Work Text:
“We’re going to make a tough decision.”
Famin had said this last year, as well. This year stated briefly to a team of cameras, pointed, as though speaking directly to his drivers rather than to the global F1 market. Previously, the team principal had said it gently to Esteban in private, pacifying, or condescending, maybe.
Esteban wonders, to himself for a moment, and then again aloud to the toilet where the remnants of his pre-race meal ended up, is it tough? Not for the first time, he thinks that he would fire himself too, if he could. Despite this, he was sure nothing would come of it. The status quo of a failing team can only be bent so far before snapping. But a snap could be what the team wants. Ruined goods to sell for repair.
If he’s to be the sacrificial lamb, better to cleanse the altar with his blood than his tears. So he’ll fight. It won’t earn him any love, but he’ll go down kicking and screaming, consuming those he can with him. He won’t be eaten alive by anyone.
-
Pierre knows the car will jump on instinct. He tucks his head down safely beneath the halo and feels his fingers crawl toward the radio button with a mind of their own. This, rage, he’s practiced at. The racing line attaches to his body, tugging him along the track as hot lava flows out his mouth and into the ears of the world.
In karting, he could make other children cry this way. With whips of the tongue, he lashed egos and earned a reputation with scouts, the kid speaks quicker than he races, and he races damn fast.
Scorched earth, Charles had called it, after a homeschool lesson about World War II.
Today, the damage can’t reach him. He earns a point, a few battered cars behind, though none caused by his own fire.
-
Words don’t come as easy for Esteban. He spats with risky dive bombs, sharpened glares, and cold silences. It stems from his childhood, maybe, when his working class Normandy accent marked him as other alongside the Parisian rich kids, who starred as his Papa fished their discarded tires out the trash.
Years ago, he might take to twitter for a quip. But the PR agent on his shoulder reminds him that another Perez tried to kill me two times tweet will follow him longer than any curses on the radio. Plus, he is sorry. He is glad that Pierre will pick up a point. Even if it ties them closer together again, at war in their own miniature Championship. Equality has always pacified Pierre.
He taps out an apology, feeling the Netflix cameras trained on his back, waiting for him to break. When he does, they won’t catch it. He’ll make sure of that.
After a while, Netflix leaves him be. Alone in hospitality he lets himself feel the burn of the day. If he cries now, no one will know.
Pierre later tells the media this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. Esteban stares at the wall ahead, thinking of long forgotten pasts.
-
Charles gets the win. And Pierre forgets the world outside Monaco’s premier party spots for a while, drunk on non-podium Champagne and his best friend’s joy.
-
They don’t see each other again until the 3rd of June. Far removed from the glamor of Monaco and back to work. Famin staggers their arrival times, erecting a physical wall to couple the mental one that’s remained sturdy throughout their ups and downs and games of friend to rival to enemy to nothing but barriers.
Despite best efforts, they find themselves sharing space anyway. It’s always been this way with them. It used to be Charles forcing them together. In his childhood innocence, being unable to fathom why his two older best friends felt betrayed when they showed up at his home to find each other.
Whatever force pulls them, magnetic or supernatural, with good intentions or bad, it will find them. This time in a bathroom, down the hall from the simulation room.
Maybe, Esteban thinks, Pierre feels some shame at the media circus they caused. He isn’t looking at Esteban. Not as they brush by each other in a hurry to the single sink. Not as they leave together, that gravitational pull causing Pierre to linger outside the doorway waiting for Esteban to catch up. Equality. They’ll sit in sims side by side, ruminating in silence.
-
“He’s a very good driver, he knows what he’s doing. He just needs to change” Pierre had said.
Esteban doesn’t see the interview. It’s quoted to him later by Will Buxton, who finds him at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and follows up with a question that Esteban can’t answer.
“Esteban, how will the two of you find change?”
-
On Saturday, the Alpine’s qualify P8, for Pierre, and P9, for Esteban. Stuck together like glue, again. Esteban is under strict orders to not overtake. He will oblige, choking down vomit that sneaks up his throat when 22 laps in he sees an opportunity and stops himself from taking it. Change.
It doesn’t matter in the end. Pierre fights Russel for P7, taking them both out. Racing incident, no penalties beyond bruised egos. George, too, doesn’t want to be eaten alive by anyone. 8 points on the board for Esteban. He doesn’t feel like celebrating.
Pierre’s sharp tongue is tied, at least until Spain. They sit together on the plane ride home. No one speaks for a while.
-
In karting, Pierre’s father would tell him friends are distractions. Unnecessary, a burden to race against and an emotional nuisance on the hardened core of a racer. With Charles and later with Yuki, he learned to ignore this advice. The same cannot be true for others.
The captain announces landing preparations over the speaker. Pierre watches the flight attendants buckle in.
Esteban opens the window on the plane when Pierre asks for it. Pierre knows the sun burns his eyes.