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“Yeah but, they’re different, aren’t they,” he slouches back in his chair, spins himself side to side to get some of the jittery, seasick energy out of his body. George is watching him and pretending he isn’t; Alex lets his knees fall open a little bit further. “The old girl over in Grove, she’s - she wasn’t like the one they had at Red Bull.” 

Even that very first time had been terrible, at Red Bull. He hadn’t been nervous, exactly, but had felt - flighty; alive with anticipation. Ready. They kept her right at the back of the factory, in her own building, but you could always feel where she was: a hungry, cravenly humming underneath your feet at all times that had made the hair on the back of Alex’s neck stand up when they got close. She hadn’t wanted him, though, only Max. Alex had just been - there. Every time they’d had to give a sample, his experience had been so far removed from Max’s that it had felt like he was alone even though they were technically pressed in there together, their skin shining with sweat and the silken, diaphanous slick that she was always lavishing Max with. 

George shifts in his seat. His ears are pink, the pretty shell of them half-obscured by the curl of his hair. The conference room has stupid, corporate-chique downlights in it that make it hard to see if the same colour is on his neck too, if it’s maybe already spread down under the collar of his nice linen shirt to his chest. Alex is in his own merch still, the hood piled up around his neck. It feels easier that way. 

“Uhrm,” George frowns, hangs on the sound. “Blimey, mate, I don’t know. It’s - quiet? Not as dark as at Grove.” 

At Grove, they’d called her The Queen as a joke. Jost had thought it was hysterical, called her Lizzie Three while they reviewed the data on their pre-season car before they knew just how bad it was. She’d been hungry too, but in a different way - she was starving, brittle and ravenous. Alex had lost more fluid than he did normally over a race and had needed, embarrassingly, for the engineers to come and lift him out. Nicky had been back outside already, wrapped in a space blanket as if he’d just been pulled out of a car accident but was still sitting on the street. He was crying, and Alex had been a mate and pretended he wasn’t, even though it was noisy and went on all through debrief.  

Alex huffs out a laugh. “Yeah fuck, I couldn’t see anything in there either. It was like being blind.” Some drivers talked about hallucinating, that the spores the hierovetulicola put out made them see something, but the one at Grove hadn’t shown him anything. Alex had thought that maybe she’d just been too worn out to produce the chemical. A bad omen for the new car. It’s strangely comforting to think that it was the same for George.  

George echoes Alex’s weak laugh, a familiar mirror. He might have liked how needy she was, Alex thinks. Alex had, perversely. And George liked it when Alex made him work for it, was always soft afterwards. That’s how Alex had known when he’d really gotten it right: the sloppy way George would sprawl out in Alex’s bed, his body quiet and sweet, face all slack and happy. Alex feels his stomach go tight, picks at the leather stitching on the arm of the chair. If it’s like that after they give the sample, he’ll be sick. 

“Least it meant I didn’t see Kubica bash the bishop,” George says and Alex is laughing before he really even catches up with himself, the feeling of it so big it makes him fold over forwards, his shoulders curling up in delight. George is doing it too, his handsome face all creased up and lovelier for it, his tongue darting out to his lips for a second as they calm down. 

George straightens himself out. Breathes, hesitates, licks his lip again. Alex waits. All the hair on his arms stands on end. 

“With Lewis, we didn’t,” George’s tongue is small and pink, leaves a wet sheen across his lip. The briefing team will be in soon so that they can talk about the plan for next year’s car. “He just went off and sort of - on his own, so we can. Whatever you want is fine.” 

Alex scoffs. George stays very still, the line of his shoulders tight. “Mate,” Alex says, “You’re the one who wanted to be professionals about it, so. Whatever works for you.” The ink wasn’t even dry on Alex’s contract when George had said. They’d been in George’s room, at least, so Alex had gotten to leave after he got dressed. And now it wouldn’t be the last time, either, so. Nothing lost really. He’s been trying not to think about it: George panting underneath him, the two of them soaked in sweat - and worse - in the humid, not-quite stomach of the thing, everything dark and senseless around them. Alex could hold him open after each time, let his own come drip out down onto the living floor, watch it disappear. Another thing that no one would know about except them. 

Now, with George turning to stone in front of him, the image in his mind shifts: George far away; Alex left swamped with that same lonely feeling again. George’s eyes squeezed shut and his face flushed and anxious; his big hand cradling his sore, overworked cock back protectively against his body. He’d finger himself, maybe, because he used to do that sometimes when he was really het up even though he said it was better when Alex did it. Alex isn’t sure if he could watch, but might have forgotten how to look away. That's the problem with getting comfortable. With knowing what something tastes like.

The door opens in a rush of noise; someone must hit a light switch because the whole room gets brighter suddenly. It makes the room overfull, brimming with noise. George is looking at him still, face strangled and stricken. Alex fixes his hood around his neck. He wishes George would say something, take the feeling back. 

“Shall we?” James Allinson says as Shov powers up the projector. 

“Yeah,” Alex says at the same time George says, “Absolutely.” 

It’s not until Alex is back safe in his own apartment, showered and changed on the couch, that he lets himself properly think about it: him and George on the podium together, sticky and drenched, the way George’s face looks when he’s stupid with joy. And below them, the car: his car, their car, the one they made together.