#brychal

Bryan stood outside in his light brown sweater and black pants. His hands were hidden in his front pockets as he looked at the Christmas tree. He could still hear the music and the chatter coming from his team party, but the sound was muted enough to not bother him. 

He knew he should go back inside before anyone noticed his absence and he will. He just wanted to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere a bit longer.

Cling! Cling!

Turning around at the sound, Bryan smiled seeing Charles, black jacket back on, making his way towards him. He was wearing the Santa hat and had his little bell in one hand and a small gift bag in the other.

“You stole my costume”, the engineer greeted.

Charles laughed as he stopped beside Bryan. He held out the bell.

“You left them on a table, I couldn’t resist”, Charles explained with a devilish smile.

It was Bryan's turn to laugh as he took the bell.

“Of course you couldn’t. The hat looks good on you.”

Charles beamed, cheeks reddening a bit.

“Thanks. I still cannot believe you did that.”

“Why not?”, Bryan replied, shrugging. “It was fun.”

“Oh, I am sure. Just surprised that you did it with your parents and the whole team there.”

Bryan avoided the green eyes studying him, blushing as he examined the bell in his hands. He had forgotten about his parents’ presence. The only thing that had mattered was that it was going to make Charles smile and even, maybe, make him laugh. He hadn’t even cared about the amount of teasing he could have gotten from the team for again embarrassing himself, for again being too much. 

“It's fine, they are used to my craziness after all”, he finally replied, opting for an unbothered tone, but failing.

Charles watched Bryan, silently kicking himself for having put his foot in his mouth, again. The engineer’s badly hidden melancholic embarrassed expression made him picture a young quiet nerdy Bryan with his unconventional goofy sense of humour trying so hard to make friends and failing again and again. The last thing Charles had wanted was to remind Bryan of that and make him second-guess himself and his actions.

“Well, I loved it”, Charles said fondly, bumping shoulders with Bryan.

The engineer shyly looked back at him, a soft small smile on his face.

“Good, that was the goal”, Bryan replied quietly.

“And Ale sure had fun showing you off to everyone!”

The engineer laughed at that, Charles returning the laugh with a teasing and pleased smile. Bryan shook his head softly in wonder. The team’s reaction had, once again, surprised him. Not just Ale that had supported the idea from the beginning but also how everyone had seemed to laugh with him instead of at him. The two men fell in a comfortable silence after that, looking at the lighted Christmas tree.

“I liked both tshirts”, the driver said after a while. “Two really thoughtful gifts and funny ones too. Thank you for yours.”

“I am glad”, Bryan replied, slightly off kilter.

He quickly squeezed the other man’s shoulder as he wondered why he had answered that.

“And I am happy that your family was able to come.”

“So I am”, the engineer squeaked out. “So I am.”

They looked at one another, Bryan internally crying at how he wasn’t able to give normal answers and at the look of pure happiness for him that was plainly visible in Charles’ eyes. 

“You do realize, however, that between you showing up as Santa and the shirt you gave me, your brother is going to have a field day”, the driver teased.

This, Bryan could do with his eyes closed, bantering with Charles, making fun of each other.

“Of course, he is! Have you seen the amount of photos and videos he took?”, Bryan retorted, mock offended. “It will be all over social media in the next few days.”

Charles laughed at the remark.

“Well, you are the one who decided to do that in front of him, so don’t complain! I heard that it was a little brother’s prerogative to be a little menace.”

Bryan looked amused, recalling Charles’ outrage at his younger brother's donut comment during their last race.

“That it is and he is a little menace. So are you, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Bryan flicked the hat pompom as he talked and Charles shyly smiled at the gesture as well as at the fondness in the other man’s voice. The engineer smiled back, affectionate, and turned to look back at the tree, letting the younger man recover.

Charles tried to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment and nearly slapped himself with the gift bag in his hand. His eyes widened when he saw it.

“Right! There was a reason I was looking for you. Here!”, the driver exclaimed, trusting the bag in front of Bryan.

The engineer looked at it, startled.

“Charles? What? You didn’t have to”, he protested.

“Neither did you have to give me a special tee, Bryan. Just accept it.”

Bryan nodded robotically, taking the bag. He opened it and moved the paper to the side, the bell ringing softly at the movement. He took out the first gift, examining it. 

It was a cream retractable ballpoint pen with a mini Charles’ helmet charm dangling from the top. There were two inscriptions in dark red, a CL 16 team at the front and a race engineer at the back. Bryan tested the mechanism and smiled at the fluidity of it.

“Please tell me that the rest of your side will get one and that I will not have an envious horde of men on my back”, he playfully begged.

“Don’t worry”, Charles replied, laughing. He leaned closer, putting his arm on Bryan’s shoulder. “They will, but the job title is a special. I wanted you to have it first.”

“It’s beautiful, thank you”, Bryan said quietly, turning to look at Charles.

“My pleasure. You will have to give me feedback on it, I know how more peculiar you are with your pens than me.”

“Are you making me test your future merch ideas?”, the engineer teasingly asked.

Not that Bryan would mind, he would always try his best to help Charles.

“You think it could work?”, the younger man replied, smiling softly as he noticed Bryan unconsciously playing with the charm.

The engineer bit his lips, thinking for a minute before answering.

“You know what? I think so, yes. Even more with a charm option selection, maybe that Leo one that was on your key chain? Or the other charm too.”

“You do have a charm option in case you didn’t notice”, was the driver's reply as he nodded towards the bag.

Bryan blinked, surprised, and went back to take out a small transparent bag that he had missed earlier. The movement dislodged Charles’ arm, but the driver stayed where he was. 

There were two other charms. The first one was the rectangle with a red and a white block and the Leclerc/Sedici text that he had mentioned. The second charm made the engineer still when he saw it.

“Is that Archibal?”, he asked, incredulous.

“Yup. I know you like Leo, but I thought you would prefer a mini replica of your family dog”, Charles explained, flustered.

Bryan kept looking at the mini silver replica of their dog not believing his eyes. He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve having Charles in his life, but he hoped to never do anything that would make him lose the young man.

“It’s…it’s perfect. Thank you Charles!”, the engineer thanked, heartfell.

The driver smiled softly, happy to see Bryan’s reaction.

“It’s not over yet”, he reminded. “There is another package.”

“Right. The pen alone would have been more than enough, you know that”, Bryan whispered before taking out the second gift.

“I know”, Charles replied, soft and tender, letting his hand rest between Bryan’s shoulders, as he leaned just that bit closer. “I wanted to spoil you a bit.”

Bryan blushed as he tried to unwrap the satin paper without much success. Charles let out a small soft laugh at his reaction, gently caressing his engineer's back before dropping his hand. 

He had thought about his engineer’s gift for a long time. Bryan had taken care of him all season long while working with his side to deal with everything the car was throwing at them and managing all of Charles’ moods. The young man had wanted to give him something special.

“Oh my god! Charles!”, Bryan exclaimed quietly, awed, as he was finally able to unwrap the gift and raised it to take a better look at it.

The second gift was a silver keychain with three strings. The first one had the same Leclerc/sedici charm that he got with the pen, just larger. The second string had a double sided water drop. The inscription on the front side made Bryan laugh.

“We both thought about the same thing didn’t we?”, the engineer asked, showing the white ‘Must be the water’ quote.

“Great minds think alike, Bryan”, Charles replied cheekily.

The engineer let out a shy amused smile before his attention turned back to the key chain. Curious, he turned the water drop and let out a fond exasperated laugh at the Lico-25 white text. 

He remembered the hilarious text messages Charles and him had exchanged when they had seen the different memes about the amount of Lico they had to do this season. Some of them, if he recalled well, had used that altered car name.

“Hopefully, I won’t have to tell you to do Lico next year because I am scared the car will break down on you”, Bryan muttered darkly.

“I hope so too. I know you didn’t like having to ask for it, but it was too much a part of our year to not do anything with it.”

Bryan chanced a quick look at Charles from the corner of his eyes, noting the nearly hidden worried undertone.

“I agree”, he sighed. “I am not too fond of that word, but you are right and this is funny in a way. You have to commend the tifosis’ creativity with that word.”

It was Charles’ turn to nod in agreement. The engineer moved his attention to the third string, a lean baby blue wristlet strap with the text ‘thank you Bryan' in light brown.

“Jeddah’s radio?”, Bryan asked in wonder, stroking it with a finger.

“Yep. I went with a radio theme as you might have already guessed and that one best represented my sentiment for the whole season”, Charles explained hurriedly, cheeks slightly pink.

Bryan’s expression softened as he looked first at the strap and then at Charles with a fond look. 

“Thank you Charles. It was… I love it… both gifts. Thank you!”

The older man moved to go for a side hug, but changed idea mid-way and went for a full hug instead. Charles returned the hug with a fond laugh.