Work Text:
When Sal had taken over the role of lead photographer for Ferrari a few months ago, she’d known it would not be a cakewalk. She’d known they were going to have high expectations and standards. She’d not known it was going to be this kind of chaos.
Really, it should be simple. A simple photo shoot. Get the drivers into the clothes, position them on the set, take the photos and repeat until the whole line has been visualised - nothing new, nothing really exciting.
Also not a lot of room for problems. Sal is a professional, Carlos and Charles are professionals, everyone is a professional, who’s been through this exact thing about 1000 times before. However, for some inexplicable reason, shooting together seems to make their two models prone to ignore all that professionalism in the room and throw their own out the window with it.
Prior to her first shoot, Sal had already heard stories from the PR-team about most of the vlogs and challenges going a bit awry. But nothing could’ve prepared her for whatever they are.
(Teammates? Friends? Boyfriends? Insane mostly.)
Their exact relationship is a big question mark to everyone, probably even themselves, but they do seem incredibly comfortable - constantly in each others space, touching in some form or another.
That, in of itself, is not a problem. It starts becoming one, when the people they work with need them to not do that for a few hours, and it is apparently impossible.
(They’re not getting downright handsy, but the way they move around each other is still too physically intimate to be edited around the power of teammates and friendship.)
And the worst thing is, no one can even really fault them, as they actually don’t seem to be doing it on purpose.
Sal recognises it from her own relationship – the need to be close, the bubble of intimacy that makes everything else disappear - so when she has to reposition them for almost every second shot because they keep unconsciously shifting closer to each other, she can’t find it in herself to blame them. At this point, she’s gotten used to it.
(That doesn’t mean she can’t still send them chastising looks every time it happens.)
What she definitely can and will blame them for though, is their current predicament - the candid videos of the new race suits, that are taking way longer than they need to - because Carlos and Charles seem to have a lot of trouble with the 10 cm gap between them. It has repeatedly taken about 20 seconds after positioning, for them to get lost in themselves and instinctually move closer again - much to the chagrin of the videography team.
After they have to cut off the video for the fifth time, because neither of them can keep their hands where they’re supposed to be, Sal also starts blaming the director.
She keeps giving them the call of “Act natural! Like you’re in the garage preparing for the race!” and somehow the guys seem to take that particular one very seriously.
Because, just like before every race, they are completely in their own world, oblivious to whatever is happening around them. Sal has photographed enough Grand-Prixs and therefore witnessed enough of their pre-race rituals, to know the phrasing is really not helping anyone.
They’re now on their eighth attempt to get a particular candid shot of the two drivers in their shiny blue race suits wearing equally blue sunglasses.
The longer she looks at it, the more ridiculous the scene becomes in Sal’s opinion, but it’s the last one and they need to make it stick, so everyone can finally go home. Although the photo-part of the shoot is done and the videographer has taken over two hours ago, Sal and the rest of the photography team are still there (company policy...) and it is starting to drag.
Most of the staff not actively working is gathered around the director and her video monitor, impatiently waiting. They need one minute of usable footage for the promotion. One minute.
As the first half counts down, everything seems to be going swimmingly - they’re keeping it cool, they’re keeping it civil and most importantly they’re keeping it an appropriate distance apart.
At around 20 seconds to go, Charles starts fussing with his hair.
It’s an innocent enough thing, to go down without any protest from the crew. But then Carlos, in a gesture that seems too intuitive to be entirely conscious, starts moving his hands up to where Charles’ are buried in his curls.
The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. It is almost entirely silent. No one is even looking at the two drivers. Everyone knows what’s coming is inevitable, so the only thing that matters is the clock ticking on the video timer.
Carlos’ hands reach Charles’ head with about 10 seconds to go. As he starts untangling his teammates hands from his hair and gently takes them into his own, the silence is disrupted by a cacophony of almost unison groans from the team. 10 seconds. 10 seconds later and it would’ve been completely fine. Everyone is already resigning themselves to do the whole thing over again, when the director sighs loudly and shakes her head.
“No. This ends now. I do not care how we do it, but we will find these 10 seconds somewhere else. Cut the last part. We are done here.” Then she gets up from her chair and, to everyone’s surprise, simply leaves the studio.
There is a moment of stunned silence, before the whole team lets out a collective sigh of relief and immediately starts moving to pack up.
As the two drivers are ushered to the dressing rooms, Sal sees Charles lean into Carlos, making the other man reach out instinctively, pulling him closer.
They smile and wave their goodbyes, when they pass where she is zipping up her bags - talking animatedly to each other, once again caught in their own world.
Oblivious, Sal thinks as she waves back.
Shouldering her equipment, she watches them for a moment longer. Carlos has one arm wrapped tightly around Charles’ waist, like he has been restraining himself the last six hours and now needs to make up for lost time. Charles is no better, as he seemingly tries his best to reduce the space between them even more by practically melting into his teammates side.
Sal sighs, turning to leave. They really are insane.