Chapter Text
Rezzy learned very quickly that watching Marbula 1 when your boyfriend is competing is not the same as watching Marbula 1 when he isn't. For one thing, the snacks go untouched until suddenly they don’t, because they’ve been weaponized. For another, he spends the entire broadcast arguing with the commentary like they can hear him, volume rising every time Diego’s name comes out of their mouths with a careful little caveat attached. He knows he can’t affect the race—Diego is several time zones away and moving very fast—but that doesn’t stop Rezzy from leaning forward on the couch anyway, elbows on his knees, shouting encouragement at the screen like that might bridge the distance.
The commentators are already settling into their script. Standings. Statistics. The familiar refrain about debut seasons and adjustment periods, delivered with the same solemn gravity they reserve for Red Eye, Cloudy, and whoever else they’ve decided is the story today. Rezzy snorts and lobs a piece of popcorn at the TV when one of them says Diego is “still finding his footing” in Marbula 1. “He’s been racing longer than you’ve been talking,” Rezzy tells the empty room, and the television, which does not care. The camera cuts to the grid. Diego’s helmeted head tilts as he rolls his shoulders, gloves tugged tight. Rezzy claps once, sharp and loud. “That’s it,” he says. “You’ve got this.” He squints at the screen, grin tugging at his mouth. “Also, for the record, you look insanely hot right now,” he adds, because if Diego has to learn in public, the least Rezzy can do is appreciate the view.
The lights go out.
Rezzy doesn’t sit down. He paces in front of the couch instead, hands flying up to his head as the pack surges forward. “Okay, okay, okay—” he mutters, like that’s useful. The start is chaos, always is. Someone takes a line they shouldn’t. Someone else gets greedy. When a rival squeezes past Diego a little too close for comfort, Rezzy hurls another piece of popcorn at the screen. “Oh, come on,” he snaps, heart hammering, already bracing for impact that doesn’t quite come.
Diego adjusts.
Rezzy freezes mid-pace, breath stuck in his throat as Diego holds the line, lets the mess burn itself out, comes through still moving. “Yes!” Rezzy whoops, pumping a fist at absolutely no one. “That’s my guy.” He exhales hard, drops back onto the couch, and immediately leans forward again because the tension doesn’t actually go anywhere.
The race settles, sort of. Rezzy narrates under his breath the whole time, praise and swearing tangled together. He tracks Diego’s position because he has to, but what he’s really watching is everything else: the way Diego doesn’t rush the first corner this time, the way he recovers faster after a bump, the way his hands stay steady even when the pack tightens again. The commentators miss all of it, too busy getting excited about a clean overtake from some boring grey marble or another, and Rezzy rolls his eyes so hard it almost hurts.
Then Diego makes a mistake.
It’s small, technically. Just wide enough on a turn to lose momentum, to drop a couple of places. Rezzy groans aloud, hands flying to his face. “Ah, no—shit.” He peeks through his fingers anyway, because of course he does. He knows that pause, even through the helmet—the fraction of a second where Diego goes still, recalibrating. The commentators call it unfortunate. Rezzy calls it fixable, which feels like a victory all on its own.
A few laps later, Diego takes Turn 3 better than he has all season.
Rezzy is on his feet again instantly, popcorn forgotten, heart in his throat. It’s subtle. It won’t get replayed. But Diego holds the line, carries the speed through instead of scrubbing it off, and Rezzy laughs out loud, sharp and delighted. “There it is,” he says, pointing at the screen like Diego can see him. His phone is in his hand before he thinks about it, message sent the second the moment passes.
That line in Turn 3. You held it.
The reply doesn’t come right away. Rezzy doesn’t mind. Diego is still racing, after all. He flops back onto the couch, grinning despite himself, eyes still glued to the screen. The race isn’t over. Diego’s still out there, still learning in front of everyone, still taking hits and making progress where most people only see the results. Rezzy watches every second of it, loud and unapologetic and fiercely proud.
The checkered flag comes out before Rezzy’s ready for it.
“Already?” he protests at the screen, like time has personally betrayed him. Diego crosses the line somewhere in the middle of the pack. It’s not disastrous, not great, and exactly where the commentators seem determined to keep framing him as a question mark. Rezzy drops back against the couch cushions, hands scrubbing over his face. His heart is still going too fast, his leg bouncing like it might shake loose entirely.
“Okay,” he says, out loud, to nobody. “Okay. That was—okay.”
The post-race coverage rolls on. Replays, interviews, slow-motion breakdowns of moments Diego wasn’t even part of. Rezzy half-watches, half-doesn’t. He knows what they’ll linger on. He knows what they’ll skip. He does throw one last piece of popcorn at the screen when someone says Diego “failed to capitalize,” and then he groans when he realizes he’s officially out of ammunition.
His phone buzzes.
Rezzy snatches it up so fast he nearly drops it.
Yeah. I felt it, Diego texts. Still mad about the wide turn though.
Rezzy exhales, something warm and fond loosening in his chest. Of course he is. Of course that’s the part sticking.
You recovered fast, Rezzy types back immediately. And Turn 3 was clean as hell. I saw it.
There’s a pause. Rezzy imagines Diego somewhere loud and bright and overstimulating, helmet off now, adrenaline still humming under his skin. He imagines the way Diego’s shoulders probably ache, the way his jaw tightens when he’s replaying things in his head.
Another buzz.
You always see it, Diego sends.
Rezzy smiles so hard it almost hurts.
The video call comes later, once the broadcast has ended and the room feels too quiet without it. Rezzy props his phone up on the coffee table, flops sideways onto the couch, and waits. When Diego’s face finally fills the screen—hair a mess, eyes tired but shining anyway—Rezzy grins helplessly.
“There he is,” Rezzy says. “Local legend. Turn 3 king.”
Diego snorts, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
“I tolerate it.”
“Liar.”
Diego’s smile is small, but real. He shifts, the camera wobbling as he settles somewhere quieter. His gaze flicks down, then back up. “Is that my hoodie?”
Rezzy glances down like he’s just noticed it himself. “What? This old thing?” He tugs at the hem. “Very comfortable. Excellent vibes.”
“You stole it.”
“I borrowed it,” Rezzy says cheerfully. “Indefinitely.”
Diego huffs a laugh, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders. “Figures.”
“It wasn’t great,” Diego admits after a beat, voice lower now, stripped of broadcast polish. “I keep thinking about all the bad decisions I made. If I’d just—”
Rezzy holds up a hand. “Hey. Decompress first. Analysis later.” He gestures pointedly at the screen. “Have you eaten?”
There’s a pause. Diego winces.
“Diego.”
“I will,” Diego says, already defensive. “I just—”
“Food,” Rezzy says firmly, then softens it with a grin. “Please. For me. Remember, I emotionally survived that race. I deserve this.”
Diego laughs, quiet and tired, and the sound settles something in Rezzy’s chest. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. For you.”
Rezzy watches him for a second, taking in the familiar post-race hum under the exhaustion. “You know,” he says, lighter now, “for all the overthinking, you still looked like you were having fun out there.”
Diego blinks. Then his expression shifts—eyes brightening, mouth tipping into a real smile. “I was,” he admits, a little surprised by it. “Even when it sucked, it was absolutely amazing.”
“Yeah,” Rezzy says softly. “I could tell.”
They fall into the familiar rhythm after that. Small talk. Bad jokes. Rezzy recounting, in animated detail, the exact moment he almost threw the entire popcorn bowl at the screen when someone dared to pass Diego too aggressively. Diego listens, eyes crinkling, shoulders slowly relaxing as Rezzy fills in the gaps the broadcast never shows—the moments that mattered, the progress that doesn’t come with graphics or applause.
When the call ends, Rezzy stays on the couch a while longer, phone warm in his hand, the adrenaline finally ebbing. He tidies up the popcorn casualties, resets the room, puts Diego’s hoodie back where it belongs—ready for when he gets home.
Another race down. Another public learning curve navigated. Rezzy stretches out on the couch, already replaying Turn 3 in his head, already waiting for the next time he gets to live it all again from right here.
His phone buzzes.
Rezzy squints at the screen, then groans. “Oh no.”
Razzy.
…Oops.
He thumbs out a message fast.
Congrats on third, by the way. You were great. Sorry I was busy emotionally supporting my boyfriend.
He sends it, drops the phone back onto his chest, and laughs quietly to himself.