“Owain has been freaking out about Hugo’s progress.” Sam grabs the phone and scrolls. “You get all of this from the broadcast? Does he send you telemetry?”
“You shouldneverbe helping the other teams.”
“What else am I supposed to do?!” Julien snatches his phone back before the Australian can scroll too far up. “You’re always on the podium and Rafael won’t listen to me!”
“He does not want help from anyone.” Thomas sighs. “You have to let him figure it out by himself.”
“How can I sit back and watch his dream die?! What would you do if it was Sam?”
Thomas looks up at his boyfriend and there’s something sad in his expression. “You need to let him go, Julien.”
After a grueling day of Free Practice in Austria, Julien is relieved to finally lock himself inside his quiet hotel room again.
Rafael had a pretty good run, it’s just his fuckingbrakes. For as hard-headed as he was about braking with Julien, it’s baffling that he still can’t keep them under control.
But that’s for him to figure out.
Julien opens his laptop and logs into the stream. He’s only ten minutes late, which feels almost like being early. “Hey guys.”
“Hey Julien.”
“Are you and Rafael fighting?”
“What?” Is it so obvious? “Why would you think that?”
“He cancelled all of his subs last weekend.”
“Oh.” Well, it was five thousand pounds a month. Julien can’t be all that surprised—especially since they’ll never fuck ever again.
“Did you curse the car?”
“I know he’s your friend and all, but from here it really looks like you cursed the car.”
“Why is he so bad this season?!”
“We’re not supposed to shit-talk the drivers, remember?”
“The guy told us a thousand times over that he doesn’t want to watch our stream.”
“Good point.”
“Enough about Rafael, guys.” It may be pointed, but Julien selects the Ferraro again. Whatever, Rafael won’t watch the stream. “Tonight, I wanna talk about braking.”
Julien only catches a couple hours of sleep before he’s back in the paddock. He knocks back the strongest coffee they have, but it’s still not enough to keep him focused on Free Practice 3.
He doesn’t even register the red flag until Hector repeats, “Thomas? Are you okay?”
Julien’s head snaps over to Thomas’s side of the garage. The mechanics crowd around the broadcast TV, their hands pressing their headphones closer. Julien mimics them, as if it could help his brother reply faster.
“Okay,”Thomas finally says.
“He sounds wrong.” Julien looks between the engineers for answers. “Is he slurring?”
After confirming the driver hasn’t died, the broadcast cuts to an aerial shot of medics approaching the car. Pieces of it are strewn all over the road, and the mechanics shout at the screen.
Thomas is still in the car and deep gashes in the smooth grass show his trajectory. With how much he spun, he likely triggered the g-force warning light.
Still, it’d be great if he could stand up now. If he could show everyone—Julien, specifically—that he’s okay.
