#ferneste

[estiebestieban]

Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon  -  testing their teammate knowledge (and being cuties)

BONUS CHEATING:

[estiebestieban]

Esteban/Fernando?

(Affectionately also tagging @sphinxofgrease who asked me for the same ship xoxo) Anyone who has been following me for longer than a day must know that I’m obsessed with their little silly dynamic. There is something so honest about them, the narrative that’s spun between them is so delicious I desire to shove my fingers into it and twirl it around a bit. They should be put in a glass still sticky from jam and shaken around a bit.

Over half of my time is spend thinking about how Esteban came into the sport and raced on the same grid as the greats  -   how he was young and foolish and so full of hope. How he adored Fernando since he was a child, how the battles between Fernando and Michael formed his adoration for the sport. It was Fernando himself who contributed to him forming a love for the thing that would later unite them.

And then, he was on the podium for the first time, and Fernando was looking up at him.

There’s something to be said about a photograph. Something about hands reaching out to grab the camera. A moment which needed to be remembered, even when the connection might be limited.

And the year after that they would be teammates... the boy who was young and who walked a tightrope between his talent and his financial security was put up besides the man who is so known for his cunning personality.

Esteban never backed down. The kid who laughed after he got shoved. The man who lost his seat and thought he would never race again was now suddenly in direct competition with a two times world championship winner.

I think a lot about the way Esteban never backed down, and how Fernando probably took one look at him and saw a resemblance. A sharp tongue and a desire to be the best. Willing to put the work in even when you come from anything but a respectable racing pedigree.

In the last two years, there have barely been any team orders. They’re allowed to race between the two of them, keeping up with one another for most of the time, because they know one another so well. They know exactly where the line is, where they can push and where they need to pull.

At the end of the day, they are the ‘all we need is one word to understand the whole story’ dynamic. The ‘the world might suck but it sucks a lot less when you’re here with me’ dynamic.

Conclusion?

Fernando gave Esteban confidence, a space to grow where he was safe. Esteban in turn gave Fernando the challenge that he always chases. The both of them compliment one another. And watching them commit crimes for the greater good has been an absolute pleasure.

[estiebestieban]

Title: AMBIRAMUS Rating: E Pairing: Fernando Alonso/Esteban Ocon Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics / Alternate Universe - Ambiguous Historical / Alternate Universe - Fantasy / Arranged Marriage / There Was Only One Bed / Slow Burn / Angst and Hurt/Comfort / Angst with a Happy Ending / Other Additional Tags to Be Added

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯  

Esteban, the only child, unfortunate Omega, and heir of the Ocon estate, finds himself engaged to an Alpha he has never met before by the name of Max Verstappen. He also finds himself in the company of Fernando Alonso, a gruff and crude Alpha who was tasked by Esteban’s mate-to-be to ensure his safe voyage across the world.

Only one of those things seems to be somewhat of an issue.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯   This fic is still a work in progress. The first four chapters have been posted as part of the Formula 1 Fantasy Fest

READ IT HERE.

[estiebestieban]

they’re so insane for this (x)

[estiebestieban]

“You don’t believe in anything.”  “I believe in you.”                     Fernando Alonso  &  Esteban Ocon.

Henry Miller, from a letter to Anaïs Nin / photo by  Peter J Fox  / Cassandra Clare, City of Bones / photos from Alpinef1 instagram / Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,  She Satisfies A Fear with the Rhetoric Tears / photo by Dan Istitene / James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk / photo by James Moy / E.E. Cummings, the first of all my dreams was of / photo by Dan Istitene / Pedro Salinas, The voice I owe to you

[estiebestieban]

Ferneste unfinished wip (because if I think too long about it I go insane)

I started writing this a few days after Fernando announced his switch to AM, and I haven’t looked back since. 1500 words, general rating.

Fernando retires at the end of the 2023 season. 

Esteban knows he’s been lucky to have shared a team with the Spaniard for three years. Knows that he has been living on borrowed time with the other ever since their signatures dried underneath the contract back in 2020. He’s always known that their stint together would come to an end. Some things are simply not meant to be, and a dominance soaked in blue and pink is just another temporary matter in this world.

Friend leaves. Loss of a legend cuts like a knife through the paddock, creates a gaping wound that refuses to close. Fernando pulls him aside, a few hours before he makes the announcement to the press. Palm of the other’s hand burns on the small of his back as Fernando hugs him a bit tighter than usual. Esteban is stuck between wishing that it would have lasted forever, and wishing that Fernando disappeared immediately after speaking those cursed words.

The races after the truth has been placed down at his feet are the hardest to stomach. Esteban is forced to watch Fernando from the corner of his eye. Forced to imagine a world in which he’s standing next to another driver. Fernando pulls him a bit closer than before when they’re seated next to one another on the back of a parading car. The touch of a hand on his knee lingers, even after the palm has long since been removed.

Sometimes he swears he can see it when he stares at his own reflection in the mirror. All the ways Fernando has ever touched him staring back at him in the shape of scars and bleeding red marks. Fingers encircled around his wrist, a grasp on his shoulder. Words of advice have settled around the sprinkled birthmarks, to connect the dots between ignorance and softly cradled skill.

One does not drive with a God like Fernando, only to escape without some lasting marks from the battles fought on and off track.

Esteban watches as they strip the number 14 off the walls of the Alpine factory. Watches as all remains of Fernando are scrubbed away. The new generation comes knocking, and suddenly, he is the more experienced one in the team dynamic. He knows he can never be as good of a mentor as Fernando was to him, he doesn’t have the same kindness resting inside of him. There are no whispers about better inside corners passed on to Oscar. There is no hand resting on Oscar’s shoulder when they’re herded out in front of the masses on race day.

It can never be like it was with Fernando. So Esteban doesn’t even try.

They keep in touch whenever they can. Write texts that don’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Fernando congratulates him on race results, and Esteban asks how retirement is going, only to be met with a photo from a random pit lane every time. Not even retirement can keep Fernando out of a car.

Silence seeps through the line at the beginning of the 2025 season. Fernando chases after his triple crown with open hands and a kind of determination Esteban has hardly seen before. He’s busy with the Indy 500, and Esteban himself has the first few races of the season to get through. It gets better with Oscar, but it’s still nowhere close to the same. The Alpine liveries no longer scrap between them, no longer battle for the points.

Engineers bring a miracle, get them a few more sporadic podiums scattered across the 23 races of 2024. A few more first place finishes adding to his resume. Oscar tastes champagne before his first season is out. Esteban tries not to be jealous of it, but he finds himself in foreign airports waiting to go to the factory for some more tests, with something venomous itching underneath the skin of his palms.

He stops talking about Fernando somewhere around Monaco, stares out across the track with his hands in the pockets of his jeans as the team follows him around for his track walk. It’s never quite the same after the tip of his tongue finds comfort in the heavy silence of what could have been. At least he no longer tastes blood when he swallows down another story.

“We’re driving for a championship.” how things have changed. A few years ago they were driving for points, bottom step of the podium at most. Now, with a better engine and an even better car, they’re actually chasing for the title. It’s been weeks since he’s heard from Fernando last. The gaping wound left in his absence has not yet closed. If anything, it has started to fester around the edges, where it still remains raw.

More often than not, Esteban does not drink from the champagne that’s handed to him on the podium. He lowers the bottle down towards the waiting hands of the team. His wins are for them, for the ghost that still lingers in the Alpine garage beyond his reach.

He hopes that Fernando will be proud of him. If the Spaniard is even still watching these days.

2026 comes to a close, and he’s second in the standings. Loses to Charles by a handful of points. It’s bitter. Hard to stomach. Yet he still claps as the boy he grew up with accepts his trophy, surrounded by the thousand flashes of just as many cameras.

FROM Fernando Alonso: Bad luck, conejito. That’s all it is. Bad luck.

He saves the message. Even when he doesn’t know exactly why. Stares at it when restlessness makes a home out of him in a strange hotel in a country he should know by now. China the following year brings fireworks, and in Turkey he extends his lead in the championship even further.

Fernando doesn’t win the Indy 500. In his mind, the other was always impossible to defeat. But age must finally be catching up to him, the day which no one thought would ever come has finally arrived, and Fernando steps away from racing for good. The frequency of texts picks up again. Scattered notes left throughout days and nights. When timezones make little sense and the most important thing in the world is a friendship that has refused to wither and die.

It’s good to know that the other still thinks about him. It’s good to know that he’s still wanted in Fernando’s life, even after all these years have gone past.

Esteban needs one more win. One more victory and one more bottle of champagne which will never touch his lips. He always needs one more, just as Fernando did before him. Trembling fingers wrap around the trophy of the Turkish grand prix set aside for the winner, and he knows he’s done it. The child racing on tires his peers threw in the trash raises the newest addition to a collection of victories to the sky, and with such simple movements, claims a title to pin to his chest.

He sees Fernando the moment he leans forward to lower the bottle of champagne. Meets former teammate’s gaze in the same way he’s always envisioned it was to happen in movies.

There is no lightning splitting the sky, no rolling thunder which stops time, and yet, the whole world is shrouded in darkness all the same. Nothing remains. Nothing, except for the wrinkles around Fernando’s eyes and the way his lips are curved up into a smile bright enough to rival the lights around the circuit.

Esteban comes home when he lowers himself from the podium and into the arms of his friend.

He's always wanted too much. Always reached towards the stars with open palms, wishing to be burned by them. Fernando opens his arms, cradles the back of his head with a large hand. Fingertips buried in his hair, a ghost of a stroking thumb against the nape of his neck. Esteban never regretted not drinking the champagne, but he's never been so glad for it as he is at that moment.

It’s not like someone can receive a doctors’ note for a broken heart. It won’t show up on echos and in the results of the wandering hands of health professionals checking him over before every race. A broken heart is one of those few things in life that just is. One of those few things that go by unnoticed, even by Esteban himself, until he rests his cheek against Fernando’s, and he can feel the shattered parts of him slipping back together.

Hands fall, come to rest at the small of his back. Fernando lifts him up as he did when he tasted victory for the first time. Spins him around until there are stars lurking behind his closed eyed and his stomach has been tied up into knots.

Feet leave the ground, and when toes find the steady earth again, he is not the same man he was mere moments before.

“Congratulations.” Fernando kisses his cheeks. First, he places genuine admiration on the left. Next comes something that feels dangerously close to love on the right. “Welcome to the club. Estebanito.”

Esteban has taken a title, and yet, he can’t bring himself to even care about it. Victory would not even have tasted half as sweet as it does now that he gets to share the spoils with Fernando by his side. “There is nowhere I would rather be, Fernanito.”