On top of the world. A phrase Alex deemed way too overused, a simple analogy for a feeling that in no way could compare to how he felt after the testing weekend in Spain. It could be assumed that each person who used the phrase was on top of their own world, but still, he maintained that this was the most on top of the world feeling anybody could experience -- one that wouldn't only top his world, but everyone's.
Growing up, he played a game with his siblings when one of them got injured, where instead of a simple scale of 1-10, they told each other what they'd give up to get rid of the pain. Alex still used this scale often from his own different perspectives. That initial feeling alone, sliding into a car and knowing it would hold you around that first chicane, he'd give his life for, as well as the feeling he got every time he even got a chance to feel any version of it.
He supposed the scale was flawed because, by his calculations, he had given his life so many times to be able to feel such a way again that he would've exceeded many dozens of them.
"I want to feel that again, the whole weekend, even the media days," Alex told them as they walked into the driver party organised by Daniel, "I'd give anything."
"You'll get back, I'll give you my seat," George said, a laugh rolling from his stomach as he offered his own seat. "As long as I get a Mercedes seat out of it, yeah?"
"I'm sure Valtteri would love that." Alex deadpanned, shocked to see Lando hadn't joined in their conversation before he realised the youngest of them had situated himself with the two Ferrari drivers, which only meant he had the opportunity to flick his phone back open without someone trying to look over, or under in Lando's case, his shoulder.
"Who are you waiting for a reply from?" Pierre said as he turned around to face the drinks table.
"Oh, uh, yeah, no, no," Alex stifled a laugh. Obviously, he was waiting for a reply and if Pierre had noticed it from a moment of scanning over his face, his plans of keeping it from Lando and George were becoming slimmer by the second. "Just a girl."
"Seems like a bit more than just a girl."
Alex wished there was no truth to his words. He'd blanked her, accidentally, on Monday, his phone in some malfunctioning mode and his brain no better than frazzled as the weekend picked up its pace. Here, now, he stood on Friday, and whilst 4 days wasn't much in the scheme of anything, it would've been the longest he'd gone without talking to her since they exchanged numbers in the first place -- something Alex couldn't quite believe enough to tell anyone.
And so, for someone Alex had just called just a girl, his heart sunk a little deeper every time he saw no response, and he feared if he didn't know something that soon enough, his heart would be in his stomach. This is the feeling Alex would immediately blame his haste action for as he made his way over to Charlotte and Charles, who George had joined during Alex's interaction with Pierre, as well as Carlos and Lando.
"Charlotte, you gotta tell me where she is, and if she just doesn't want to talk to me, I need you to tell her I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
He couldn't remember exactly, but he placed the gasps from Carlos, the increasing questions from Lando and George and the sounds of confusion from Charles before Charlotte finally spoke through all of them.
"I'll tell you, but do you really want to do this here?"
No. No. No. A word he'd used so many times before and would use so many times after, yet his mouth sat dry as his words had landed him in the place of interrogation and incertitude. He couldn't place the value of how much he wanted to take himself back in time, even just by mere moments, but he might just give his apartment in Monaco to take back what he had said. The issue didn't lie in the question, he still wanted to know more than anything but the ease of his friendship with Juniper was now forced into the spotlight. He supposed the urgency of his question didn't help this either.
A motion Charlotte was glad to see, the shaking of his head as they made their way out of the house and into the garden. "I suppose Lando and George didn't know then."
Another shake of his head, maybe that was all Alex had reduced himself to now.
"I get why you didn't tell them and she would too, Charles doesn't really know, too wrapped up in racing. Guess that's what happened here too?"
Alas, a different response, but still a silent one as he nodded. Usually, even one word could say a thousand different things, but actions speak louder than words isn't as popular as it is for no reason. His simple nod told her he'd let her down, and the fact he'd said earlier that Juniper might not want to talk meant she hadn't.
"it's not your fault entirely, Juniper does this sometimes. That thing you've been looking at for days?" Charlotte hazarded a guess at the time she'd ghosted him for, and the phone Alex held in his hand seemed to burn him with the weight it brought. "She doesn't care for it, she'll let it drain of battery whilst she's disappeared for a couple days or weeks."
"Just because she doesn't care about her phone, Alex, doesn't mean she doesn't care about you."
In the moment of silence as Charlotte said her peace and made her way back into the house, he willed her thoughts to be right. He hoped she was right, otherwise, what were the suggested and completed attempts to fill him with wonder all for?
If he thought bursting out and subversively telling his friends about something he hadn't wanted to was hard to place value on, he couldn't even begin to cultivate something he'd trade for a response from Juniper.
+
Maybe he had spent too long outside, though Alex had noted the passing of a mere twenty minutes before Lando and George found themselves outside on the decking beside him, significantly more intoxicated than when he'd last seen them.
Daniel did always comment that his wine was good.
He only had to thank whichever aspect of them allowed it that they weren't non-sensical when drunk, but they still rarely remembered a thing the next day. Essentially, they could ask him all the questions about Juniper now and he'd tell them the real answers, a non-mutual outlet, yet they'd never be remembered.
"Come on oldest Alex, tell us about the girl." Lando started, of course, he was the one who had started.
"Her name's Juniper."
"Jupiter?" Even Lando looked at George unimpressed as he said this, never mind the way Alex's eyes rolled into the back of his head.
"Juniper. I met her at Lewis' birthday."
"We were at that."
"She was sat at the table you guys didn't see, she's friends with Charles and Charlotte."
"Is she, you know?" Lando added.
"Spit it out kid, is she what?" George questioned Lando now, and Alex could take a moment to breathe. Contrary to majority belief, Alex liked when they did this, took their conversation to the side for a moment, even though he could still hear it.
"Are you guys like a thing?"
"No, no, I don't think so. We're friends." Alex said, which expectedly came with the jeering from the two of them, about how he was growing up finally and he didn't have the energy to stop them, he didn't think he wanted them to stop either.
Moments like that, Alex would easily give something so big as the memory of his first race to experience over and over again. Perhaps he'd trade his sinking heart in a release from her absence, but he knew well enough never to admit that his heart was bound to race instead when she returned. Her value remained as they themselves did: to be determined.
"Hey, which one of you guys wants to drive me to pick up some more food?" Daniel said as he exited the house now, his finger flicking between Lando and George.
"They've both been drinking?" Alex testified now as the pair of them got up.
"Haven't touched a drop." They said in unison, memories clearly intact.
Well played.
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CAPACITY FOR WONDER. | alex albon
Fanfiction"every time you try to fill the other with wonder, you give a piece of yourself to them, with how you attempt to do so." (IN WHICH!) june maddox decides to teach alex albon there is more wonder in life than ju...
