part 27: camera (part of one-word november prompts!)
pairing: felipe drugovich x photographer!reader
summary: he liked to take pictures before as a side hobbie apart from racing. but now that he found his muse, he's been hiding more often behind the lense, not knowing how to ask you out.
word count: 1.3k
being 22, you could never have dreamed of the position you were in at the moment: walking through the paddock, camera in hand and a press pass hanging on your neck. the weather in abu dhabi was humid and hot, but you couldn't care less at the moment. your first year as a photographer for f1's social media was coming to an end, and you still couldn't believe that this was your work. you were beyond grateful. due to being present at the immense majority of the gp's that occurred this year, your face was already known amongst the different teams. you had hit it off particularly well with mclaren's garage, being the main inspiration for lando and daniel to bought a camera and start their photographies accounts.
there was a big crowd around the aston martin's garage, and you quickly figured out it was thanks to seb. being the last grand prix of the season, the fourth time world champion's career was coming to an end, so everyone wanted to have a final look at the german. you could never have enough seb's pictures, so you tried to make your way into the multitude, until you bumped into someone's back. the man, you realized, was wearing an aston martin's shirt, so you figured he was a part of the team, even though you hadn't seen him before -you thought you would remember meeting someone this handsome before-. he politely smiled at you, like you two were the closest friends, and gave away his space so you could get alongside sebastian and snap a few pictures. he remained behind you, close but not enough to be invasive, protecting you from the occasional shoves the people around you propined to try and get closer to the driver. once you were done, you grinned back at him and started to make your way out of there, feeling a bit trapped after being so close to so many people.
"i'm sorry, i think we haven't met before".
when you turned to look at whoever had made that comment, directed towards you -at least, that's was what you could guess-, you were pleasantly surprised to find the handsome stranger who had played as your security guard a few moments ago.
"y/n, photographer for f1's socials. you? i feel like i haven't seen you before".
he smiled due to your implicit confession: he was important enough to be remembered by you. "felipe. half time photographer" the boy said, showing you the camera that was attached to his neck. he was about to say something else to you, when lance grabbed him by his shoulders and yanked him, startling the poor man. "you're needed at the garage, drugo, the car's waiting for you" the canadian said, without noticing that his friend was in the middle of something. when he lifted his eyes and saw you, it was like you could see how an idea came to mind. "y/n! so great to see you here. would you take a picture here with my friend? i need to post something congratulating the new f2 world champion!".
he was rushed by lance, so you couldn't talk to him and ask why hadn't he told you who he really was. and even though you didn't run into him for the remainder of the weekend, felipe still found his way to make you smile when he followed you on instagram on monday morning, after the season had ended and you were already at the plane to come back home. the three months that separated one season from the other were spent getting to know eachother, first through texts and then via facetime: you two hit it off instantly, keeping always in touch. because of this, you quickly noticed how much you missed him when he was too busy working with aston martin, or how often he checked his phone to see if he had gotten any messages from you when it was morning on your timezone.
when you came back to the paddock once the 2023 season had begun, you quickly made your way to the aston martin garage, where you knew felipe was at. since signing his contract to be a reserve driver, you assumed that the brazilian would be there. you realized your suppositions where correct when you heard his voice, this time, in real life, and not through some device. "are you looking for someone?" he jokingly said. you turned around and gave him a big hug, answering to his ask. "some handsome part-time photographer, do you happen to know who he is?" you hadn't meant to be so forward, and even though you two flirted as a joke on a daily basis, it was different when you were actually face to face. thankfully, he just laughed and hugged you even tighter.
"i think i know where he is. should we go look for him, amor?".
after months talking, you always come back to talk about photography: after all, it was what had brought you together. so now that you had reunited, it was only right that the first thing you did together was walk through the paddock and take as many pictures as you could. sometimes, you would sneakily take a picture of him, that would be kept hidden in a folder where nobody could see. it wasn't that you were ashamed of the newfound love you had for the driver, but rather than you didn't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship for some weird feelings that you weren't sure were even real. maybe you only liked him because you had a few things in common that you could talk about for hours. you were sure that you weren't actually in love with him. maybe, you were trying to convince yourself that you weren't.
after a few hours roaming the area, you decided it would be best for you and your poor, tired, feet, to go back to the aston martin garage to rest for a bit. when you were about to reach your destination, you noticed that felipe had stopped walking beside you, and when you turned, he was a couple of meters behind, still. "what happened, feli?" you called him by the nickname that you gave him back when you first started talking. "can i take a picture of you?" he shyly said. felipe knew that you preferred to remain behind the lense at all cost, noticing this for the first time when he checked your instagram page and there wasn't a picture where your face showed entirely: you were always hidding, either behind the lense on a mirror pic, or somehow covering your face with your hands.
felipe didn't understand why you did it. he thought you were the most beautiful person in the world, ever since seeing you and your worried face for the first time, back in november when you were trying to make your way through the crowd. at the time, he hadn't realized just important you would become to him. and now, after all these months knowing about his feelings for you, he still wasn't sure how would he manage to ask you out without die trying. so the only way he found was through the camera, and with lance's help. you groaned at his persistence in taking a picture of you, but knowing that you had taken plenty of him throughout the day, you felt kinda obliged to let him have at least one.
when you returned towards him to see how the photo had turned out, you saw a certain canadian behind you, holding a sign with the words "do you want to go out with me?" messily scribbled. you laughed when you saw it, face turned red, and trying very hard to mantain eye contact with felipe. "are you behind this?" you tried to say with a serious face, but you couldn't keep your lips from curling into a smile. "i don't know. if you say yes, i might be" he replied, grinning.
