Chapter Text
In the final week leading up to Christmas, snow fell in drifts and puffs, descending in suspended animation, in gales and gusts, topping the roofs and lawns in a fine dusting of white, as though a cosmic baker had spilt their flour over the laptop’s keyboard they read their recipe on, or the hostess of a patisserie, shaking liberal sugar, over beignets, or fritters, mounds piling up, casting up sugar dust in puffs, in whisps, and drifts.
Stanna admitted that Kimi had never skimped on the decorations, for as long as he’d known him, though he said Kimi had always delegated the job to him, which surprised Seb, as he’d always known Kimi to sentimentalise Christmas, though he had all but proclaimed to the world in interviews and the YouTube specials that he cared none for any of it, not one bit for any of it.
This year was no different than any past, reportedly, though Kimi personally asked Stanna if he would allow the Vettel children to participate, should they wish to, and he did, and they did. Kimi then asked if Hanna could keep the children out of his study for two weeks, as he had some important paperwork he had to attend to, though he asked Seb if he could stay and help.
Seb missed not the twitch on Hanna’s calm, collected, composed face. It was only the most minute fraction of a fluttering blink in her eyes, a flash flicker in the right corner of her mouth, a shiver in the vein to the right of the bridge of her nose. He watched her hand tremble just a second, hand raised above her fork, caught in the moment before she would have picked it up. She paused, picked up her cutlery, careful hands concealing their quivering. She faltered as she speared a piece of zucchini, but continued, and raised it to her lips. She took a quavering breath.
Seb knew Kimi saw all this out of the corner of his eye, saw Hanna oscillating, vacillating; saw Seb watching Hanna, saw Emilie entertaining Marco, keeping him busy, occupied, distracted, saw Mathilde’s eyes flickering, darting, flittering, here, there, on Hanna, next Seb, then Kimi, now Seb.
“It's very good, your food.” She spoke, finally, at long last, at such long last, breaking the brittle silence in time, when she had after all managed to swallow the through-cooked veg, choke it down, well down.
“Yes, thank you-” Stanna looked up uneasily. “Kimi cooks, most days, but sometimes, I do.”
“Yes, I mostly cook; today, Stanna did. I had some … important matters to attend to … yes, some matters … of great importance…” Kimi cleared his throat.
There was yet another horrible silence; it endured, grating and sore, making his throat feel hoarse, his voice as broken as his soul, his heart.
Seb grieved; he grieved for his wife, he grieved for his children, and most of all, he grieved for his broken promises, his world shattered so easily by his foolish actions, leading his children to suffer the self-same traumas he’d endured as a boy, only a child, no older in moons than his own eldest, his own flesh and blood, suffered them endure the self-same fate his flesh and blood inflicted upon him.