Chapter Text
His life was reduced to nothing more than an afterthought on a rainy Wednesday morning.
In retrospect, Esteban should have seen it coming. Should have been able to read the writing on the wall before his father ever even sat him down in his office. As a child, he used to love playing there while his father worked in silence behind his desk. He used to relish in the sound a pen made on paper, loved the way shadows played across the walls in winter, when the hearth was lit and the fire crackled merrily.
There was nothing left of that childhood joy when his father informed him of his upcoming wedding.
“It will be good for the both of our families.” Laurent has the decency to hold his hand, run his thumb across the back of it, as if the soothing motion could set everything back upright. He doesn’t have the heart to show his father how unsettled he is, keeps his expression neutral and his voice soft when he does speak. Esteban doesn’t say much, lets the silences be filled with his father’s words rather than his own.
He imagines his mother crying, just as he imagines his father’s heart breaking all the same. It doesn’t matter, in the end, the agreement has already been made. Ink is already drying on the paper, and suddenly, Esteban can no longer bear the sound of a pen being dipped in ink. It stains, the black in equal measures as the fear that now lays nestled inside his heart.
Father tells him that he’s secured him a good match. A strong Alpha, the dream of every Omega with status. A husband who would be more than capable of taking care of him. It came with a title, just as it came with land and a duty .
Esteban quite had his fill of duty before the conversation was even over, yet nodded all the same. The smile which appeared on his features was small, polite, undoubtably conjured for the sole purpose of appeasing his father. Laurent speaks of lord Verstappen with high regards, praises his name with the way he pronounces it. Max Verstappen is of good lineage, born to a fine family that shall bring no dishonour to his own name.
“When am I expected to leave?” he tries to remain strong, tries to keep the sound of his voice unwavering. Father looks at him as if he has to be, even when Esteban feels no stronger than a mere pup who wishes to hide behind mother’s skirts.
“Tomorrow, if all goes well.”
He nods, bares the back of his neck with the simple motion. Finds it fitting, even when it is to his own father. It was him, after all, who stuck the metaphorical teeth into the soft flesh and pulled out the ability of his own choice with vigour. Esteban smiles as he pulls back his hand from Laurent’s grip. There is no fire crackling in the hearth, no joy to be found in dancing shadows.
There is nought but the crack of silence as it settles heavily onto them. “I shall say my goodbyes, then. I assume mother is already aware?” if his father notices the diplomatic tone to his voice which betrays his discomfort, he doesn’t comment on it. “She has been informed, yes. Although I suspect she would want to hear it from you, regardless.”
Of course, she does , which mother does not wish to experience the gruesome pain of seeing her only pup being ripped from her arms? Which mother does not relish in the knowledge that their offspring is reduced to nothing more than a political bargaining chip?
His own teeth dig into the soft muscle of his tongue. If he bleeds, he does not notice.
*
Morning comes far too quickly, and as the sun rises across the rolling hills and sturdy woods in the distance, Esteban wonders, not for the first time, if there is still a chance for him to run away.
His mother had helped him pack. She had picked out his finest clothes, instructed him on which he was allowed to wear during the journey, and which ones he would have to savour until he set foot in his new home. “He is a kind man, or so I’ve been told.” She’d pinched his cheeks in the same way she used to do when he was still small enough to sleep curled up on her lap.
All men are kind in his mother’s eyes. For she is nothing more than a product of her own upbringing, groomed and prepped from birth to wed. At least her parents had always foreseen the fact that she would have been an Omega. To his own, it had been a surprise to find their only child in heat a few weeks after his fourteenth birthday.
For most of his life, he’d been told he was an Alpha. One who would continue the line, one who would ensure that his family would prevail. His father had raised him as a strong son, had ensured that Esteban was able to build, was able to provide , for the family he would some day protect in the walls of the familiar home. His mother had taught him about diplomatic matters. About all things that did not thrive underneath flashing teeth and snarls.
Some part of him wonders if his father blames her. The same part of him wonders if he could have been an Alpha if things had only gone slightly differently.
Rationally, he knows it doesn’t matter. It never mattered to begin with, not his parents, nor himself, had any say in the matter. One did not choose their path in this life, just as they did not choose underneath which star they were born.
His mother must smell it, the stench of doubt and fear must so surely be slithering into his scent by now. Esteban tries to stop it, tries to take a deep breath to steady his nerves. Father would be displeased if he stepped towards the carriage reeking of doubt. No one wishes to see a runaway bride .
“You have nothing to fear, my child.” the warmth of her hand is grounding against his cheek, even when Sabrine has to stand on the tips of her toes to reach. “Your father loves you, he would never give you away to a man you could not learn to love.”
For the first time in a long while, Esteban wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around his mother’s frame and disappear from the world for a while, engulfed in one of her embraces. He has not been able to fully disappear among the many layers of her dresses for years now, and he doubts he will ever know peace quite like that ever again. Yet, he longs for it all the same.
Sabrine does her best impression of an anchor, steadies him in a world that seems to come crashing down around him. “It is just a marriage at first, but if your husband is kind enough to deserve your heart, you shall find that it becomes part of your soul. He wants that for you, chérie.”
There are so many things that his parents seem to want for him, and Esteban can believe very little of them at the moment. But his mother has taught him well, and he smiles as if there is nowhere he’d rather be than in the arms of his foreign husband. “I know, mother. I wish for nothing but his happiness, too.” she pinches his cheek again, a smile that does not quite reach her eyes carved out on her own lips. “Child, if you lie to me again, believe me, I will scold you in a manner that you have not experienced before.”
Esteban makes a silent promise to always be honest with her from that day onward.
“Write me.” she says as she hands off the last of his bags to a maid, who dashes off with them as if her life depends on it. “At least once for every single day that lays between here and your new home. Send them as soon as you can, so that I can finally sleep peacefully knowing that you’ve reached your destination safely.”
He laughs, takes her hands in his own before placing a kiss on her knuckles. “One letter for every day I find myself on the road, and a letter for every following day after that. I promise.”
“Esteban - ” she is truly scolding him now, one hand on her hip as her eyebrows are furrowed with an emotion he cannot quite place. “ - if you have the time to write your mother a letter daily after you’ve been wed, you’ve clearly not experienced all the joys a husband can bring.”
If the prospect of a marriage to a stranger had not been enough to make him consider running off into the countryside, hearing his mother speak in such manner was surely enough to push him over the edge.
Sabrine must have noticed, for she reached out to grab his hand before he could even take a single step towards the door of his childhood room. Locking him into place at her side. “Come now, come, at least let me escort you towards your carriage. I brought you into this world and into this house, let me at least take you as far as I can before giving you away.”
He immediately misses her in a manner that his heart cannot comprehend, and he has not even left the estate yet.
*
“Fernando Alonso, at your service.”
The strange Alpha doesn’t smile at him, barely looks at him with anything but disinterest in his hazel eyes. There is no pleasure which drips from his tone of voice like honey. It’s, above anything else, incredibly refreshing. All of his life, Esteban has been surrounded with people who pretend to care for him. Rarely they do, more often than not, they care for his title and whatever it is that he represents in their eyes.
Esteban offers his hand, waits for Fernando to take it and press a kiss to the ring bearing his family’s weapon that rests against his finger. Fernando does no such thing, just raises an eyebrow and asks a wordless question.
‘And why would I ever do that?’
The hand is quickly dropped, the soft heat of shame spreading across his cheeks. He knows he must be turning scarlet underneath the late-spring sun shining on brightly above. A blackbird sings up in the trees swaying in the soft breeze. He wishes the earth would open up underneath his feet and swallow him whole.
It’s something that he’s supposed he’s going to grow familiar with soon enough, the unfamiliarity at the sight of his ring, at the mention of his name. Soon, he will be nothing more than a consort of a name that’s far more familiar to foreign tongues. He will be nothing more than a wife who sits next to his husband in the eyes of a new flock. Truth of the matter is, he should be grateful for Fernando for already showing him such cold mercy. His heart tells him that it hurts all the same.
Father assures him that the Alpha will keep him safe, will protect him while they’re out on the road. Esteban believes him. “Alonso has been hand-picked by your future husband, he knows the way, and he shall ensure your safety. He is a fine man, Esteban. He shall make an excellent travel companion.” mother kisses his forehead one final time before she lets him go.
Esteban wishes that she would have held on a little tighter, that he could have been a child a little longer.
Fernando holds his hand as he steps into the carriage, the bare palm of his against the fabric of his own soft gloves. It is proper, even when all of it feels stiff at the same time. His parents had raised him with certain freedoms, had allowed for him to be a child, rather than a future diplomat. In his youth, he had been allowed to run around the garden and experience the way dirt settled onto his knees, the way scrapes and bruises felt on his skin.
All had changed after his first heat. From then on out, he was nothing but a bird stuck in a gilded, golden, cage. Protected and secure, yet trapped all the same. A cage was still a cage, no matter how pretty or sturdy it was made. In the same way a carriage driving down the grounds of his parent’s estate was nothing more than a death sentence to whatever remained of his youth.
He waves at his parents before they fully disappear from his view. Hopes to commit them to memory, longs to always remember the way his mother held on to his father’s arm. If there was love in their marriage, surely there must be love in his one, too.
*
Fernando is hardly good company.
Esteban thinks the man must be well-travelled, for sometimes he betrays himself with speaking of knowledge no man trapped inside a certain region can surely know. He gazes upon trees and tells Esteban their name, same with plants and rivers. Fernando seems to have memorized the map of France as the carriage takes them further and further away from his place of birth.
He has never been this far away from home, but he is sure he has much further to go until he is to be greeted by the sight of his new country. Stomach twists itself into knots, already wrapping itself around the soon-to-be familiar sensation of homesickness.
“Can we stop for just a moment?” if he’s honest with himself, he’s already growing weary of the sight of similar trees around them. His legs have grown numb from not being used, it’s not as if he can stretch them comfortably without risking touching the Alpha sitting on the opposite side of the carriage as him. His mother taught him better than to do such a thing. “I feel as if my legs are to become useless if I do not walk a few paces.”
Companion raises an eyebrow and whispers something in a language unfamiliar to him. It is not Dutch, for it is too smooth for such a thing. Esteban wraps this knowledge around his finger, holds it behind his teeth. He will ask Fernando about it later, if the other allows .
“No.” the answer comes as a surprise. It is not as if he has often been told no, but most certainly not by someone of lower societal rank than him.
Omega or not, he has grown up with a certain status tied to the vowels of his last name. Coated in gold, it was enough to typically only hear the word ‘yes’. He raises an eyebrow too, tilts his head as if he’s waiting for an explanation. If Fernando picks up on the cue, he decides against answering. They continue their way without speaking another word, not even a particularly interesting looking tree can coax Fernando out of the harrowing silence.
While Esteban still thinks the other is hardly good company, he also immediately misses the fleeting conversation that did not require him to be any part of it.
Part of him wishes to talk about it, wishes to fill the silence in the carriage with his woes. He wants to shove his hands between his ribs and rip until there’s a stream of guilt spilling out. There’s a ditch underneath the wheels, Esteban can feel the way the carriage rocks underneath, he hopes this is the earth which has finally decided to grant him the mercy of swallowing him whole.
“I wanted to marry.” his mouth shapes itself around the words before he can stop it. There’s a wound in his chest which is still raw, the blood of it is welling up, spilling from his throat. He is not to be blamed for this. “I knew I would marry, it was hardly ever a question. I just wished it would be to someone I knew.”
Fernando has the decency of looking at him, even when those hazel eyes are still devoid of anything but disinterest. Part of him wants to know what it takes for Fernando to be interested in something, but that particular part is small and not overly curious. He shuffles his legs a bit, tries to stretch them to the side, tries to manoeuvre them around Fernando’s feet without touching, while the Alpha sits with his elbows resting on his spread knees.
The other sits like a man, like someone who is strong enough to protect him come hell or high water. If nothing else, his future husband has made the right decision by sending him.
“You know of Max Verstappen.” it’s the first time that Esteban has heard anyone refer to the stranger by name, rather than his soon-to-be title. Future husband seemed far more anonymous, just as it seemed far safer in the confinements of his mind. Names were for quiet moments tucked away from the eyes of the world. Out here, in the daylight, the stranger would never be anything more than husband or Alpha.
“That should be enough. What good does it do you, to know someone before you wed them?” Fernando still clings to his boredom, even when there’s a spark of something which flashes through his eyes. It is there one moment, and gone the next. “It is not as if one can experience everything their spouse has to offer before making that commitment.”
Esteban feigns shock, pressing a hand against his chest in a dramatic motion.
It is clearly a mistake, for Fernando smiles in the same way Esteban can imagine a predator would. The Alpha leans forward ever so slightly, he seems to fill up an impossible amount of space with the simple motion. The carriage shakes again, and he only notices that he’s holding his breath because of it.
“I was talking about nothing in particular, good sir.” there’s clear enjoyment which bleeds from the other’s features now. Something which Esteban has not seen depicted in these last few hours which he has spent with his unlikely companion. “But a man must wonder, what did your mind conjure up?”
In his childhood, he has seen a fox bite into the throat of a rabbit, robbing the creature of life. He cannot help but think of this memory when Fernando leans closer forward still, filling the entire carriage with both his presence and his scent. Esteban understands better now than before why the rabbit seemed to accept its faith, hanging limp from the predator’s jaws.
“Nothing you should concern yourself with.” it’s a childish act of defiance, the way he crosses his arms, wraps the fabric of his fur cloak around himself a little tighter, before glancing out of the small windows at his side. “ Good sir .” it tastes like an insult, even when it does not sting like one.
There is a breath which passes in the silence left after his little display. Silence, which is only broken by Fernando’s laughter filling up the carriage. “Esteban - ” name forces him to bring his attention back to the Alpha, even when he might not want it, he has no choice but to grace the other with at least a fleeting glance. “ - I fear I must disappoint you, for until I deliver you to Lord Verstappen, everything about you concerns me.”
Esteban’s eyes are once again on the world outside, clothed fingertips digging into the fur of his cloak as if the fabric can somehow make the situation more comfortable. It can’t, of course, it can’t. But it can help him hide the beginning of a smile that’s tugging at the corners of his lips.