Chapter Text
And you will meet people
who are safer loved from
a distance and dangerous
to love up close.Like the flames you loved
as a child.Like the fire that taught
you pain.
—Nikita Gill
May 2013
The morning sun greeted Monaco, seeping through the cream-colored curtains inside the apartment, and waking up Lewis. He stretched his limbs, feeling unusually rested, happy, and—well. That was just the thing about happiness, wasn’t it? He felt happy because he had had a good night’s sleep, and he knew that he’d be able to reach out his hand and touch the warm body next to him.
He was happy because he knew he would enjoy a nourishing breakfast soon. He’d go for a run, and he would feel blissful afterward. Adding to the happiness there would be a home race in two days. But the thing about happiness… It was fleeting. It was fragile and transient. And easily stolen.
Lewis had grown accustomed to hating simple slipups, such as an incorrectly worded sentence during a post-race interview. He knew how effortlessly they could change the course of happiness. Just one wrong look or a few mistakenly arranged words could shatter everything recently built.
And there you have it. Happiness simply had such incredible power to it. And it only felt good, so fucking good, because it was as short-lived as the current mood inhabiting their garage.
It was like back when it was announced that Lewis would leave McLaren to join Mercedes. What was it that Nico said back then?
“I’m so happy for you—I mean, for us. It’s going to be so good. Right? I just know it.”
They had had the conversation at Nico’s balcony. There were a few cold drinks and the surprisingly warm night felt like it could go on forever. The air was bubbly with anticipation and the lights of Monaco had never looked as gorgeous in the darkening evening.
“Us, as teammates—I mean, hell, Lewis!” Nico had continued. “Like we always talked about, do you remember? It’s like, we’ll take over the grid. We’ll take over the first row soon enough. I can feel it.”
And Lewis felt it too. Of course, he felt it.
It was history repeating itself. It was comparable to when they had been, what, about fifteen or sixteen and they’d raced as teammates in Formula A. That’s when they started to talk about this: driving F1 cars together, and it was all they talked about for months on end. How it would be just so… legendary. They’d rule the sport. They were reckless, arrogant kids, high on speed, petrol, and podiums, of course they thought so.
But reality… It was always more brutal—and far better, too—than any of those dreams could have ever been.
Lewis snapped out of his thoughts when his companion rolled over in the bed. His hand touched Lewis’ chest and he crumpled his nose like he always did—eyes closed as the sun blinded him for a fleeting moment. “Morning. Oh, God. I can’t see. What time is it?”
“It’s six thirty,” Lewis said. He shifted on the bed a little so that he could look at the man lying next to him. The sunbeams turned his hair golden.
Lewis couldn’t understand how someone could hate the sunlight so much. It was quite possibly the only thing that energized him that much.
Nico groaned. He simply despised early mornings. “No. Why’d you wake me up?”
“I did not.”
“Still no blinds,” Nico grumbled judgmentally. “You should get blinds.”
“I like the sun,” Lewis said thoughtfully as he turned his face toward the window. Not that he was a fan of early mornings, but he absolutely adored the sun.
It was possibly one of the strangest things they argued about. Nico desperately wanted Lewis to get blinds. He’d be happy to stay behind the curtains all day and night. And Lewis—well he wanted to wake up together with the sunlight.
It was a stalemate; one Lewis would’ve never imagined finding himself in. Arguing about who left less space in a fast-speed corner, yes. Debating about what was the best way to wake up in a shared bed, facing the southern window? Definitely not.
Today marked—what? Five years since all this started? No, it couldn’t have been that long. Could it?
Sure, they had known each other since like, forever. Lewis had known Nico before, they’d seen each other constantly during their run in Formula A. Naturally they had talked, shared podiums, raced against each other, and travelled the world. It wasn’t that large of a crowd, the racing scene, so yeah, obviously they knew each other. They were close, even. Closer than most, perhaps.
Then, a few years later Nico made it to F1. And a year later, Lewis made it there, too. They talked less during that time, not because they didn’t get along but because there simply wasn’t that much time anymore. F1 was way more time-consuming than karting, Formula Three, or GP2. You needed to train harder, you needed to focus on the car completely and be familiar with every button of the steering wheel, know every curve on the track, and understand every abnormal move of the car better than you knew yourself.
So, there wasn’t that much time left for socializing.
It was like the only times they would meet were during the press conferences, debriefs—and yes, soon enough podiums as well.
It was pleasurable to be on top.
And that one podium in particular… it was superior to the rest.
Their first one together.
Australia 2008.
March 2008
The race itself had been a tough one. It had been very hot and humid, and Lewis was somewhat happy to just make it to the finish line. He didn’t think he could’ve driven one kilometer longer.
It was only after they met up in the paddock in the cooldown room that they realised they would share their first-ever F1 podium together.
Lewis was so happy for his friend, congratulating him while he was hugging him, not sure if Nico even heard anything he said but it didn’t matter. Because he knew it wouldn’t spoil the bliss.
“It’s like you’re high,” Lewis said later once they were done spraying all the champagne and wheeling their trophies to team hospitalities. He was grinning from ear to ear as they were in the backroom getting out of their driver’s suits and wiping their faces with towels. “Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know when you have been gathering data on that, but—”
Lewis tossed his towel toward Nico but missed the envisioned target.
It was without a doubt an atmosphere filled with ecstasy that probably led them to take that taxi together later that night after they had toasted with more champagne at the bar. This time, they managed to drink the liquid without spilling it on themselves.
They were back at Nico’s hotel room—or maybe it had been his? Thinking back, Lewis wasn’t certain.
The rest of the night was a haze. They had staggered into the hotel room, frazzled and cheerful, laughing at everything, and chatting about the upcoming season full of ambition and confidence.
“I’m sure you’ll get a P1 this season,” Lewis remembered saying, “I’m certain of it.”
What he couldn’t recall was if that had been the moment when he—or Nico—had stumbled onto the other one, and there had been this short moment—like the whole world had gone still. Ears were ringing, and all Lewis remembered seeing were those blue eyes as if for the first time ever. He felt the urge to rip off Nico's clothes without a second thought.
Which he had done. Or the other way around.
And it had been an obvious solution to all of that constant, never-ending competitiveness, on-track fighting, and unrelieved pressure.
And boy, did it feel good to finally do it.
Lewis had not even realised that this was what had been missing all along.
But as the story goes, if an idea seems wonderful at midnight… it rarely is. Especially after the sun comes up.
And when that Sunday night shifted into Monday morning, the heated passion had emerged into stiff and sore limbs, raspy throats, and pounding heads.
“Oh,” was the first comment of the morning, made by Lewis, as he was getting up to go forage some Ibuprofen.
Nico’s eyes fluttered open. He looked horrified as if he had just woken up from a nightmare.
“Are we late?” he incoherently asked. He got up in a half-seated position, then grimaced and placed a hand on his forehead.
“What?” Lewis mumbled, glancing at the other man over his shoulder as he was going through the luggage on the floor to look for any kind of painkiller. “Late from what? It’s Monday.”
“Oh. Thank goodness.” Nico slowly receded back on the pillow.
Lewis found what he was looking for. He snapped the pill in half so that it would take effect sooner and drank two tall glasses of water to go with it. He secured another pill inside his fist and took it to Nico.
Getting back to the bed felt, well, awkward at best, but also somehow… adrenaline-charged.
Lewis had never, ever done anything like this in his life. He had only ever been with girls, not having had that many girlfriends or something resembling that because he never stayed in one place very long. It had always been fun, yes. Of course, he thought about it from time to time, the possibility of somebody—sharing his life with someone more deeply than just the occasional date.
Still, he had never felt this kind of desire in his life. As much as he wanted to beat up the other guy—obviously just figuratively on the track, and not literally—it had dawned on Lewis just last night that he had wanted to do something else to him as well. He had wanted to do this probably for quite some time now.
Nico still looked a tad horrified, but he was grinning sheepishly. He held out his arms like begging for alms, and he gratefully took the offered pill.
“Oh my God, yes, just what I need—thank you thank you, I lo—”
Nico snapped his mouth shut, but it had already kind of dropped out of the bag.
Lewis was busy pulling the sheets to cover him better and he chose to pretend he hadn’t heard anything.
“So, yeah,” he stated instead. “That happened.”
“I’m sorry,” Nico said and started to chug down the water Lewis had offered him as his life depended on it.
“Oh. You are?” Lewis let out without thinking about it any further.
“No, I mean—I didn’t mean it like that.” Nico paused to drink more until the glass was empty. “I didn’t really… intend for any of this to happen.”
“Yeah, well,” Lewis muttered. He turned to look to his right, studying the nightstand. “Me neither.”
Nico cleared his throat and shifted on the bed so that he could place the empty glass on the nightstand. “So… What, uh—what now? What should we do?”
Lewis frowned. He turned to look at Nico. “About—?”
“This,” Nico defined, gesturing with his hand in Lewis’ direction like he was some sort of an issue that needed to be dealt with.
It was unpredictably hurtful.
Lewis swallowed, trying to hold back any unwanted thoughts.
“Er, nothing, I guess,” he said. “What would we—what should we do, then?”
Nico shrugged. “Nothing? Just pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds—sounds good,” Lewis said. He cleared his throat, realising he was still naked on the bed. “Okay, well I—I gotta go,” he concluded. He stood up, carefully wrapping the sheet around his waist, trying not to glance at Nico’s direction. “Flight’s leaving in two hours.”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Lewis started to gather his clothes from the floor. It looked like they were scattered everywhere. He felt Nico’s stare on his bare skin like burn marks. He retracted to the bathroom to get dressed and to rinse his face with water. Once he was done, he lingered a few moments by the door, his hand wrapped around the doorknob.
Oh, God.
In which universe had this been a good idea? To sleep with a… fellow F1 driver, or a friend, or whatever. There’s no way they had chugged down so much champagne last night that it would explain this.
Lewis chalked up the courage to exit the bathroom. He jumped, surprised, running into Nico in the hallway.
Nico was just standing there blankly in his boxers, with a box of cereal in his hand. He absentmindedly crunched on a mouthful. “You’re leaving?”
Lewis had a hard time understanding as Nico was chewing loudly.
“Yeah, well. Like I said, gonna be late soon.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
A short silence—well, except for the crunching.
“Well… see you.”
“Wait, Lewis?”
“Yeah?”
“I—I, uh… It was fun. I had fun.”
“Oh. Yeah, me too.” A faint smile snuck up on Lewis’ face.
“We should keep it under wraps though,” Nico added. He placed the cereal box on the dresser and swallowed his mouth empty. “Shouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Yeah, no,” Lewis said. He felt the edges of his jaw tighten. “No, definitely not.”
“I don’t even know what happened. I mean, yeah—obviously I know what happened, but… This isn’t… I mean, I’m straight—you know? And you’re—you. So… It’s just kinda weird.”
“Yeah,” Lewis uttered, frowning. The hangover was catching up to him, and the gloom accompanying it, as well. “Of course. It’s just… It’s the podium. Like I said back there, it’s like being high.”
“Right,” Nico said, still sounding a bit uncertain. “Like being high. Suppose that’s it.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Lewis insisted. Hopefully, he would believe it too, later on.
“And—we’re never gonna do this again, right?”
“Right, never.”
“So, no use in talking about it.”
“M-hm.”
By the time Lewis was finally out the door, his muscles were sore and stiff from the race last night. He had a weird ache in his chest for the fact that—what? His rival F1 colleague didn’t want them to go public with this—what you practically could call a one-night stand?
Yeah, it was as crazy as it sounded like in his head. And no, he did not want it either. Hell no.
The thing was that it wasn’t as simple as that.
It had never been.
Because they were not just colleagues, they were once something you could call as being best friends. They were friends but also somehow more than that.
So, it wasn’t exactly just an irregular one-night stand.
And yes. Unfortunately, it did not stop there, either.
*
In Singapore, Nico was back on the podium. He was P2 and Lewis got P3. The memory of what it had been like the last time the two of them had been on top of everyone else was so arousing that Lewis couldn’t almost hold himself back—not even right there on the podium in front of everybody, as the German had this biggest grin on his face whilst spraying champagne on him…
And it became a recurring thing.
A shared podium was suddenly synonymous with… whatever it was that was going on between them. Intense sex, at first. Then… possibly something else. Or Lewis was just delusional for thinking that.
It was easily explainable when it only happened if the two of them shared a podium. The rush, the elevated testosterone levels—that must have been the reason behind all of this.
But then, when the podium-to-bed thing became more frequent, the rationalization behind it sort of simply… diminished away. And when something like that is ignored long enough, when it’s not talked about… it becomes a humming noise in the back of your head, one you can’t just whisk away.
And little by little, when they found themselves in each other’s hotel rooms—not after podiums but before races—and during the off-season too, and there just weren’t any plausible excuses left anymore, they had to face the truth.
Well, Lewis had to. He wasn’t sure if Nico had ever even thought about it or if he was just as deluded as they both had been in the start. Fooled into thinking this would never happen again and stop after this one.
And as months went on, after spending countless nights together; not just having sex but cooking, watching TV, playing video games, and chatting about cars, racing, and everything else under the sun… One could have easily made the mistake of thinking that it was obvious that this wasn’t… a one-night stand. Or casual sex.
However, they avoided the topic like the plague.