Work Text:
“I would have been happy to let you win”
Max says it to Esteban. Who knows if he means it. Pierre thinks, personally, he wouldn’t have meant it.
He tries to come up with a scenario where he would’ve had the chance. Or if Max could have said it to him, in their matching Red Bull suits years ago.
There’s no time to be lost in thought for long, champagne waking him out of his daydream with a spray full pelt in the side of his face. He throws his head back and laughs, feeling the sun-warmed fizzles in his ear canal. It’s Esteban’s favorite pastime, to spray him in the most inconvenient way he can find. Or it was at 8 years old when they joined each other on the podium nearly every weekend.
Pierre thinks he hears the English Channel in his stuffed up ear. The waves crash so loud against Normandy Beach he barely hears the roar of the crowd beneath him. Esteban calls him for a picture. A trophy slips between his wet fingers to the floor. He clammers to grab it back, reflexes broken from the grueling race. It lands at Esteban’s boots.
“Pear?”
From his position on kneeling on the ground, hands searching for his prize, Pierre tilts his head up. It’s beautiful. The normality of it all. Esteban, with rain drenched hair, holding both their trophies. His eyes are rimmed red, maybe with tears, maybe with the burn of alcohol.
“Ocon. You have my trophy.”
Esteban hands it back, his bright smile dropping only for a millisecond before Pierre is being blinded again by a set of bunny teeth and that horrid, childish nickname.
“Sorry man, I know how possessive mon Pear is with his trophies. But I can’t let it touch the ground, this is our history.”
He shakes the trophy a bit in Pierre’s face, as if he’s saying ‘Have you forgotten already, we’re on the podium. There’s 70 million people watching. You’ve left your brain on the race track.'
Pierre grabs it back in one swift movement, his body finally remembering it belongs to a world class race car driver.
“Don’t call me that in front of Canal.”
Frustratingly, unnervingly, Esteban-ly, he nods.
“Of course not, Pierre. It’s your day too. Go speak with them, I’ll take your lead.”
They move together towards the media pen. Esteban holds to his promise, referring the camera men to Pierre.
It’s no wonder Esteban is so agreeable today, the smile won’t leave his face. He’s near bouncing with anticipation as Pierre starts recounting the story of the race.
Yes, it’s an unreal result. Yes, the team never imagined this. No, there were no thoughts in his head other than crossing the line. Yes, he is proud of Esteban.
How could he not be proud of Esteban? How could Esteban not be proud of him? Before he can steal himself, before he can stop it, the words flow from his mouth like the half-drinkable champagne flew down his throat;
“We have our ups and downs. We have our personal history, which is ours alone, which is unique. But we come from the same place, the same generation. It’s very nice our podium, between Max, him, and me.”
As easy as the words left his mouth, they travel down to his guts. Forming a rock hard lump in his throat as they go. He tries to swallow as the attention is turned to his teammate.
“It’s an image that will remain etched in my memory, doing this round together side by side. We have our stories, but this one today, it’s magnificent.”
And well, Esteban has always been more poetic than him. Result of being a cinephile probably. Heaven knows neither of them read books.
Pierre creates stories with his vitrole and harsh claims to any journalist who will listen. Esteban forms his narratives with on track madness in contrast to the off track calm Pierre has never quite worked out how to read.
Together, as each half, they form their full story. Unevenly told. Biased. Ran ragged through French tabloids and British broadcasts and twitter poles and forum posts and fan theories, ran through each other’s distorted memory until it hangs dead and dried, never found in its entirety. Lost even to them.
Their story is theirs. Theirs alone. Unique to all but each other. Formed with love and hate and hard racing. Designed by the Formula 1 Gods to extract all they could from two young drivers. To be reshaped and retold.
Later, after drinks and a long night out, Pierre will rewatch their interview in his hotel room. He’ll see the way Esteban glances down at him, with the same wide eyed joy they felt together when they were young. The pit in his throat will return. Maybe this time he’ll choke it down, pick up the phone, and call his old friend for a round.
A round for Pierre of course, Esteban hasn’t drank since Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had him singing karaoke on camera in 2016, wasted.
Pierre will pour him something boring. Probably water in a fancy glass, the way they would at dinner parties as little boys. They’ll toast to their latest success together.
After all, it may be the last they get. Next year they’ll find themselves separated again. Esteban to Haas, a whole new world. As Pierre assumes first driver responsibility at the team Esteban loved for years. The team that isn’t Red Bull, but will have to be good enough.
Esteban will drink his water. He’ll giggle, like Pierre’s alcoholism is contagious. Somewhere between pseudo drinks and reminiscing they’ll fall into each other. Esteban’s long arms wrapping around Pierre’s chest, hugging him from behind in that obnoxious tall person way of his.
Esteban will forget his promise in the dimly lit room and call him Pear again. Pierre will pretend to hate it, pretend he doesn’t want to respond back with a half sarcastic, “Yes, Tiger?”
In each of their minds, separately but ever similar, they’ll pretend it’s over this time. They can put it behind them. Be Pierre and Esteban, Esteban and Pierre, like they were always meant to be. Invent a world where their story ends in cooperation, in love.
This time, maybe it will.