SHIRT, charles leclerc

THIRTY, dread

TW: talks of cancer, surgery procedures, etc.

( NOT EDITED / PROOFREAD )

It was race weekend.

And, Juliette's birthday.

And everyone knew that Juliette's birthday was an absolute extravaganza - except, this year, it wasn't going to be as extravagant.

Juliette felt absolutely horrible ever since her mother's diagnosis of cancer. She wasn't feeling herself, and she didn't tell anyone about it either.

Juliette was the type who didn't really express her feelings unless she absolutely had to.

And what made her feel worse, was that this race weekend was in Japan.

In the Suzuka track . . . where Jules's fatal crash occurred five years before.

Juliette wasn't mentally in the right place, having to drive on the same her brother died from. Her friends, the grid, even the press knew that this was going to be an emotional weekend.

Charles was also clearly affected by this. Jules meant a lot to him, he was his godfather, his inspiration.

But Juliette didn't want to talk to Charles, she didn't want to talk to anyone. All she wanted was for her to get over the weekend and be done with it.

But of course, fate thought otherwise.

Juliette unfortunately had to share her suite with Charles.

It wasn't anyone's fault or anything, there just wasn't enough rooms in the hotel, so the FIA organized that two drivers per each team would have to share a suite.

Juliette had her own individual room. Charles did too. But the rooms were connected and had a living room that connected to both rooms as well.

Meaning that Juliette would have to interact with him even more now.

Which frustrated her, she already had so many different stresses lingering in her mind, and she didn't want Charles to add onto them as well.

It was the day before qualifying, and Juliette was sat at the coffee table in the living room, her glasses perched on top of her nose, as she gazed over some of the analytics and data on her laptop from previous races, that her engineers and strategists had sent her.

Although, she couldn't focus at all. Her mind often wandered to dreading places, that she wanted to forget about in that moment.

She heard the door of Charles's room open, she didn't bother to even acknowledge him, she kept her attention on the laptop in front of her. She then shifted positions, sitting crisscrossed, placing her laptop on her lap.

She felt the weight of the couch dip, indicating that he was sitting on the other side, keeping a respectable amount of space between the two.

The only sound that filled the room was the audios playing from Charles's phone, on low volume, presumably from a social media platform.

The tension in the air enveloped them into a sort of high-stake atmosphere. Though Juliette was seemingly calm and collected, her instincts were ready to pounce if Charles was planning anything mischievous.

"Are you doing anything for your birthday?" Charles questioned, breaking the silence. Juliette didn't respond, she side-eyed him before shifting her focus back onto her laptop.

"Wow." Charles chuckled, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Silent treatment? Damn."

Juliette sighed, before turning to face the monegasque, a sincere, yet tired look on her face. She didn't want to start a useless argument. "Leclerc, look. You know how much this race weekend is fucking killing me, and you know how I feel about this place, and this track. So please do me a favor and just drop it, drop whatever we have going on just for this weekend."