claimed : Eddie Irvine
2nd Character : Michael Schumacher
Movie : Cast Away
Word Count : 4,278 words
Beta-reader : nilhenwen. Big thanks to you, especially for the very quick beta-read ♥♥♥
Disclaimer : Not true, not real, lies, lies, liiieeesss :).
Author's Note : This late, late post is because I misunderstand diagon's instruction. I was waiting for Sian and/or Amy to upload my fic to the site, while actually Amy told me to post directly to the comm, because Sian is still unwell (get well soon, yeah?). *is lame*. So, um, I hope you're all still up for another Summer slash fic?
It's been quite some time since the last time I wrote F1 slash, and I've never written Eddie before, but hopefully I got this correctly :). Let me know what you guys think, please :).
Well, isn’t it just fucking splendid.
You sigh as you sit forlornly near the huge window. This was supposed to be a fun holiday, where you don’t have to do anything but have a lot of fun, a lot of booze, a lot of sex.
But now the electricity is out and the thunder lights up the sky and the rain is pouring down like mad, making thick curtain of water around the house. You wish you had known better than to build a holiday villa in this isolated tropical paradise. You really didn’t think what could happen and what to prepare when the bad weather strike.
The emergency light ran out of battery a while ago (why oh why did you put on the two emergency lights at the same time - you should’ve foreseen that in a third world country like this, electricity problem might not be able to be solved as quickly as at home) and you’re staring at the little flame of the candle in front of you, trying in vain to provide a better light for yourself.
You hate darkness. You’re not afraid of darkness, no, but you hate it. Especially in this situation when it’s impossible for you to escape it. You hate how oppressive the darkness feels, how it swallows all kinds of light and life and energy from around you and make the mood drop. You hate how it forces you to think about things that you’d rather avoid.
Things like your F1 career and your future.
Oh God, your F1 career. This is only your second year with Jaguar and already you’re on the brink of quitting.
You didn’t think it’d be this soon - for this frustration to come settling in. You had been so sure, back then, that Jaguar would be a perfect place for you as soon as Ferrari decided that they didn’t require your service anymore.
Because what other team is more perfect for you? You’re from Great Britain. Jaguar is a British team. The team was an underdog and you loved racing as an underdog, you loved the shock you could etch on the spectators’ and pundits’ face, and though you knew it would be - barring a miracle of a race - quite sometime for it to happen, you believed.
The first few months were going well enough - there are rooms for improvement, but you thought you were doing well enough. It was halfway into the season that you started to expect more of this. You couldn’t really accuse them of not trying their best to improve the team - hell, you were aware that you yourself had your own guilty moments too - moments when you could’ve done better but you didn’t.
The problem was that you keep comparing this team to your old one. You wanted this current team so much to be like the old one - especially towards the end of the season you couldn’t silence your jealousy whenever you saw your old race crew celebrating with the new driver. You knew it was hardly possible, to expect your Jaguar race crew to be like your Ferrari one - but like the saying went, once you’ve got a taste of the best, it is a bit hard to settle for less.
You thought about quitting by the end of the season, but the Boss asked you not to, and when you think back to it again, you guessed that the reason why you decided to continue was not really because you were still hungry, because you were still unsatisfied, still striving for that something that you’d been trying hard to achieve. No, the main reason why you continued on was because you were still unsure about your life after F1.
And you hate thinking about that, even now, half a year later, perhaps even more so because even now you are no closer to a decision, to that light at the end of the tunnel, than you were months ago.
Hell, you’d dare to say that you’re still unable to see where the light is, that your tunnel is still as pitch black as the surrounding around you right now.
And if you can’t see that light sometime soon --
A plate is put in front of you with a loud thump, startling you out of your reverie. You look up and there he is, just sitting himself on the chair right in front of you, a certain Michael Schumacher. You look at him, then at the plate of cold sandwiches he just put on the table. You gape at him, and can’t help the snicker that makes its way out of your lips.
“I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” you say, staring at him as he takes one sandwich and takes a bite. “Michael Schumacher making cold sandwiches - no, make that making cold sandwiches for me. Ah, the wonder just never ceases.”
“Maybe,” he replies, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. “It’s because you’re a lousy excuse for a host.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You invited me here - in this middle of nowhere kind of place, persuading me that it is really lovely there only to get this mad storm and a power cut and instead of entertaining me to make up for all the troubles I’ve had to be here, you choose to mope around in the dark. You even miss dinner time. So tell me why that doesn’t make you a lousy host.”
You roll your eyes at him. “OK, let me juggle some balls to entertain you.”
He rolls his eyes back at you. “Whatever. Just eat your dinner.”
You sigh, staring at the less than appealing sandwich in front of you. Needless to say, for whatever extraordinary talents that the younger man possesses, he is absolutely pathetic in the kitchen. You poke the sandwich repeatedly, until he kicks your shin and you finally take one, taking a small bite of it.
You are still trying to tolerate the taste of too much cheese on your tongue when he suddenly asks, “What’s bothering you?”
You lift your head, startled at the sudden question. “Why do you care?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Well... you never care. Not usually anyway.”
“Well, I decided to care now,” he shrugs, and perhaps there’s something on your face - you aren’t really sure - but he then adds, a bit less sarcastic. “You look kind of sad. I just wonder what might be going on.”
You sigh, leaning back to the chair, the sandwich still dangles listlessly between your fingers. “You won’t understand,” you say forlornly.
“Try me,” he says succinctly. You should’ve worded your words better - he will never ever back down from a challenge, no matter how small.
You’re not really sure how you end up talking. You had planned to just stare at him and keep silent, until he got frustrated and kicked you and cursed you in some fine choices of German curse words and leaves you alone to your thoughts. But then agonizing alone on your thoughts, on your fears, on your impeding doom doesn’t sound very appealing - and he offers, he offers to listen to you and you think having someone listening to you is damn sight better than listening to yourself.
You know he’s only doing this because he’s at a loss for anything else to do and he’s expecting you, the host, to solve this for him and you think, fair enough. You both can help each other.
“Have you ever found yourself in a situation like the one Chuck Noland had when he’s stranded on the empty island?”
He stares at you blankly. “... Huh?”
You put your sandwich back on the plate, feeling the bread getting too soft between your thumb and forefinger. “You know, Chuck Noland. From the movie Cast Away?”
He’s silent for a moment before a small snort makes itself known. “Cast Away? You watched a Tom Hanks movie?”
“Yeah,” you reply indignantly. “Why?”
“Well, it’s just - I’ve never thought you to be the type to watch Tom Hanks movie. I thought you only watch those summer flicks or pointless actions or porn.”
He says it as if it’s a well known fact - and in a way, perhaps he’s right. Perhaps, you think, you do kind of come across as, well, that type. “You have to get to know me better then. So anyway. Have you? Been in a situation like Chuck?”
“Losing options and controls of my life? No - no, so far, no. Why? Are you in that kind situation now?”
It just occurs to you that this man in front of you - he most probably doesn’t understand the word failure, doesn’t really grasp the meaning of it, simply because he’s too successful. Even in the years when he didn’t manage to make Ferrari world champion, he still came out successful, simply for his achievements to lift Ferrari into a strong title challenger.
You’re tempted to abort the conversation now, to just dismiss him with a curt, “Forget it. You won’t understand,” and go back to moping mode, but then again, perhaps he can give you a way that you haven’t thought of, you haven’t found before - he’s a world champion now, and known for his ability to tackle problems and always coming out on top - there must be something that he can give you, that you can learn from him.
“Kind of,” you reply finally, letting out a loud exhale by the end of the last word. “Well, OK, not exactly losing control of my life and I do still have options, actually, but it’s just that... none of those options appeal to me. And I don’t... really want to take any of them. This thing has been bugging me for weeks and my thoughts are going in circles and every time I always get back to zero and I - well, it frustrates me.”
He stares at you quietly, still munching on his sandwich, almost appearing uninterested, almost, if it wasn’t for his green, green eyes that are alert and clear and looking at you as if your words were the most interesting thing that he’s heard all day - which, if you really think about it, is perhaps true.
“Go on,” he nods imploringly. “Elaborate. Tell me what the options are and why they’re unappealing.”
You blink at him, silent for a moment, and he still looks at you expectantly, and somehow the dam burst and the words come racing out of your lips.
And so you tell him. About the situation in Jaguar - how much it differs to the Ferrari camp, how even if you were Ferrari’s second driver (he narrows his eyes at you at this point but thankfully keeps silent) there was a certain sense of belonging that you felt there. About your frustration with the lack of clear development within the Jaguar team - because hard though he might find this to believe, you aren’t in this circus to be a loser. You might not be able to win any grand prix anymore, but you never want to finish a race feeling like a goddamn loser. And the team doesn’t really get you. Doesn’t really get you. There’s something in their eyes that makes you want to scream in frustration and wish that they had the same shine in their eyes like your race crew in Ferrari did (still does, actually, but they now belong to Rubens, and you hate thinking that you can’t refer to those guys as ‘yours’ anymore).
You tell him that you consider quitting after this season is over - but you’re still unsure how to continue your life. Senseless partying and meaningless cameos here and there might do for a while but just like everyone else, you don’t want your life to be that empty, that meaningless. You do have that real estate business that you’ve been making quite a handsome money off, even before you were an F1 racer - but you feel that that job is boring. There’s a reason after all why you got into F1 even after you had that business - the adrenaline rush and the risks surely make everything exciting in racing - hell, you even managed to win some too.
And it doesn’t stop there. You end up talking about every problem that has been troubling you lately. About this baby that a random girl insists is your son - and you’re pretty sure that no matter how cute the baby is, he’s most definitely not your son because try as you might, you can’t remember bedding the girl. Even if you did bed her, then it must have been some lousy sex because you can’t remember it and for you, lousy sex equates no baby (he snorts when you say that). You talk about this castle in Ireland, huge and spacious and very old you’re convinced there’s countless ghost in there, that your mother insists belong to the family and that you, you, have to take responsibility to take care of it because all your other siblings have more important things to take care of and surely, she insists, racing and partying are not as important as what your siblings are worrying over right now. You have the most money anyway.
You talk about so many things - more things than you’ve shared with him during your five years in Ferrari, more personal matters than you’ve shared with him when you were still together - that when you stop as your brain fails to provide you with more topics, your throat is dry and your glass (when did you get a glass anyway - you don’t really remember) is empty and the clock says it’s nearing midnight already.
And Michael’s still there, still somehow looking at you and not falling asleep hearing whatever it is that you’re saying - and it’s actually okay if he does fall asleep, you’d understand because he did that quite a lot back in those days and you’ve gotten used to it - and somehow, knowing that Michael does listen to everything that you’ve said makes you happy.
“Are you finished?” he asks.
There is no mocking or anything behind those words, just... simply words, and you nod. “Yeah. More or less, yeah.”
He gets up and walks to where the kitchen is, and you hear him rummaging through the cupboard and a moment later he appears with a bottle of fine wine and two glasses. “Found this when I was looking for plates,” he says airily.
“That’s mine,” you say automatically, almost possessively - and you regret the way it comes out. It’s totally unnecessary.
He smiles in amusement. “I know. Well, it’s for you too so you can’t really complain.”
“I’m sorry,” you mutter bashfully. “I didn’t mean to mean it that way.”
He glances up to you, smirking in a way that says, “I know.”
He uncorked the bottle effortlessly and pours the wine onto the glasses and hands one to you. You take it gratefully and take a big swig, feeling that kind of relief that you have with liquid running down your dry throat.
And it is with a kind of wonder that you realize how light you feel right now. It’s as if a burden has been lifted off your shoulders, as if a binding has been cut off from around your heart, you feel as if you could breathe easier and think clearer.
You take a deep breath, in and out, in and out, feeling your lungs expanding in a much lighter and easy way and he must notice this because he smiles a little at you and asks, “feeling any better now?”
“Strangely, yeah,” you reply, almost in wonderment. “It kind of - well, I kind of see everything more clearly now. I mean, I still can’t solve my problem but talking it out put me in a better, less gloomy mood. If that makes any sense at all.”
“Well actually, that makes a lot of sense,” he says between sips. “Talking about my problems helps me out too. I usually talk to Corrina, she’s a good listener and knows when to keep quiet. She’s - well, you know, my Wilson.”
You can’t stifle a surprised laugh at his words. “Your what?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes in a playfully exasperated way. “My Wilson. You know? Just like the one Chuck has on the island, someone - well, something in his case - to talk to. I think everybody needs their own Wilson. You should find your own too.”
You blink at his words and suddenly you understand. That in a way, perhaps that’s what’s been missing in your life so far. No matter how out going and extroverted you are, you actually really aren’t the type to share deeply personal feelings and matters with someone else. You share only the mildly personal ones, the kind which you feel makes people more interested in you. But these kinds of matters, these deeply personal ones that make your head ache and your heart worry - those you keep to yourself.
And what Michael said does make sense. Perhaps you do need your own Wilson.
You tip your glass forward, watching the amber liquid moving gently in it. “How about you be my Wilson?” you say after a while.
He let out a chuckle then, warm and low, reverberating gently in the darkness. “Can’t. I won’t be able to stay quiet for long enough, especially with you. You know me; I’ll end up correcting you and chastising you and mocking you and everything, and you’ll end up not feeling any better than before.”
You smile at that, some old memories worming their way into your mind. “That’s true. You have this special talent to make other feels inadequate and lame.”
“What can I say?” he replies in amusement. “I hate to disappoint.”
You take the bottle and pour more wine into your glass. The darkness still persists and the candle’s light is getting weaker, and you really should replace it with the new one but you don’t feel like leaving the table at the moment. Instead you watch him, the way the small light paints shadows on the contour of his face, making his eyes pitch black and his nose and chin more prominent. And you can’t help asking, “Why can’t we be together again, Mike?”
If he’s surprised by the abrupt change of conversation, the shadow hides it well. “Last time I checked, it’s not on the topic agenda.”
“Well, it’s on the agenda now,” you say stubbornly. “I’m sorry - it’s just - times like this I just can’t help but wonder.”
“If you rewind back your memories to the three years we were together, I think you’ll pretty much get the answer.”
“Surely it wasn’t all bad, right? I can recall many fond memories.”
“No,” he concedes. “No, it wasn’t all bad. The sex was great, for one,” he smiles and you grin back at him. “And you were - are - fun to be around. It’s just that I feel that we didn’t properly connect on parts where it matters the most, and let’s face it, there were many times that we hated each other and wished we weren’t together. And no, don’t you deny it because I know it’s true and you’d be one of the thickest people alive to not realize it.”
You have to admit that he’s got a very good point there - despite the affection that you felt for each other, there were points in the relationship when you wondered why you felt this affection towards him. He knew that there were times that you hated him behind your smiles and light words, and you knew that there were times when his green eyes struggled to cover the disdain he felt for you.
It’s just that you feel that it’s still worth fighting for while he prefers to not bother anymore.
“I still want you to be my Wilson, though,” you say stubbornly. “Maybe not all the time, but I want to be able to have this kind of time again with you.”
He smiles. “Only if you’re able to put up with my endless remarks. There’s no chance I’ll be able to stay quiet the whole time after this.”
You smile back at him. “As long as you’re around to hear me out.”
His eyes soften then, almost reminding you of the way his eyes used to look like when he was staring at you in the quiet moments all those years ago. “It’s a deal then.”
You nod, and after that, you both spend time in silence, only the sharp clinking of glasses, the rough scraping of the chair against the floor, the distant voices of the tropical nocturnal animals and the gentle breathing of you both to fill the silence. But it is an easy kind of silence, the one which only exist between those who have known each other for a long time, the one which only happen between those with history behind them, the one which doesn’t put any pressure on you to speak and break the blanketing silence - the easy kind of silence that lets you just sit back and indulge in it.
You’ve said the important things to be said - mostly on your part - and there’s a strange kind of calm in your heart, and just like Chuck when he woke up one day with a calm and clear head, you realize that all you’ve got to do is keep on breathing.
Because you’ll never know what the tide will bring tomorrow.
*
When you wake up the next day, the sun is high in the sky, its light streaming through the huge window and pooling at your feet, and you have one hell of a neck cramp because you’ve fallen asleep on the rattan chair.
You’ve got tight muscles in your shoulder and some of your joints make a popping sound as you stretch but it’s been quite some time since you last woke up feeling so nice and alive like this.
The couch in front of you where Michael sat last night is empty - Michael is always an early riser and it looks like that fact hasn’t changed yet. The fan not far from you whirrs, blowing nice fresh air - still smelling like rain and wet soil - against your skin and thank God, the electricity is up.
You push yourself to stand and go to the bathroom, washing your face and brushing your teeth there and - feeling refreshed - go to find his whereabouts.
You find him in the brightly lit kitchen - not as well-equipped as your kitchen in your home is, but much warmer and intimate. He’s facing the stove, an intense concentration on his face that amuses you and a while later he lets out a string of words that you don’t need to understand even one word of German to know that they’re curse words. You can’t stifle your chuckles and he turns around to you and narrows his eyes.
“You could’ve helped me instead of just watching there.”
“Well, good morning to you too, Wilson,” - he snorts derisively at this - “What are you trying to make anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” he mutters, quickly dumping whatever it is in the pan into the bin. You raise your brows and he says, “Why don’t you make some breakfast? Or if you still want some cold sandwiches like last night - “
You shake your head and take the pan from his hand. “I’ve got enough cold sandwiches to last me a lifetime,” you mutter. And brighten up at the thought that, “Hey! Finally - something that I can do much better than you.”
“Tch,” he says as he lifts himself to sit on the high marble island. “Even Corrina cooks better than me, why should that excite you?”
You wave the big spoon, in a chastising manner. “Oh, don’t you dare try taking this moment of pride away from me, Mike.”
He grumbles something back at you, taking a piece of toast (burnt on the edges - God, he can’t even make a toast properly), spreading the butter on it and you watch the bacon sizzling on the pan and say, “Thanks for your help last night, Mike.”
You can feel his eyes watching the back of your head intently for a moment before he replies, “You’re welcome.”
You smile to yourself, at the way he sounds just then (a bit bewildered, a bit happy), at the light feeling in your heart, at the unforeseeable future that lies endlessly in front of you.
And as if he could read your mind, he asks, “What is your plan now then? Where are you going?”
You still don’t know, you admit. But at least the future doesn’t really worry you too much anymore. “I’m just about to figure it out.” And at least everything’s clearer now, and you are sure that when the time comes for you to decide, you’ll think back to last night and the way you’re feeling now, and you’ll be okay. You’ll be able to decide where to go.
He seems to mull over your answer, and when you put his breakfast in front of him, he looks up at you and asks, “But surely you know where to take me today, right?”
You laugh. “I have a place in mind. A secret, but you’ll love it.”
And in an extremely rare occasion, he nods, accepting your answer as it is, without any further question.
You smile, putting fried bacon into your mouth. If the way you feel this morning is any indication, it looks as if today, the tides will bring you many good things.
~end~
Author : hiro_chan
Rating : PG
Character Claimed : Eddie Irvine
2nd Character : Michael Schumacher
Movie : Cast Away
Word Count : 4,278 words
Beta-reader : nilhenwen. Big thanks to you, especially for the very quick beta-read ♥♥♥
Disclaimer : Not true, not real, lies, lies, liiieeesss :).
Author's Note : This late, late post is because I misunderstand diagon's instruction. I was waiting for Sian and/or Amy to upload my fic to the site, while actually Amy told me to post directly to the comm, because Sian is still unwell (get well soon, yeah?). *is lame*. So, um, I hope you're all still up for another Summer slash fic?
It's been quite some time since the last time I wrote F1 slash, and I've never written Eddie before, but hopefully I got this correctly :). Let me know what you guys think, please :).
Well, isn’t it just fucking splendid.
You sigh as you sit forlornly near the huge window. This was supposed to be a fun holiday, where you don’t have to do anything but have a lot of fun, a lot of booze, a lot of sex.
But now the electricity is out and the thunder lights up the sky and the rain is pouring down like mad, making thick curtain of water around the house. You wish you had known better than to build a holiday villa in this isolated tropical paradise. You really didn’t think what could happen and what to prepare when the bad weather strike.
The emergency light ran out of battery a while ago (why oh why did you put on the two emergency lights at the same time - you should’ve foreseen that in a third world country like this, electricity problem might not be able to be solved as quickly as at home) and you’re staring at the little flame of the candle in front of you, trying in vain to provide a better light for yourself.
You hate darkness. You’re not afraid of darkness, no, but you hate it. Especially in this situation when it’s impossible for you to escape it. You hate how oppressive the darkness feels, how it swallows all kinds of light and life and energy from around you and make the mood drop. You hate how it forces you to think about things that you’d rather avoid.
Things like your F1 career and your future.
Oh God, your F1 career. This is only your second year with Jaguar and already you’re on the brink of quitting.
You didn’t think it’d be this soon - for this frustration to come settling in. You had been so sure, back then, that Jaguar would be a perfect place for you as soon as Ferrari decided that they didn’t require your service anymore.
Because what other team is more perfect for you? You’re from Great Britain. Jaguar is a British team. The team was an underdog and you loved racing as an underdog, you loved the shock you could etch on the spectators’ and pundits’ face, and though you knew it would be - barring a miracle of a race - quite sometime for it to happen, you believed.
The first few months were going well enough - there are rooms for improvement, but you thought you were doing well enough. It was halfway into the season that you started to expect more of this. You couldn’t really accuse them of not trying their best to improve the team - hell, you were aware that you yourself had your own guilty moments too - moments when you could’ve done better but you didn’t.
The problem was that you keep comparing this team to your old one. You wanted this current team so much to be like the old one - especially towards the end of the season you couldn’t silence your jealousy whenever you saw your old race crew celebrating with the new driver. You knew it was hardly possible, to expect your Jaguar race crew to be like your Ferrari one - but like the saying went, once you’ve got a taste of the best, it is a bit hard to settle for less.
You thought about quitting by the end of the season, but the Boss asked you not to, and when you think back to it again, you guessed that the reason why you decided to continue was not really because you were still hungry, because you were still unsatisfied, still striving for that something that you’d been trying hard to achieve. No, the main reason why you continued on was because you were still unsure about your life after F1.
And you hate thinking about that, even now, half a year later, perhaps even more so because even now you are no closer to a decision, to that light at the end of the tunnel, than you were months ago.
Hell, you’d dare to say that you’re still unable to see where the light is, that your tunnel is still as pitch black as the surrounding around you right now.
And if you can’t see that light sometime soon --
A plate is put in front of you with a loud thump, startling you out of your reverie. You look up and there he is, just sitting himself on the chair right in front of you, a certain Michael Schumacher. You look at him, then at the plate of cold sandwiches he just put on the table. You gape at him, and can’t help the snicker that makes its way out of your lips.
“I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” you say, staring at him as he takes one sandwich and takes a bite. “Michael Schumacher making cold sandwiches - no, make that making cold sandwiches for me. Ah, the wonder just never ceases.”
“Maybe,” he replies, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. “It’s because you’re a lousy excuse for a host.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You invited me here - in this middle of nowhere kind of place, persuading me that it is really lovely there only to get this mad storm and a power cut and instead of entertaining me to make up for all the troubles I’ve had to be here, you choose to mope around in the dark. You even miss dinner time. So tell me why that doesn’t make you a lousy host.”
You roll your eyes at him. “OK, let me juggle some balls to entertain you.”
He rolls his eyes back at you. “Whatever. Just eat your dinner.”
You sigh, staring at the less than appealing sandwich in front of you. Needless to say, for whatever extraordinary talents that the younger man possesses, he is absolutely pathetic in the kitchen. You poke the sandwich repeatedly, until he kicks your shin and you finally take one, taking a small bite of it.
You are still trying to tolerate the taste of too much cheese on your tongue when he suddenly asks, “What’s bothering you?”
You lift your head, startled at the sudden question. “Why do you care?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Well... you never care. Not usually anyway.”
“Well, I decided to care now,” he shrugs, and perhaps there’s something on your face - you aren’t really sure - but he then adds, a bit less sarcastic. “You look kind of sad. I just wonder what might be going on.”
You sigh, leaning back to the chair, the sandwich still dangles listlessly between your fingers. “You won’t understand,” you say forlornly.
“Try me,” he says succinctly. You should’ve worded your words better - he will never ever back down from a challenge, no matter how small.
You’re not really sure how you end up talking. You had planned to just stare at him and keep silent, until he got frustrated and kicked you and cursed you in some fine choices of German curse words and leaves you alone to your thoughts. But then agonizing alone on your thoughts, on your fears, on your impeding doom doesn’t sound very appealing - and he offers, he offers to listen to you and you think having someone listening to you is damn sight better than listening to yourself.
You know he’s only doing this because he’s at a loss for anything else to do and he’s expecting you, the host, to solve this for him and you think, fair enough. You both can help each other.
“Have you ever found yourself in a situation like the one Chuck Noland had when he’s stranded on the empty island?”
He stares at you blankly. “... Huh?”
You put your sandwich back on the plate, feeling the bread getting too soft between your thumb and forefinger. “You know, Chuck Noland. From the movie Cast Away?”
He’s silent for a moment before a small snort makes itself known. “Cast Away? You watched a Tom Hanks movie?”
“Yeah,” you reply indignantly. “Why?”
“Well, it’s just - I’ve never thought you to be the type to watch Tom Hanks movie. I thought you only watch those summer flicks or pointless actions or porn.”
He says it as if it’s a well known fact - and in a way, perhaps he’s right. Perhaps, you think, you do kind of come across as, well, that type. “You have to get to know me better then. So anyway. Have you? Been in a situation like Chuck?”
“Losing options and controls of my life? No - no, so far, no. Why? Are you in that kind situation now?”
It just occurs to you that this man in front of you - he most probably doesn’t understand the word failure, doesn’t really grasp the meaning of it, simply because he’s too successful. Even in the years when he didn’t manage to make Ferrari world champion, he still came out successful, simply for his achievements to lift Ferrari into a strong title challenger.
You’re tempted to abort the conversation now, to just dismiss him with a curt, “Forget it. You won’t understand,” and go back to moping mode, but then again, perhaps he can give you a way that you haven’t thought of, you haven’t found before - he’s a world champion now, and known for his ability to tackle problems and always coming out on top - there must be something that he can give you, that you can learn from him.
“Kind of,” you reply finally, letting out a loud exhale by the end of the last word. “Well, OK, not exactly losing control of my life and I do still have options, actually, but it’s just that... none of those options appeal to me. And I don’t... really want to take any of them. This thing has been bugging me for weeks and my thoughts are going in circles and every time I always get back to zero and I - well, it frustrates me.”
He stares at you quietly, still munching on his sandwich, almost appearing uninterested, almost, if it wasn’t for his green, green eyes that are alert and clear and looking at you as if your words were the most interesting thing that he’s heard all day - which, if you really think about it, is perhaps true.
“Go on,” he nods imploringly. “Elaborate. Tell me what the options are and why they’re unappealing.”
You blink at him, silent for a moment, and he still looks at you expectantly, and somehow the dam burst and the words come racing out of your lips.
And so you tell him. About the situation in Jaguar - how much it differs to the Ferrari camp, how even if you were Ferrari’s second driver (he narrows his eyes at you at this point but thankfully keeps silent) there was a certain sense of belonging that you felt there. About your frustration with the lack of clear development within the Jaguar team - because hard though he might find this to believe, you aren’t in this circus to be a loser. You might not be able to win any grand prix anymore, but you never want to finish a race feeling like a goddamn loser. And the team doesn’t really get you. Doesn’t really get you. There’s something in their eyes that makes you want to scream in frustration and wish that they had the same shine in their eyes like your race crew in Ferrari did (still does, actually, but they now belong to Rubens, and you hate thinking that you can’t refer to those guys as ‘yours’ anymore).
You tell him that you consider quitting after this season is over - but you’re still unsure how to continue your life. Senseless partying and meaningless cameos here and there might do for a while but just like everyone else, you don’t want your life to be that empty, that meaningless. You do have that real estate business that you’ve been making quite a handsome money off, even before you were an F1 racer - but you feel that that job is boring. There’s a reason after all why you got into F1 even after you had that business - the adrenaline rush and the risks surely make everything exciting in racing - hell, you even managed to win some too.
And it doesn’t stop there. You end up talking about every problem that has been troubling you lately. About this baby that a random girl insists is your son - and you’re pretty sure that no matter how cute the baby is, he’s most definitely not your son because try as you might, you can’t remember bedding the girl. Even if you did bed her, then it must have been some lousy sex because you can’t remember it and for you, lousy sex equates no baby (he snorts when you say that). You talk about this castle in Ireland, huge and spacious and very old you’re convinced there’s countless ghost in there, that your mother insists belong to the family and that you, you, have to take responsibility to take care of it because all your other siblings have more important things to take care of and surely, she insists, racing and partying are not as important as what your siblings are worrying over right now. You have the most money anyway.
You talk about so many things - more things than you’ve shared with him during your five years in Ferrari, more personal matters than you’ve shared with him when you were still together - that when you stop as your brain fails to provide you with more topics, your throat is dry and your glass (when did you get a glass anyway - you don’t really remember) is empty and the clock says it’s nearing midnight already.
And Michael’s still there, still somehow looking at you and not falling asleep hearing whatever it is that you’re saying - and it’s actually okay if he does fall asleep, you’d understand because he did that quite a lot back in those days and you’ve gotten used to it - and somehow, knowing that Michael does listen to everything that you’ve said makes you happy.
“Are you finished?” he asks.
There is no mocking or anything behind those words, just... simply words, and you nod. “Yeah. More or less, yeah.”
He gets up and walks to where the kitchen is, and you hear him rummaging through the cupboard and a moment later he appears with a bottle of fine wine and two glasses. “Found this when I was looking for plates,” he says airily.
“That’s mine,” you say automatically, almost possessively - and you regret the way it comes out. It’s totally unnecessary.
He smiles in amusement. “I know. Well, it’s for you too so you can’t really complain.”
“I’m sorry,” you mutter bashfully. “I didn’t mean to mean it that way.”
He glances up to you, smirking in a way that says, “I know.”
He uncorked the bottle effortlessly and pours the wine onto the glasses and hands one to you. You take it gratefully and take a big swig, feeling that kind of relief that you have with liquid running down your dry throat.
And it is with a kind of wonder that you realize how light you feel right now. It’s as if a burden has been lifted off your shoulders, as if a binding has been cut off from around your heart, you feel as if you could breathe easier and think clearer.
You take a deep breath, in and out, in and out, feeling your lungs expanding in a much lighter and easy way and he must notice this because he smiles a little at you and asks, “feeling any better now?”
“Strangely, yeah,” you reply, almost in wonderment. “It kind of - well, I kind of see everything more clearly now. I mean, I still can’t solve my problem but talking it out put me in a better, less gloomy mood. If that makes any sense at all.”
“Well actually, that makes a lot of sense,” he says between sips. “Talking about my problems helps me out too. I usually talk to Corrina, she’s a good listener and knows when to keep quiet. She’s - well, you know, my Wilson.”
You can’t stifle a surprised laugh at his words. “Your what?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes in a playfully exasperated way. “My Wilson. You know? Just like the one Chuck has on the island, someone - well, something in his case - to talk to. I think everybody needs their own Wilson. You should find your own too.”
You blink at his words and suddenly you understand. That in a way, perhaps that’s what’s been missing in your life so far. No matter how out going and extroverted you are, you actually really aren’t the type to share deeply personal feelings and matters with someone else. You share only the mildly personal ones, the kind which you feel makes people more interested in you. But these kinds of matters, these deeply personal ones that make your head ache and your heart worry - those you keep to yourself.
And what Michael said does make sense. Perhaps you do need your own Wilson.
You tip your glass forward, watching the amber liquid moving gently in it. “How about you be my Wilson?” you say after a while.
He let out a chuckle then, warm and low, reverberating gently in the darkness. “Can’t. I won’t be able to stay quiet for long enough, especially with you. You know me; I’ll end up correcting you and chastising you and mocking you and everything, and you’ll end up not feeling any better than before.”
You smile at that, some old memories worming their way into your mind. “That’s true. You have this special talent to make other feels inadequate and lame.”
“What can I say?” he replies in amusement. “I hate to disappoint.”
You take the bottle and pour more wine into your glass. The darkness still persists and the candle’s light is getting weaker, and you really should replace it with the new one but you don’t feel like leaving the table at the moment. Instead you watch him, the way the small light paints shadows on the contour of his face, making his eyes pitch black and his nose and chin more prominent. And you can’t help asking, “Why can’t we be together again, Mike?”
If he’s surprised by the abrupt change of conversation, the shadow hides it well. “Last time I checked, it’s not on the topic agenda.”
“Well, it’s on the agenda now,” you say stubbornly. “I’m sorry - it’s just - times like this I just can’t help but wonder.”
“If you rewind back your memories to the three years we were together, I think you’ll pretty much get the answer.”
“Surely it wasn’t all bad, right? I can recall many fond memories.”
“No,” he concedes. “No, it wasn’t all bad. The sex was great, for one,” he smiles and you grin back at him. “And you were - are - fun to be around. It’s just that I feel that we didn’t properly connect on parts where it matters the most, and let’s face it, there were many times that we hated each other and wished we weren’t together. And no, don’t you deny it because I know it’s true and you’d be one of the thickest people alive to not realize it.”
You have to admit that he’s got a very good point there - despite the affection that you felt for each other, there were points in the relationship when you wondered why you felt this affection towards him. He knew that there were times that you hated him behind your smiles and light words, and you knew that there were times when his green eyes struggled to cover the disdain he felt for you.
It’s just that you feel that it’s still worth fighting for while he prefers to not bother anymore.
“I still want you to be my Wilson, though,” you say stubbornly. “Maybe not all the time, but I want to be able to have this kind of time again with you.”
He smiles. “Only if you’re able to put up with my endless remarks. There’s no chance I’ll be able to stay quiet the whole time after this.”
You smile back at him. “As long as you’re around to hear me out.”
His eyes soften then, almost reminding you of the way his eyes used to look like when he was staring at you in the quiet moments all those years ago. “It’s a deal then.”
You nod, and after that, you both spend time in silence, only the sharp clinking of glasses, the rough scraping of the chair against the floor, the distant voices of the tropical nocturnal animals and the gentle breathing of you both to fill the silence. But it is an easy kind of silence, the one which only exist between those who have known each other for a long time, the one which only happen between those with history behind them, the one which doesn’t put any pressure on you to speak and break the blanketing silence - the easy kind of silence that lets you just sit back and indulge in it.
You’ve said the important things to be said - mostly on your part - and there’s a strange kind of calm in your heart, and just like Chuck when he woke up one day with a calm and clear head, you realize that all you’ve got to do is keep on breathing.
Because you’ll never know what the tide will bring tomorrow.
*
When you wake up the next day, the sun is high in the sky, its light streaming through the huge window and pooling at your feet, and you have one hell of a neck cramp because you’ve fallen asleep on the rattan chair.
You’ve got tight muscles in your shoulder and some of your joints make a popping sound as you stretch but it’s been quite some time since you last woke up feeling so nice and alive like this.
The couch in front of you where Michael sat last night is empty - Michael is always an early riser and it looks like that fact hasn’t changed yet. The fan not far from you whirrs, blowing nice fresh air - still smelling like rain and wet soil - against your skin and thank God, the electricity is up.
You push yourself to stand and go to the bathroom, washing your face and brushing your teeth there and - feeling refreshed - go to find his whereabouts.
You find him in the brightly lit kitchen - not as well-equipped as your kitchen in your home is, but much warmer and intimate. He’s facing the stove, an intense concentration on his face that amuses you and a while later he lets out a string of words that you don’t need to understand even one word of German to know that they’re curse words. You can’t stifle your chuckles and he turns around to you and narrows his eyes.
“You could’ve helped me instead of just watching there.”
“Well, good morning to you too, Wilson,” - he snorts derisively at this - “What are you trying to make anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” he mutters, quickly dumping whatever it is in the pan into the bin. You raise your brows and he says, “Why don’t you make some breakfast? Or if you still want some cold sandwiches like last night - “
You shake your head and take the pan from his hand. “I’ve got enough cold sandwiches to last me a lifetime,” you mutter. And brighten up at the thought that, “Hey! Finally - something that I can do much better than you.”
“Tch,” he says as he lifts himself to sit on the high marble island. “Even Corrina cooks better than me, why should that excite you?”
You wave the big spoon, in a chastising manner. “Oh, don’t you dare try taking this moment of pride away from me, Mike.”
He grumbles something back at you, taking a piece of toast (burnt on the edges - God, he can’t even make a toast properly), spreading the butter on it and you watch the bacon sizzling on the pan and say, “Thanks for your help last night, Mike.”
You can feel his eyes watching the back of your head intently for a moment before he replies, “You’re welcome.”
You smile to yourself, at the way he sounds just then (a bit bewildered, a bit happy), at the light feeling in your heart, at the unforeseeable future that lies endlessly in front of you.
And as if he could read your mind, he asks, “What is your plan now then? Where are you going?”
You still don’t know, you admit. But at least the future doesn’t really worry you too much anymore. “I’m just about to figure it out.” And at least everything’s clearer now, and you are sure that when the time comes for you to decide, you’ll think back to last night and the way you’re feeling now, and you’ll be okay. You’ll be able to decide where to go.
He seems to mull over your answer, and when you put his breakfast in front of him, he looks up at you and asks, “But surely you know where to take me today, right?”
You laugh. “I have a place in mind. A secret, but you’ll love it.”
And in an extremely rare occasion, he nods, accepting your answer as it is, without any further question.
You smile, putting fried bacon into your mouth. If the way you feel this morning is any indication, it looks as if today, the tides will bring you many good things.
~end~