Chapter Text
Carlos wakes up to fingers gently combing through his hair. He keeps his eyes closed, basking in his boyfriend's touch. Lando must have sensed the change in his breathing because when he speaks, Carlos can hear the smile in his voice.
“I could spend hours and hours here, caressing your mouth and your cheekbones,” Lando says, shifting his fingers from Carlos' hair and doing exactly that. “Without ever speaking, without listening to anything else but the sound of your breathing. Without feeling anything but us. Nothing else but us.” Lando punctuates his last word by dragging his thumb over Carlos' bottom lip, and drawing a small sigh from the other man.
“I could sit still, only with you laying on me,” Lando says drawing the bridge of Carlos’ nose with the tip of his finger and giggling a bit at the latter eyes going a bit crossed, “looking at your eyelids closing at every step of my hand sliding slowly on your skin.”
This time the smile on Lando’s lips is a satisfied one, watching his boyfriends skin erupting in millions of small goosebumps and his eyelids fluttering, almost as if he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and better feel the moment, but not wanting to break the eye contact with Lando.
Lando manoeuvres himself, disentangling from his boyfriend’s legs and gently pushing him to lay down properly on his back, before straddling his thighs.
Carlos looks at him, his chocolate-colored eyes still confused from sleep and perhaps a little clouded by tears that Lando's words are bringing with them.
He doesn't blink though, partly because he doesn't want to miss a single moment and expression of the amazing person in front of him, of the breathtaking human that he has the privilege of being able to call his, partly for fear that those tears may actually fall.
And that’s how he sees Lando’s gaze shifting from almost predatory, to soft and gentle. That’s when he falls in love with him all over again, or maybe it’s due to the words that his boyfriend murmurs next. He whispers them, snuggling up on the older one's chest and almost hiding his face in the crook of the other man's neck. Carlos feels more than hearing the words that Lando almost mutters on his skin.
“There is nothing in the world worth more than a second lived next to you, more than a small gesture from you, a move. Because nothing in the world has ever given me as much as when we are together. Nothing else.”
Carlos can hear Lando’s voice thickening and, if it had been another moment, he would have teased him or said a joke to ease the tension. He can't, though.
He is stunned by what his boyfriend is saying. Not because they never told each other something similar, not because Lando’s never told him that he is in love with him but because, despite how much Lando has improved a lot in terms of touch, and indeed he is the first to seek physical contact many of the times, the young driver is not the best with words.
Lando's way to express love or communicate a feeling or emotion with Carlos is, as absurd as it may seem, physical contact or, simply, a sigh different from the usual, a particular look or taking one of Carlos’ hand, pushing it into his hair and muttering a soft pet me.
Carlos's hand dives into Lando's curls and delicately scratches his scalp. "Morning bub, I love you too." Carlos' voice is scratchy from disuse but that's enough to shake Lando slightly and make him pull away from his boyfriend just enough to be able to look him in his eyes. Carlos can't help but notice the soft red dusting Lando's cheekbones and he can't stop himself from murmuring a soft beautiful out loud.
Lando blushes even more, "It’s just that, I woke up and you were here. We didn’t see each other for two weeks and when I woke up you were here.”
Lando squeezes Carlos biceps at the last word, almost as if trying to reassure himself that his boyfriend is really there with him, “I got lost looking at you sleeping. And you moved and it looked like you wanted to get even closer. As if, even in your sleep, you couldn’t stop yourself from getting close to me, and-” Lando huffs, frustrated.
Words are not his strongest point and today he has already said everything he wanted to say. Or maybe not, because nothing will ever be able to explain how he feels about Carlos. No amount of words will ever be enough to convey to the other man what he feels.
But maybe he doesn’t need to.
Because Carlos gently takes his face in his hands and makes their lips touch after two long, interminable weeks.
A kiss that conveys everything that Lando has just tried to explain, and also everything that he hasn't said, but that doesn't need to be said aloud because all they need is each other.
"Nothing else but us." Carlos whispers before diving back onto his boyfriend's lips.
And if the kiss is saltier and more wet than usual, neither of them say anything because sometimes emotions are too much to be explained in words.
Sometimes a kiss is enough.
Sometimes a hug is enough.
Sometimes a cuddle buddy is enough.
(Or maybe not. A boyfriend is definitely better. Even better if said boyfriend is hot as fuck and the cuddliest of them all. But let’s not say it too loud when Carlos is around or it will go to his head and Lando will never hear the end of it).