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They’re sat in the Team Debrief after qualifying, either side of Maurizio with the President breathing down their neck, going on about Kimi’s “diabolical start” the previous year and ordering him to “at least try” to not screw it up again. But Kimi wasn’t really listening to him – he never really listened anyway, simply pretending to nod along and give the impression that he had absorbed every word. However, this time, he wasn't vacantly staring into space - there was something else which had captured his interest:
His teammate, who was at least looking at the president but had a look in his eyes Kimi knew well: he’d even named it the please shut up so I can listen to something meaningful look, and noticed that Seb usually wore this look whenever the President was speaking. No, Kimi corrected himself. He always wore that look.
But it was something else on Sebastian’s face that caught his attention – a red line of some sort, down the right side of his nose and coming perilously close to his eyes. Kimi frowned. It definitely wasn’t there before qualifying, because he’d spent the meeting before Q1 staring at Seb and planning to tell him not to shave, because it made him look about 16, and that made Kimi feel uncomfortably old. He wondered what Seb's reaction was when the announcer in the press conference had stressed upon the fact that he was nearly 37.
Suddenly Kimi realised that the line was actually a scar, so Seb had gotten hurt, and if he found the person who did it he wasn’t sure what he would do, but it wouldn’t be good.
At that moment Seb turned to him with a slightly concerned look, because Kimi was sure he looked about to explode. Seb's look turned panicked when he saw the President notice Kimi not paying an ounce of attention to his speech. However he was stopped from shouting at his driver by Kimi himself, still staring intensely at the wound on Seb’s face.
“What happened to your nose?” he managed to force out, laden with concern and fury at the culprit. “Who did it to you? Was it a fan? I’ll punch them for you!”
“You will do no such thing!” the President boomed, whilst Maurizio was smirking.
Kimi rolled his eyes, “Fine, I’ll hire people to beat them up. Happy?” The President nodded his approval. Seb just laughed somewhat nervously, because he knew how overprotective Kimi was.
“Ah, I doubt they’d have much fun beating up a fence, but I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with them…”
“…a fence?” Kimi said incredulously.
“Yeah, well I was trying to wave to the fans and there was a rope I didn’t notice, and it hit me in the face,” Seb looked somewhat ashamed of his clumsiness. Kimi, on the other hand, was in overdrive about how the wound had been left untreated, so there was a risk of infection, so Seb was in danger, all because the stupid organisers had put a random rope so it would hit Seb in the face.
The others sat round a table were chortling, because who gets hit in the face with a rope of all things? They didn’t notice Kimi getting up and crossing to a nearby cabinet until he was headed for Seb, armed with a medicinal wipe.
“Kimi, honestly, it’s nothing,” Seb tried to protest.
“Shut up.” And Seb did, complying with Kimi kneeling down and manhandling his face so he could get a better view of the scar. Almost hypnotically, he wiped the surrounding area, whilst staring straight into Seb’s sapphire irises.
“This is really close to your eye, Sebi, it could have been really serious,” Kimi whispered, completely unaware of the others watching on with something between fondness and embarrassment. Only he could tell that Kimi was seriously worried by the various taut lines of his face and the pure concern in his eyes. Kimi gently traced a lone finger down the length of the scar, as if committing it to memory.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Seb whispered back. “I’ll be more aware of ropes at face-height in the future.”
“That would be nice,” Kimi replied. They smiled.