Chapter Text
It had been a tragedy, the headlines were everywhere. “Drivers George Russel and Alexander Albon found dead at the Mercedes hospitality minutes before Silverstone qualifying”. It had taken the whole racing world by surprise, causing uproar and controversy after the decision had been taken to continue the race weekend as if nothing had happened. Their deaths had left plenty of questions unanswered. Most importantly, there was no determined cause of death for either of the bodies.
Alexander’s funeral had been a day before George’s, purely for convenience. It was instrumental for every driver on the grid to be at both funerals to show respect and keep their public image intact but they could not be at two places at once.
When George finally blinked awake he was in an unfamiliar place surrounded by familiar faces that all felt so far away. He spotted rows of chairs looking towards the front of the room and walls decorated with flower arrangements. The place didn’t feel so unfamiliar anymore; he'd been here before, to say goodbye to his grandmother when he was 12.
He felt as if his head should hurt, everything was buzzing. At a distance he spotted Alex, standing away from everyone else. Somehow Alex felt like the only real thing in that God forsaken room. He made his way towards his friend feeling as light as a feather.
"What's going on?" He asked.
Alex didn't reply, Alex just looked at George with a strange expression and nodded towards the front of the room. That's when he saw it. His own body resting in a casket, it wasn't too battered or bloody, yet it was still a sickening sight to behold.
"Do you want to stay for the funeral?" Alex asked gently.
"No. No I don’t think so," He said while shaking his head profusely. “Did you stay for yours?”
"No, I didn't" he said, taking George's hand and walking out of the funeral home together.
Once they made it out, they sat in silence; just letting everything sink in. It’s not everyday that you die. George couldn't remember how it’d happened. No matter how hard he tried to remember nothing came to mind. The last thing he remembered was filming a tik tok with admin.
He was brought out of his thoughts by Alex tapping him on the shoulder and pointing at the gym across the street.
“Georgie, why did the ghost go to the gym? To work on his boo-dy!”
Silence. Absolute soul-crushing silence.
“What?” George deadpanned.
“You know how you work out to like.. work on your body and like you know how when ghosts try to scare people they go boo and like I thought it has an extra layer because we’re both ghosts and athletes. I don’t know,” He ran a hand across his face, a little unsettled by the fact he couldn’t feel his hand, “you looked really down and I couldn’t think of anything to say.”
“I was just thinking, I can’t remember how I died,” Gorge sighed.
“I’d rather not if I’m being honest. Plus, it’ll probably be on the news soon if it hasn’t been already, we’ll know by then.”
“Should we look at the papers, then?”
“Hell no. First we should do something fun! Being a ghost is perfect for causing mischief.” Alex suggested.
George thought about it for a minute before replying; “Shall we go haunt our friends, then?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” he grinned.
————————————
Despite agreeing to haunt their friends, they could absolutely not agree on who to start with. So they had spent the last hour debating who would be the best to haunt. Discussing in detail how they’d make their friends scream. They wouldn’t want to traumatize their friends too much after such a tremendous loss, but they also wanted to have a bit of fun.
Finally, they landed on their fellow 2019 rookie; Lando. Someone who had been with them from the start of their F1 journey and someone who screamed like a little girl when scared.
“Whereabouts do you think he’ll be?” Asked George.
“Hopefully at your funeral or else he’s a shit friend”
“Right,” George sighed, “Whoever thought I’d like an open-casket?”
“You do want an open casket, deep down, to show everyone how even in death you look better than them”
That earned Alex a small giggle from George which felt like the greatest prize he’d ever received. He supposes all those other trophies mattered a little less in death.
“Maybe we can wait for him at his apartment? Proposed Alex.
“And how will we get to Monaco from here?”
“Simple, actually. We go to the closest airport and sneak into the soonest flight to Nice. Ghosts don’t pay for seats.”
George didn’t know what possessed him to think that was a good idea, but it was too late now. He’d agreed to Alex’s idiotic plan and now they were rushing through the airport to catch the flight to Nice,which was boarding in ten minutes. Did he mention they could phase through walls? Because they could. Alex was doing it as if it were nothing, moving from one hall to another while running as fast as he could and George absolutely could not keep up. It made him sick to faze through walls.
Everything paid off; they managed to make it to the flight on time. George was panting next to Alex who stood calmly next to him. In truth, George couldn’t really get tired, he didn’t have a physical form. He was panting to release stress because he hated having to rush and even worse having to phase through walls. But in Alex’s opinion he was just a drama queen.
“So where do we sit down?” Alex asked unfazed by George and his charades.
“The most expensive unoccupied seats, duh.”
There were none. At all. The first and business seats were occupied. Alex considered sitting on top of someone else, it wasn’t like they would notice. Still, George wished to maintain his dignity, so he dragged Alex to an empty row in economy. Since no one could see them, they decided to sit in less than normal positions; both their legs were up on the head rests of the people in front of them and the rest of their bodies were sprawled out as much as possible.
An hour into the flight, Alex snatched a couple of canned margaritas from the food trolley but when he and George attempted to drink them, they just fell right through their bodies and onto the floor.
“Are you bloody serious? I can hold the darn can but I can’t drink the liquid? How does that make any sense at all? Ghost rules are ridiculous.” George whined, really, really whined like a grown man-toddler.
Alex just stared at the mess they’d made and laughed. It really was ridiculous, George was right.
“We should test out these ghost rules! I have some questions I want answered.” George’s tone made it clear this was demand.
“What do you want to test?”
They started by checking if they could touch each other by placing their hands on the other’s sternum, they found that they could touch each other. Then, they tested touching other people, but they couldn’t. They’d just faze right through them, however their test subjects shivered. The next thing they tested was if people could see what they were holding by obnoxiously shaking a bag of chips in front of people’s faces. The passengers couldn’t see what they were holding but once they dropped the bag people could see it fall from mid-air with no explanation.
This was all extremely important data, it cleared up exactly how they could and couldn’t haunt their friends.
By the time they were done with their tests, their flight had made it to Nice but they weren’t in the clear just yet. What would usually be an easy 30 minute car ride to Monaco was now near impossible for two ghosts that couldn’t hail a taxi.
“We could steal a car.” Had been Alex’s bright idea.
“I am not committing a felony just because. We’ll take the bus.” Had been Goerge’s rebuttal.
That’s how they ended up on a dingy bus from the airport to Monaco. George had been first to complain about the lack of maintenance of said dingy bus. He was immediately grossed out by the seats, which looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the 1950s at least. The rattling of the engine was so incredibly loud that it could give a ghost without the ability to feel pain a headache. This was definitely the way poor people made it to Monaco.
There was a stop at a petrol station to have a coffee break halfway through a bus ride that was just thirty minutes for some inexplicable reason. George chose to stay on the bus and “rest his eyes”while Alex chose to explore the area around to gauge where exactly they were.
When Alex came back he had a smirk on his face. “I just checked. This bus is a Mercedes.”
To which George could only roll his eyes but still smiled fondly because it was dumb, the value of some dumb beat up bus had no correlation with the value of his team, but it was still a tad bit funny. Not that he’d ever admit it, though.
By the time they made it to Monaco, it was three in the morning and George was tired. Which logically didn’t make sense, but the trip had been emotionally draining. They’d made it to Lando's apartment by phasing through the door. A small debate ensued on whether ghosts should sleep or not until they agreed that being awake during sleep hours was very weird.
“Do you think Lando would kill us if we slept in his bed?”
“Alex, sweetheart. We’re already dead.”
They climbed into Lando’s bed and settled in it a little bit closer to each other than what was strictly necessary. It felt comforting, Alex’s hand on his and their legs resting in a tangled mess. It felt warm, the kind of warmth that starts in your chest and expands through your body uncontrollably until you’re smiling uncontrollably and your cheeks hurt.
George wasn’t sure if they had really slept or not once the morning came. He’d closed his eyes and the world around him disappeared, yet it didn’t feel exactly like sleeping. It was still comforting to be able to just rest; it made him feel more human.
They hadn’t really stopped and slowed down since they’d died, they were always up to something. They hadn’t even talked about how it felt to be dead for a prolonged amount of time and, knowing Alex, it would be hard to get him to stop deflecting.
“Georgie-pie, are you awake?”
“Sadly, yes I am,” his reply was muffled by a pillow.
From a distance they could hear the distinct sounds of a key turning and a door opening, which made the pair jump out of the bed.
“Lando’s already here! We haven’t planned how to scare him!” Alex yelped.
“We’ll just have to wing it.” George reassured him.
They floated up to the living room where they found both Lando and Oscar sitting on the couch chatting about nothing with relaxed smiles on their faces. George looked around trying to find something to scare them with. Flickering lights were out of the question, it was around noon. But once he spotted Lando’s coffee table magazines he knew exactly what to do.
The magazines opened and quickly flipped through the pages before finally falling on the floor with a loud thud. Lando screeched.
“Oscar, what was that?”
“Probably just a gust of wind.”
”The windows are closed.”
Oscar shrugged and brought the conversation back to its previous topic. Alex was frustrated at Oscar’s nonchalance but George was more than willing to make more of a mess for a greater reaction.
He made his way to the kitchen, making fun of Lando’s collection of colorful plastic dishware for children. Then he picked up plain porcelain plates and they both smashed a pair of plates with all their force.
“Was that also a gust of wind, Oscar?” Lando yelled at his friend.
“Maybe not.”
Still, not enough of a reaction, they both agreed. Alex had a genius idea for a finale. They quickly flew around the boys in a tight circle generating a strong windy force that blew every light object around them into the air.
That’s when Lando really started screaming; it was high pitched and constant and Oscar looked pretty rattled, his expression was priceless. Eventually, George had to stop spinning around from his sheer amount of laughter.
He was hunched over and clinging onto Alex, laughing so loudly and so brightly he could outshine the sun. George nuzzled his face on Alex’s chest to try and muffle the laughter, to no avail. Alex loved the feeling of George being so happy, of him so close. Alex wished he could capture the feeling and wrap it around him like a blanket forever.
“Oscar, do you hear laughing? Am I going insane or is someone laughing?” The sheer panic in Lando’s voice made Alex and George freeze.
“Can you hear us?” Asked Alex, loudly.
No reaction.
They stood there and watched as Oscar tried to comfort Lando and convince him that his house wasn’t haunted, that everything was probably just a prank. Oscar still decided that would stay with Lando for a couple of days to ensure his safety.
“So what’s next?”
“I have an idea.” Replied George cheekily.
————————————
Alex and George found themselves in Max’s living room watching Kelly play with Penelope in silence.
“Soo… what are we doing here?” Inquired Alex.
“Watch this.”
They could hear Max’s footsteps coming towards them; he called out from the hallway; “I’ve managed to put Lily to sleep.”
The second Max stepped into the room he turned off the light. Max stepped out of the room and the light turned back on, but if he put even a single foot into the room, the light would magically turn off. Kelly and Max looked at each other through the doorway in confusion.
“Maxie, what’s going on?” asked Penelope.
“The lights are just telling you it’s bedtime, princess,” he looked at Kelly “and mommy is going to put you to bed, right?”
Kelly wordlessly picked up Penelope and took her to her bedroom, turning on the light with no problems, because George had nothing against Kelly. Annoying Max on the other hand, was amazing. When Max tried to follow the girls, he automatically turned off the light. Max sighed and made his way to the electrical box at the entrance, not even attempting to turn on the lights.
He let out a defeated sigh when he opened the electric box to find there was nothing objectively wrong with the electric supply to his apartment. George giggled to himself like a little devil.
If the electricity was really working he should still be able to sim race for the night, something he’d been looking forward to all day. He made his way to his setup in total darkness which was fine. He turned it on no problem, until it suddenly turned off. Which was simply lovely.
It was a pity that Alex was the only one that could see George’s mischievous expression. It was even more of a pity no one could see Max’s pissed off expression.
“This is getting old, really quick. This is not funny,” Max yelled.
The silence that followed was like a nightmare for Max. He wasn’t a very superstitious person but he really believed he could have been cursed. In his desperation, he picked up his phone and called Charles. Maybe he knew a thing or two about ancient monegasque curses.
“What do you want?” Said the voice on the other side of the phone.
“Have you heard of a curse that turns off the electricity of everything you touch?”
“What are you on about? You sound insane. What brings this up- wait. I’ve got to go, Leo just pissed on Carlos,” Charles laughed “he’s whining about his pants being ruined. Okay. Bye for real now.”
Max attempted to turn on the light, to check if his curse had been broken by simply calling Charles. He almost cried tears of joy when he was able to turn on the light for 5 seconds, just to have his hopes and dreams shattered by the light turning off once again. He buried his face in his hands and silently screamt into his hands. Max considered he was becoming seriously delusional when he heard faint giggles coming from seemingly nowhere.
“I think we should stop before he actually goes mad,” suggested Alex.
George agreed, not out of concern for Max’s well being but because he was getting tired of following Max around his house like a maniac. He firmly believed that all the effort he had put into tormenting Max was worth it just to see his frustration but refused to put any more effort in.
“I have a pretty good idea of what we could do next,” Alex smiled at George