There’s only one place in the Williams garage right now that Alex knows a) will be empty for the foreseeable future and b) where no one will be looking for Alex. So he jimmies the flimsy lock on Carlos’s driver room and lies down on the floor there, blinking up at the stack of lycra cycling outfits hanging over the arm of a chair.
Four P5s and a P6, 73 points in the standings. Two podiums and a sprint podium, 64 points. 54 versus 16 points pre-summer break, 19 versus 48 after—Carlos is still doing worse than Alex managed, pre-break, and Alex is still doing better than Carlos was, but Alex doesn't have anything to show for it, back at Grove, sitting pretty on a trophy shelf. Still, nine points separate them, advantage Alex. What’s better, winning or looking like you’re winning? The points or the silverware?
Alex is still trying to keep the promise he made to himself after he signed his Williams contract to not ever feel sorry for himself again when the door to Carlos’s driver room flies open and Carlos stumbles in, messy-haired and champagne-sticky.
“Oh,” Carlos says, wide-eyed, turning back to look at the sticker on the door. “I thought—no, this is—?”
“Sorry,” Alex says, propping himself up on his elbows. “I broke into your room.”
“‘S okay,” Carlos says. “I was just getting a—” He gestures at the haphazard pile of Williams t-shirts on his desk. Halfway through reaching over, it seems to dawn on him that Alex is lying on his floor and he pauses, frowns. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Alex says. “Or, maybe—no, yes. No. Yes.”
“Ah,” Carlos says. “Do you want company?”
“I want—” Alex lies back down flat as he considers it. “I want—argh, I don’t even know.”
He presses his knuckles against his eyes hard enough that they’re at risk popping back into his skull and when he lifts his hands, Carlos has gotten down on the floor too, blinking up at the sheet metal ceiling. There’s a sliver of space between their shoulders, the race suit fabric bunched around Carlos’s waist touching Alex’s hip when he shifts. When Alex exhales, he can hear Carlos inhale, the sounds of their inverted breathing slowing in tandem.
“This is nice,” Carlos says. “I get now, why you do this.”
“Good for your back,” Alex says and all of a sudden, he can feel his chest muscles tensing, his eyes stinging, his nose prickling. Any chance of hiding it goes out the window when he takes his next breath, the sound whistling through his tightened throat. “Jesus. Fuck. Sorry, I’m—Jesus.”
For a long time, Carlos doesn’t say anything and Alex squeezes his eyes shut, curls his fingers into his palms, his entire body feeling like a set mouse trap waiting for the moment it can snap its jaws shut around Alex.
Still, Carlos isn’t saying anything. But he moves very carefully and centimeter by centimeter, the space between them shrinks as Carlos shuffles closer, shoulders touching, elbows-hips-ankles. And instead of discharging, the loaded spring of Alex’s body holds, slackens. Carlos is warm. He’s breathing slowly. He’s almost entirely still, except his foot moves restlessly, tapping a little rhythm against Alex’s.
“After Hungary,” Carlos says, finally, in a thoughtful tone. “My mother sent me a picture of Piñon. I think she thought it would make me happy.”
“Did it?” Alex asks, voice sounding like it’s coming out of a coiled fist.
“I cried,” Carlos says. “Like a baby. I was doing shit in every race, I had not seen my dog for months, I was, what was it, P17? P16 in the standings. So I spent half an hour just—”
Carlos makes a vague hand movement. “Bawling.”
“Shit,” Alex says and Carlos chuckles, the vibration of it running from Carlos’s body into Alex’s through all the places they’re touching. “So,” he says. “I know how you feel, I think.”
“And did that—” Alex says. “Did it fix things?”
“No,” Carlos says. “I don’t think it fixed anything, I was just very sad.”
“Right,” Alex says, blinking up at the ceiling. “So what did you do? To fix it?”
Carlos’s foot starts tapping against Alex’s again and it takes Alex a while to recognise the beat, but when he does, he can’t help but roll his eyes as he tries not to smile. Smooth operator. Of course.
“I think I was thinking about racing too much,” Carlos says. “And over the summer I started worrying about other things. So I could take a step back, not see the forest for the trees anymore. Or the trees for the forest, maybe? I got really into Catan, did I tell you?”
“Only nine hundred times,” Alex says and Carlos lets out one of his squeaky little laughs.
“The entire world looked like hexagons for a while,” Carlos says. “I spent two days not talking to Teto because we could not agree on what resources you would need to build a Formula One car.”
“Ore,” Alex says. “Like ten of ‘em.”
“Yes,” Carlos says. “And—?”
“Wood,” Alex says. “For the tyres. There’s—I think there’s rubber trees. Those exist.”
“Bah,” Carlos says and Alex grins.
“Don’t tell me you said sheep,” Alex says and Carlos is incriminatingly silent. “What, you thought: four legs, four tyres?”
Carlos huffs and Alex barks out a laugh. All of this would have been so much easier if Alex hated Carlos. At the beginning of the year, Alex had one, brief, snarling moment where he promised himself he’d make everyone who said Carlos would show up and demolish Alex look stupid, and throughout this season, the closer Alex came to that goal, the less clear this image became. He still wanted to beat Carlos, more than anything, but he wanted Carlos closer. To be at the top step and look down, see his teammate one rung behind him on the ladder, the team finally getting what they deserved. All of this would have been so much easier. Less fun, maybe. But easier.
“So,” Alex says. “I just need to find something else to worry about.”
“Tetris,” Carlos says. “Chicken fights. Making those cakes that look like other things.”
“We need to think bigger,” Alex says. “Something quick. With enough oomph to worry about for the next seven days.”
If you’re close enough to Carlos, you can hear him think, Alex has found. The sticky sound of his mouth opening and closing, the restless hum of his body, the ehh's, hmm's and umm's.
“Do you trust me?” Carlos says and Alex thinks about it. Regrettably, the answer to that question has been clear since the first day Carlos came into the team, starry-eyed and determined, reminding Alex that wanting things isn’t just the first step to disappointment.
“Yeah,” Alex says and Carlos moves so quickly that even Alex’s reflexes are no match. A sudden flurry of movement, Carlos rolling onto his side and half on top of Alex, the hot weight of his body pressing Alex into the floor, his searing wet mouth against Alex’s, lips tongue teeth. Carlos’s hand against the skin of Alex’s hip where his shirt has ridden up and Alex’s fingers in Carlos’s hair, somehow, catching in the tangles of where the champagne has dried it in tacky tufts. A humiliating sound coming out of Alex’s throat and slipping out from between his teeth, rolling over Carlos’s tongue. Carlos's knee between Alex's thighs, eliminating Alex's ability to think in anything but single-word concepts: heat pressure scorching heavy. And then, just as swift as it started, nothing anymore. Carlos pressing himself up and off the floor, one smooth motion.
“Hoagh,” Alex says, elegantly. “Whua—?”
“See you in debrief,” Carlos says, the wicked tilt of his spit-wet, bitten-red mouth the last thing Alex sees before the door of Carlos’s driver room clatters closed behind him.
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