F1 & F2 Imagines

Never Give Up [JB]

RIP Jules, you will forever be an inspiration.

Requested by Bluelittledream20

All the tissues in the house might not be enough to catch your tears today. You're hiding from Charles on the balcony as you try desperately not to smudge your make-up, but eventually that becomes futile. Jules would have loved this. Despite the happiness of the occasion, your grief has come back in full force today.

Your first summer in Nice is the first you really remember from your childhood. You had been born in Paris but those memories were always just a blur of squealing trams and frowning adults pushing you around in bustling crowds. Nice was something different. A slow life sparkling with the sharpest of people.

You met Jules when you were five years old. He was wearing a Ferrari cap clearly made for an adult and racing toy cars around his front garden, including up the walls and through the jungle of flowers his mother had planted each spring. At first you only watched, wondering whether this boy really thought cars could spin around like that, but eventually he asked you to come and play with him. You lost every single race, but that didn't stop you from becoming fast friends.

Jules was your idol by the time you were nine. It was the way he would talk about the latest Grands Prix, knowing every driver and already starting to emulate their techniques on his father's karting track. Although you were too timid to join him, you always loved to watch and offer advice when he became frustrated. He was fearless but stubborn, and you were careful but full of heart.

"I'm so stupid!" He shouted, throwing his helmet down on the table. "Why can't I just do it?"

"How many times have you tried?"

"A hundred! A thousand!"

"Well maybe it's time for a break," you said. You pulled your friend to sit down and handed him a lunch box.

"I don't want to eat, I need to get back out there."

"You have to eat, or how will your brain have the energy to think about the corners?"

Jules scoffed at you, still replaying his mistakes over and over. You just opened your own lunchbox and started eating the amazing sandwich your father had prepared. It wasn't long before Jules smelled it and felt his own stomach rumbling.

"It's just so frustrating," he said, unwrapping his food.

"My dad always says you have to trust the process."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you can't give up, because you never know what you could happen next time you try."

"Oh. Trust the process..."

You smile at the memory. There were very few setbacks in your relationship with Jules. Even though he was travelling further and further for his karting races you were always the one he invited to support him, and before long a childhood friendship blossomed into a teen romance. There was always pressure, whether it was your next exams or his championships, and things weren't always easy. But you never wavered in your commitment to him, nor he to you. You'd known each other too long for anything to come between you now.

One day, and quite out of the blue, Jules seemed to realise what it meant to be a godfather. You'd met Charles a few times before but by the time you were sixteen you'd really gotten to know him, as well as his younger brother Arthur. They started coming to the track where Jules would teach them everything he knew. You were always the one with the stopwatch and you relished every smile that broke across their faces when you told them their new personal bests. The Bianchi's track became like a home to you, always the place you could come to unwind between your intense study sessions or just to mess around with the boys. You may have gotten engaged at twenty-one, but you'd been part of the family long before that.