Chapter 1: Sunday mornings were your favorite. Now, Sunday mornings, I just sleep in.
Chapter Text
The Miami sun pressed down on the car like a weight, making the cockpit feel hotter than it already was. George could feel sweat seeping through the layers of his fireproofs, tracing cold rivers down his back despite the burning heat. Every muscle was tense, every nerve wired tight with the desperate hope of catching the front runners. Just a little more - that was all he needed. If he could close that gap, he could be on the podium.
He pushed harder. Every curb was a chance to gain time, every corner taken with precision and relentless speed. His foot barely lifted off the throttle, if at all. The engine screamed, tires sang against the asphalt, and the world outside the visor blurred into a heated haze.
But then the checkered flag waved too soon.
George crossed the line, just one place shy of what he wanted most. Fourth. So close it burned. He could almost taste the sweetness of victory - the champagne soaking him, the cheers from the crowd, the quiet satisfaction of all the work paying off. Instead, he was left with a bitter aftertaste, the sting of falling just short.
No celebration. No podium. Just the long walk straight to the media pen.
By the time he peeled off his helmet and fireproofs, exhaustion had settled deep into his bones. His limbs felt heavy, his breath ragged. The heat, the pressure, the frustration-all of it pressing down harder than the Miami sun ever could.
Then his phone buzzed. A message from Alex.
Alex
>>Fancy a drink? Might help wash away the taste.”<<
That small flicker of kindness was enough. George agreed, knowing he needed it more than he wanted to admit.
They found a quiet bar away from the chaos of the track, the cool air a relief from the blistering heat. Glasses clinked, laughter came easier after a few drinks, and for a while, the weight on George’s shoulders lifted, if only a little.
Later, when he finally made it back to his hotel room, every step heavier than the last, he collapsed into the bed, muscles aching, mind swirling with the race that almost was.
But morning came far too soon.
The alarm clock dragged him awake, relentless and unforgiving. His eyes blinked against the light as he silenced the shrill beep, then glanced at his phone.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Not just any Sunday.
Race Sunday.
Confusion hit him like a splash of cold water.
Had he dreamed the race? Was the exhaustion twisting his mind, blurring reality? Maybe the stress had finally cracked something inside him.
But there was no time to dwell. The track awaited.
When he arrived, Alex was there, jogging over just like in the dream - or was it memory? They talked briefly, the routine of the drivers’ parade still to come, the usual mix of nerves and excitement barely masking the underlying tension.
Then it was time to head to the Mercedes garage to discuss tire strategy.
“Do you think you can make the tires last?” His engineer asked, eyes sharp, waiting for the answer.
“At least until lap 15,” George said with quiet confidence.
The engineer nodded, approving, but George knew the truth - he could stretch them to lap 17 if he needed to. Had done it before. Just yesterday, to be precise.
But that was a secret to keep, buried beneath the calm exterior.
The race played out the same way.
The sweat slicked his skin, the heat was unbearable. The finish line came and went - P4 again.
The same message waited, the same bar, the same drinks shared with Alex.
The same dread that pulled at his gut when he woke up the next morning, tangled with the realization that he was living the same day over and over again.
George lay back on his hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, a manic smile spreading over his lips.
-
George barely blinked when the alarm went off.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
He’d stopped trying to reason with it. No text from Alex the night before, no aching limbs from a race that, by all logic, should have happened twice already. Just that same stifling Miami sun and the scent of hotel shampoo still lingering on his skin.
He was stuck in this time loop.
He went through the day the same way he had before - familiar steps on a worn path. Team briefings. Media questions. The same question from his engineer.
“Do you think you can make the tires last?”
“At least until lap 15,” George answered again, calm but tired.
Another race. Another P4.
Another drink with Alex.
Another sunrise that wasn’t new at all.
-
By the sixth loop, George had memorized everything.
He could predict when the radio would crackle with updates, could time every pit stop by instinct alone. He found himself mouthing along with Lewis during interviews, laughing half a second before he delivered the same recycled joke.
And still, he tried to keep things normal.
Because if he didn’t believe in the day, how could the day believe in him?
But after the seventh loop, normal stopped working.
-
The eighth Sunday, George changed something.
He walked into the garage with purpose, folding his arms tight across his chest.
“I want to start on the hards,” he told his engineer. “End on softs.”
There was a pause. A flicker of surprise. But they nodded, scribbled it down, recalculated.
He knew it was risky. The pace at the beginning would be slow, and the grid wasn’t exactly forgiving.
But he had to try something. He had to change the outcome.
And so he did.
The tires didn’t grip the way he wanted. He was vulnerable in the opening laps, slow through corners, forced to defend more than attack. By lap ten, he'd dropped to P8.
“Push now,” the engineer said in his ears. “Push, George.”
But the balance wasn’t there. The car didn’t respond like he needed. He was too far behind. Too much ground to make up.
He crossed the line P7. Three places worse than before.
In the bar afterward, Alex raised an eyebrow at him.
“Rough one?” he asked, voice light but eyes curious.
George just nodded and downed the drink in one go.
And the next morning?
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
-
The tenth loop, George stopped playing careful.
He pushed the car like it was an extension of himself - more machine than man, more stubborn than safe. He took curbs like they were launchpads, braked so late his engineer went silent more than once. The tires begged for mercy, the chassis danced dangerously through the corners, the steering wheel fighting him every inch.
The Mercedes snapped beneath him more than once - dangerously so, veering at high speed on the edge of losing control.
But George held it. Barely.
He wrestled the car like a man possessed, teeth clenched, heart hammering, refusing to let the podium slip again.
And somehow, impossibly, he crossed the line in third.
P3.
The podium was sweet, too sweet. Champagne in his eyes, flashbulbs popping, the music of victory ringing in his ears.
Alex found him after the race, grinning from ear to ear. His own race ended early due to a collision with another driver.
“That was insane,” he said. “I swear you nearly killed that car.”
George didn’t reply. He just smiled, tired, empty.
They went out that night. The club was loud, dizzying, full of strangers pressing in close. Alex dragged him into a booth with drinks he didn’t remember ordering, arms slung around each other’s shoulders in the way only victory could allow.
George almost let himself enjoy it.
He almost believed he’d broken it.
-
But when he opened his eyes, his heart dropped before the alarm could even buzz.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
And this time, he didn’t move for a long time.
He just stared at the ceiling, at the thin slice of light filtering through the hotel curtains.
The podium hadn’t been enough.
So what was it? what did the universe want from him?
He’d done everything right. He’d changed strategies. Survived crashes. Taken the champagne. Shared the damn club booth with Alex and let himself believe, for one brief flicker of a moment, that the day was finally done.
But it wasn’t.
George sat up slowly, the ache in his chest no longer from driving.
And then it hit him.
Maybe it wasn’t just about getting on the podium. Maybe it was never about just being good enough.
Maybe it was about being the best.
Maybe the loop wouldn’t end until he won.
P1.
He whispered it aloud, like a dare to himself.
Because of course it had to be the top.
It had to be everything.
And if that was what it took-
Then he’d burn the tires, tear apart the car, and give the track everything he had left.
Until the checkered flag came with his name first.
Or until the loop broke him trying.
Whichever came first.
-
He woke to the same sun filtering through the hotel curtains. The same hotel air conditioning humming too loudly. The same birds outside the window. Same pulse in his throat the second he reached for his phone.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
George sat up slowly, like the weight of it had finally settled somewhere behind his ribs. He didn’t move for a while. Just stared at the numbers on the lock screen like maybe, if he looked long enough, they’d change.
They didn’t.
There had been champagne last night. Loud music, flashing lights. Alex laughing beside him, soaked in club lights and happiness. George had finally made it to the podium fought for it, wrestled the car into places it didn’t want to go, put every part of himself into P3.
And still.
Still.
Still.
Back here. Back to the start. Back to the fucking loop.
He felt hollow.
This time, when his phone buzzed - once, twice, six times - he didn’t even flinch. He let it vibrate against the bedside table like it belonged to someone else. Messages rolled in. Missed calls, familiar names. He didn’t answer. Not even when Toto’s name appeared.
He got up. Didn’t shower. Didn’t dress. Just wandered back and forth across the carpet, bare feet dragging slightly as he moved, pacing like something caged.
Podium wasn’t enough.
Maybe it never had been.
Maybe he should’ve known. It had never been about almost. It had never been about proximity to glory - it had to be the win. It had to be everything.
So he stopped moving. Sat down at the small desk tucked into the corner of the hotel room and stared out the window.
He’d done it all. Strategy changes, last minute risks, tire gambles. He’d pushed the car until it screamed. He’d raced like a man on fire. And it had still reset.
So maybe it was time to stop playing fair.
Stop pretending like the loop would reward honesty or effort.
If he wanted out, he’d have to think like someone who wasn’t in it.
And that’s when the idea landed.
Watch it.
Watch them.
He opened his laptop. Ignored the team messages, the news headlines, the little glowing dots of pending interviews and press obligations. He dug through old feeds, onboard footage, race broadcasts. Pulled up lap data like it was a religion he had to memorize.
Not to critique himself- but to study everyone else.
How Max defended a lead with a surgeon’s patience.
How Charles undercut in the second half.
How Lando saved his tires through the slow corners.
How Checo never showed the real pace of the car until it was too late.
George replayed it all. Eyes sharp, jaw tight. Made notes. Drew lines and margins in the corners of his engineer's notebook, the one he'd once used for setup adjustments and brake bias notes. It felt clinical. Ruthless.
But he was done being idealistic.
Done hoping the loop would just end because he deserved it.
This was war.
And tomorrow-
No. Today, again-
He’d walk into the paddock like he already knew the ending.
Because he did.
He’d lived it.
And now, he’d rewrite it.
-
George had done it.
He had won.
Every decision, every guess, every inch of knowledge he’d stolen from loops past had lined up perfectly. He’d taken the lead in lap 47, defended with everything he had, and when he crossed the finish line - his name at the top of the board, radio crackling with the sound of his own disbelief - it had felt real. Like the weight of the universe had lifted from his shoulders.
The national anthem rang out in gold light. He stood on the top step, eyes closed against the spray of champagne, mouth curled in something like peace. Not joy. Not triumph. Just… stillness. A quiet inside him he hadn’t felt in what felt like weeks.
Even Alex had finished P9. Points for Williams. A small miracle on its own.
Everything was good. More than good.
So when Alex bumped his shoulder later that evening, grin lazy and voice teasing - “Out tonight?” - George just laughed, soft and unhurried.
“Nah,” he said. “Think I’ll let myself have an early one.”
Alex blinked. “Since when do you say no to a celebration?”
George shrugged, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Since now.”
He went back to the hotel. Took his time washing the day off his skin. Climbed into bed with the curtains cracked just enough to watch the city lights flicker. Let himself believe it was over.
Let himself hope.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
It was the sound of his alarm that pulled him out again.
George rolled over, blindly reaching for his phone and froze.
It was back.
The same numbers.
The same date.
For a second, he stared at it like it was lying. Like maybe, this time, it was just a glitch. Something wrong with the phone, the screen, his eyes-
But he knew better.
He knew.
The rage came so suddenly it shocked him. Hot in his chest. Sharp in his throat.
He hurled the phone across the room. Watched it crash against the wall with a dull thunk, battery skittering across the floor. The silence afterward felt deafening.
Nothing.
Nothing could break it.
Not winning.
Not fighting.
Not strategy.
Not hope.
Nothing.
-
He didn’t go to the paddock right away.
Instead, he wandered down to a quiet diner near the edge of the city, one he’d passed a dozen times and never once thought to enter. The inside was freezing and smelled like syrup. The waitress didn’t recognize him, which was somehow a relief.
He ordered three kinds of pancakes and a milkshake. Then added waffles. Then pie.
If his trainer could see him now, he’d probably drop dead. But George didn’t care. What was one cheat day in a timeline that didn’t exist? Tomorrow it would be gone. His stomach would be empty and his muscles would ache and there’d be no trace of the sugar that melted on his tongue now.
It was bittersweet.
Like everything else.
He took his time. Ate until he was full. Sat with the stickiness of syrup on his fingers and the sharp ache of too much food in his chest.
He didn’t know how long this loop had lasted.
Didn’t know how many versions of Sunday he’d survived.
All he knew was that he was tired.
Bone deep.
Soul deep.
Tired.
-
By the time he got to the paddock, the sun was already high, the grid buzzing with quiet, coordinated chaos. He was late. People were moving fast around him, their routines unbroken. No one even seemed to notice his arrival.
Of course they didn’t.
Tomorrow, he’d be back to punctual.
Tomorrow, he’d be early again and this day would never have happened.
He was halfway through lacing up his race boots when he spotted Alex.
The sight stopped him cold.
Alex was hunched over his laptop, still in his Williams kit but looking off. Shadows under his eyes deeper than usual, as if he hadn’t slept properly in weeks. His jaw was tight. His mouth was drawn in a line that wasn’t quite a frown, but close.
Usually, George wouldn’t even have to approach him. Alex always noticed him first grinned, waved, jogged over with some dumb joke or a smirk that meant trouble.
But not today.
Today, he didn’t even glance up. Didn’t react when George walked past. Just stayed locked on his screen, fingers tapping slowly like he was typing and deleting the same thought over and over again.
George just let him be. He already learned by the 5th time loop that his actions would have an effect on other people's behavior and results for the day. So he just shrugged it off.
Tomorrow they’d laugh again about the same stupid joke, and today George would race and claim P1 again.
Because he knew he could.
Because he had done it before.
-
He repeated the strategy.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Hard tires first. Understeer in the opening laps. Patience through the middle stint. Softs when the fuel lightened, when the car breathed easier, when the world narrowed to him and the track and the ghost of what he wanted.
He played it like a song, each note sharper than the last. By loop seventeen he didn’t need the data. He didn’t need the radio. He could feel the car's limits in his teeth, in the way his spine locked coming out of Turn 10, the subtle tremor in his brake foot on Lap 28. His hands knew the steering wheel like it was a limb. His body moved without asking.
He was perfect.
And it meant nothing.
Every time, the same thing.
P1.
Podium.
Champagne.
Alex’s grin in the background, tired but real, like it almost belonged to a world where things could move forward.
But they didn’t.
Because every morning, without fail, came the slap of reality like cold water to the face.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Race day. Again. And again. And again.
He told himself - maybe this one. Just one more. He’d tweak the tire pressures. Nail the overcut. Defend cleaner, earlier. Sharpen everything down to a razor edge and slice the lap times until nothing was left to take.
It would be this loop. This podium. This victory. That would be the one.
It never was.
Hope began to rot in his chest.
He still did it, though. Still got in the car. Still raced. Still pushed until his lungs burned and his knuckles bled through the gloves. Because what else was there?
But the celebration blurred. The wins dulled. The champagne turned flat on his tongue. He stopped remembering what he’d said in the press conference - if he’d already used the line about tire deg, if he’d smiled the exact same way when someone asked about pace.
He stopped caring.
Every Sunday ended the same way: George standing at the window of his hotel room, hands braced on the sill, watching the city shimmer outside like a thing that might never change. The sound of celebration drifting up from far below. A ghost of music. A world that didn’t know it was stuck on repeat.
He’d whisper it like a prayer:
“Let tomorrow be Monday.”
Then he’d close his eyes. Lie down. Pull the sheet over his chest like it made him human again.
And when the alarm dragged him back-
It was always Sunday.
He started skipping meals. Ignored his physio. Ignored his engineer. He still won - his body remembered how - but the joy leaked out of it, replaced by a burning dread he couldn’t shake.
George remembered everything.
Every gear shift. Every crash. Every breath Alex took across a dozen different bar stools, lit by different club lights, laughing at the same jokes. The moments changed, but the day never did.
The wins became punishment.
A cycle of reaching and being dropped again.
He started to hate the car. The track. The suit. His own face in the mirror. The fake smile. The interview voice. The version of himself that could deliver what everyone wanted and still be stuck here, undone.
George didn’t know how much longer he could do it.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
George barely registered the alarm this time. His body moved without asking permission - shower, shirt, watch, shoes. Every step felt like muscle memory; he didn’t need to think anymore. That was the problem.
At the paddock, he didn’t head for the engineers. Didn’t go to the briefing. Didn’t even glance toward the Williams garage.
He went straight to Lewis. He needed help.
The older man was standing beside the car, arms folded, sunglasses on, mid conversation with Bono and a few others. He looked calm. Focused. Like someone gearing up for war without fear of dying.
George stopped a few steps away, heart punching against his ribs.
“Can I talk to you?” he said.
Lewis turned. Lifted his shades to look him in the eye. “What’s up?”
George gestured vaguely. “Somewhere quiet.”
Something in his voice must’ve landed, because Lewis gave Bono a nod and followed him into one of the back corridors of the garage - a stretch of hallway where the sound of air compressors faded and no one bothered to linger.
Once they were alone, Lewis leaned against the wall and crossed his arms again. “Alright. What’s going on?”
George opened his mouth. Closed it.
The words got stuck.
Because how do you explain this? How do you say ‘I’m not losing my mind, but I’ve lived this day more times than I can count’ without sounding exactly like someone who is indeed losing his mind?
He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re gonna think I’ve lost it.”
Lewis raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
George stared at him. His breath came shallow.
“I’ve been stuck in a time loop.”
Lewis blinked. Just once. “Sorry- what?”
“Since Miami. Every day, it resets. No matter what I do. I wake up, and it’s always today. Same race. Same result. Over and over.”
Silence.
Lewis watched him carefully. “Mate… are you okay?”
George laughed - sharp, tired, bitter. “No, I’m not okay.”
Lewis took a step forward. “Is this burnout? Are you not sleeping? You need me to talk to someone for you?”
“I’m serious.”
“George-”
“You had a protein shake this morning,” George snapped. “Banana, almond butter, oat milk. You were talking to your physio about switching back to that old yoga instructor you used to hate because she’s ‘at least consistent.’ You said your hotel room smelled weird. Like lemon floor cleaner.”
Lewis went very still.
“You told me that. Not today. Not this time. A few loops ago. And the time before that, you told me you had nightmares about Baku. And last week - or what felt like last week - you said you have a book on ‘meditating through repetition’ in the back of your car.”
George’s chest heaved. His hands were shaking now. “You said those things. But you haven’t said them yet. Not today. Not in this loop.”
Lewis didn’t speak for a long time.
Then, quietly: “How do you know about the book?”
“Because it has happened before!” George said, voice breaking.
Lewis finally moved - stepped closer, placed a steadying hand on George’s shoulder. “Okay. Alright. I believe you.”
And that was it.
That was the thing that cracked him.
George’s breath hitched. His mouth opened, but no words came out. Just a raw, choked sound.
Lewis pulled him in without hesitation. Arms around his shoulders, firm and grounding.
George broke.
Not loud. Not all at once. But in the quiet, exhausted way people do when they’ve held it together too long. His hands curled into Lewis’s back. His whole body shook. He wasn’t even crying, not really. It was deeper than that. Like his entire system had short circuited from running too long at redline.
“I don’t know how to get out,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “I’ve tried everything. Strategy. Risk. Kindness. Winning. Losing. Nothing works. Nothing works.”
Lewis didn’t shush him. Didn’t offer platitudes.
Just held him.
That helped more than anything.
Eventually, George pulled back. Wiped his face with the sleeve of his fireproofs. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
George leaned against the opposite wall, legs unsteady. “I thought… I thought if I just won, it would break. But I did. I won. I’ve won four times. It just resets. Every time.”
Lewis’s voice was calm. “Maybe it’s not about the race.”
George looked up at him. “Then what?”
Lewis shrugged slightly. “Maybe it’s about you.”
That stung. Not because it wasn’t kind. But because it sounded like he did that to himself.
George’s throat tightened. “I’m tired, Lew.”
“I know.”
“And scared.”
Lewis nodded. “I would be too.”
They stood in silence for a while. The hum of the paddock felt far away. Time, for once, didn’t feel like it was racing forward - just… hovering. Holding its breath.
Finally, Lewis looked at him again. “Whatever this is… you’re not alone. You know that, yeah?”
George let the words hang there. They were kind. Steady. True, in any other world.
But he couldn’t let himself believe it. Not fully. Not with the clock still ticking behind his ribs like a bomb.
He looked away. Voice low, cracking at the edges.
“Not until the loop resets.”
-
The next day George won. Again.
It wasn’t the first time he’d stood on the top step since the loop had started. By now, he knew every nuance of what it took to get there - when to pit, which tire compound would give him just enough grip to make the undercut work, how much he could push the car before it started to protest beneath him. He had perfected every variable, calculated every risk into certainty. Victory had become muscle memory.
But today’s win… wasn’t like the others.
This one was messier. Sharp around the edges.
It happened just after the second DRS zone, lap 41. He was hunting down Lewis, less than a second behind, tucked into the slipstream. Normally, George would wait. He knew the safer spot, the corner Lewis always took too cautiously - he'd used it before, a clean move that left no questions.
But not today.
Today, he was restless.
So he went for it. Inside line. Tighter than he should’ve been. Lewis turned in, unaware George was already committed. The contact was light, just enough to send Lewis wide, tires squealing as they met the painted runoff. George sailed through, heart pounding, radio silent.
The team didn’t say much. Not at first. Then a cautious, clipped confirmation “Lewis rejoined. You’re P1.”
He expected a reprimand. A shake of the head. But in this loop, consequences were illusions. Time would eat the moment whole and regurgitate it come dawn. So what did it matter?
Except… it did.
Even knowing it was temporary, something about it sat wrong in his chest. He had wanted to win, yes- but not like that. Not by forcing Lewis off. Not by taking something rather than earning it. His hands trembled slightly on the wheel during the cool down lap, fingers stained with guilt he couldn't scrub away.
When he returned to the garage, they cheered like always. The cameras flashed, and he smiled like he was meant to. On the podium, the champagne burned in his eyes more than usual. The anthem rang hollow in his ears.
No one called afterward.
Not even Alex.
Usually, like clockwork, his phone would buzz - Alex asking where they were going, half joking that since George had won, he was paying for the drinks. But tonight the phone remained silent. It laid face up on the hotel dresser, screen dim, unmoving, just like time itself. It had been still for what felt like forever.
Eventually, the hotel bar pulled at him like gravity. He didn’t even mean to end up there, not really. But he stepped into the low lit space out of habit or boredom, or maybe just a need to pretend things were still real.
That’s when he saw him.
Alex.
Slouched against the bar, a half empty glass in his hand, stirring it lazily with a straw. His hair was still damp from the post race shower, his Williams team gear replaced with a simple black t-shirt. He didn’t look up when George entered. Just kept staring into the melting ice like it might hold answers.
George’s heart sank. He hadn’t even checked where Alex finished. But he knew. He could feel it.
DNF.
Because of him? Maybe. Probably. The dominoes in the loop had never fallen like this before.
He approached quietly, slipping onto the barstool beside him.
Neither of them spoke for a long while.
Then, softly, without looking “You drove like a dick today.”
George laughed - sharp, bitter. “You’re not wrong.”
Alex finally turned to face him, his expression unreadable. “It’s not like it matters, right?”
George’s jaw tensed. That was the cruelest part. It didn’t matter. Not in the grand sense. Tomorrow would wipe it all away. No DNFs. No podiums. No bruised egos or unsaid words. Nothing.
But tonight… felt real.
The silence returned, thick as molasses.
Then, out of nowhere, Alex leaned in.
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. Lips pressed to his, hesitant but sure. Warm and strange and fleeting.
George froze.
Not because it was bad. Not because he didn’t want it.
But because it was new.
Something that hadn’t happened in any of the hundreds of loops before.
Something real.
When Alex pulled away, George was still staring at him, stunned into silence.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Alex said, voice low. “Thought I might as well, since…”
Before Alex could finish George was gone.
He had walked out without another word. The elevator ride felt like a free fall. He didn’t sleep that night - just laid in bed, heart racing, guilt tangled with confusion, wondering what he had done to deserve this endless Sunday.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
He stared at the numbers for a long time. They didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. Didn’t care.
He got ready without speaking. Showered under water that was too cold, let it bite into his skin like penance. He dressed like it mattered. Something tight under his chest the whole time, like the loop had knotted itself behind his ribs and was pulling tighter every morning.
And then he left early.
He didn’t know why.
There was no briefing he hadn’t memorized, no question from Sky Sports or Canal+ or some journalist with a Twitter handle and an agenda that he hadn’t already fielded a dozen times. He knew the engineer’s pitch. The radio strategy. The exact turn Lewis would take just a little too wide. The way the tires would degrade by Lap 13 unless he babied them through Sector 2.
And still - he went in early.
A choice. A deviation. Something to break the spine of this godforsaken Sunday.
He passed the Williams garage on autopilot, feet dragging slightly across concrete still warm from the morning sun. But something pulled at him - not curiosity, not guilt, exactly. Just the weight of responsibility. A thread tugging between his ribs.
He stepped inside.
Their TP looked up briefly, blinked in surprise, then offered a nod. Mechanics worked around him like he didn’t exist. Which, he supposed, was fair. For them, he’d only been here once.
But for him, it had been months.
George’s gaze swept the garage until it landed on Logan - curled into himself, hunched over a notebook, brows knit, lips moving silently like he was rehearsing something.
George approached. Came to a stop in front of the rookie.
Logan looked up, blinking. Blue eyes wide, wary.
George said, “You should take it easy in Turn 5.”
The words felt harmless. Practical. But Logan’s expression shifted - just enough. Confusion. Then a flicker of insult, the kind that curled under the surface and hardened into defensiveness.
Fuck.
George saw it in real-time. Heard the edge in his own voice, too late. It sounded like pity. Like he was just one more senior driver who didn’t believe Logan belonged.
“I meant-” he tried again, voice softer now. “The wind’s a bastard through there. The car feels light. Even the Merc was skittish yesterday.”
Logan didn’t say anything. Just stared at him like he’d said something unforgivable.
George swallowed and nodded. “Good luck out there.”
Then he left.
There was nothing else to say.
-
Logan didn’t crash.
He drove like a man walking a tightrope - slow in, slower out. Played it safe. Got lapped by both Red Bulls by Lap 40.
But he finished.
George podiumed again. Another third. The champagne stung in his eyes, but at least it wasn’t tears. He smiled for the photos. Bit his tongue during the interviews. Gave the same tired lines about tire management and clean air.
Then he pulled out his phone.
George
>>In the club. You in?<<
The reply came quicker than he expected.
Alex
>>Obviously.<<
-
The club was too loud. Too crowded. George didn’t care.
They drank like they were younger. Stupid. Like none of it mattered.
The sweat on Alex’s collarbone glistened under the lights. His shirt was already half unbuttoned. He looked like a music video - all angles and sweat and limbs that moved too easily to the beat.
George followed him into the rhythm without thinking. Let himself fall into the space where noise drowned out thought. Where hands found waists and breathless laughter sparked between tequila shots and bad remixes.
For a moment - just a flicker - he forgot. Forgot the loop. Forgot the number on his lock screen. Forgot he was chasing something he couldn’t name.
When Alex kissed him this time, George didn’t run.
He didn’t freeze or make a joke or pull away like he had before. He just leaned in.
And kissed back.
It was messy. Drunk. Too much tongue. Their teeth clicked once, awkwardly, and they both laughed into it. Alex’s hand found the back of George’s neck, fingers threading through sweat damp hair.
George let himself want.
That was the difference.
He let himself want.
-
He didn’t remember who brought him home.
Only that someone did.
Only that he made it as far as the hotel room, that someone handed him a bucket, and he vomited with the sort of helplessness that came from laughing too hard for too long on a stomach full of liquor and not enough food.
He remembered the shape of Alex’s silhouette, briefly, against the hotel hallway light. The brush of his hand on George’s back. The murmur of his voice - something too soft to hold onto.
Then he was out.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Again.
The only good thing about this time loop was that George wasn’t hungover.
His mouth didn’t taste like vodka. His stomach didn’t roll every time he bent over. His pulse wasn’t slamming against the back of his skull like a jackhammer. Just clean air and a plan he’d already rehearsed too many times to count.
Arrive early. Help Logan. Win. Confess. Get the boy.
Simple.
At the paddock, he found Logan hunched over a notepad, biting the cap of a pen. The kid looked up when George walked in - blinked like it was the first time, every time.
“Hey, Logan,” George said, tone light. “Can you tell Alex something from me?”
A smile tugged at Logan’s mouth. “Sure.”
“Tell him to take Turn 5 more careful today. The wind picked up. The Williams gets twitchy in it.”
Logan nodded. George could see it - the way he locked the advice away like it mattered, like he didn’t think it was some underhanded jab at his driving. Just a heads up from someone who knew the car and didn’t want to see his friend in a wall.
George didn’t stick around to watch it play out.
He knew he didn’t need to.
-
The race passed in a blur.
No surprises. No accidents. Not even a yellow flag.
Logan finished. He didn’t crash. Everything went according to script.
By lap 45, George sat in P3 - enough to take the podium. Enough to prove he’d cracked the code.
But he lifted early on his in lap. Slipped a gear. Pretended to stall on the final pit exit.
Dropped back to P4.
He knew what they’d say. “Tough break.” “Unlucky strategy.” “Still a strong drive.”
He didn’t care.
It wasn’t his podium today. He hadn’t earned it. Not like this. Not when it felt like cheating - like stealing.
So instead of parties and noise and lights and champagne, George texted Alex.
George
>>Not really feeling the club tonight.
Come sulk with me?<<
Alex
>>Hotel?<<
George
>>Room 612. I’ll leave the door unlocked.<<
-
They sat on the floor.
Not the chairs. Not the bed. Just the soft hotel carpet, backs pressed to the side of the mattress like they were twenty, like they’d raided a minibar and were hiding out in someone’s college dorm instead of a five star suite.
Their shoulders brushed occasionally. Neither moving away when they did.
Alex had changed out of his team kit - plain black shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, collar hanging open. His hair was still damp, messy in that post shower way. Like he hadn’t bothered with a mirror.
George couldn’t stop looking at him.
“You’re staring,” Alex said eventually, a slow smirk crawling onto his lips, head tipping back against the bed.
George looked away, jaw tightening. “Sorry.”
Alex glanced over at him, still smirking. “Didn’t say I minded.”
It wasn’t flirty. Not really. Just casual. Familiar. Like this wasn’t the first time he had done this. Like they’d been orbiting this moment for a long, long time.
George’s fingers flexed against the carpet. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.
“I was thinking.”
“That’s dangerous,” Alex said, almost reflexively.
George smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He felt it - the click. The moment where the words were already halfway out of him and there was no dragging them back.
“I was thinking about you.”
Alex didn’t say anything.
George kept going. “I like being around you. More than I should. More than I know what to do with.”
His throat felt dry. He tried to swallow and failed.
“I don’t want to keep pretending it’s not what it is.”
Alex looked at him. Quiet. No teasing now.
George met his gaze. Steady. Open.
“I’m in love with you.”
The silence that followed didn’t feel cruel. It felt heavy. Thick with knowing.
Alex blinked once. Then again.
Then he said, softly, “Say it again.”
George inhaled. “I’m in love with you.”
Alex didn’t smile. Not really. But his eyes softened. Something inside him untied.
And then he leaned in.
The kiss was quiet. Intentional. Like they were both afraid of scaring it off.
George kissed back without thinking, one hand rising to grip Alex’s arm, just above the elbow. He felt the warmth of his skin through the fabric. The slight tremble beneath it.
The second kiss was sharper. Hungrier. Alex moved forward, climbing into his lap, thighs bracketing George’s hips. His fingers curled into George’s shirt, grounding himself. George groaned, hands slipping up under the hem of Alex’s t-shirt, palms skating over bare skin.
Alex’s breath hitched. “Bed?” he whispered, voice rasping against George’s mouth.
“Yeah,” George breathed. “God- yeah.”
They stumbled to the mattress.
Clothes fell in pieces. Alex’s shirt hit the floor first, then George’s jeans, pulled off with a laugh and a curse and a scrape of fingernails down his stomach.
They kissed like they were starving. Like they’d been waiting too long.
Alex pushed him back into the pillows, mouth dragging down his neck, teeth scraping lightly at his collarbone. George moaned, head tipping back, hands gripping Alex’s waist as he settled over him, bare skin on bare skin, hot and flushed.
“Fuck-” George hissed when Alex’s hips rolled down.
“Shut up,” Alex whispered, smiling into his throat. “Let me.”
He did.
Alex fucked him slow. Deep. Their hands stayed locked together, fingers laced, arms shaking. George’s legs wrapped tight around his waist, holding him close, desperate to keep him here.
They moved together like they already knew the rhythm. Like their bodies had been waiting for the other to catch up.
George’s head fell back. Alex kissed his open mouth. Their bodies slick with sweat, muscles taut, both of them breathing hard.
“Eyes on me,” Alex whispered.
George did.
He came like that - shaking, skin burning, Alex’s name breaking out of him in pieces. Alex followed right after, hips stuttering, mouth dragging over George’s jaw, moaning into his neck.
It felt like being struck by something holy.
Afterward, they didn’t move.
Just laid there, tangled and wrecked and full.
Sheets tangled. Limbs twisted. Skin still buzzing.
Alex’s head rested on George’s chest, breath slow, lips brushing his skin with every exhale. George ran his fingers through his hair, gentle, grounding himself in the softness of it.
“You’re not gonna pretend that didn’t happen, right?” George murmured, voice rough.
Alex huffed. “Not a chance.”
There was a pause.
Then, quieter “I love you too, by the way.”
George smiled. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, he smiled like he meant it.
“I know.”
They fell asleep like that.
-
George woke with a slow, uneven inhale.
The morning light poured softly across the sheets, painting the walls in pale gold. For the first time in what felt like forever, it didn’t feel oppressive - just quiet. Still.
He blinked blearily at the ceiling before turning over, his muscles tense like they were still waiting for something to snap.
But nothing did.
Alex was still there.
Asleep on his side, arm curled under the pillow, hair tousled from the night. One bare shoulder peeked out from under the sheets, freckled and warm in the sun. His lips were slightly parted. Peaceful.
George didn't move. Couldn't.
He just watched him - afraid to blink, afraid the moment would vanish like all the others had.
His hand fumbled for the phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up.
10:02
Monday
08.05.2023
His breath caught in his chest. Then, slowly, he let it out, like his lungs had finally remembered how to work. His fingers trembled.
It was real. It wasn’t Sunday.
He sank back into the pillow, heart pounding with something that didn’t feel like panic anymore. Just awe.
He stared at Alex. At the curve of his mouth, the familiar line of his jaw, the dark lashes resting against his cheeks.
And then, softly, Alex spoke.
“You’re staring again.”
He stretched and grabbed his own phone, staring at the screen for a moment.
George let out a laugh - small, disbelieving, cracked at the edges. “It’s just... crazy. Knowing what had to happen for me to realize I’m in love with you.”
Alex shifted slightly, voice still rough and low. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Tell me about it.”
There was a pause. A long one.
George turned onto his side to face him more fully, watching the way the light framed his face. He hesitated, then whispered, “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” he said.
Chapter 2: You took the best of my heart
Chapter Text
The race was long, hot, and draining. By lap twenty Logan was out, another DNF, leaving Alex to carry the team’s hopes. He pushed as hard as he could, but fourteenth was all he had to show for it. Agonizing. Empty. P14.
Back in the driver’s room, sweat drying uncomfortably on his skin, he thumbed a quick message to George
Alex
>>Fancy a drink? Might help wash away the taste.<<
He already knew what the answer would be, and sure enough a thumbs up came back almost instantly.
They met at a bar near the hotel. Dim lighting, low music, the kind of place where the weight of the day could finally slide off. George was already leaning against the counter when Alex walked in - sleeves rolled, hair damp, eyes still sharp from the race. He looked annoyed, and Alex couldn’t help smiling at the thought that even P4 wasn’t enough for him.
“P14,” Alex muttered as he sat down, ordering something strong. “Hell of a reward for the effort.”
George clinked his glass against his. “Could be worse.”
The drinks burned, but the edge softened with each round. Conversation loosened, laughter spilling easier as the hours ticked past. They teased each other, traded complaints about the race, the teams, the grind of it all. For the first time that day, Alex felt the tightness in his chest ease.
They drank more than they probably should have. But at least they had fun. And for a little while, the car and the numbers didn’t matter.
Tomorrow would be on his way to Monaco again. But tonight, they had this.
-
The sound tore him out of sleep before his mind had even caught up. Shrill, grating, relentless. Alex groaned, dragging his arm across the sheets until his hand found his phone on the nightstand. He hadn’t set an alarm - that much he was sure of. Still, he fumbled until the noise cut off, leaving only the hollow echo of silence behind.
His eyes blinked against the brightness of the screen.
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
The numbers sharpened slowly, sinking into him like stones. His brows pulled together, a faint crease settling between them. Sunday again. Logan’s home race. Nerves stretched tight like cables pulled too far. Alex should’ve laughed it off - chalk it up to exhaustion, to one too many drinks the night before - but the unease lingered. Heavy. Inevitable.
At the circuit, the world spun exactly as it had before. The same rush of mechanics darting back and forth, the same murmured conversations bleeding together into white noise. Alex moved through it all with a strange sense of detachment, like wading through déjà vu.
He found Logan in the back of the garage, hunched over the glowing screens, shoulders tense, chewing absently at the end of a pen. Anxiety clung to him like a shadow, every twitch and fidget betraying what his face wouldn’t say out loud. Alex considered stepping closer, considered offering something - one of those vague reassurances teammates were supposed to give - but the words caught in his throat before they could form. Instead, his feet carried him elsewhere. Toward George.
George greeted him the same way he did yesterday, voice steady, posture tall, eyes sharp but softened with that particular warmth only he seemed to manage. They exchanged small talk, pieces of the day slipping into place like someone pressing “repeat” on a film Alex hadn’t realized he was rewatching. And then, just as before, they were summoned to briefing.
The strategists spoke of degradation curves, of pit windows, of compound choices that would define entire stints. Their voices droned on, layered and predictable. Alex sat through it, but his attention pulled sideways, toward Logan again. The pen gnawed nearly in half between his teeth, the relentless tapping of his foot under the table, the weight of his own country’s eyes pressing down on him. Alex swallowed, uneasy. It was all too familiar.
And then came the race.
By lap 23, the realization slammed into him as hard as the sound of carbon fiber shattering across the barriers. His engineer’s voice cracked through the static of the radio. Logan. Out. Again.
Alex’s chest tightened as he kept his car on track, hands rigid on the wheel, every lap bleeding into the next with a sickening sense of inevitability. He crossed the line P14. Again. The number tasted bitter, metallic, like disappointment made tangible.
By then, Alex wasn’t even surprised anymore. He simply went through the motions. The text to George. The bar tucked away in the corner of the city, the stale scent of liquor and the burn of whiskey on his tongue. The laughter that came too easily, masking the gnawing awareness at the back of his mind. The feeling of chasing normalcy when everything around him screamed it wasn’t.
He ordered the same drinks. Said the same things. Let the night blur into the same comforting haze. And when it was over, he went back to his hotel room.
-
It didn’t take long for Alex to memorize the race. Same start, same helpless slip down the order, same hollow ache in his chest when the checkered flag fell and there were no points beside his name. The same crackle of the radio, His engineers' strained voice announcing Logan’s DNF, followed by silence that felt louder than the roar of the crowd.
And always - always - the same night at the bar with George. The same empty glasses, the same platitudes about “next weekend” that were meant to soothe but never did. The loop reset itself with cruel precision, like clockwork.
Until the eighth time.
Alex didn’t wait outside the garage this time. Instead, some instinct pulled him past the threshold, into the bright, humming space that smelled of rubber and sweat and engine oil. Screens glowed with lines of data, engineers bent over them, voices clipped and tired. And there - Logan.
He looked up from the notebook, eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion. In the sterile light of the garage, he seemed smaller somehow. Younger.
“Don’t worry so much,” Alex said before he could stop himself. His voice was softer than he intended, almost pleading. He forced a smile, trying to project a steadiness he didn’t feel. “It’ll be fine. You just need to push a little harder - you’ll make it into the points next time.”
Logan smiled back, or at least tried to. It was a thin curve of his lips, brittle at the edges. His eyes stayed dull, refusing to follow.
Alex’s stomach twisted.
That race, Logan didn’t even make it past lap 15. The car snapped mid-corner, a brutal skid into the barriers, the wreckage playing out in Alex’s memory long after the marshals had cleared the track. The debrief was merciless, engineers dissecting every second until the conclusion was simple: he’d pushed too hard, braked too late. Driver error.
Alex sat there, the guilt clawing its way up his throat. He had told him to push. He had said the words. And now, Logan’s race had ended earlier than before.
So when he found George later, equally gutted, Alex couldn’t stop himself.
“Rough one?” His voice cracked on the words.
George only nodded, the lines of his face drawn tight, before knocking back his drink in a single swallow. Alex mirrored him, the burn of alcohol biting down his throat, an anchor in the middle of the storm.
Tomorrow it will all reset. Same race. Same loop. Same mistakes waiting for him to make again.
But tonight, the weight of it pressed down heavier than ever, and Alex wasn’t sure if even the reset could make it feel lighter.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
The clock mocked him with its precision. Alex rubbed at his tired eyes, the fluorescent lights of the hospitality still buzzing in his ears, before dragging himself toward the corner where Logan sat. The rookie was hunched over the same notes, in the same chair, in the same posture as yesterday - like a picture frozen in time.
Alex dropped into the seat beside him with a little too much force, trying to make it look casual. Logan barely flinched, only glanced up for a heartbeat before focusing back on the numbers.
“It’s so hard to drive here,” Alex said, his voice pitched light, like a confession disguised as a complaint. He let out a loud, theatrical sigh. “The car just… snaps if you push too hard. I swear it’s impossible.” He leaned closer, eyes flicking to the data spread across Logan’s notepad. “Do you get the same thing?”
Logan hesitated. His teeth pressed against his bottom lip, biting down hard enough to blanch the skin. Then - finally - he nodded.
Bingo.
Alex forced a grin, though his chest tightened at the hollow sound of it. “Maybe we should both drive a bit more carefully, then. If the car’s broken, it’s not on us. Underperforming together - that’s not failure, right?”
Logan’s answering smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes, but Alex took it anyway.
-
When the lights went out, Alex drove slower than instinct demanded. Every muscle in his body screamed against it, the car begging to be let off the leash, but he held it back. Lap after lap, he eased off, forcing mistakes into his lines just enough to make it believable. Into the radio he complained, sharp little lies about the rear sliding, about the balance being unpredictable. He hoped his engineer wouldn’t take it personally.
“Copy that,” came the calm reply. “Logan’s reporting the same issues.”
Alex grinned behind his visor, a flash of pride he didn’t let himself dwell on. If Logan kept it steady, maybe - just maybe - he’d see the checkered flag.
But fate had other ideas than letting him off that easy.
The Alpine came from nowhere, a blur of blue and pink cutting across his peripheral. The impact rattled through him, the violent shudder of carbon tearing apart. For a moment all he saw was sparks and smoke, all he felt was the gut sickening lurch of knowing this wasn’t how it was meant to go.
“Damage is too heavy, Alex. Box to retire the car.”
Static on the radio. His own ragged breathing. And then silence.
He sat in the garage for the rest of the race, helmet abandoned at his feet, eyes glued to the timing screens. Logan’s name stayed up. Not high, but there. Surviving. Holding on. Every lap that ticked past was a small victory. And above him - George, climbing relentlessly until the P3 marker glowed beside his name.
The weight in Alex’s chest loosened. For the first time in so many loops, he let himself believe.
That night, he threw an arm around George’s shoulders outside the bar, pulling his best friend close. The streetlights blurred in his vision, the alcohol warm in his blood. He laughed too loudly, smiled too wide, clung to George like the world might actually keep spinning differently this time.
“See?” he murmured, almost giddy. “Tomorrow’s going to be different. I know it.” - I broke it.
George just chuckled, shaking his head at Alex’s enthusiasm, but Alex didn’t care. He felt alive, drunk on the possibility of change.
-
When he woke, the room was too familiar. The light was the same dull shade of gray creeping through the curtains. The clock read
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Alex’s stomach dropped.
The loop hadn’t broken.
Not yet.
-
The next days blurred together, each one starting with the same time, the same date, the same heaviness in his chest. Alex couldn’t stop wondering what the universe wanted from him - what he was meant to fix.
He tried everything he could think of. Sat with Logan again, tried to reassure him, kept his own race cleaner than before. Afterwards, he celebrated with George, laughing like it meant something, like it might change something.
But every reset left him right where he’d started. Same Sunday. Same questions. No answers.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
By now, Alex had perfected the rhythm of the loop. He knew the exact minute he needed to leave the hotel to avoid the worst of traffic, the precise window to slip into the paddock without being swept into media duty, the little slivers of time he could carve out for himself. With the certainty of repetition, he bought a coffee and a breakfast wrap for once, savoring the novelty of it even though he knew it wasn’t novelty at all - just the illusion of choice in a day that never truly changed.
The cup was warm in his hand as he walked through the paddock, steam curling upward, the rich scent cutting through the sterile smell of asphalt and engine oil. He told himself this was different, this small change. He told himself maybe it mattered.
Inside the Williams garage, Logan was already there, bent over his notes. Alex slipped into the same conversation as always - the same reassurances, the same tired smile in return. It all played out like lines from a script he couldn’t stop reciting.
And then he waited. Helmet in his lap, the hum of the garage filling the air, nerves settling into the familiar crawl beneath his skin. The race would start soon. He thought he knew what to expect.
Until he noticed the empty space.
His gaze snagged on it immediately - the space where the Mercedes should have been. Where George’s car should have been. But there was nothing. No engineers, no mechanics, no glossy silver machine waiting to be unleashed. Just emptiness.
Confusion prickled at the back of Alex’s neck.
“Lando - ” he called as the papaya orange flashed past.
The McLaren driver slowed, looking over with mild curiosity.
“Do you know where George is?” Alex asked, his voice sharper than he meant it to be.
Lando just shrugged, easy and unconcerned. “Don’t think even Mercedes knows. Something about him just not showing up.” His tone was casual, but the words hit like a punch. And then he was gone, swallowed by the flow of people.
Alex sat frozen, the noise of the paddock suddenly muted.
George, not showing up? It was unthinkable. George was steady, reliable, the sort who never missed a briefing, never left a loose thread. His absence was a hole Alex couldn’t make sense of, a gap in the pattern that made the rest of it feel unstable.
He stared at the empty space where the car should have been, unease settling deep in his stomach. Had his choice this morning - something as small as breakfast - shifted the rules? Was this his fault?
God, he didn’t understand any of it.
The universe kept its rules, cruel and silent. And Alex was left with nothing but questions, staring at the place where his best friend should have been, wondering if this was punishment for daring to believe he could change anything at all.
-
The next morning, Alex made sure to act before the loop could twist against him again. He pulled out his phone, thumbs hovering just a second too long over the keyboard before he forced himself to type:
>>Getting breakfast. Want a coffee for track?<<
He didn’t expect much. After so many resets, the small gestures blurred together, collapsing under their own futility. But when George replied - when George actually showed up at the paddock, blue eyes bright in the morning light and his usual calm wrapped around him like armor - Alex’s chest loosened for the first time in days.
So it was his effect, after all. He mattered.
He pressed the coffee into George’s hand, grin a little sharper than it should’ve been. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”
George’s laugh was soft, distracted, but it was there. And that was enough.
Alex slipped away toward the Williams garage, back into routine. Logan was waiting, bent over his notes, and Alex fell into their familiar exchange - calm reassurances, practiced optimism, the rookie’s brittle nod. By the time the race started, Alex felt steady. Almost confident.
And then the result came.
P9 for him. Points on the board. George - George - with the win. The crowd roaring, cameras flashing, champagne streaking across the podium. For a moment Alex allowed himself to believe he had done it - that he had nudged the universe onto a different track.
George should thank him for this.
Later that evening, he bumped George’s shoulder as they crossed paths, his grin lazy, voice teasing. “Out tonight?”
He expected the usual - the sparkle of mischief in George’s eyes, the easy agreement, the inevitable blur of bars and laughter. Instead, George only chuckled, soft and unhurried.
“Nah. Think I’ll let myself have an early one.”
Alex blinked, thrown off balance. “Since when do you say no to a celebration?”
George shrugged, the ghost of a smile curling his lips but never reaching his eyes. “Since now.”
The words lodged in Alex’s chest, sharp and unfamiliar. This wasn’t how the night was meant to go. This wasn’t how George was meant to be. But the universe offered no explanations, no undo button beyond the reset he dreaded.
So Alex watched his best friend walk away, shoulders relaxed, posture calm, retreating toward the hotel without a backward glance.
He wouldn’t confess it out loud - not to Logan, not to anyone - but it gnawed at him. The sting of being left behind. The irritation that George, of all people, had chosen solitude over him.
It didn’t feel like a win anymore.
Not when George didn’t want to share it.
-
The following days dissolved into research. Every night, every reset, Alex sat hunched over his phone or laptop, looking through forums and comment sections, typing in frantic questions he already knew sounded insane.
>>How do you break a time loop?<<
>>How do you stop the reset?<<
The answers were useless. Platitudes, jokes, half-serious advice buried in places no one would ever find.
“Do something you always wanted to do.”
“Right a wrong from your past.”
“Kiss the person you’re afraid to lose.”
They were all impossible. Ridiculous. Unreal. Alex couldn’t win a race in a Williams. He couldn’t even change the outcome of a Sunday that had already been written a hundred times over.
Eventually he stopped counting the loops. Numbers lost meaning. All he knew was that he was still trapped in it, and with every reset, his patience frayed thinner. The days weren’t just heavy anymore - they were annoying, a gnawing irritation in his chest.
One morning, in a fit of restless frustration, Alex tore open a stack of post-its and plastered them across the wall of his driver’s room. Lists, arrows, half-scribbled possibilities that made sense in the moment and nonsense an hour later. “George doesn’t win.” “Logan finishes.” “DNF myself?” “Talk to Jost.” “Crash into Alonso?” The wall turned into a chaotic map of desperation, a collage of someone losing the thread of reality.
He didn’t hear Logan until he was already inside.
“What the hell,” Logan muttered, squinting at the wall like it was some kind of art installation. “Is this… a bucket list? You planning your retirement?”
Alex startled, shoulders tensing before he managed a weak laugh. “No. It’s- ” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m trying to solve something.”
“Like what?”
The question hung heavy between them. Alex stared at Logan, at the tired slump of his shoulders, the guarded tilt of his jaw. He could lie. He could deflect. But suddenly, he didn’t want to. Suddenly, “fuck it” felt easier.
“I’m in a time loop,” Alex said. The words tumbled out clumsy, like they’d been waiting behind his teeth too long. “Every Sunday resets. Over and over. I’ve tried changing things, I’ve tried fixing things, but nothing works. Different outcomes, different conversations, same result.” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “And today- you’re going to crash if you don’t slow down.”
Logan’s face tightened, his lips pressing into a thin line. Then he stood abruptly, anger flickering across his expression.
“You’re an ass.” His voice was sharp, louder than the small room deserved. “You think this is funny? You’re just trying to get in my head before the race. Make me insecure.”
“No, I- ugh, forget it.” Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling the futility of it. “You won’t remember tomorrow anyway.”
He left Logan standing there, heat still buzzing under his skin.
-
The race unfolded exactly as he’d said it would. Logan pushed too hard. The car snapped. Another DNF.
Afterwards, Logan found him. His face was pale, his jaw tight, but his eyes - his eyes were searching.
“How did you know?”
Alex’s laugh was humorless, exhausted. “I already told you. I’m stuck in a time loop.”
Logan didn’t look convinced, but there was something different in him now - hesitation, maybe even curiosity. He shifted uncomfortably before blurting out “Since when?”
“I don’t know.” Alex’s shoulders slumped. “Weeks. Maybe a bit over a month. Time doesn’t feel real anymore.”
“Why haven’t you told me before?”
Alex barked a dry laugh. “You mean like I did before? When you didn’t believe me. And tomorrow you won’t remember anyway, so what’s the point?”
Logan was quiet for a long moment. Then his eyes narrowed, as if he’d stumbled across an idea. “What if I tell you something only you could know because I said it right now?”
Alex tilted his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “If you think that works.”
Logan hesitated, clearly struggling, until he finally muttered, “I… peed my pants once because Dalton locked me out of the bathroom.”
Silence stretched for a beat too long. Then Alex snorted, sharp and unexpected, the sound breaking free before he could stop it.
Logan’s face burned red. He grabbed the nearest team shirt and flung it at Alex’s head.
“Asshole,” he muttered, though there was no real venom in it.
Alex pulled the fabric away, still grinning despite himself. For the first time in weeks, something felt almost different.
“Fine,” Logan said, folding his arms. “Now let’s talk about this time loop.”
-
The next morning, Alex went straight to Logan before the race. No circling around it this time, no hesitation. He leaned in and repeated the story - the one about Dalton, the locked door, the accident.
Logan’s ears flushed red instantly, his eyes going wide before he groaned into his hands. “I can’t believe I actually told you that.” His voice was muffled, but the shame in it was clear. “I should have said something else.”
Alex smirked despite himself. “Too late.”
Logan cursed under his breath, shaking his head as though he could undo the memory by sheer force. But the damage was already done, and they both knew it. If nothing else, the secret proved Alex wasn’t lying. The loop was real.
They sat in the quiet of the Williams motorhome, surrounded by the soft hum of electronics and the faint buzz of radios bleeding through the walls. Logan turned a pen over and over in his fingers, his brows furrowed like he was trying to solve an equation that didn’t want to be solved.
“What about love?” he said suddenly, too casual to be casual. “You got someone you wanna… you know, smooch?” The last word was said with mock innocence, his mouth twitching at the corners.
Alex froze. Heat crept up his neck before he could stop it.
Logan’s grin widened immediately. He pointed the pen at him like a smoking gun. “You do! I knew it!”
Alex scowled, trying to school his features back into neutrality, but it was pointless. Logan had already seen too much. His laughter was soft but relentless, filling the room in a way that made Alex’s chest tighten with something he didn’t want to name.
Before Alex could come up with a denial, before Logan could press the point any further, the call came: drivers to cars.
Saved by the race.
Alex grabbed his helmet, grateful for the excuse, even as his pulse still beat uneven against his ribs.
But as he walked toward the garage, Logan’s question lingered like a splinter.
‘What about love?’
Maybe the universe was cruel enough to demand even that.
-
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
Alex had been turning it over in his head for days. The idea sat heavy in his chest, impossible to ignore no matter how many times he tried to shove it down. Kiss him. The thought was simple, reckless, absurd, and yet, it lingered.
But George made it complicated. He had been off lately, mood swinging like the car itself. Tense. Snapping in briefings. Even crying once, though Alex still wasn’t sure what he had done in that loop to set it off. The butterfly effect was cruel that way - unpredictable, impossible to trace back to its root. And Alex’s performance on track was slipping the longer he obsessed over it. Every lap carried the weight of indecision, of not knowing how to reach the end of this puzzle.
By nightfall, he found himself where he always did: at the bar. Drink in hand. Watching the world blur by. George had won again, the glow of victory still clinging to him as he moved through the room.
When George approached, Alex looked up from his glass, words slipping out sharper than intended. “You drove like a dick today.”
It was meant as a joke, a jab to cut through the tension. But George didn’t laugh. He just paused, eyes narrowing faintly, before surprising Alex with a quiet, “You’re not wrong.”
That knocked the air out of him. George never admitted fault - not like that.
Alex tried to brush it off, waving his glass lazily. “It’s not like it matters.” Because it didn’t. George didn’t know the truth, couldn’t know, but Alex did: by tomorrow morning, every move George had made today would be erased.
Still, Logan’s words lingered, echoing in his mind like an itch he couldn’t scratch.
>>What about love? You got someone you want to smooch?<<
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the solution. Or maybe it was just the alcohol dulling the edge of fear, pushing him past a line he never would’ve dared cross sober. Either way, the moment was here.
Before he could think himself out of it, Alex leaned in and pressed his mouth to George’s.
It was clumsy. Quick. Nothing more than a brush of lips. A question rather than an answer.
When he pulled back, George was staring at him, eyes wide, stunned into silence. The weight of it sat between them, thick and suffocating.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Alex admitted, his voice low, roughened by nerves. “Figured I might as well, since…”
He didn’t get to finish. George pushed back from the bar stool, long legs carrying him away with practiced ease. No words. No backward glance. Just gone.
Alex sat frozen for a beat, then tipped his glass back and drained it in one go, the burn in his throat sharp enough to feel like punishment.
Either tomorrow would finally be Monday, and he’d ruined his closest friendship in one reckless move. Or it wouldn’t matter at all, and the loop would swallow it whole, leaving nothing behind but the echo of a kiss no one remembered.
-
Sunday came again.
And Alex did nothing.
He followed the same rhythm he always did - mechanical, inevitable. The hours passed in familiar patterns, down to the smallest details, as though he were tracing over an outline he already knew by heart. The only difference was the dull ache in his chest, the knowledge that he was living a day already doomed to repeat itself.
When night fell, he went to the club. Just like before.
The bass thrummed through his bones, lights cutting through the dark in sharp, dizzying bursts of color. Bodies pressed together, heat and sweat and laughter bleeding into one another until the air itself felt suffocating. Alex let it wash over him, let the rhythm seep into his muscles, carrying him somewhere outside of himself.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message.
George
>>In the club. You in?<<
Alex typed out the response quickly.
Alex
>>Obviously.<<
When they finally found each other on the dance floor, George was already more than tipsy. His grin was too wide, his steps uneven, his arm flung too easily around Alex’s shoulder. But Alex wasn’t much better. The alcohol had smoothed his edges, made the repetition of the loop blur, made the weight pressing on him lighter, easier to ignore.
So he let himself enjoy it.
He didn’t know when the space between them disappeared, didn’t know who leaned in first, didn’t know how it happened - but suddenly George’s mouth was on his, warm and clumsy and tasting of liquor. The kiss was messy, unpracticed, and utterly perfect.
And Alex didn’t care if the loop would shatter because of it.
Didn’t care about tomorrow.
Didn’t care about the rules.
All that mattered was George’s lips against his, the way his laugh vibrated into Alex’s mouth, the way the crowd blurred into nothing around them.
For once, Alex let himself have this.
Later, when George was too drunk to stand on his own, Alex guided him out of the chaos, one arm slung tight around his waist. George leaned heavily against him, his head dropping to Alex’s shoulder as if it belonged there. The hotel room was a blur of muted carpet and sterile lighting, but Alex moved with care, lowering George onto the bed like something fragile.
He found a bucket, placed it at George’s side, and stayed long enough to make sure the worst of it went there instead of across the pristine sheets. He rubbed soothing circles into his back until the shaking subsided.
None of it mattered, not really. Tomorrow would erase everything.
But Alex did it anyway.
Because George mattered.
When George finally collapsed back onto the pillows, eyes half shut and skin flushed, Alex lingered for a moment longer. The quiet between them pressed heavy, broken only by George’s uneven breaths.
Alex bent down, his voice rough in the silence, the words spilling out before he could stop them.
“Love you, Georgie.”
Then he left.
-
The next morning, Alex woke feeling lighter.
For the first time since the loop began, there was no clawing dread in his chest, no hollow ache gnawing at the edges of him. Just a quiet thought that maybe - just maybe - he could live like this. A kiss every night. A laugh pressed too close. George, and only George, without consequence.
Maybe eternity wasn’t so unbearable if it meant kissing George every day.
By the time he arrived at the paddock, the hum of activity was already in full swing - mechanics crouched over the car, the air thick with fuel and sweat, radios crackling in clipped, hurried voices. He’d been meaning to find Logan, maybe offer a word of encouragement before having their usual talk, but the rookie found him first.
“George told me to tell you to take it slow today. Apparently the Williams is twitchy.”
Alex froze for a heartbeat. His brows knit together, a small furrow tugging between them. George hadn’t been in that car for years, and the engineers had practically rebuilt the thing from the ground up. Whatever George thought he knew about its temperament belonged to another era.
But Alex only nodded. “Will do.”
A silence stretched between them, just long enough to feel a little awkward, before Logan added quietly, “Me too.”
And then he walked off, leaving Alex staring after him.
The corner of his mouth tugged upward despite himself. Logan, clinging to advice that meant nothing. George still shaping the team in ways he didn’t even realize. Alex had to smile.
The race went well - better than expected. Logan kept the car steady, brought it home without incident. No mistakes, no DNFs. Just clean laps and a cautious, stubborn faith in advice that would’ve been useless from anyone else’s mouth. Alex could have told him that George’s words were meaningless, that they didn’t apply anymore, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Let the rookie believe.
Afterwards, his phone buzzed.
George
>>Not really feeling the club tonight.
Come sulk with me?<<
Alex’s lips curved at the screen, his thumb hovering for a moment before tapping back a reply.
Alex
>>Hotel?<<
George
>>Room 612. I’ll leave the door unlocked.<<
-
They sat on the floor.
Not the chairs. Not the bed. Just the soft hotel carpet, backs pressed to the side of the mattress like they were twenty, like they’d raided a minibar and were hiding out in someone’s college dorm instead of a five star suite.
Their shoulders brushed occasionally. Not on purpose. But also not not on purpose.
Alex had changed out of his team kit - plain black shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, collar hanging open. His hair was still damp, messy in that post-race-shower.
he felt George’s eyes on him.
“You’re staring,” Alex said eventually, a slow smirk crawling onto his lips, head tipping back against the bed.
George looked away, jaw tightening. “Sorry.”
Alex glanced over at him, still smirking. “Didn’t say I minded.”
It wasn’t flirty. Not really. Just casual. Familiar. Like this wasn’t the first time he had done this. Like they’d been orbiting this moment for a long, long time.
George’s fingers flexed against the carpet. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.
“I was thinking.”
“That’s dangerous,” Alex said, almost reflexively.
George smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He felt it - the click. The moment where the words were already halfway out of him and there was no dragging them back.
“I was thinking about you.”
Alex didn’t say anything.
George kept going. “I like being around you. More than I should. More than I know what to do with. I don’t want to keep pretending it’s not what it is.”
Alex looked at him. Quiet. No teasing now.
George met his gaze. Steady. Open.
“I’m in love with you.”
The silence that followed didn’t feel cruel. It felt heavy. Thick with knowing.
Alex blinked once. Then again.
Then he said, softly, “Say it again.”
George inhaled. “I’m in love with you.”
Alex didn’t smile. Not really. But his eyes softened. Something inside him untied.
And then he leaned in.
The kiss was quiet. Intentional. Like they were both afraid of scaring it off.
George kissed back without thinking, one hand rising to grip Alex’s arm, just above the elbow. He felt the warmth of his skin through the fabric. The slight tremble beneath it.
The second kiss was sharper. Hungrier. Alex moved forward, climbing into his lap, thighs bracketing George’s hips. His fingers curled into George’s shirt, grounding himself. George groaned, hands slipping up under the hem of Alex’s t-shirt, palms skating over bare skin.
Alex’s breath hitched. “Bed?” he whispered, voice rasping against George’s mouth.
“Yeah,” George breathed. “God - yeah.”
They stumbled to the mattress.
Alex didn’t just fuck George, he took care of him. And afterwards they just laid there, tangled and wrecked.
Sheets tangled. Limbs twisted. Skin still buzzing.
Alex’s head rested on George’s chest, breath slow, lips brushing his skin with every exhale. George ran his fingers through his hair, gentle, grounding himself in the softness of it.
“You’re not gonna pretend that didn’t happen, right?” George murmured, voice rough.
Alex huffed. “Not a chance.”
There was a pause.
Then, quieter: “I love you too, by the way.”
George smiled. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, he smiled like he meant it.
“I know.”
They fell asleep like that.
-
When Alex woke up he felt George stare at him.
“You’re staring again.” He mumbled before grabbing his own phone, suddenly bright awake as the screen looked back at him.
10:02
Monday
08.05.2023
Alex couldn’t believe it for a moment.
Suddenly George let out a hysteric laugh next to him. “It’s just... crazy. Knowing what had to happen for me to realize I’m in love with you.”
Alex shifted slightly, voice sleep-rough and low. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Tell me about it.”
There was a pause. A long one.
George turned onto his side to face him more fully, watching the way the light framed his face. He hesitated, then whispered, “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” he said.
Chapter 3: I don’t wanna say goodbye, ‘cause this one means forever
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Alex and George had spent the last few days in something that felt almost unreal. Quiet mornings in George’s flat - the blonde waking up in a cold sweat more often than not, needing Alex to reassure him he is no longer in the loop.
But also laughter that didn’t feel haunted anymore. Long evenings sprawled on the couch, trading stories from the loop like they were postcards from a holiday only they had taken.
Alex had nearly fallen over in laughter when George admitted, that once he’d stayed in his hotel room all day just to watch the race unfold on TV.
“Wait, doesn’t that mean you knew everyone’s strategy?” Alex had laughed, doubled over, his eyes shining.
George had tried to fight the smile that threatened, but it had slipped anyway - crooked, downward, guilty. He shrugged, as if the gesture could shake off the memory.
Now, with Imola canceled and Monaco still weeks away, they had time. For once, there was no rush. No flights, no briefings, no countdowns to the grid. Just… peace. Alex hadn’t left George’s flat since they’d gotten back. They cooked together. Fell asleep in each other’s arms. Take walks together. For the first time in what felt like years, George wasn’t waiting for the world to reset.
Maybe that was why he wasn’t paying attention.
To be fair, neither was Alex. He was walking backwards down the street, talking too fast, his arms sweeping through the air as if his body couldn’t contain the energy of the story he was telling.
“You are such a cheat!” Alex grinned, teeth flashing. “No wonder you suddenly started winning! I cannot believe I didn’t- ”
“-Alex!”
The sound ripped itself out of George before he even realized what he was saying.
The SUV came out of nowhere. Black paint, tinted windows, tires screaming against the asphalt as the brakes locked. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air.
It stopped. Inches too late.
The woman behind the wheel just stared, her face pale, her hands frozen on the steering wheel. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
George couldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t scream.
His body had gone rigid, rooted in place, as if the air itself had thickened and poured concrete into his veins. His eyes locked on the spot in the street where Alex had been just a second before, and for a long, impossible moment, he didn’t dare look anywhere else.
But eventually, inevitably, his gaze shifted. Jerky. Slow. His head turned, dragged by something both unwilling and unstoppable.
And then he saw.
People were already swarming, drawn in by the sound of the skid, the thud, the sickening silence that followed. Voices rose, sharp and panicked, clashing over one another. Phones were out. Hands pointed. Someone shouted for an ambulance.
But George didn’t hear the words.
The world was loud, too loud, but it all blurred into static. He stayed still. A fixed point in the chaos. Time bent around him, rushed past him, but he couldn’t follow.
His chest seized, sharp and crushing, like he was underwater. Every breath was a fight, shallow and ragged, his ribs straining against the weight pressing down.
Someone guided him toward the curb. A stranger’s hand, firm at his elbow, tugging him gently down until he was sitting on the pavement. The ground felt foreign beneath him, like he was floating inches above it instead of actually there.
And all the while Alex was lying in the middle of the street.
Paramedics arrived with a flurry of motion, cutting through the crowd with practiced efficiency. George watched them kneel, watched hands press and pull and push against Alex’s body. Watched machines beep and cables snake across the asphalt.
They worked. And worked. And worked.
George’s throat tightened. His vision swam. His brain clawed desperately at memory, at anything to anchor him, and landed on something distant and useless: first aid training. Years ago. The instructor’s voice flat and steady.
‘The longer paramedics need to work on a body, the less likely they are to succeed.’
George’s lips moved, but no sound came out. He was counting. Seconds. Minutes. The rise and fall of gloves against Alex’s chest. The endless repetition of compressions and checks and useless actions. Every number dug into him like a blade.
One. Two. Three. Four.
He couldn’t stop.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
He couldn’t breathe.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
The world tilted. The ambulance lights painted everything in dizzy flashes of red and blue, bleeding across faces, asphalt, Alex’s still frame. Reflecting on the blood on the street.
George’s hands trembled in his lap. His nails bit into his palms. He wanted to move, to scream, to throw himself into the circle of paramedics and beg them to try harder, to save him, to give him back the only thing that mattered.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
All he could do was sit there, drowning in the seconds, in the thought that every tick of the clock slipping by was another piece of Alex he was losing.
A voice cut through, low and gentle, right beside him.
“Sir- sir, is there somebody we can call for you?”
George couldn’t remember how the man had gotten hold of his phone. Couldn’t recall if he had handed it over or if it had simply been pulled from his limp grasp while he sat there on the pavement. He didn’t even know who was on the other end of the line, whose voice was crackling through the stranger’s phone pressed tight to their ear. None of it mattered.
All George knew - all he felt - was that Alex was still lying in the middle of the street, surrounded by hands and sirens and voices. And George himself was still on the curb, unmoving, the seconds stretching and collapsing until the world blurred into one endless, unbearable moment.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before a face he recognized appeared, crouching low into his line of sight.
“George? George, are you okay?”
The voice pierced through, steady and soft, dragging George out of the haze just enough to register it. His throat closed. The name stumbled out, broken, strangled.
“Lew’s-”
The rest dissolved into a choke.
And then the tears came. Maybe they had already been there, streaming unnoticed down his face for minutes, maybe hours. Only now did he feel them, hot and endless, cutting tracks into skin that had gone numb.
Lewis didn’t hesitate. He pulled him into a hug, firm and grounding, a cruel mirror of the embrace he had given George so many Sundays ago - back when George had been trapped in the loop, collapsing under a weight he couldn’t share. Back when he still believed he’d eventually wake up and try again.
Now there were no resets.
The rest came in fragments. He let himself be moved, guided like a marionette whose strings were pulled by someone else. Lewis drove, steady hands on the wheel, while George sat beside him hollow, staring out the window but seeing nothing. His body existed, but the rest of him - his chest, his heart, his breath - was still lying on that sunlit stretch of the Monte Carlo asphalt where Alex’s body had been.
Lewis stayed close. He didn’t leave when the call came through, didn’t let George crumble alone when the words were spoken out loud. He held him, a quiet sentinel, while George’s eyes stared forward, glassy and vacant.
Alex was gone.
The words didn’t settle all at once. They sank slowly, painfully, each second pushing the truth deeper until it lodged like shrapnel inside his chest.
Gone.
No more redos.
No more waking up on Sunday.
No more take backs.
There would be no phone screen lighting up with:
10:02
07.05.2023
Sunday.
George wanted to laugh at the cruelty of it all, except nothing about it was funny.
How ironic, he thought bitterly, that they had spent their lives strapped into cars tearing down straights at more than 300 kilometers an hour - machines built to kill with the slightest mistake - and it hadn’t been that which took Alex from him. Not the races, not the walls, not the speed.
It was a car. A simple black SUV. Not even going faster than 30 miles an hour.
That was what had killed Alex.
The thought was unbearable.
George wished the loop had never ended. Wished he was still spiraling through the same endless days, still losing his mind to the monotony of it. Wished he was stuck forever in those boring, repeated conversations. Wished, more than anything, that he could wake up again and again and again, only to see Alex alive on track, alive beside him, alive anywhere.
But he had broken it.
The loop was gone, shattered. And Alex had been shattered with it. His heart was left in pieces scattered across the asphalt, while his body sat here, in the quiet ruin of what was supposed to be freedom.
It was his fault.
His fault for breaking the loop.
His fault for thinking that love could save them instead of doom them.
His fault for believing in happy endings.
The anger hit suddenly, hot and violent. His hand shot out without thought, fingers curling around the glass on the coffee table. It left his grip with a force that startled even him, smashed against the wall, shards exploding across the room in a rain of glittering fragments.
The sound tore a hole through the silence, and George’s own voice followed, raw and primal. A scream that wasn’t even a scream, more of a roar dragged from the back of his throat, animal and desperate, so loud it scraped the inside of his lungs.
Then another crash. His hands grabbing the next object, flinging it across the room. Destruction was the only language he could speak, the only way his body could hold the pain that had nowhere else to go.
It went on - shouts, sobs, fists slamming against the table - until Lewis came running back from the kitchen. He didn’t hesitate. He wrapped both arms around George from behind, locking him in place, restraining him against his own violence.
“George, calm down- shhh, calm down. I know it hurts, I know. But you’ve got to calm down, man.”
Lewis’s voice was low, steady, hushed against the storm. He held tight until George’s strength gave out, until the fight left his limbs and he collapsed into him, heavy and broken, nothing but a sack of trembling breaths and ragged sobs.
Lewis didn’t let go.
George clung to the only anchor left, and the world around him crumbled in silence until he finally passed out in Lewis’s arms.
-
George woke with a start. His chest lurched before his mind even caught up, body already moving before the thought formed. He reached across the nightstand, grabbed his phone, eyes desperate, scanning the screen.
07:58
18.05.2023
Wednesday.
Not 10:02.
Not Sunday.
The world hadn’t reset.
For one fractured second, his heart tried to argue with the numbers, to insist that maybe the phone was wrong, maybe this was some cruel glitch. But the truth sat there in plain white letters, silent and undeniable.
He sank back against the pillow, the phone still clutched in his hand. The sheets were cold on the other side of the bed. Alex’s side.
George’s eyes drifted toward the chair in the corner of the room. The hoodie Alex had worn the night before Monte Carlo was still slung there, the sleeves twisted, on the edge of falling to the floor. On the bathroom sink sat his toothbrush, blue handle lying across George’s. And on the floor by the door, a pair of socks Alex had kicked off and never picked up.
Little things. Ordinary things. But they carved into George’s chest like blades. He sat there staring until his breath turned ragged, until his chest burned and his throat clenched and he had to get up before the weight of the flat suffocated him.
—
The Mercedes meeting was scheduled for 1 pm a day later. George went because it felt like he had to. Because functioning was easier than sitting alone with the silence. He walked through the factory halls in a haze, every face turning toward him then quickly away, as if the very air around him was fragile glass.
The meeting room felt stifling. Voices muted, cautious. Nobody cracked a joke, nobody interrupted. Even Toto’s tone was softer than usual, like he was handling something breakable. George sat stiff in his chair, nodding occasionally, hearing words without processing them.
And then-
Instinct.
Habit.
Whatever it was.
His hand moved before he realized what he was doing, reaching into his pocket for his phone. His thumb unlocked the screen, opened messages. His body was already preparing a text, some stupid, ordinary thought about the presentation. Something he would’ve fired off to Alex under the table to make him laugh.
And then he froze.
The contact list glared back at him. Alex’s name. Still there. Still lit. Waiting.
George’s chest cracked open. His fingers trembled, his vision blurred, and the phone slid out of his hand onto the table with a dull thud. Everyone’s heads turned. He couldn’t stop the sharp inhale that tore itself out of his lungs, couldn’t stop the way his body started shaking.
He pushed back from the table suddenly, chair scraping, breath coming fast and uneven. The room blurred into a wall of staring faces. Whispers. Concern. He stumbled out without a word, corridors tilting around him.
Lewis was on his feet before the chair had stopped moving. George’s phone still lay on the table, unlocked, screen glaring up at anyone who cared to look. He hadn’t meant to invade - it wasn’t in his nature - but the screen shone with Alex’s name, the chat window open. The last few lines impossible to ignore.
Little hearts. Half finished thoughts. Coffee orders. Inside jokes wrapped in emojis.
Lewis’s throat tightened. He swiped the phone up before anyone else could see and followed, long strides carrying him down the corridor.
He found George slumped against the wall outside the conference room, knees pulled to his chest, head bent low. His body was trembling, every breath a fight, like each inhale threatened to tear his ribs apart.
Lewis crouched down in front of him, phone clutched in his hand. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know if there was anything to say.
“George,” he tried softly.
George lifted his head and the sight hollowed him out. His eyes were bloodshot, unfocused, swimming with tears that wouldn’t stop. He looked less like himself and more like a shadow wearing his skin, his expression so raw that Lewis’s chest ached just meeting it.
“I can’t-” George rasped, his voice cracking around the words. “I keep- I keep reaching for him, Lew. I keep-” He broke off, pressing his palms hard against his face. His shoulders shook. “Every second I forget and I think I’ll tell him something, and then I-” His voice dissolved into a sob, violent and unrestrained.
Lewis set the phone aside and pulled George into his arms. George didn’t resist. He collapsed forward, clutching at Lewis like a drowning man grabbing at driftwood. His whole body was shaking, wracked by the kind of sobs that tore out of him raw and uneven, like they were dragged from his bones rather than his throat.
Lewis held on tighter. He’d seen heartbreak before, but nothing like this. This wasn’t just grief. It was annihilation.
George’s words came in fragments between gasps, clinging to Lewis’s shirt with trembling fists.
“I wake up and I think it’s- I think he’ll-. I see his things, his clothes- he should be- he should still be-” Sobs started wrecking George “Why him, why- why not me- ”
The words bled out, spiraling into a mix of grief and fury. He pressed his forehead hard into Lewis’s shoulder. He talked as if he could undo the morning, undo Monte Carlo, undo everything.
And then, quieter, almost a whisper, George let slip the thought that gutted Lewis most of all.
“I can’t do this without him.” George’s chest convulsed, another sob breaking through. “I go through hell and now that I break it he gets taken from me. How’s that- how’s that fair?”
Lewis shut his eyes, his own throat burning. He wasn’t sure what George meant but he knew that he didn't know what to say. He didn’t have an answer. There was no possible answer.
George broke again in his arms, every ounce of restraint gone, his body heaving with the force of it. The sound wasn’t just crying - it was closer to keening, a sound pulled from the deepest part of him, a wound laid open and raw.
The corridor was silent except for George’s grief echoing off the walls. Somewhere down the hall, people shifted uneasily, their footsteps fading, giving the two of them space. Lewis stayed, arms locked tight around George, anchoring him to a world that felt unbearable.
George’s nails dug into Lewis’s arm, his voice shredded and hoarse.
“I don’t know how to do this without him.”
The admission was small. Broken. And it hurt worse than any scream.
Lewis rested his chin on the top of George’s head, his own eyes stinging. “You don’t have to figure it out today, but you will eventually.” He whispered, his own voice hoarse with unshed tears.
But George shook his head hard against him, refusing, fighting the truth. “He was everything, Lew. He was-” The words strangled, drowned in another sob. “And now he’s gone.”
Lewis just held him through it, through the collapse and the shattering, through the kind of grief that didn’t just ache but destroyed.
And George kept repeating it, over and over, like if he said it enough maybe the world would change its mind.
He was everything. He was everything. He was everything.
-
The funeral was days later.
George was there, though he moved through it like a ghost. Everything blurred: the murmur of voices, the muted shuffle of shoes on church floors, the smell of lilies so heavy it almost choked him. People came, one after another, their faces blurring into shapes, their words sliding past his ears as if muffled by water.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“He was such a good friend.”
“He meant so much to you.”
Friend. Best friend.
The words dug deeper every time. They didn’t know. None of them knew. Alex wasn’t just his best friend, wasn’t just someone to laugh with on long flights or share quiet dinners between races. He had been his heart, his anchor, his everything. But there had never been time to tell anyone. No family dinners, no long confessions to friends. Their love had lived in stolen hours, whispered confessions, glances that said everything words couldn’t. And now it was gone, stolen before the world even knew it existed.
The service stretched on in a haze. George sat rigid, hands clenched in his lap, staring at the coffin as if by sheer force of will he could make it open, could make Alex walk out and laugh at the absurdity of it all. He couldn’t cry anymore. The tears had burned themselves out in the days before. What remained was something colder, sharper, a grief that hollowed him out until he felt brittle.
When it was over, when the crowd began to thin and he found himself drifting among people who all seemed to have something to say, Lewis pressed something into his hand. A small weight. A box, dark and plain.
“You don’t need to open it now,” Lewis murmured.
George nodded numbly. He slid it into his pocket, too tired to wonder, too exhausted to care.
-
He didn’t remember the drive home. Didn’t remember unlocking the door, stepping inside the flat, the silence crashing down on him like a wave. It wasn’t until he was peeling the black suit off his body, shoulders aching from the stiffness of holding himself together all day, that he heard the sound.
A small thud against the laminate.
The box had slipped from his pocket and landed on the floor.
George froze. His tie hung loose around his neck, jacket shrugged off. Slowly, he sank to the floor beside it, legs folding until he sat on the cold laminate, staring at the box like it was some foreign thing.
His fingers trembled as he picked it up, thumb working clumsily at the hinge. The lid gave way with a soft snap.
Inside lay a necklace. A locket.
It was simple - plain, almost unremarkable - for Lewis’s taste. Silver, unadorned. No flourish, no extravagance. Just quiet, understated metal.
George’s breath stuttered. His fingers fumbled with the clasp, opening the locket.
Inside was a picture of Alex. The kind of photo that hurt to look at, because it wasn’t staged or polished, just him. Bright eyes, that lopsided smile, the warmth George could feel just by staring at it.
Next to it, on the other side of the locket, a small engraving.
>>this one means forever<<
George’s vision blurred instantly. He shut the locket with a snap, pressing it to his lips, the cold metal kissing his mouth before the tears spilled free again. He let out a sound that was half-sob-half-exhale, shaking in the quiet of the empty flat.
Then, with trembling hands, he slipped the chain over his head. The locket settled against his sternum, cold at first, then warming slowly with his skin. Heavy. Solid.
He pressed his palm over it, as if he could force it deeper, as if holding it there might anchor him, keep Alex from slipping further away.
The silence of the flat pressed in. The toothbrush still by the sink. The hoodie still slung across the chair. The socks still by the door. Alex everywhere and nowhere.
George curled in on himself there on the floor, the suit wrinkled beneath him, his fingers clutched around the locket until his knuckles whitened.
And for the first time since the accident, the tears didn’t stop. They came in endless waves, wracking his chest, his body trembling against the cold laminate.
The locket pressed into his skin with every sob, sharp and grounding.
Notes:
I cried, you crode, we crieded.
Ararararo on Chapter 1 Tue 02 Sep 2025 06:16AM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 1 Tue 02 Sep 2025 08:13AM UTC
Comment Actions
Thecichyraven on Chapter 3 Mon 01 Sep 2025 08:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Mon 01 Sep 2025 09:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
the_flowers_of_tears on Chapter 3 Tue 02 Sep 2025 02:48AM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Tue 02 Sep 2025 08:07AM UTC
Comment Actions
Ararararo on Chapter 3 Tue 02 Sep 2025 06:30AM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Tue 02 Sep 2025 08:09AM UTC
Comment Actions
Iloveporksoupdumplings on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 04:51AM UTC
Last Edited Fri 05 Sep 2025 04:54AM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 08:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sumiiiinn on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 12:58PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 02:10PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sumiiiinn on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 02:40PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Fri 05 Sep 2025 03:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
listers_angels on Chapter 3 Sun 07 Sep 2025 03:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:04PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Sun 07 Sep 2025 05:04PM UTC
Comment Actions
lady_grinning_soul on Chapter 3 Tue 09 Sep 2025 05:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
lady_grinning_soul on Chapter 3 Tue 09 Sep 2025 05:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Tue 09 Sep 2025 09:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
THE_Cake on Chapter 3 Tue 09 Sep 2025 09:10PM UTC
Comment Actions