Archive of Our Own ^beta

July 2026

Chickens, it’s said, are closer than crocodiles in relation to the T-Rex. Sebastian can believe it - he’s got five of the little bastards, and when it’s time to collect the eggs, it’s usually a case of betting whether he’ll return to the house with all ten fingers intact.

“This is not what we agreed,” Seb tells Thelma, arms folded as he faces down the broodiest of the bunch, ten full minutes after he’d first arrived. “We do this every day; surely you remember by now that you won’t win?”

Thelma, by all accounts, is more ‘malice’ than she is ‘memory.’ She bwokkks accusingly at Seb as he tries edging closer, then flaps her wings in what is so obviously the equivalent of a middle finger that he’s forced to step back.

Meg, growling softly by the door with ears flattened to her head, has obviously had enough of Thelma’s shit too. She won’t let Seb anywhere near the hen house without her protection, though Seb can’t help but think she might be writing cheques her ass can’t cash. ‘Feral Chicken vs. Border Collie’ isn’t likely to make it to the UFC docket anytime soon, but it’s not a match he’d be comfortable betting on, if it did.

“I will get the broom,” Seb says. “It will be embarrassing for both of us, but I’ll do it.”

In the end, it’s not necessary. Seb keeps a rubber bouncy egg on-hand for purposes of deception, and Thelma isn’t quite as smart as she’d like to think.

Louise, Delta, Kylie, and Cate are less troublesome, which is fortunate for Seb, because he’s got two Aussies to feed when they make it back from their workout, and eggs are basically a prerequisite.

They’re especially useful when one of the Aussies is twenty-five, and basically a 5”8 bin when it comes to food consumption. Protein, Seb has long-since learned, is absolutely key.

“Until tomorrow, ladies,” Seb says, backing out of the hen house with Meg hot on his heels. Thelma clucks a clear ‘fuck you’ back at him, and there ‘begins’ Seb’s day.

Mark and Oscar make it back around half an hour later, whilst Seb is in the kitchen, whisking eggs.

Oscar comes in first, takes one look at what Seb is wearing, and smirks. He’s a good kid, Oscar - a future WDC if Mark gets his way - but beyond that, he’s smart, mature, just easy to get along with, even if he was born after the invention of DVDs.

“Looking good, Seb,” Oscar says, crossing to the sink to refill his water bottle. “Didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

Sebastian did, and he hopes the reason why becomes clear when Mark walks in, and immediately rolls his eyes.

“What’s this then? Breakfast and a show?”

“If you’re going to treat me like a house-husband,” Seb says, tilting his hips so that the pink lace pinny he’s wearing swishes slightly over his jeans, “I thought I should at least look the part.”

“Not in front of the kid,” Mark says, grinning as he drops a sweaty kiss on Seb’s cheek, then peers down at the breakfast prep. “Those from today?”

“Yes,” Seb says, fishing about in their drawer for a non-stick pan. “Risked life and limb against a hen who feeds off human suffering.”

“Appreciate it,” Mark says. “When Osc wins the Red Bull Ring next week, he’ll buy you something pretty.”

“I like jewellery,” Seb tells Oscar, then combines the hard-won eggs with salt, pepper, avocado, and toast, to serve up a breakfast fit for kings.

It’s a quiet day, all told, or at least a very normal one. With Mark and Oscar off doing race prep and strategies, Seb has time to sit down at his own desk. He’s got a pile of emails, everything from SailGP admin to Christian Horner (frankly) whining about his soon-to-be lack of legendary drivers. Then there’s the animals, the vegetables (he’s missing ‘minerals’), texts from his mum complaining about her new phone, texts from his sisters complaining that Mum can’t use her new phone— and at the end of it, there’s dinner on the couch with Mark, Oscar having departed again for his own home, then Silent Witness, then cuddling, then bed.

He has a wonderful life, Seb thinks, as he lets his eyes slide shut in the darkness, Mark already snoring softly beside him.

He’s long-since made peace with it not featuring a baby.

**

Being an omega comes with a few inevitabilities, social and biological.

The social side bothers Sebastian less these days than when he was still racing - it’s ultimately easier to accept people will, likely, always be awful when it’s not being shoved in your face 24/7, even more-so when you also have a handful of race records, four championships, and a deeply handsome husband to your name.

Biological is a bit trickier; on the one hand, heats and hormones have been a reality for Seb since he was about seventeen, but on the other, that doesn’t mean things are impervious to change.

It’s Mark who mentions it first, though in all honesty, Sebastian’s been thinking about it for a while.

“Shouldn’t you be due a heat?”

“Yeah,” Seb says. They’re on the couch like it’s any other Wednesday night, but he’s been putting off hammering this particular nail into the coffin. “Three weeks ago, actually. Not sure what’s going on.”

He has his suspicions, of course. Chief among them is the concept of a certain window slamming permanently closed, but Seb hasn’t truly stressed over that in years, so it’s basically registered on ‘mute.’ “I think I’ll book an appointment, see if they can run some tests.”

“Good plan,” Mark says, and they say nothing else about it until Mark kisses him goodbye as he leaves for the GP surgery three days later.

Sebastian’s never loved these places, and his feelings towards the British healthcare system have shifted fairly significantly in either direction since moving here eight years prior. The NHS is an invaluable resource, of that much he’s certain. The extent to which governments, and citizens, seek to cripple, or misuse, resources is another issue, and one Seb can’t truly reconcile with, beyond choosing to seek private healthcare for himself.

It’s either grotesque hypocrisy, or leaving space on the waiting list for people who can’t afford private, depending on the day, and doesn’t make much of a difference overall, when Seb is called through to a deeply clinical white square of a doctor’s office.

The doctor herself is nice at least - a young-ish woman from Hampshire, who appears (or at least pretends to) know nothing about Formula One, which suits Seb just fine.

“I’ve had your urine sample back,” Dr. Harvey says, “and to set your mind at rest, everything looks fine.”

“Good,” Seb says, a fear he’d not even considered entering, then exiting, his mind within the space of a few seconds. Truth be told, he’s got very little time to spare for this - medical confirmation of what he’s felt coming for years.

Folks used to call Sebastian ‘arrogant.’ He’d like it on record that these days, it only applies during very specific circumstances.

“So I guess we’re talking about ‘the passing of time?’”

“Not quite,” Dr. Harvey says. “I read from your appointment request that you suspect you’re experiencing premature menopause. I can tell you now, Sebastian, that’s not the case.”

Seb’s not a doctor; he’s aware of this, but he’s also aware that it’s impossible to diagnose, or rule out, premature perimenopause without blood tests, and what’s more, he’s always been regular as clockwork. There would have to be a crazy reason - a massive, toppling, utterly insane fucking reason - for Seb to put off seeking a second opinion.

And around five seconds later, Dr. Harvey gives him one, when she sets her face and says, with total certainty:

“You’re not menopausal, you’re pregnant.”

It doesn’t register, not at all. She may as well have said ‘aliens have landed!’, or unzipped a skin suit to reveal she’s actually been Claudia Schiffer all along. 

“That’s not possible,” Seb says, with practiced ease. “Maybe it’s not in your records, but I’ve been reliably assured that I can’t conceive.”

He’s done his fair share of arguing with doctors over this, but if he’s learned anything from five years of pushing back when every GP or specialist he saw for migraines, stomach upset, fucking bronchitis, insisted his first step should be a pregnancy test, it’s that his best recourse is to stay calm, and let them try and prove him wrong.

It goes, almost, the way it usually does. When directed, Seb hops up onto an examination table and lifts his t-shirt up whilst Dr. Harvey prepares an ultrasound doppler. He’s already got his mind on other things - work, veterinarian bills, his dinner plans with Mark - so much so that he doesn’t initially pay attention, when Dr. Harvey begins touring his abdomen via the monitor.

“So this is your uterus here,” she says, pointing, and Seb only stops just short of rolling his eyes.

“I’m familiar with it.”

“I’m sure,” Dr. Harvey says. She’s smiling, not smug, but genuinely pleased, when she taps a fingernail against a tiny, greyed-out shape onscreen. “Have you ever seen it looking like that?”

Seb blinks, and even as he does, the little shape seems almost to flicker.

“No,” he says slowly. “Never like that, no.”

“This arc above is the amniotic sack,” Dr. Harvey says. It’s like she’s operating in slow motion, her voice as well as her movements, and finally her smile, as it widens even further on her face. “… and you see that little flutter?”

Seb just nods, not trusting his voice.

“That’s the heartbeat,” she says, as Seb’s world tilts on its axis. “It’s early, but it’s there.”

“How—” Sebastian tries, realising latterly that that’s an entire question on its own. “How early?”

“I’d say about seven or eight weeks,” the doctor says, as Seb tries to count, thinking back to his last heat, and getting absolutely nowhere.

It’s not just shock, he realises, but something ultimately seismic, capable of shaking the entire bedrock of what he’s spent years learning to accept. If he’s really pregnant, how much more of what he believes about himself is actually false? Is he actually straight, or not allergic to pineapple? Did he ever race competitively? Does he even know how to drive?

He doesn’t realise he’s crying, silent tears slipping down his cheeks, until Dr. Harvey is holding a box of tissues out in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” Seb says. “Sorry— it’s a shock, is all. My husband and I— we tried for years.” He takes a second tissue, loudly blows his nose. “I don’t mean to make a scene.”

“You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last,” Dr. Harvey says. She’s still smiling, Seb notices, but with none of the pity that so often follows an ‘admission’ of infertility. “That’s true for the crying, but also for your circumstances; I’ve met so many couples who gave up after years without success, only to fall pregnant once they stopped ‘trying.’”

It’s not the first time Seb’s hearing that platitude, but it is the first time he’s believed it’s anything other than bullshit, false hope meant to comfort the hopeless.

“Do you know if they offer refunds for in-vitro?” Seb asks without thinking, and fortunately for him, Dr. Harvey laughs. Either she also falls back on humour to cope with shock, or she understands that some people do, and it doesn’t make a massive difference to Seb either way.

He’s very recently realised he’s going to have bigger things to think about.

“I’ll take some bloods, then send you home with an appointment for a twelve-week ultrasound,” Dr. Harvey says, as Seb, for his part, just nods. “If you think it would help you process, maybe grab an at-home test to show your other half?”

It’s not a bad plan, not least because Seb hasn’t even started to think about how he’s going to explain this to Mark. There’s clearly value in one person being clear-headed for this process, but he doesn’t think he can realistically ask Dr. Harvey to come home and do it for him.

“Thank you,” Seb says as he gathers himself. It seems a deeply unserious thing to say to the woman who’s just changed his life with a few words, but for now it’s all he’s got. “I— really. You don’t know how much easier you’ve made this.”

“You’re welcome,” Dr. Harvey says, and then she does something Seb isn’t expecting, and puts her hand on his arm. “No one should ever have told you it was impossible.”

It’s the most comforting, and most devastating, thing Seb’s heard all day. He somehow makes it all the way to the car before he bursts into tears.

**

Sebastian has never been much of a fantasist, but there did come a point, after maybe the second or third round of IVF, where he began to imagine how he would, finally, tell Mark they were going to be parents.

They’ve never really operated from a place of sentiment - not the gooey, ‘Hallmark’ version, at least. They don’t do Valentine’s Day, they’ve never written poems, or made sweeping declarations. Neither one of them can remember the exact date they actually got together, and Mark had proposed during a blazing row in the middle of La Rambla, Seb yelling his response, dragging Mark fifteen minutes back to their hotel, and sucking him off, all before he actually got a ring on his finger.

The parenthood stuff though, that was always different. Polar opposites in almost every other way, they were utterly undivided on the idea of being dads, and in the years following, Seb would come to think that their biggest fuck-up was taking totally for granted that it would be possible.

It seemed unimaginably unfair, for the longest time. Almost nothing about their relationship had been easy in the early days; was it so unreasonable to hope that falling pregnant might be? But as the months turned to years, and finally, after four rounds of in-vitro, a rejected adoption application, and more tears, and fights, than either of them thought possible, it was Seb himself who said they should stop, and Mark who came to him after days of silence, with two tickets to the Seychelles in-hand.

But even as they adjusted, as they rediscovered a love for one another beyond the once-impassable gap in the life they’d imagined, Seb never fully forgot his ‘Plan,’ even if he eventually learned to accept he would never get to see it enacted.

That is, until today. Today, once he makes it home from the hospital, the only thing he manages is collapsing on the couch, head empty of anything except the overwhelming shock.

He cries on and off throughout the day, and it seems disingenuous to blame it on hormones, because he’s apparently been pregnant a while now, and he’s not been weeping into his lunch before now.

Meg refuses to leave his side the whole time, but Sebastian knows he must seem in a real state hours later when Mark arrives home, and she doesn’t rush off to greet him at the door.

Mark calls his usual ‘hello,’ but Seb’s voice abruptly locks up in his throat. Forget plans, he can’t even speak, and the reality of that is maybe the most terrifying of them all.

If he can’t manage ‘hi,’ what hope does he have for telling his husband all the mourning they’ve done now needs to be readdressed?

“That was a pisser,” Mark says, apparently nonplussed as he makes his way into their living room, bag hitting the floor as he goes. “A week to go ‘til Spa, and Zak’s still got in his head he knows better than the bloody engineers - the folks telling him and Andrea that Oscar’s got a better chance of extracting pace out or that fucking tractor than Norris.” He flops down on the couch, moves in to kiss Seb— and only then realises exactly what he’s walked into.

The gift of hindsight will, eventually, allow Sebastian to realise what must’ve been going through Mark’s head in that moment. To come home and find your husband on the couch, tear-stained and silent, when he had a doctor’s appointment scheduled is, by any estimate, Not the Best, but Seb’s not got it in him right now to perform. He needs Mark to do the work right now and ask, and although Mark can be occasionally dense on the nuances, he’s always known Seb pretty well.

“What’s happened?” he asks, Seb’s hand inside his within all of a second. “What did they say?”

There are a great many things Sebastian has come to know about Mark through the years, several things he’s commented on, and several he’s kept to himself, like a secret only he should know.

The fact that he’d feel less nervous telling Mark he has cancer, than what he’s about to reveal, falls emphatically into that second box, if only because he knows exactly how Mark would respond. That would be new emotion - a new problem to solve, not the re-cutting of old scars.

They’ve been handed a blessing, by any sane person’s estimate— but Sebastian has just mentally compared his own pregnancy to cancer, and that’s probably worth at least three months of therapy in and of itself.

He can’t tell Mark. He can’t— except for the fact that he can.

“I’m not sick,” he forces past the lump in his throat, and it’s worth it for the way Mark’s face relaxes, even if just slightly.

For all he’s struggled, sat with the dog all day and sobbed, the truth of it comes out in a rush.

“Mark— I’m pregnant.”

Seb watches his husband hear it, process, sit back on the couch once he realises Seb’s serious—  and then, thank God, tighten his grip on Seb’s hand.

After that, neither of them says anything for a very long time.

**

SEVEN

It’s not an easy conversation, nor a short one. Mark winds up ordering dinner from the one pub in Aston Clinton that delivers, since given the circumstances, neither of them can cook.

Neither of them can really eat either, as it turns out; they pick at sausages and mashed potatoes for an hour or more, before consigning both plates to the floor for Meg to hoover up.

“If there’s onion in that gravy, we’re in for a world of hurt.”

Seb just chuckles, wetly, then tries burrowing further into Mark’s absolute landscape of a chest. He doesn’t normally need it, not unless absolutely desperate with heat, and it’s been a long time since Mark has been anything but immediately available to help him there.

Maybe it’s the inverse of exactly that, doing the work. It’s that or accept he’s vulnerable, and there’s still a part of Seb at twenty-two in him that rejects the very concept.

“I’m old for this now,” Mark says, at some point, his fingers stroking methodically through Seb’s hair as he talks. “I mean, shit— over fifty before they can throw or catch a ball? Coming up seventy when they graduate?” He huffs out a long breath, one Seb feels against his ear as Mark exhales again. “That’s a load more years than we originally thought.”

“I don’t have to have it,” Seb murmurs. He knows the second he says it that it would kill him, but the words are right there, and they’re honest, and need to be said. “We worked so hard to be happy without kids. Would it be so bad, if things just stayed the same?”

“No,” Mark says, after a beat. “But I think we’d always wonder, and honestly, the fear of being in a wheelchair at graduation is less of an issue than regretting not even trying to be there.” He tightens his grip just slightly, then slips his palm around, raising Seb’s face so that their gazes meet. “What do you think?”

It’s a question worth well more than a million. Shit, it’s a question without limits, one Seb never thought he’d had to consider.

The thing is, there’s one more barrier to cross, one he now thinks may have been at the very heart of this issue from the second he saw the foetus onscreen.

“What if I can’t do it?” he asks. “What if it comes away, or— dies inside me? How do we—“ A great and terrible fucking sob sneaks up on Sebastian, before he can prepare. “How do we ever make it back from that?”

“We just do,” Mark says, a long while later. “We pop them in the garden; we plant a tree, and we talk to them every day, let them know they were loved, and let each other know we’re still parents.”

He presses kiss after kiss against Sebastian’s forehead, and the strange, uniquely-Mark thing about it is that Seb doesn’t ever feel like he’s being coaxed.

He has the answer on his lips at the end of the day - all that’s left is to say it.

Once he does, they both end up crying, and then to bed— and then shortly thereafter, up again when Meg, four sausages and two plates of potatoes down, makes a real mess of the kitchen.

“Near-helpless creatures puking all over me,” Mark says, wielding the mop like a weapon as Meg, ultimately healthy and totally and unbothered, slobbers all over Seb. “Better get used to that, hey?”

**

EIGHT

Mark goes to Spa only because Seb insists, something he regrets almost the second the car pulls off the gravel, and he realises that save for the animals, he’s completely alone.

Seb needn’t have worried, nor made the mistake of thinking Mark would listen to a word he said. He’s back by the time it’s barely dark, having apparently attended Gatwick for collection, rather than departure.

“Even for England, the weather is shit,” Kimi says, grinning as he pulls back from their embrace, Meg going predictably berserk. “So glad I came.”

“Kiitos,” Sebastian tells him, close to completely overwhelmed. “I never— what has Mark told you?”

“None of the detail,” Mark says, shutting the door on the rain and wind of a typical British summertime outside. “Just that you could do with a mate, and that since I’m skipping Spa, I’ll need to be on the remote call with Osc.”

“Thank you,” Seb murmurs, and Mark pulls him close, kissing the top of his head, as Kimi roams off to find the toilet. “I started kicking myself before you were even off the drive.”

“It’s almost like I know you, hey?” Mark gives him another kiss, then a light pat on the backside. “Go on through. I’ll take Kimi’s stuff up to the spare, then make the tea.”

“You’ve gone native,” Seb says, but he’s smiling for what feels like the first time in days as he wanders through to the lounge.

It’s nice in here with the lights on low, a portable A/C unit pumping out into the stifling, pre-storm summer air, and the smell of sandalwood from one of Seb’s many scented beeswax candles. He settles on the couch, lifting an arm so Meg can jump up too and cuddle close, her chin going over Seb’s thigh. The simple comfort of it is immense, a feeling that only compounds when his very dear friend enters, and immediately sticks his feet, shoes still on, up onto the coffee table.

“Mark will cut your ankles off,” Seb says, to which Kimi just shrugs.

“In Finland, we call this ‘foreplay.’”

Mark brings the tea, replaces Kimi’s immediately with a Diet Coke, then backs out of the room to give them time to talk.

They’d made a plan, in the week since Seb’s appointment. With the risk and fear of miscarriage worrying Seb as much as it is, it was actually Mark who suggested they break the supposed ‘rule’ on secrecy ‘til twelve weeks, and find someone else he can confide in, besides Mark, should the worst happen.

Seb knows he’s made the right choice when Kimi says nothing, and just gives him the space to speak. It takes him about an hour to get through it all, including the context; he thinks Kimi and Minttu might have suspected they’d had problems conceiving, but Seb never said anything, and Kimi’s hardly the type to ask, so the whole saga has gone largely unsaid.

When he gets to the part about the pregnancy, Kimi’s eyebrow goes up just slightly— but he maintains his silence, even when Seb starts to tear up.

He doesn’t even speak right after Seb has finished. What he does instead is set his Coke down, get to his feet, and drag Sebastian up into a crushing hug.

It’s the surprise that gets him, Seb thinks, but Kimi’s customarily ‘polite,’ and doesn’t so much as comment on all the tears.

Mark brings tissues, and more drinks, and Kimi shakes his hand, as Seb explains the logic behind their little ‘confession.’

“You can always call,” Kimi says, catching Mark’s eye as he slides, once again, out of the room. “I might even show up.”

Seb laughs, and God, it does feel good to do so. It’s morbid, really - they’ve dragged his old friend over from Italy to wrap him up in a ‘failsafe’ comms strategy for miscarriage, but there’s no value to be found in wallowing in the ‘what if’s?’ That’s almost the whole point of this conversation, after all; as Mark says, they might not be able to control what happens, but they can prepare for impact just in case

Seb isn’t about to wax lyrical with the racing analogies, claim Kimi is his halo… but he is also tangentially aware that the main reason he won’t is because Kimi would never speak to him again, if he did.

“I’m happy for you,” Kimi says, at length. “They are little shits, and they cost a lot of money.”

“But you’re happy for us?” Seb hedges, smirking, and Kimi nods slowly.

“Driving was a hobby because they are my life,” he says, and rather than get lost in the incredible honesty, and sentiment, of that, Seb nods, and accepts Kimi’s gentle punch to the arm.

“You want to hear something ironic?” he asks, and when Kimi grunts, Sebastian starts chuckling again. “Not long ago, I gave Daniel Ricciardo a guilt trip about parenthood.”

Kimi huffs, shakes his head, then kicks his sneakers back up onto the table.

“Should have slowed your roll. Just think of how much better your ‘advice’ would be now.”

**

NINE

A week later, Mark is packing to leave for Hungary, when Seb makes a spontaneous decision.

“I’m going to come with you.”

Mark raises an eyebrow, looking up from balling socks.

“You sure?” he asks. “Not that you can’t, obviously, but you sure you want to?”

“Yes,” Seb says. He’s thought about it, or rather, he’s thought about what another weekend with only the dog and his own thoughts might earn him. “I can’t sit around a second longer, Mark. I’d rather watch the race, keep Daniel company while you’re busy.”

“Fair point,” Mark says, then: “You thinking about telling him?”

That’s typical of Mark, really - a question that balances the fact he’d desperately like to know what Seb is planning, alongside implicit assurance he’s not going to insist Seb respond a certain way.

“No,” Seb says, handing Mark his clean sleep shirt, where it has slipped onto the floor. “This is still their time, and Max’s last ‘race.’ Daniel’s got enough to think about.”

That’s not the real reason, of course. That’s saying nothing of the fact Seb doesn’t know if he can stand to be around Daniel, so noticeably (and deservedly) happy about his own impending parenthood, and have him know Seb is so terrified about the security of his own. Better, Seb thinks, to keep it to himself for now.

It does make him wish he’d not been quite so candid with Daniel in Japan, but he can stand by that being a NET-win, given the circumstances.

Seb manages to book a seat right across the aisle in the end. He settles in, says a polite hello to the elderly woman sat on his right, then stretches his ankles under the seat in front with a sigh.

Mark, across the way, just rolls his eyes, trying and failing to squeeze his egregiously long legs into the same amount of space.

“Sometimes I fucking hate that you have principles.” He struggles a while longer, before settling as he usually has to, with one foot in the aisle. “There’d be a lot more legroom in First Class. Just saying.”

“You booked your own ticket,” Sebastian says, grinning. “Just saying.”

It’s not a long flight, and they’re in economy, so there’s no tv screens on the backs of the seats. It doesn’t bother Seb, who’s brought a book— but it does make for more foot-traffic up and down, particularly kids insisting they need the bathroom.

Much as it’s a Reminder for Seb, part of wanting children is, usually, enjoying or at least appreciating the nonsense they get up to, and the hilarious things they say.

There’s another aspect as well, when a little lad of about five comes to a skidding stop beside Seb, his little mouth falling open in awe.

“Hello,” Seb says, smiling when the boy’s eyes practically bulge. “You were in a real hurry there.”

“Teddy? Te— shit, I’m sorry.” The lad’s father appears behind him, puts a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t fly often, he’s a little excited.” Seb gets to see the exact moment his brow furrows. “Sorry,” he says again. “It’s just you’re the image of—”

“Sebastian,” Seb says, heart near to melting in his chest when he offers Teddy a hand to shake, and the little guy lights up with joy. “It’s very nice to meet you both.”

He signs Teddy’s colouring book, asks him questions about go-karts and his favourite races whilst his dad looks on. He’s clearly an F1 fan too, and was actually alive during Seb’s championship era, but he waits until they’re about to walk away to say his piece.

“Thank you, really, you’ve probably made his year. He’s obsessed with F1– and if you don’t mind…” He leans closer, a respectable distance still, but one where he’s apparently hoping they somehow won’t be overheard. “What you helped do for omegas in sport…”

Something flickers across his face Seb recognises on instinct alone, feels it rippling across the small space between them, that primal form of recognition saying me too. I’m like you. “Well. It meant more than I can say.”

“Thank you,” Seb says. He taps his wrist just-so against the other man’s, a universal gesture of kinship. “I’m extremely glad to hear it.”

Little Teddy turns to wave a final goodbye as his dad starts ushering him away, but Seb beckons him conspiratorially back.

“Would you like to know a secret?” When Teddy nods, Seb does the same over the aisle, then ‘whispers:’ “That’s Mark Webber.”

Teddy’s eyes go ‘supernova,’ and when Mark has finished saying hello to Teddy and his dad, and adding his own signature to the colouring book, Seb leans his head back against the seat, and enjoys the small smile on his husband’s face.

He can’t say for sure what Mark is thinking when he meets his gaze, but it’s most definitely fond.  

**

STILL NINE

Much as it’s nice to see Daniel, Seb nudges him off the second the race ends, because he doesn’t think he’s got it in him to see Max Verstappen with a full baby bump.

The hotel room is stifling when Seb enters it, so he quickly changes his mind about a warm shower. He switches the water to chilled instead, then gets re-dressed and heads back out into the sun, baseball cap pulled on and low to cover his face.

There’s not much to do in Mogyoród save for water slides, or visiting the Hungaroring, but that suits Seb just fine – so long as there’s road in front of him, he’s usually able to follow it. He walks and walks, only vaguely aware of the direction, and not at all aware of the time, until residential streets give way to fields and woodland, and some part of Seb instinctively relaxes.

His mother always says Sebastian was a child of nature; when his head wasn’t getting turned by machines and the scent of petrol, he was always happiest in water or up trees, baiting Melanie and Steffi, and much later, Fabian, into playing with mud. Seb lost count of the number of scraped knees Mama patched up, the amount of ice cubes she pressed to lumps and bumps on his head. It was no surprise to her, or to anyone, when he and Mark headed to the countryside, when they adopted a string of working dogs, built beehives and bought chickens, and started growing vegetables. It’s the life he wanted after it all, and Seb’s never been shy about seeking those goals.

The spirit of it - of who he’s always been - is all around him in the air, and the fields, as he walks, and wonders how it’s possible to feel so ‘unchanged,’ when nothing about him is ever going to be the same again, either way.

He starts retracing his steps when the temperature drops, only thinking then to check his phone— and realising when he does that not only is it gone-eight at night, he’s completely forgotten to switch on his international data.

The results aren’t great, once he does: five missed calls from Mark, three from Daniel, two from Max, and a handful of texts from all three.

There’s no point calling Mark now; he’ll be going frantic either way, so Seb sends him a quick text to let him know he’s ok, then consigns his phone to its pocket for the rest of the trek back.

“For fuck sake,” are Mark’s first words when Seb lets himself into their room. “Jesus fucking Christ, Seb, what were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says. “There’s nothing else to say, really - much as he might need his space, there’s no excuse to just vanish without a word, particularly abroad, and when his mental health is on shaky ground. “I’m so sorry, Mark— I had to walk, and I completely lost track of time.”

“No shit,” Mark says, shaking his head. His hair is a wreck, Seb dreads to think how hard he’s been tugging at it. “Six hours, Seb; I was about to call the fucking police.”

It’s a stark reminder of something Seb’s managed to forget over the last hours - that it’s not just him dealing with this unbelievable shift in their lives. Once he’s reasonably sure Mark’s not going to flinch away, he steps closer, buries his face against Mark’s neck as his husband’s arms come up around him.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t think. I should have.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, thickly. “You should’ve.” But he kisses Seb’s temple anyway, and then his lips, as the residual fury runs off into scentable relief. “Where’d you even go, anyway? You’ve got to be exhausted.”

Seb is, now he thinks about it. He’s still fairly fit, used to running with Meg, and long cycle rides in summer— but there’s real fatigue in his bones right now that he can’t ignore, one that he’s realised he’s been feeling for weeks, even if they only just recently learned why. Truth be told, he’d like to go face-down on the bed right now, but he can’t without a discussion, not unless he wants the next trophy he hoists to be one for World’s Shittiest Husband.

“I didn’t want to see Max,” Sebastian says as they sit down on the bed, and Mark’s gaze softens slightly, in understanding. “I know it would have been hard for you too. I know I will have to get used all over again to seeing people pregnant, or with their children, but I didn’t want to be selfish, and ended up doing something very selfish all the same.” He puts his hand on Mark’s leg, hoping he’ll feel Sebastian’s remorse more completely through contact. “Forgive me?”

Mark sighs, but he does nod, then pulls Seb in against his side.

“Have to, don’t I? Took some vows a while back, if you remember.” He pushes up to his feet, crosses to the minibar and brings back two waters Seb is absolutely convinced he wishes were whiskeys. “Ric and Verstappen though - might have to work a little harder on them.”

Seb texts both whilst Mark is in the shower, gets a pair of Tirades back, but figures he probably deserves them.

He can’t settle, not when Mark orders them both stir fry via room service, nor after when they’re slumped on the crap hotel couch, wishing Meg was sat at their feet. It’s insane to think about - Seb’s walked miles, and everything surface-level is just screaming at him to sleep, to consign all this to the morning, and leave it on Future Sebastian’s plate.

He does get there eventually, when they’ve headed to bed, and the darkness and the silence manage to convince him they’re at home - in a place Seb will head out to fight chickens in the morning, and absolutely anything can be said.

“I don’t know why I’m not happy,” he says, only becoming aware that Mark is, in fact, awake, when he puts a hand on Seb’s chest.

He might well have been speaking to an empty room for all Sebastian knew— but it’s infinitely better to not be, so he presses on.

“I’ve wanted your baby more than I’ve wanted anything. Who would be unhappy? What—” He takes a deep breath, feels his chest lift Mark’s hand, then return it down. “Who is anyone, to feel anything but happy about their greatest dream coming true?”

“D’you feel that way because you’re scared,” Mark asks, “or because it’s the one thing you never got to actually have?”

Mark is solid next to him, and even if his words are difficult to hear, Seb doesn’t doubt their veracity.

“Both, maybe,” he says into the ever-forgiving dark. “I have my nature, and I have my feelings— and in either case, I can’t stand to fail.”

Mark’s silent a good while then, but his hand continues its steady pace up and down, up and down, a metronome Seb has come to know well.

“I think you’ll be happy,” he says at last. “I’m not about to tell you when, Seb, or how— just that I can’t wait to see it.”

“You can’t, hm?”

“I can’t.” Mark’s lips find his in the dark, gently searching, meant to comfort. “You’re going to glow, I bet. It’ll be like we always imagined.”

They fall asleep like that, Mark’s hand on Sebastian’s chest— then make coffee the next morning like nothing has happened, because as far as they’re concerned, it hasn’t.

A page has been turned, a mistake made, then forgiven— and as Sebastian heads out of Hungary still unsure of his pregnancy, he’s grateful to feel no such way about his marriage.

**

TWELVE

Mark’s right in the end, and has his point proven not long after they attend their first official scan.

‘Twelve weeks’ has seemed a pure concept to Sebastian until now - a measure of time in general, or just a measure of weeks between results, between championships.

It takes on a new meaning, the day he sits with Mark, and they see that the former ‘heartbeat’ has become a whole baby, onscreen. 

“Hol— wow,” Mark says, gathering Seb’s hand up in his own as they both stare at the screen. It’s like watching a pane of glass shatter; Mark tenses, then lets  go— and then it’s like a cascade of emotions, Mark’s other hand held up to his mouth, then pressed over it, like he’s trying to keep a helpless noise inside.

Seb’s been here before in theory, but it’s a different beast altogether, watching Mark’s reaction. That and the heartbeat is actually audible this time, a speedy thrumming that quickly becomes Seb’s favourite sound in all the world.

“The V10 could never,” he murmurs, and Mark starts chuckling from behind his hand.

They’ve got a different specialist this time - a midwife and sonographer who introduces herself as Julie. She’s more ‘old-school’ than Dr. Harvey had been, grey haired and slightly severe, with absolutely no habit of mincing words.

Fortunately enough, 99% of the words she has to say are positive.

“Baby looks happy in there,” she says, manipulating the ultrasound wand across Seb’s belly. “Since you’ve consented to trisomy screening, I’m comfortable saying you’re low-risk, but there’s another test we can carry out later, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you,” Seb says. They’ve discussed it ahead of time, deciding that with no history of genetic conditions in either family, and being determined to love and raise their child regardless, there was no need for invasive tests unless absolutely necessary.

“That’s fine,” Julie says, tapping notes onto her monitor. “Looking at the scan, I’d put you at eleven-plus-four, which gives you a due date of approximately the fourteenth of April.”

“Spring baby,” Mark says. His grin has reached such a width that Seb’s starting to worry for the structure of his jaw. “Sounds perfect.”

“I’ll reschedule you for another scan in eight weeks,” Julie says. “In the meantime, there are some supplements for you to take, and give us a call with any concerns.”

She tears a strip off a prescription pad, hands it to Seb, then gets to her feet. “I’ll give you some time. When you’re ready, head to reception to collect your photos.”

“Thank you,” Mark says, but he’s got eyes for no one and nothing but Seb, and the frozen monitor image of their baby, as Julie heads out of the room.

It’s like time slows right down, when she does. Seb’s eyes are misty, his heart right up in the back of his throat, and his only regret is that there’s not enough space on the examination table to pull Mark onto it beside him.

Mark isn’t nearly so frozen; he can’t seem to stop kissing Seb’s cheeks, his lips, laughing softly like there’s a great joke only he and the baby are aware of, and the very concept has Seb’s heart flipping, when he realises he’s picturing it happening for real, a decade down the line.

“What’s wrong?” Mark asks, still smiling, as he wipes away tears Seb (again) hadn’t realised he’s shedding.

“Nothing,” Seb says. The laugh that escapes, unbidden, from his chest, is soggy, but very, very real. “Just— it’s really something, no?”

“It’s everything,” Mark says, and they don’t leave each other’s embrace for a while, in the aftermath.

**

The bubble Seb’s sat in doesn’t exactly burst, but it does take a slight hit later that day, when they receive the requested clinical notes from his scan.

“‘Geriatric?’” Seb seethes, after. Mark, for his part, has yet to stop laughing. “Fucking ‘geriatric?’ Are they taking the piss?”

“It’s a generic term, love,” Mark tries, but he’s still smirking, so Seb levels him with a very pronounced finger.

“‘Generic’ my ass; das ist lächerlich, I am thirty-eight years old.” The notes seem almost to be smirking at him, and Seb shuts the laptop lid with a contemptuous sound. “If I am a ‘geriatric,’ you must be already in the grave.”

“Cheers for that,” Mark says. He puts a cup of tea down in front of Seb, then takes the seat next to him on the couch. “Chin up, hey? Far as I know, ‘geriatric’ applies to—“

“Do not say ‘anyone over thirty-five’ to me, Mark,” Seb warns, “do not. It is a ridiculous term that inspires no faith in a person’s ability to successfully deliver.”

Seb could go on a while - it is, in fact, one of his more pronounced qualities. Still, he realises how well Mark truly knows him when he looks up to find his husband’s eyes trained on him, a knowing, thankfully less combative, smile on his face.

“You done?” he asks, and when Seb grunts, then grudgingly sips his tea, he gets another chuckle in response. “Look, I know you know this, so I won’t labor the point: all it really means is they’ll be keeping a closer eye on you both. If we’re being totally honest, Seb, is that really a bad thing?”

It’s not, and Seb knows it. It’s a non-issue, in the grand scheme, and he knows that too; what’s difficult is balancing what he knows to be true against any sort of implication he could’ve done things differently, whilst also trying his best to remember ‘ignorance’ or ‘thoughtlessness’ doesn’t always equal ‘unkindness.’

It’s been a veritable merry-go-round in his head for years, but Seb does, eventually, manage to step off, and tell his husband exactly what’s niggling.

“‘Geriatric’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘competent,’” he says slowly. “In some cases, it doesn’t even mean ‘capable.’”

“I get it,” Mark starts, but he doesn’t, and Seb realises in the same moment that his only option is to be cruel.

“No one ever said you couldn’t make a baby, Mark.”

The silence that follows is the longest, by Seb’s estimation, since the day he told Mark he wanted to stop trying.

The difference this time is that Mark doesn’t walk out. Instead, he puts his arms around Seb until they’re both breathing at-normal— and then he makes them both another cup of tea, and murmurs his apologies against Seb’s hair as they scrunch together on the couch.

“I’m happy,” Seb hears himself say, even as he feels Mark nodding gently against his scalp.

“I know.” Mark kisses his brow, “I’m glad. And I won’t ever ruin that again.”

Seb believes him, and that, ultimately, is the most important thing of all.

**

FOURTEEN

As his first trimester comes to an end, Seb notices two fairly significant changes: first, that his favourite jeans are growing uncomfortably tight, and second—

“What’s she doing?” Mark asks one night, peering over his glasses as Meg makes her fourth, fairly insistent, attempt of the night to shove herself between them on the couch.

“I don’t know,” Seb says, and it’s not exactly a lie. Meg is typically ‘their’ dog, equally affectionate, equally protective. This last week, though, she’s been glued to Seb like she’s made of Velcro— and only now he’s started to show does Seb gain a slight suspicion as to why. It bears testing; “Give me your hand a moment?”

Mark obliges, and when Seb places his husband’s arm around his neck, and Meg doesn’t react, Seb thinks he might just have cracked it. He’s proven right seconds later, when he moves Mark’s hand to the slight bulge of his stomach, and Meg immediately breaks out a low growl.

“Oh shit,” Mark says, clearly amused, as he starts testing Seb’s hypothesis for himself.

It’s like flicking a radio on and off between silence and static; Meg couldn’t give two shits if Mark is touching Seb, but the second he goes near Seb’s bump—

“No,” Sebastian tells her firmly. Funny, and incredibly sweet, though it is, it’s not behaviour they need to encourage. “Don’t look at me like that. You needn’t think I’ll be the only one touching the baby when it’s out.”

“Ssssh,” Mark tells her, “close those ears. Tell Papa you won’t tolerate Dad changing a single nappy.”

“Tell your Dad,” Sebastian says, “he can kiss my ass.”

It takes them about an hour, in the end, to settle her— but in the end, Meg is willing to accept ‘Dad’ laying down with one arm curved over ‘Papa’s’ bump, even if she refuses to move even an inch from Seb’s side.

“Is that what you want them to call us?” Mark asks a while later, and Seb, already committed to snoozing in his husband’s arms, creaks one eye open to grin.

“We’d better, no? Can’t go confusing the bodyguard.”

Meg pipes up with a bark from the floor, as Seb realises, yeah— they’d better get used to a whole new definition of ‘our’ baby.’

**

SEVENTEEN

Part of trying to get pregnant, or even wanting to try, means learning a great deal about all of the hideous fucking things that can befall you, during.

Seb’s been anticipating the sickness like the truly paranoid anticipate a serial killer around every corner, and it’s not without merit - Seb’s sisters both suffered, Melanie so badly, and for so long, that she and Francois decided to call it a day after one. As Seb clears twelve weeks, thirteen, then fourteen, he’s read everything going, but it still takes Mark to point out—-

“Second trimester, Seb. If you’ve not started hurling by now, you probably won’t at all.”

How fourteen weeks - seven since they first found out - have passed, Seb has no fucking idea. White-knuckling each and every day must come with a ‘coping’ clause, because even though Seb is happy, it doesn’t mean he’s any less terrified. It’s a different kind of fear now, he assumes - one that’s likely considered ‘normal,’ as opposed to ‘overtly anxious.’

The idea that he’s also ‘lucky’ sneaks in around Week Sixteen, and it seems so obvious a conclusion that Seb has to ask why the fuck it’s taken so long for him to realise it. ‘Lucky’ ought to have been at the front of his brain from the very beginning. But even as it sinks in - as sixteen weeks turns in a blink to seventeen, then eighteen, and suddenly only a fortnight from when they’re due to see their baby at the next scan - the thought leaves a slightly sour taste in his mouth.

‘Luck,’ after all, is most often cited by the folks who’ve sailed through the storm to a success.

“You look stressed,” Mark says, the eve of eighteen-plus-four. His voice jolts Seb to such a degree that he can’t realistically deny it, not that he should even want to… but he is who he is, as is Mark— so Seb’s natural recourse is to pick a fight, one that ultimately ends with Mark slamming a door, and Seb sat in the aftermath, wondering why he felt the need to kick off in the first place.

Nothing new under the sun; they’ve made up by nightfall, in a very particular way, which also happens to loosen Seb’s tongue in the aftermath.

“Do you think we’re too old to be ending arguments with sex?”

“Probably,” Mark says. He’d sound a lot more believable, Sebastian thinks, if not for his habit of stretching out, post-fuck, exposing the full, long length of his body in a way that, in Seb’s experience, rarely leads to anything other than further groping.

Case in point: “D’you really want to talk about it now?”

Seb doesn’t, and although they do spend several hours the next day running through every one of his, and Mark’s, anxieties, it’s worth it for how much calmer he feels after being intimate, how much more secure.

It’s also worth it for the memory of how he almost broke the headboard in two with Mark’s mouth buried between his cheeks— but then Seb can be a simple creature, and at some point, loving Mark turned out to be the simplest thing in the world.

He is lucky, Seb thinks, Mark in his arms afterwards, and in more ways than he could ever try and count.

**

NINETEEN

Besides family of course, there are a few others who need to know. Mark, for his part, takes charge of their mutual friends, Oscar, and the neighbours they’re close to, whilst Seb fills in Britta, then opens up a WhatsApp channel with Daniel Ricciardo.

It takes him a while; he isn’t even truly able to fall back on ‘English is a second language’ as an excuse, because the words would be just as hard to come by in German. In the end, he drafts his message in Word, has Mark read it, and only hits ‘send’ when he’s truly happy.

Daniel,

I was so pleased to receive the photos you sent of little Effie. She is a beautiful addition to your family, and I hope you and Max continue to enjoy her. As for her well-being, I have no doubts - she will grow up knowing she is loved, which is the best any of us can offer our children.

I say ‘our’ children with trepidation, but also with joy, and a great deal of surprise - Mark and I have recently learned we are expecting our own child, due in April.

I hope you understand that none of what I said in Japan earlier this year was false, or disingenuously meant. This news was a huge shock to us both, and even as we hope for a good outcome, we are equally aware of how fortunate we are, and that if we could experience a fraction of the joy you and Max now share, we would count ourselves indescribably lucky.

With all the best, to you and your family,

Sebastian

He needn’t have worried; approximately two minutes after Seb sent the message, his phone is screaming at him to accept a FaceTime.

When he does, and the first thing he sees upon picking up is all thirty-two of Daniel’s teeth, Seb knows he’s made a good choice.

“You serious?” are Daniel’s first words to him, eyes wide, his grin practically splitting his face in two. “Holy fuck mate, good on’ya.”

It’s the most ‘Australian’ thing Seb’s heard in ages, and he lives with one.

“Thank you,” Seb says. It’s one thing to write the words out, he’s discovered, quite another to actually say them to someone other than Mark and Kimi. The reactions have been varied, all joyful, but equally unique; Britta was all questions, whilst Fernando didn’t believe Mark until he fetched the sonogram. Both their mothers, and all three sisters, had cried— and now there’s Danny Ric, sleep-deprived but smiling, like he’s happier for Seb than he even knows how to process.

They’ve all been delighted for them, Seb thinks, but the response from Daniel might be his favourite so far.

Max wanders into the room sometime later, and after congratulating Seb himself, hands baby Effie to her other daddy as he heads off to shower. It’s the first time Seb’s seen her since the initial newborn photos Daniel sent; as if Seb didn’t already know the difference four months can make is incredible, it’s like looking at a completely different child. She’s still small, Seb thinks, but alert and beaming, little fists waving every which-way as she squirms happily in Daniel’s arms.

“She’s so very beautiful.” Effie seems to agree; she lets out a long string of babbling as Seb nods along, faux-seriously. “And already found her voice, clever girl.”

“Yeah, try hearing it at 2AM,” Daniel says, but he’s clearly bursting with pride showing off his little girl to Seb - something Seb is only now realising he’s probably tried to avoid doing out of respect. “Nah, she’s awesome. Aren’t you, Effster? Only shit down Daddy’s arm once this week, hey?”

It’s a great experience, all in all - so much so that Seb doesn’t realise until after, when he’s recapping for Mark, that yet another domino has fallen on their news.

“We did the worry,” Seb says, helping Mark shake out clean sheets for their bed, “then we reached the happiness, then gratitude, and now tonight, we reached humour.”

“That something you want more of?” Mark asks, which isn’t an un-loaded question, if Seb’s being honest. Mark’s public persona was apparently ‘lacking’ in enough laughter, and the kind of easy, outrageous jokes F1 audiences seemed to expect of Australians, that the press had taken a pretty dim view of it in his racing days. They got a resurgence after news of Mark and Seb’s marriage became public knowledge, and by then Seb was with Ferrari, building a reputation for his wit alongside his prowess on-track. It bothered Mark more than he ever truly let on, snide speculation on what they truly had in common, articles calling Seb ‘the funny one,’ then comparing that factor unfavourably with Mark’s racecraft, like he hadn’t also been brilliant in his own time, in his own way.

The trick they all missed is twofold: for one, Mark in private is both funny, and charismatic, enough to have Seb’s jaw (and his hips) rolling with impressive frequency. For the other, Seb stopped asking for ‘different’ from Mark the second he fell in love with him.

He’s Seb’s husband, not the media’s, or the fans’. Even if Seb gave far more fucks than he does for the opinions of others, that much would still be true.

“I don’t want anything more than what you give me,” Seb says, something fond and slightly sad stirring in him when Mark’s posture immediately relaxes. He drops the pillowcase and leans over the bed to kiss Mark instead, rubs his hand gently but certain up Mark’s arm. “My favourite husband.”

Mark smiles, but he doesn’t speak, so Seb brings out the big guns:

“If it helps, I was laughing because Daniel implied Effie frequently craps down his arm.”

It does the job; Mark starts laughing, and takes Seb’s hand in his, squeezing tight around his knuckles.

“Best get used to that, hey?”

That’s another milestone cleared, Seb thinks - anticipation.

It just might be the best one yet.

**

TWENTY

Since they first discussed and tried to visualise their idea of a family, both Seb and Mark were clear that ‘babies’ were, first and foremost, their children. Son, daughter, both, neither, or ‘depends on the day’ - none of it meant anything more to them than alpha, beta, omega, or otherwise-non-presenting. Their role was clear - to love their child, or children, as they were, and to know the only way to truly fail was for their kids to feel that was ever not the case.

Still, all these things start from a baseline, and although Seb would love to have said they walked away from their twenty-week scan ambivalent, there’s no holding back some tides. There’s nothing in the world that can keep Seb from launching himself at Mark the second they get home, and nothing that can keep Mark from lifting him up off the ground, spinning them a full 360 as his laughter echoes off the walls.

“You heard that, right?”

Seb did, but it bears repeating over and over.

“A boy.”

“A little fucking boy!” When Mark eases him gently back to the ground, he leans his forehead against Seb’s, pressing them close enough that their twinned grins and shining, soaking eyes are as good as mirrored. “A son, Seb. We’re having a son.”

It’s far from the last time tears are shed that day, but with every time they repeat the news, the more Seb starts to realise this amorphous, genderless, wonderful thing he’s held in yearning for so long might actually have a name.

He whispers it to Mark in bed that night, and the fact Mark immediately, unequivocally, agrees, puts pay to every time they’ve ever been at odds.

Some things are more important. As Seb clings to his husband in the dark, it’s the most precious secret kept between them - their son’s name, until told otherwise.

Seb whispers it to him too - they both do - until all three of them are asleep.

**

TWENTY-ONE

Sebastian wakes up in the middle of the night and sits bolt upright in bed, hands flying to his belly as a feeling of absolute terror streaks through him.

“Sheiße,” he mutters. “Sheiße; Ma—”

But Mark’s awake and up already, flipping on the light as he struggles at speed around the bed to Seb’s side. “What’s wrong, love?”

“I don’t— I don’t know.” Seb’s heartbeat roads in his ears as he tries to reconcile disorientation with the panic of whatever had awoken him in the first place. “Something feels— wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Mark asks, and some part of Seb is perversely relieved he sounds frantic too. The fear is so real, but without words to describe it, it somehow only feels real because someone else can sense it too. “Seb? Wrong how?”

“I don’t know,” Seb repeats, voice climbing in volume to the point where Meg comes running, bolting up the stairs towards their open bedroom door. “I was sleeping, and then I felt—”

Exactly what Seb felt chooses right then to repeat itself, and he can’t help the whimper that slips out. “I felt that,” he finishes, pressing on his belly as a truly strange sensation expands beneath his hand. “It’s like a twitch, inside. Like something— something is tweaking, or—”

“Fluttering?”

“Yes,” Seb says desperately, but when he looks up at Mark, his husband’s face has changed completely. The panic is gone, replaced with a look of understanding, then of wonder, as he reaches out and gently shifts Seb’s hand over the swell of his stomach.

“That’s not a problem, love,” Mark says, smiling, and thankfully explains his reasoning before Seb can lose it for real. “That’s not a problem at all. That’s our boy.”

For a moment, Seb doesn’t understand, not what Mark means, nor why he’s suddenly so fucking calm. But then the fluttering starts up again, and the truth of it slams into him like a train.

“Oh my God,” he breathes, as Mark nods, sliding his own hand over Seb’s belly. “That’s really—“

It is, really. It should feel ridiculous; they’re awake in the middle of the night, Seb in just a t-shirt, Mark naked save for his boxers with his hair askew, and there’s a forty-five pound Border Collie whining desperately at their feet. Instead though, it’s them feeling their baby kick for the first time and Seb’s struggling to think of it as anything but perfect.

“It’s ok, Meggy,” he tells the dog, patting the mattress until she jumps up eagerly to his side. “It’s ok. It’s just your brother.”

No one gets much sleep the rest of that night, but they catch up the next day, phones turned off, Mark’s hand laid proudly across Seb’s bump as they nap on the couch.

Brother, Seb keeps repeating to himself. Our boy. Our very real, already very clever son.

“Du wirst unser leben veränden,” he murmurs towards his belly, and though Mark’s German is far from perfect, he presses a kiss to Seb’s temple anyway, like he wholeheartedly agrees.

**

TWENTY FOUR / TWENTY EIGHT

Seb’s phone starts unexpectedly bleating out the FaceTime noise one morning - a scenario that can only mean one thing.

“Guten morgen,” Britta says when Seb picks up, then, with a smirk: “You’ve begun to glow, boss. It’s very attractive.”

“Fuck off,” Seb says, cheerily. “I believe I still pay your salary.”

“I’d have taken a reduction,” Britta says, “in exchange for no morning sickness, heartburn, or backache.”

“I do have a backache,” Seb says, and Britta just rolls her eyes.

“My heart hurts for you. Truly.”

“What do I owe this pleasure to-” Seb checks his watch, “-so early on a Sunday?”

“I’m glad you ask.” Britta’s ‘all business’ from then, sliding her glasses on with an expression that, in Seb’s experience, either means ‘Amazing Opportunity,’ or ‘You Fucked Up.’ “British Men’s Health are running a segment on ‘Omegas in Motorsport.’ By some miracle, McLaren and the FIA have agreed to allow Norris, and I don’t believe there is a force on Earth that can keep Verstappen from his goals, so - you would be the third, if you’re interested?”

It’s not really a question; no one bar Mark knows better than Britta how Seb feels about these issues, these causes. There is, however, one fairly large factor to consider, this time.

“You didn’t tell them..?”

“They know nothing,” Britta confirms, “but that is why I’m calling you. To state to the obvious, it would be impossible for you to retain total privacy, after the planned photoshoot.” She sips at her mug, one Seb is certain contains no less than four shots of pure espresso. “No offence meant, Seb, but you are not likely to fit, ‘undetected,’ into a racing suit right now.”

It’s a fair point, and one to think about. Ordinarily this would be the kind of opportunity Seb would agree to without blinking— but whilst speaking out on his assignation is, and always has been, his decision, the choice to deliberately display his pregnancy in front of cameras and journalists isn’t one he can make alone. 

“Let me speak with Mark,” Seb says, and Britta nods, already typing notes. “Do you know if they have angles in mind?”

“Meaning ‘could they photograph you only from above the waist?’” Britta smiles, but she shakes her head. “No - they’ve got a least ten shots planned, and none of them would be, shall we say, ‘forgiving.’” She shrugs, taps a pen against one of her endless notebooks. “It’s your choice at the end of the day, Seb - I just wanted to let you know.”

Mark is, to Seb’s frank surprise, pretty amenable.

“If it’s important to you, I’ve got no issue,” he says, sat at the kitchen table at Seb stirs risotto at the stove. “It’s one way to do it ‘on own terms,’ at least - no paps, or fucking Nora up the village spilling the beans.”

“It would be a ‘lot,’” Seb points out. “MH isn’t exactly known for its small readership.”

“It’s not a small thing,” Mark says, “not to us, and not to your community.” He sips his water, a smirk brewing on his face. “Maybe you’d have made the front page, if Max and Daniel hadn’t gotten there first.”

“I don’t think I care about front pages,” Seb says, smiling as he stirs in salt and parmesan, then mimes flicking his hair. “Not these days, anyway. Not without implants.”

“You’re probably the least-vain person I know,” Mark says, shaking his head fondly. “You should give Norris some tips there, when he inevitably takes his top off at your photoshoot.”

Lando doesn’t take his top off, but when Seb shows up for the GQ spot four weeks later, he manages to amuse the whole room when he doesn’t clock Seb’s bump until at least ten seconds after they’ve said hello.

It’s like watching a skit, or maybe an episode of Friends. He glances up and down between Seb’s belly and his face for a good five rotations before Mark, at Seb’s side and clearly amused, says:

“Take your time, mate.”

There’s a roomful of laughter when Lando, eventually, clocks on, led loudest of all by Daniel, who’s got a slumbering Effie strapped to his chest in a sling.

“It’s nice and necessary,” Max says to Seb later, when the pair of them are struggling into Red Bull race suits for the shoot. “I’m still nursing, so she can’t really be that far away from me— plus Daniel just loves London, so in this case, it all worked out.”

‘It’ looks to be working out very nicely by Seb’s best estimate. For all Effie is beautiful, and clearly sleeps like a dream, there’s no mistaking the besotted look on Daniel’s face, or on Max’s in return, every time they lock eyes.

“You seem to have it all under control,” Seb remarks, his feigned nonchalance ripped out from under him when Max bursts out laughing.

“You kidding me, man? We haven’t slept in five months; last week, she puked in Daniel’s actual mouth; and to truly add to all this—” He demonstrates his point by trying, and failing, to tug the race suit up around his midriff. “I’m still fucking fat.”

They get there, in the end. The guy directing them through the photos is either sympathetic to, or has been fully briefed about, the fact Seb’s own suit is staying firmly around his waist for the duration. His choice of t-shirt probably helps; Seb is displaying a full omega rights flag on his chest as he falls back into step with the instructions and flashes that come with press work.

Britta and Daniel shooting thumbs up across the studio helps further, but nothing does it quite like seeing Mark sat down now, the better to keep little Effie Ricciardo-Verstappen cradled against his chest. Something about it makes Sebastian feel even more-so that what he’s doing today is right.

Their son will see these pictures one day, and read the words Seb says about his experiences.

When he does, Seb hopes he’ll understand how completely and utterly he was wanted.

“I think you’re doing amazingly,” he tells Max after, as Christian’s second-ever Germanic wunderkind zips up his jeans. “It’s very clear she’s content.”

Max snorts, but it’s clear that the ‘weight’ of parenthood isn’t bearing down on Max Verstappen just yet, because he’s smiling as he straightens up.

“My advice would be to ask for advice; even when you think you know better, you probably don’t.”

As Max heads out of the dressing room, he pauses a moment.

“You gave Daniel some good advice, once,” he says. “Effie Sabine and I are very grateful.”

By the time Seb realises what Max is trying to say, the little fuck is already long gone.

Max and Daniel want an early night, and Lando claims to have other plans (“Oscar,” Mark says with a knowing head-shake, “It’s going to be with Oscar.”) — so Seb and Mark head for dinner with ‘only’ Britta for company.

It turns out to be the best night any of them have had in months: they opt for Indian, eat far too many poppadoms, and by the time Britta has pulled off her usual feat of making Mark snort liquid through his nose laughing, Seb is more convinced than ever that he’s made the right choice in companions.

“To Effie ‘Sabine,’” Britta says after dessert, raising her sparking water for a toast. “May she accomplish as much as her namesake.” She’s full of joy as she meets Seb’s gaze, and clinks her glass against his. “To a new stage.”

“She’s the smartest person you know,” Mark says later, in the Uber back to their hotel.

“You’re right,” Seb says. “I should have married her instead; imagine the IQ on that baby.”

“Yeah, go fuck yourself,” Mark says fondly, and tucks Seb firmly under his arm.

**

TWENTY NINE

“What’re you working on?” Mark asks a few days later, sat across from Seb in the living room.

He looks especially handsome tonight, Seb thinks - bundled into a soft sweater, hair swept over his forehead, and his reading glasses on. In almost any other circumstances, he’d be on the couch next to Mark, and trying to get his hands under that sweater— but Seb’s got stuff to finish before bed, and is finally reaching the stage where he’s too pregnant to ride his husband on the rug.

“Birth plan,” Seb says, and then he does cross to side beside Mark on the couch, lugging a comprehensive Filofax with him.

“At what point are you too far along to lift that thing?” Mark asks. He’s got every right to be sceptical - not only is Seb still insisting, in almost 2027, that he can take far better notes on paper than onscreen, he’s also committed to meticulous planning, everything from their wedding to the weekly food shop.

“When I find out, you can carry it for me,” Seb says, then starts walking Mark through the full extent of his research.

“It’s like a bloody menu, this,” Mark says, whistling through his teeth. “Are we having a baby, or ordering Chinese?”

“Sei keine fotze,” Seb says, catching his husband’s eye as they both smirk. “There are a lot of options; it has taken me this long to assemble all the research.”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “So much so, in fact, that you’re halfway to delivery with no actual ‘plan’ in place.”

“That’s why I have you,” Sebastian says, and Mark laughs out loud.

“You’re the one pushing him out, love. Pretty sure any opinion I have on this is moot.”

He’s right of course— but Seb really does have a shit-tonne to look through, and though Mark plays a good game, he’s never been shy of telling Seb what he thinks.

Tonight is no different, though even Seb, who knows Mark better than anyone, didn’t accurately anticipate the degree of piss-taking.

“You don’t have to laugh.”

“Oh come on, Seb,” Mark says, wiping his eyes. “Are you seriously telling me some people choose to give birth in a field of wheat?”

“It’s called ‘Eucharistic Puerperium.’”

“It’s called ‘pissed off farmers,’” Mark snorts. “Though I guess placenta’s meant to be good for soil. ‘Eucharistic,’ fuck me— do they also let you get rat-arsed on wine before you push?”

“I knew I should have discussed this with Max,” Seb says, which just sets Mark off laughing again.

“Max Verstappen would’ve laughed in your face, and you know it.” He does shrug though, and picks up the leaflet for closer inspection. “That said, Daniel reckons he got Effie out with next to no pain relief, so maybe he’s just psychotic.”

“I think I’d like to do the same,” Seb says. He’s just thinking out loud really, but for the first time since they opened the file, Mark actually looks concerned.

“Why? On balance, Seb, this probably isn’t the time or place to try and outperform Max.”

“It’s not that,” Seb says, though he’d be lying if he said the thought hadn’t, however briefly, occurred. “I want to be aware of all of it, I guess. Not stoned on gas, or unable to feel anything.”

“I think for a lot of people, that’s the point,” Mark says, but he does concede, even if a little line of worry remains between his eyes. Seb gets it - were their positions reversed, he’d be frantic over witnessing the pain, never mind knowing Mark was feeling it. But Mark hears him, and he doesn’t argue— and that support means far more to Seb than the enjoyment of getting his own way.

“Should work out fine anyway, hey?” Mark says after, as he places another few logs into the fireplace. “There’s no epidurals in wheat fields.”

Seb doesn’t quite throw the whole file at his head, but it’s a close fucking thing.

He makes a decision in the end: so long as his pregnancy remains low-risk, he’ll be allowed to give birth in the water. It seems a nice concept, one that’s always appealed to Seb - his baby born swimming, lovely warm water to cradle him until Seb can pull him up and into his arms.

“What do you think?” he asks Mark, and Mark just smiles, gently placing the file to one side so he can get his palm onto Seb’s bump.

“Reckon I’ll go pack your goggles,” he says, before drawing Seb into a kiss that leads them all the way up the stairs to bed.

**

TWENTY NINE + FIVE

Mark has made good on another claim - one from way back, when he’d said he couldn’t wait to see Seb pregnant.

There’s no trigger, no hormonal overload or sudden switch; rather, Mark gets steadily more tactile, more confident with it, and before Seb even realises the shift, they’re having sex more often, with more inventiveness, and, frankly, more fervour, than they have since they were both still racing.

It’s not that they’re bored, or somehow less attracted to each other than they were fifteen years prior. Mark is, if anything, getting more handsome with every passing year, and though Seb’s certainly begun losing his hair, there’s been very few times a certain smile won’t get him near-immediately felt up. Marriage, or rather familiarity, changes things; they’re not young competitors anymore, high off adrenaline and fury, nor newlyweds unable to keep their hands off each other. Instead they’re older, with things to do, and at least a decade past the point where anything still felt ‘mysterious.’

There’s also the memory of the time Seb contracted food poisoning two hours before a flight home from Canberra, but Mark has sworn, upon threat of divorce, that they’ll never speak of that day again.

That all changes, Seb thinks in hindsight, almost from the day he starts showing.

Mark struggles to put words to it too - even when they’re clinging together in the fucking henhouse because Mark just had to get them off right there with his hand.

“It’s like being twenty again,” he murmurs eventually against Seb’s temple. His big palm rubbing up and down against Seb’s ribs feels fantastic, so much so that Seb can largely ignore the edge of a shelf digging into the back of his head. “I just want you all the time - like actually seeing that you’re carrying my child makes me into a fucking caveman.” He drops his forehead with a worrying thunk against the wall next to Seb’s. ”Is that weird? I know it’s meant to be ‘normal,’ but it feels fucking perverted.”

Seb can see where he’s coming from. As an omega, he’s got no real sense of how pheromones and conception will feel for Mark, anymore than how he feels when Seb is in heat. Maybe it is a bit perverted; maybe the reported forty-five percent of alphas who get like this are pioneers for how pregnancy and sex will be viewed in future, Seb’s not sure. But he does know one thing for certain, and that’s—

“Biology is weird.” Seb’s hand unfurls itself from Mark’s shoulder, strokes up his cheek instead. “Besides, if you were truly a pervert, you’d have agreed to blow me in Christian’s office at least once.”

It’s the right thing to say - Mark starts chuckling against the wall, and once Seb’s reassured him with further kisses, and pulled their trousers up, they make their way back down the garden with fingers twisted together.

“Pretty glad we left Meg at the house, all told.”

“That should be the least of your worries,” Seb says. “If you think Thelma hated us before…”

**

TWENTY-NINE + EIGHT

“If I have to ask you one more time where the spare pillows are, your parents are going to be sleeping in the fucking yard-!”

Seb’s not bothered - their annual Pre-Christmas Row is as much a tradition by now as roast turkey and presents. He’s not bothered… but he is extraordinarily, traditionally, pissed off.

“If you ask me one more time where they’re kept, I’ll shove one down your fucking throat.” There’s an audible crash from upstairs, and Seb can’t help but pop off again; “I’m not doing your emotional labor, Mark. You also fucking live here, you should know where the spare pillows are stored.”

“I wouldn’t have to ask,” Mark yells back, “if you didn’t insist on storing all fucking forty of them in forty different fucking places-!”

“Kannst du ihm glauben?” Seb asks Meg, but either he’s truly failed at raising their dog bilingual, or she’s on Mark’s side today, because she promptly jumps off the couch and heads out, tail flicking near-contemptuously as she goes.

That’s fine, Seb thinks, defiant - he can wrap presents alone, and he can even stick pieces of anticipatory sellotape to his bump in order to prove it.

Mark stomps back into the room ten minutes later, and Seb looks up at him, deeply unimpressed, from the floor.

“You know there are only twenty-five spare pillows. Exaggeration only makes you look stupid.”

“Yeah, well,” Mark snorts, before crossing to the minibar against the wall. “Twenty-four of them are now prepared for the arrival of your entire fucking family; meanwhile, you’ve wrapped, what? Three gifts?”

“We bought Steffi and Christoph a set of candlesticks,” Seb retorts. “I can promise you, wrapping those takes longer to accomplish than putting sheets on beds.”

“Beds for twelve people.”

“Beds for eight people,” Seb corrects, freeing a pierce of wrapping paper with a malicious snip of scissors. “The kids will sleep here, on camp mattresses.”

“Good for them.” Mark flops down onto the couch, as the usual deceleration for these fights enters its final stage. “Twelve of them, Seb? I mean, I get why, but twelve?”

“Think yourself lucky,” Seb says. “At least you didn’t agree to cook.”

“That’s on you,” Mark says, but it’s clear the rage has dissipated, because he has, in fact, fetched Seb a bottle of water from the chiller too. “I said it was a bad idea. Every step of the fucking way, I said it was a bad idea, but you knew better.” He kicks his legs up on the couch, and picks up the TV remote. “Whatever - I’m out of steam for this.” Over one shoulder, he asks: “Real Housewives, or Die Hard?”

“Die Hard,” Seb says, already beginning to smile. “It is nearly Christmas, after all.”

Sebastian does have a big family, but the thing he’s gradually learned Mark struggles with is that they’re a close family. His own aren’t cruel, or withholding, not at all— more-so that they’re very ‘proper,’ and whilst ultimately supportive of Mark’s choices in life, it had taken them a lot longer to warm up to Seb, than it had taken for Seb’s family to accept Mark.

They’re no different today; Seb thinks later that Mark receives more hugs and attention from his family than he does, but part of loving someone is being glad for that, rather than resentful— and when Mark finally extracts himself, but has a truly happy look on his face, Seb knows for sure it’s been worth all the stress of preparing their home for guests.

His sisters, five kids between them, are all over him, his mum also, and his youngest niece Nadia, so by the time Seb actually manages to sit down with Mark, he feels almost like they’ve not spent Christmas together at all.

“I know it was a lot,” Seb says after, when he and Mark are tucked up in bed. “I guess it’s that I’ve seen my sisters pregnant, and in a year or so I think, Fabian and Maya too.” He trails his fingers over Mark’s chest as he talks, the repetitive movement and pace helping his thoughts shake down into place. “They also know how much this means to us, after so many years… and I wanted them to see that too.” He tilts his head up and captures Mark’s lips in a kiss that tastes of toothpaste, and still vaguely of red wine. “Danke, mein schatz.”

“Kein problem,” Mark replies. His eyes are closed, but Seb can feel his smile in the dark. “It was good to see them. The kid’s gotten big.”

“Felix?”

“Fabian,” Mark says, as Seb shakes with laughter against his chest. “Nah, for real though, don’t think I’ve seen him properly since his twenty-first. He’s a ‘real man’ now, read me the riot act and everything.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. He’s had both hands out of the blankets, and when he moves one beneath them, Seb initially thinks he must be cold, until he feels a big hand settle on his bump. “Christ, he’s not done partying for the day, is he?”

“You’re in for a kicking,” Seb confirms. Then: “What did Fabian say to you?”

“It was pretty succinct,” Mark murmurs, his hand sweeping, following their son’s wriggles and kicks. “Threatened to take my nuts off if I ever abandoned you two.”

It’s such typical ‘Fabian’ behaviour that Seb can’t help but chuckle. He never got to do the ‘big brother’ thing with Fabian, really - their age gap means they were never at school at the same time, and Seb’s every spare minute was spent at the track. The result was that Fabian was born to fight his own battles (and did, frequently), but knowing he’s willing to fight a few for Seb too is pretty endearing.

“You had better never abandon us, then.”

Mark tucks a deeply audible smile against Seb’s scalp, and no more needs to be said.

**

THIRTY-FIVE

‘New Year’ turns quickly to January, then February, and then, suddenly, all of five weeks before Seb’s due date.

There’s a sense of everything being ‘out of place’ that Sebastian can’t tolerate. Mark’s in Surrey supervising Oscar in his last days before Bahrain testing, meanwhile Seb’s been signed off work, and is going rapidly stir-crazy.

He finds a solution by accident, when he opens a cupboard in search of snacks, and two boxes of cereal fall out, spilling across the kitchen floor.

It should be the final straw - Seb’s heard of far smaller things triggering a total meltdown during the third trimester. Instead, he feels suddenly purposeful; if the cereal was even able to fall out, it must be a sign the cupboard is in need of reorganising.

It’s like a spark has been struck, the second he’s staring at a beautifully stocked and orderly cupboard, thirty minutes later. One being so untidy cannot bode well for the rest, after all.

With Mark gone, there’s nobody to rein him in as he declares pure fucking war on their home— and by the time Mark does return, Seb is ensconced on the couch, and doesn’t get up to greet his husband, partly because he’s exhausted, but also because some greater part of him can’t stand to leave the lovely cocoon of fresh, clean blankets he’s built up around himself.

“Well the kitchen’s been blitzed,” Mark says as he wanders in. “The nursery’s been vacuumed at least twice, and every inch of this place now smells of detergent, as opposed to ‘dog.’” He crouches down next to the couch, looking impossibly fucking fond as his lips find Sebastian’s through the blankets. “I’d ask if you’ve been ‘nesting,’ but rather than waste my breath..?”

Seb’s not that fucked out, and he had included meal prep in his frenzied two-day sweep— so what follows is Mark helping to heave Seb up off the couch, then sitting him down at the kitchen table whilst Mark reheats two portions of bolognese.

“How was it?” Seb asks, twisting spaghetti around his fork in a way he knows Mark finds endearingly strange. “How’s Oscar?”

“Pretty good,” Mark says, but he’s messing with his food, and Sebastian hasn’t spent fifteen years with the guy not to know that’s a sign to let him finish a thought. Sure enough— “There’s something up with the kid. Something he’s not saying.”

“Lando?”

“No,” Mark says. “I mean, they’re clearly shagging, but this is different. Something Osc thinks I don’t need to know.”

“Imagine shagging your teammate,” Seb murmurs, but since that’s not what Mark needs right now— “How’s their pace? Are you worried about the car, or just Oscar?”

“Just Oscar.” Mark’s silent a long while before saying: “I’m overstepping, I think, emotionally. It’s making things blurry, and we can’t afford that.”

“Overstepping how?” When Mark doesn’t answer, Seb sets his own fork down too. “You can say it, Mark. Unless it’s that you are also shagging him, I can’t see it being a problem for us.”

“Kidding me, right?” Mark snorts, derisively. “He’s just a kid.” It looks like he’s struggling to meet Seb’s eye before he says, at last: “Think I’d started to see him as my kid.”

Oh.

“You still can,” Seb says. He’s known it a long time, and always accepted it. What surprises him is how long Mark’s gaze takes to truly focus on his own, and the genuine tremor in his voice when he asks:

“Do you mean that?”

“Oh sweetheart,” Seb says, “of course.” And then he drags his husband over the table to kiss him, in what might be the perfect example of how omegas are not the only ones emotionally impacted by pregnancy. “You think I don’t see this already? You came back to life in 2020, Mark. I don’t just tolerate Oscar Piastri - I’m grateful for him, for his place in your life.” He strokes Mark’s hair back off his forehead, pressing kisses to the skin he exposes beneath. “And if something is going on with him, I think we should try and find out, see if we can help.”

Mark shakes his head, but it’s relief Seb can scent off him now, as opposed to concern.

“You know you never fucking cease to amaze me.”

He’s said much the same to Seb in the past, under entirely different circumstances. Seb knows what he means now though, and drops a final kiss to his husband’s lips before moving his whole dinner setup to the seat next to Mark’s.

“You really did a number on the house, hey?”

“Yes,” Seb says, nonchalant. “Don’t worry though - I didn’t move the spare pillows.” 

Mark shakes his head, a slow and incredible smile sneaking up over his face.

“I bloody love you.”

“I love you,” Seb says, then nods down at their plates. “Eat up. We only have twenty-four other portions in the freezer.”

**

THIRTY SEVEN

Seb’s still feeling ‘bright and breezy’ at thirty-seven weeks, when he’s squatting (with supremely difficulty) to collect eggs, and a sharp twinge shoots up his back without warning.

“Ruhe, bitte,” he tells his son, firmly— but the pain doesn’t vanish in quite the way he’d like, and when Seb has had four similar twinges in the next two hours, he waddles his way up the stairs to knock on the door of Mark’s home office.

“Hey,” Mark says, sans-headphones for once. “You ok?”

“Yeah,” Seb says, and it’s not a lie really - he’s been expecting false labor at some point, and if it’s to be a simple case of discomfort for now, he’s perfectly capable of waiting it out, preferably whilst submerged in a lot of warm water. “I have to feed Meg; would you go and run me a ba—“

His back goes again before he can finish, and it’s different this time; this one actually hurts, and Seb’s hand flies instead to his lumbar. “Fucking— shieße-!”

“Seb?” Mark queries, already on his feet. “Is that-?”

“No,” Sebastian says, firmly. Much as he knows that at thirty-seven weeks, the baby is considered ‘full-term,’ he’d planned for at least another three weeks improving his breathing, re-folding the cloth diapers, and freezing batches of soup. The pain eases off, and Seb takes advantage of the moment to glare down at his belly. “That is not happening; verstehst du, kleines?”

“I’m not sure he does,” Mark says. He gets a hand on Seb’s lower back, rubbing firm and slow on either side of his spine. “How many of those have you had?”

“That was six,” Seb admits, as Mark’s eyebrows fly up his face. “It’s false labor, Mark. Nothing to write to home about.”

“How sure are you?”

“Sure,” Seb says. He brings both hands up over his belly for a gentle tap. “There’s no uterine tightening, it’s all in my back.”

“Seb…”

“It’s false, Mark,” Seb says again, an edge of irritation creeping into his tone. “We have three weeks left to go, I would like to just get into the bath and—“

Seb’s long-since been a fan of British TV. He’ll wonder, later, if he’s been secretly carrying a Python this whole time, because the comic timing truly couldn’t be better.

Seb doesn’t move, but in the seconds that follow his waters breaking, Mark steps slowly around him in wet slippers.

“Mary next door can feed the dog,” he says, mildly. “I’ll take her over now, shall I? Or do we have three weeks?”

“If there is still strength in my body once this is over,” Seb tells him, “I will use it to end your life.”

Mark’s laughter is still echoing back at him by the time his husband clears the stairs.

**

By the time Mark makes it home from the neighbours’, Seb is up to his neck in the bathtub with only his head and his enormous bump breaching the water’s surface. When Mark comes in, he’s finished laughing, but there’s still some mischief in his eyes as he kneels down beside the tub and strokes Seb’s hair off his forehead.

“You alright in here for now if I go sponge the carpet?”

“Yeah,” Seb says, eyes sliding shut as he breathes out into the steam-filled air. It’s like sinking into a vat of his own feelings as well as the warm water, and if this is really happening now, he’s going to have to work hard at keeping his brain from ticking over.

It’s relaxing enough in their en-suite, at least. He’s got the lights dimmed, at least six candles flickering in the semi-darkness, and it helps pull some focus down where he needs it, as opposed to up in his head, fighting the impulse telling him he needs to keep his little boy inside him for as long as possible.

His body seems determined to work against his brain, in that regard. When Mark comes back in, Seb’s working through another contraction, and the pure scent of him has Seb reaching a hand out over the edge of the tub, desperately seeking.

Mark doesn’t make him wait; he’s at his side within seconds, gathering Seb’s hand up in his own.

“I’m here, love,” Mark tells him, and when Seb opens his eyes again, sees his husband so close, it becomes swiftly clear he’s not nearly close enough.

This is really happening. After ten years of hoping, of wishing, of shouting and crying, throwing money at the problem - of even turning once to prayer, Mark holding Seb when he found him sobbing over his Oma’s St. Christopher— it’s all been leading them here, and though Seb doesn’t believe in predestination, he can see some pattern in the fact that whatever he and Mark were served, they’ve done every bit of it together.

If one thing has never changed, it’s that Mark has never left his side.

“I can’t wait,” he murmurs, “to see you as a dad.”

Mark helps him out of the bath shortly after, nothing but love in his movements as he helps Seb towel off, then settle into their bed, wrapped in blankets and clean pyjamas.

“Do you want me to call the midwife?” he asks, and Seb, still pleasantly lightheaded from the hot water, just smiles and nods.

He drifts for a bit, after; Mark’s voice is pitched low and calm as he tells the midwife on duty their situation, and the next thing Seb’s truly aware of, it’s the mattress dipping under him as Mark lays down, and of a familiar arm creeping over to cradle both Seb and their son. 

“They want you in for a check,” Mark says, and Seb’s hearing the groaning a long time before he realises it’s coming from himself. “You’re only just at thirty-seven, love. If all looks ok, they said we can come home.”

That’s the only thing Seb wants; after months of planning for a clean hospital birth, the last thing he wants to do right now is leave bed. He’s like putty in Mark’s hands anyway, as his husband guides him out of the room, and somehow downstairs, and into the car.

“You want some music?” Mark asks, once he’s buckled in himself. “Classical?”

“No.” Freshly released from another contraction, Seb lifts his forehead away from the window of their Jeep. “AC/DC.”

He can’t put it into words when Mark asks, but some part of Seb seems to know that he needs to be alert for this next part.

Some part of Seb knows, as they pull away from their home, that they’re not going to be back tonight.

**

The music helps, and Seb’s out of his slump, alert and determined, by the time he’s pacing a hospital room with some truly vapid photographs on the wall.

Much as his bubble of contentment has fully burst, this does feel more natural to Seb - being awake, attentive, focused on his adjusted goal.

Unfortunately that does come with the caveat that he’s now feeling every contraction ‘out loud.’ They’re not too frequent yet, but they are in his belly at last, and definitely coming— and Seb thinks he could cope with them a lot better with them if not for the now-fucking-constant pain in his back.

“This can’t be normal,” he groans at some point. “This can’t be fucking normal, it’s like there’s a knife going through my spine.”

“It is normal, love,” Mark says. His hand has barely left Seb’s back since they entered the room, and quite honestly, it’s the only thing keeping him sane. “You heard Gemma - baby’s ’posterior,’ so—“

“So I’ll feel it all in my back,” Seb finishes, waspishly, “yes.”

It’s far from the only thing that’s bothering him; Seb’s extensive research has him fully informed about ‘back-to-back’ labor, the additional pain, the increased hours—

It’s not what he planned. That’s the thing sticking at the peak of Sebastian’s brain as he groans through another contraction - that this isn’t the forty-week, steady dilation over approximately twelve hours he’d meticulously noted in his Filofax. That and, as they hit six hours since his water broke, with only a single centimetre of progress, Seb realises he’s not coping with the pain anywhere near as well as he’d hoped.

He can’t get comfortable for love nor money, spends his time prowling the hospital room like a caged animal. The only place he’ll tolerate Mark’s touch is against his back; if he tries anywhere else, Seb practically snarls at him, and so continues the cycle.

The lack of control is fucking terrifying, with Seb becoming gradually more and more convinced the only way to deal with this is to give over completely, to let whatever instincts are closest to the surface take charge. For Seb, that involves making as much noise as possible, holding nothing back as he groans and moans and occasionally yells into a pillow.

After ten hours, he gives in and allows Gemma to bring him a canister of gas and air. He takes two big pulls, and for a minute it’s fantastic.

Ten seconds after that, he’s sitting bolt upright in bed.

“Mark—“

He’s fortunate to have a husband with quick reflexes— and also one who, despite getting faint at the sight of his own blood, has no issues holding Seb’s hair off his face as he pukes.

“That’s a ‘no’ to the gas, then?”

It’s definitely a ‘no.’ Seb gags another twice before the effects of the gas start lessening— but the momentary relief has done wonders for his temperament, because he doesn’t shake Mark off this time, when his husband strokes his forehead.

“You’re doing so good, love. Just a little more, yeah?”

“You’d better hope,” Seb says, derisively. “You know what I realised also?”

“What?” Mark asks, and although another contraction can only be minutes off, Seb still manages to drag up a wry smile.

“Today is the twentieth.”

“Christ,” Mark says, when he catches on. “You’d best get him out before midnight.”

**

As ten hours tick over to twelve, it becomes gradually more apparent that’s not going to happen.

“You’re contracting well, Seb,” Gemma says when she checks in on them, “but because of the position Baby’s in, this is just going to take that bit longer.”

“I know,” Seb says, glad that he sounds more frustrated than hostile. He does, at least, draw the line at being rude to the midwife. “Can I—“

Another contraction starts building before he can finish, but Mark, fortunately, is capable of both knowing Seb, and making himself heard over Seb’s shouting.

“He wants the water,” Mark says, voice impressively steady, even as Seb does his best to break his fingers. “Any chance, d’you reckon?”

“We’ve just delivered in one pool,” Gemma says, “so I can probably turn it around in half an hour, if you can hold on until then?”

“Is there another option?” Seb asks, to which Gemma responds with a cheerful laugh.

Seb only slightly wants to kill her. She’s the one with the keys to the bath, after all.

Finally getting to sink into it comes with two new developments: firstly that the agony percolating in Seb’s back finally gets some relief, and secondly that it officially ends his ferocious desire to keep Mark at arm’s length.

It’s not enough, holding onto him from outside the pool. Within the hour, Mark is stripping down to his boxers and climbing into the water with him, shifting until Seb’s arms can settle around his neck and they can both ease the movement of his hips in slow circles.

Mark’s skin against his own helps, and it doesn’t - it satisfies the desperation crawling from his pores, but brings every emotion to the surface alongside.

“I can’t believe I dreamed of this,” Sebastian sobs, released from a truly brutal contraction, some time later. His face is buried against Mark’s neck, but he can’t be close enough for the pain, or the lack of control, to be less overwhelming, not even with Mark’s hands ‘round his waist, and his thighs touching Seb’s. “I can’t believe that I imagined this being easy, Mark, mein Gott—”

“It’s just the way it goes,” Mark soothes, but Seb can’t fucking stand it.

“No, I deserve this, Mark. I fucking—” He wails through another pain as the world falls away again, until even the soaked t-shirt he’s still wearing feels unbearable against his skin. “I was so smug with Britta; my pregnancy was ‘perfect,’ and this is now what I get.”

“This isn’t karma, love,” Mark says, “it’s childbirth.” His lips are like a balm Seb doesn’t feel he deserves, least of all against the lips that were spewing out so many targeted expletives mere hours earlier. “You figured it’d be easy because getting even this far seemed impossible.”

It sends Seb over the edge again. He cries it out, all ten years and fourteen hours, with Mark’s hands on him. In the aftermath, he doesn’t feel the release so much as the helplessness, and with it, the insidious, irrepressible concern that a difficult labor is only the start of the payout complacency has earned him.

Several hours later, when Mark and Gemma are helping him out of the bath, and she’s offering him an epidural, Seb still turns it down.

He doesn’t tell either of them that if this ends with his baby in trouble, he can’t afford to be immobile.

**

As his labor progresses, Seb starts to lose track of time. He’s cognisant of little besides the contractions, of Mark’s hand in his, and the level of light in the room as the sun rises, and then situates itself fairly centrally in the sky.

“You should eat something,” he tells Mark at some point, but whether Mark does or not is lost on him, because the next time he’s aware of anything, his throat is scratched raw, and Mark is looking like hunger is the last fucking thing on his mind.

“I’m worried,” Seb hears, at some point - at least a few hours later, because the sun is no longer glaring right in his eyes through the window. There’s a sense of listening in to something that isn’t his business, when Mark shifts, the better to keep his phone pressed against his ear.

“I dunno, Stef. It’s going on so long, and he’s barely fucking conscious.”

He picks up snapshots of the conversation, one-sided, like he’s playing catch with one eye closed.

“Yeah, close to twenty-eight now. Midwife says both of them are fine, but—”

“— good pain threshold, but this is something else.”

“— you let the family know? Yeah, cheers - I’ll keep you updated.”

Seb can’t do much right now, but he does make sure he’s got his eyes open when Mark hangs up the phone and looks down.

It’s become apparent there’s a lot he’ll put up with before he’ll tolerate seeing his husband in distress, and in the end, that thought gives Sebastian the greatest amount of strength.

No matter what happens today, after all, some things are forever.

**

Seb’s done his research; he knows, in theory, what’s meant by ‘the urge to push,’ but the reality is more like comparing Jane Austin to E.L. James.

He’s on the bed when it happens, when it starts happening, and for a good while it’s a relief. He has a purpose now, some version of control to regain; he can push against the feeling of his son’s head descending, grab at the headboard, grab at Mark, and scream—

He does all those things, and then more, as a pain Sebastian could never have imagined or described ripples in waves through his body. He’s vaguely aware that he’s yelling, yelling at Mark that he can’t do this, that he needs it to stop— but Mark can’t stop it, and neither, apparently, can Seb, because he’s pushing once more into that insane pressure. His foot keeps slipping out from under him, heel skidding off the bed until Mark gets an arm around his leg and helps hold his thigh up. It’s an immense help - he can go harder suddenly, at Gemma’s urging, as well as longer, and Mark’s even closer proximity helps him focus, try to keep all the yelling inside himself for once, and put all that energy into pushing something - someone - out.

It only goes partway to plan; when Seb starts crowning in earnest, he loses his mind again a little. It hurts so badly, and he is so fucking tired—

“Rest a minute, Seb,” Gemma tells him, and Sebastian sags back against the pillows, as Mark strokes his soaked hair off his forehead. “Catch your breath, that’s it.”

“You’ve got this, love,” Mark tells him.

“N- no—”

“Seb,” Mark says, picking up his hand. His eyes are so serious, like he’s so certain Sebastian is capable. “What have you ever not managed, at this point?”

Just this, Sebastian thinks. Just this, and then I’ll never wish for anything again. No part of me will be anything but content with what we have—

He just has to do it first.

“Deep breath now, Seb,” Gemma says, and though she’s honestly a very pleasant woman, and Sebastian could no more pull this off without her than without Mark, he wishes he could use that deep breath to tell her to go fuck herself. “Ready— now, push.”

God help him, Seb grabs Mark’s arm with one hand and the rail of the bed with the other as he goes for it again, screaming from between his clenched teeth as he bears down harder, and Seb thinks he’s going to break apart, he’s actually going to break apart and die—

Until he doesn’t. Until the pain and pressure suddenly ease, and Gemma is lifting a precious, bloodied, squalling little body up onto his chest.

Sebastian can’t help but wonder how he got there, or where he came from— until he sees Mark smiling, already running his fingers down over their son’s forehead and little cheeks, then over Seb’s, and as is often the case, his body catches up before his brain manages the same.

“Hallo,” Seb hears himself choke out, “hallo, my darling, unser sohn—”

Seb breaks the surface for the final time, as his baby truly swims into focus against his chest. He’s everything Seb ever wanted. He’s manna in Seb’s nonbelieving arms, the most perfect thing he’s ever seen. His little hands are the exact shape of Seb’s heart, and he can’t be close enough if Seb tried.

He’s sobbing, he knows, as he clutches the tiny body to his chest, but it doesn’t matter— nothing does, except for the way their son cries, how he wriggles in Seb’s arms, and how fucking besotted Mark looks as he realises he, too, is now a father.

“Hey, you,” Mark murmurs. He’s so gentle, Seb thinks, like he’s almost afraid of his size. “Hey there, buddy- we’ve waited a long time to meet you.”

Their little boy’s hand closes tight around Mark’s finger. He hiccoughs, and tries to bury against Seb’s chest, but his eyes stay on Mark, almost like—

“He knows your voice,” Seb whispers, and Mark nods slowly, even as his eyes start overflowing with tears. It’s been easy for Seb, by comparison - he knew before Mark, felt him move before Mark, had him delivered onto his chest, so he touched him before Mark.

And yet here’s their boy, his eyes entirely glued on Mark, and Seb doesn’t even hesitate. He offers his husband the little bundle of blankets like the most precious gift he’s ever given, and when their son settles just as well in Mark’s arms, turns his perfect little face inwards and yawns—

Their world doesn’t stop so much as kick itself forward a gear, but that’s ok. As Mark leans in to kiss him, and then leans down to kiss their baby’s wrinkled forehead, Seb figures that worried, happy, grateful, and amused will have to take a backseat from now on.

All Seb can feel, as he holds onto Mark, and helps cradle their son, is blessed.

**

Robert ‘Robbie’ Matthias Webber, nine pounds and ten fucking ounces, still seems minuscule in Seb’s arms after two feeds, ten hours of sleep, and the incredibly weird experience of finding a hospital-provided meal to be the best thing he’s ever eaten.

Mark nips back home, checks on the poor old dear looking after Meg, and then returns to the hospital with snacks, and a change of clothes for their unexpectedly large son.

Seb’s still dozing, Robbie in the bassinet at his side, when he hears Mark creep into the room. He’s on the phone to Seb’s sister again, though this time, thankfully, it’s a very different conversation.

“Nah, he’s perfect. Absolute image of Seb - only thing he’s getting from me is his height.” He stops whispering, when he notices Seb is watching him. “Yeah- yeah, 9”10.” Steffi says something inaudible, and Mark shrugs. “I dunno - ‘fucking massive?’”

Seb snorts laughing, which hurts, and Mark perches on the bed by his side. After that, it hurts a little less.

“I’ll spare you the detail, Seb can fill you in.” Whatever Steffi says in response makes Mark chuckle. “Yeah, we’re head-over-heels.”

He’s got that right. Seb’s hand finds Mark’s when they both go to stroke over Robbie’s little chest, and when Seb looks up, Mark is smiling at him like he hasn’t since their wedding day.

“I’ve never loved him more.”

Seb does manage to wait until Mark has hung up to coax his husband into a kiss, but it’s a close thing.

“That might be the first time you’ve looked happy to catch me gossiping with your sisters.”

“It’s fine,” Seb says, settling into the curve of Mark’s arm, and thinking what a difference some sleep, and postpartum hormones, can make. “You were saying good things.”

“I was, wasn’t I?” They both chuckle when Robbie stirs and twists in his sleep, his little fists balling up like he agrees. “Big stretch,” Mark murmurs, then: “Seb, that was…”

“Impressive?” Seb suggests, but Mark shakes his head slowly.

“Humbling.” His lips go right down over Sebastian’s wedding ring, and for all Seb almost always has it in him to tease his husband, he’s too exhausted, and they’ve been through something too incredible today to start diverting with humour.

“I love you,” Seb says instead, and when Mark lies down beside him, pulling Seb back into the curve of his body, it’s hard to recall even a minute of the last two days.

They’ve got a new shared purpose, after all, even if all that amounts to right now is staring, disbelievingly grateful, at their son as he sleeps.

Everything else can wait until they’re home.

**

HOME (+ FOUR WEEKS)

Seb’s not allowed to collect eggs with Robbie strapped to his chest, but he is allowed to walk— and so walk he does, daily, out of their garden and onto the bridle path leading to the hilltop.

It’s an easy walk, and Seb doesn’t struggle with it, not even with still-healing stitches, or with ten pounds of ‘baby’ strapped to his chest. There’s always something new, is the key - a different neighbour to greet; a different tree to talk about; a different rock, stick, or scent for Meg to enjoy as she trails them, omnipresent, up the path.

“What do you think?” Seb murmurs to his son, when they reach a new morning to witness at the peak. “Es ist schön, no?”

Robbie’s not all-too verbose yet— but he does pull an enormous yawn, as Meg barks, and Seb nods, because he’s not spent so long stuck in the past to fully forget what he has in the present.

Just once though, just between them, he leans close to his little boy’s ear.

“One day, I think, you will race me up this hill.” The wind seems to ripple all around them as he adds: “And one day, ich denke, du wirst gewinnen.”

Back home, it’s Mark, this time, who’s stood at the stove, and a good pan of eggs cooking in front of him.

“No apron?” Seb comments, and Mark’s still laughing as Seb sits down at the table, unwraps Robbie, and places him into Oscar Piastri’s arms.

The kid goes bandy when he does, for a full ten seconds, until his arms relax, and Robbie settles— then he just looks charmed.

“He’s alright, hey?” Oscar says softly, and Seb, emboldened by Mark’s nod from the kitchen, doesn’t hesitate.

“He is.” Seb strokes a finger down Robbie’s cheek, before looking Oscar in the eye. “And congratulations to you, too.”

Oscar doesn’t falter, nor speak, but he might, by Sebastian’s estimate, clutch Robbie a little tighter— and by the time Mark is serving their eggs onto buttered toast, and Oscar laughs, and Robbie snuffles against his chest—

Mark has his sons, and Seb has his family. As he takes Robbie back from Oscar, tucking the little body against his chest, and Mark throws him a wink over the breakfast table, Seb thinks—

‘Blessed’ doesn’t even cover it.