Romeo and Juliet || Carlos Sainz

The parade

"Did your shirt shrink in the washing machine, Carlos?" Charles had already figured it out and loved poking his teammate. He would not stop until Carlos confessed to him what was going on between him and Y/n. After all, Charles is a big nosey, it was his best friend, Pierre's, fault. Carlos looked at himself and realised he was wearing Y/n's tshirt. He turned back to Charles who was already snickering and without saying a word went to change his shirt in his locker room. When he returned to the pits, he found Max talking to Charles and immediately looked around to see if Y/n was there, but he didn't see her anywhere so he approached the drivers.

"Hi Max, what brings you here?" his gaze was fixed on Max's.
"Nothing, I wanted to have a chat before the race."
"There's the drivers' parade to have a chat" Carlos' tone of voice boomed through the noisy pit walls. Charles looked crookedly at his teammate and elbowed him.
"You're right, I'll see you on the bus then" Max walked away leaving Charles and Carlos alone.
"Bad moon today?" Charles took a sip from the bottle filled with the mineral salts and headed inside the pits, hoping Carlos would follow him to spill the tea.

"We're high in the championship and I don't want any outside distractions" effectively Carlos followed Charles, it was as if he felt he had to justify his behaviour.
"No outside distractions of any kind?" at that very moment Y/n popped up and walked towards Riky and they both watched her walk past, then Carlos looked at Charles. The two were silent for a few seconds, then Charles smiled mischievously and Carlos walked away huffing. Now Charles had proof of his suspicions. He was happy for both of them but deep in his heart he knew that Y/n deserved better than a fuck buddy.

The pilots' parade began and Carlos took care to stay away from Max, although there had been a few cross looks between the two, which Charles had immediately interrupted with some jokes to Carlos. For his part, Carlos didn't laugh, on the contrary, he had seen a different look in Max, one that was far too fixed on him to be normal eye contact. For a second he was intimidated, but he wasn't afraid, more like he couldn't understand what was going through the Dutchman's mind. Max was probably jealous of him too. That was the only explanation Carlos had managed to come up with and, all in all, he didn't mind at all.

'Radio check, Charles' said Y/n on the headphones
"Loud and clear, Y/n" Charles started in pole position and Carlos in second, while Max was just behind Carlos. This made things even more tense and everyone could feel it, everyone knew it. Charles had managed to keep some distance from the rest of the pack while Max and Carlos were engaged in a battle for second place that had been going on for more than half of the race. Max was very frustrated indeed, not being able to overtake Carlos had made his hackles rise and team radios with his engineer were increasingly nervous and frequent. The Sky commentators couldn't help but notice and wonder what the world champion would come up with to overtake the Spaniard. The days of Max daring to overtake dangerously were long gone but his survival instincts got the better of him and as soon as he had DRS on Carlos he attempted a dangerous overtake.

Max squeezed Carlos too tightly and the two cars touched. Carlos' car skidded and crashed into some panels. The Ferrari number 55 immediately caught fire but Carlos did not get out of it. Immediately the cameras pointed towards his car. In the pit wall everyone become alarmed and Ricky tried hard to get in touch with Carlos, but no answer came from the track.

Y/n's eyes were wide, she was not breathing, her body was paralysed. Her muscles could not move and her gaze was fixed on the monitors in front of her framing Carlos' car.
"Please get out of there, please move" Y/n repeated over and over again in a low voice, afraid of being heard by someone beside her.

"red flag" popped up in the steering wheel display of the other cars.

"What happened, Y/n?" asked Charles on a team radio "Y/n? Can you hear me? Why red flag?" Charles had no idea what had happened because he was way ahead, but it took very little to see that from the rear-view mirrors there was no Carlos or Max. From the boxes however, Y/n was not answering Charles' questions, she had not even heard him speak.
"Charles, it's Mattia here" Binotto said seeing Y/n paralysed "Carlos has had a bad accident" 
"How is he?" his voice muffled by the helmet and fatigued by the effort of the race still failed to disguise the fear and concern towards Carlos.
"We don't know it yet, he's not responding to Ricky. Go back to the pits."

In the meantime, the paramedics and firemen had already approached Carlos' burning car, while Max had just got out of his own a few metres ahead of Carlos' and was taken away by a track marshal.

Charles parked his car at the garages and immediately ran towards the pit wall to get some news of Carlos. Ricky and Mattia turned towards him while Y/n was still motionless watching the images from the screens. 

Moments that lasted an eternity.