Work Text:
1. vacation (Charles)
I saw that you are on Mykonos as well!!! We should have dinner together today!
Smiling, he read the message from Charles, which was so typical of the Monegasque. He usually was a quiet personality, but when texting, he suddenly became an excited little boy, who had to put thousands of exclamation and question marks behind everything, as if he were afraid that people would not understand the message otherwise.
"Charles is also here and asked if we want to have dinner today," he told Alex, who sluggishly lifted his head from his chest to look at him.
"As long as you explain to him why we are on vacation together, even though you told everyone you were going away with your girlfriend," he muttered and closed his eyes again before grumbling. Alex pressed his face even closer to him, which made him smile. His hand automatically ran into his hair and massaged the back of his head.
"I'll think of something," he assured him and gave him a kiss on the head. Then he texted Charles back to see if he already had a restaurant in mind, which he did, of course. After they had agreed on one, he reserved a table for the three of them – not counting Alex, but his "girlfriend" Carmen – and Charlotte.
"Come on, let's get up so we can go to the beach." With these words, he gently pushed Alex away, which he only commented with an annoyed hum.
After they finally had gotten ready, they spent most of the day on the beach before heading back to the cottage in the afternoon and getting dressed up for dinner. Charles had, of course, not just picked any restaurant but a more expensive one.
Right at half past seven, they entered the restaurant together. A friendly waitress brought them to their table, where Charles and Charlotte were already waiting. When they spotted Alex, they frowned almost synchronously.
"Alex?" Charles hooked in amazement as he stood up. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're here, but... what the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm on vacation," was his simple answer before he hugged him and then did the same with Charlotte. Meanwhile, he embraced Charles, too.
"Didn't you want to go on holiday with your girlfriend?" The Ferrari driver asked skeptically, and he shrugged with a grin.
"I am," he just jokingly returned, winking at Alex, who just rolled his eyes. The other two laughed and didn't ask any further.
Sometimes you just had to be honest to keep the most obvious things a secret.
2. home (Lando)
"I'm really happy we managed to set up a date between the race weekends," Alex smiled and grabbed his hand over the table. His eyes were soft, which instantly made his heart beat faster. Alex showed him with every look, and every touch, why he was the love of his life.
"Believe me, so do I," he replied lovingly to his smile and squeezed his hand briefly. They almost didn't manage to have a date tonight, but in the end, they both had found an excuse to not have to stream with Lando. Even though they felt bad, they needed to have time to themselves to not lose sight of their relationship.
Alex had just opened his mouth to say something else when the doorbell rang. Surprised, they exchanged a glance before he stood up and walked to the door. On the screen in front of the front door, he could already see who was disturbing their date - Lando.
He quickly ran back to Alex and hissed at him, "That's Lando!"
"What?!" Shocked, he also got up. "What's he doing outside your door? Didn't he want to stream with Max?"
"Looks like the stream's over!" He hurriedly glanced through the kitchen, which was only lit by candles, and concluded that they couldn't give Lando a plausible explanation. On the other hand, it was Lando...Sometimes he was a little oblivious.
"How are you going to fix that?" Alex asked while he was already putting out the first candles and turning on the light.
"Watch and learn," he sighed and walked back to the door to open it to their best friend.
"Georgeeeee!" he greeted him joyfully and stepped in – uninvited. "I know you wanted to relax tonight, but I tried this new game, and it's awesome! I couldn't reach Alex. He said he was on a date with Lily."
Wow. Alex didn't think of anything better than having a date with his best friend?
"I'm afraid his date didn't work out. Lily canceled. He's here," he told Lando as if it wasn't that big of a deal, whereupon he stopped perplexed.
"What?" Irritated, he tilted his head and then began to pout. "And you want to do something with him, even though you wanted to relax, but not with me?"
"Sorry, but he was really depressed, and I had to be there for him," he lied. "Alex! Lando is here. Are you joining us in the living room?"
He pushed the young Brit into the living room, blocking the view of the kitchen with his body so he wouldn't see all the candles – and Alex. In the living room, however, it looked more normal, except for the bottle of wine on the small table, although he only drank wine on special occasions. Fortunately, Lando didn't comment on that – if he had even noticed it.
"Hey, Lan," Alex greeted him in a cheerful mood as he walked into the living room. "What are you doing here?"
One could literally see Lando's brain coming to life as he surveyed the Thai. "Depressed, huh?" he then asked suspiciously. "I look different when I've been dumped. You're acting strange."
"Is it so hard to believe that I'm such a good company that he was happy again as soon as he got here?" He wanted to know jokingly, and Lando sniffed unconvincedly. However, he didn't push it, and when George looked at Alex, he saw the tension disappearing from his body.
That was close.
3. hotel room (Max)
Goosebumps spread all over his body as Alex gently pushed his shirt up and bent down to kiss the exposed skin. He immediately buried his fingers firmly in his hair and closed his eyes.
"Alex...," he breathed almost silently. His boyfriend tapped slightly against his shoulder, and he raised his torso so Alex could take off his shirt. In the past few months, they had learned the signals they gave each other and now understood each other almost wordlessly.
"I love you," Alex whispered to his lips, which he kissed shortly afterwards. If their lips weren't swollen from feelingly hours of making out before, they definitely would have been after the kiss.
They almost didn't notice it knocking on the door, but Alex pulled away with blown pupils. Someone hammered his fist firmly at the hotel door and did not stop.
Alex now got up and disappeared around the corner to open the door while he used the moment to form a clear thought again.
"Mate! You're not nearly dressed! He heard Max's voice, which made him frown. "You look fucked, man."
"What the hell, Max?" Alex asked confusedly. Apparently, he didn't know what the Dutchman wanted from him either.
"The team dinner, Alex! We were supposed to meet downstairs five minutes ago and drive to the restaurant."
Sighing, he leaned on his elbow. Right. Alex had told him about it, but they both seemed to have completely forgotten it. Considering what they had done, not so surprising.
Now, new noises were coming out of the hallway, and Alex told Max he couldn't just walk in like that, but apparently, he couldn't stop him anymore. He was only just able to put on a shirt before the Dutchman was already in the middle of the room.
"George?" Surprised, he looked at him, then he groaned. "I don't even want to know."
"Max, we didn't-" Alex started to explain but the younger one interrupted him, "I really don't care what you do and what you don't do, Alex. Just be in the lobby as quickly as you can. I'll wait for you there, okay?"
Without waiting for an answer, he left the room again, and they exchanged a glance.
Fortunately, Max had caught them, who didn't really care about almost anything, really - in the most positive sense, of course. Any other person would have kept trying to figure out what that meant, but Max simply didn't care.
4. driver's room (Nicholas)
Smiling, he wrapped his arms around Alex and pressed a short kiss on his lips. They were standing in the middle of his driver's room, which was unlocked. Slowly but surely, they got more careless about where they exchanged kisses (and more), but right now, there was something more important than the man in his arms.
"I'm glad you made it to the race this weekend," he whispered, and Alex nodded in agreement. It hadn't been clear for a long time if he would make it between his Sim work and the DTM, but RedBull had let him fly here. As much as he disliked the team at times, right now, he laid all that aside because it allowed him to have dinner with Alex after a busy Friday.
"Even if I'm always stressed, it's worth it if I can be with you," Alex muttered and hugged him a little closer. Smiling, he kissed his temple and tried – probably unsuccessfully – to hide how happy his words made him.
"Hey, George!" Without further warning, Nicky entered his driver's room, and they instantly broke apart. He bit back an annoyed comment that his teammate should knock but that would probably have made it even more conspicuous that his timing was awful.
"S-Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt," he stuttered perplexedly, but Alex quickly waved it off, "I just picked him up because we were about to go out to dinner."
"I thought your girlfriend wanted to come today?" Even more irritated than before, Nicky frowned.
"She didn't make it, too much work. You know how it is," he explained, pulling his shoulders up.
"Okay...," his teammate said slowly. "To be honest, I forgot what I originally wanted from you. Have a nice evening."
"You too," Alex smiled before reproachfully turning towards him.
Yeah, he should probably stop saying "his girlfriend" every time he was meeting up with Alex.
5. paddock (Seb)
"And you're sure no one can see us here?" He asked Alex, looking around nervously. He couldn't imagine that there was actually a spot in the paddock where you had a bit of privacy – especially not behind the FIA building.
However, the Thai nodded enthusiastically and said, "Believe me, there is no one here. And no one will even think of looking for us here. Now, we finally have a few minutes to ourselves."
And even if he was still a bit skeptical, it was of course nice to have a quiet moment because that had been rather difficult this race weekend. Since Alex had at least a bit more free time than he had, he had set himself the goal of looking for unvisited places in the paddock – and had found it here.
"Really, Georgie. Trust me," he smiled and put his hands on his cheeks before kissing him gently. Immediately he returned his kiss, which made his last doubts vanish completely.
Of course, he trusted him – after all, he knew Alex had just as little interest in coming out as he did. Well, okay, to be honest, they had never really talked about this before, and in fact, he wouldn't have a problem with at least a few of their friends knowing, like Lando and Charles.
Especially since they had already made several people skeptical, they should start thinking about how they wanted to proceed wisely. Because he actually knew that the game of hide-and-seek wouldn't go unnoticed forever.
They slowly broke away from each other, and, as always, there was a blissful smile on Alex's lips, which immediately infected him. But they couldn't enjoy the moment for a long time, because suddenly the back exit opened a few meters next to them.
"Oh, hey, you two!" Seb smiled in surprise, stepping out of the building. "What are you doing here?"
Completely frozen, he looked at the German and couldn't find the right words. Well, not so much of a 'safe place', was it now?
"We could ask you the same thing," Alex replied, giving them a little more time to come up with an excuse.
"I had to go to the FIA and didn't want to get past the reporters," the German laughed good-naturedly.
"I have to go too!" it burst out of him before he had to think about it anymore. "Alex accompanied me."
"Oh man, why do you have to go?" he pitifully asked.
"Uhm...I don't know yet," he returned unsurely and scratched his neck. Seb blinked briefly, irritated, then nodded, "Well, I have to go, too. I'll see you." He raised his hand to say goodbye, then he was gone.
They really played with fire.
+1. party (all drivers)
"Put the tequila away," he whispered into Alex's ear, who definitely had had enough alcohol. He knew his boyfriend, and he also knew how much he could take without being hungover the next day, and he had already exceeded that limit.
It was understandable, of course, that he drank. At the end of the season in Abu Dhabi, there was always a lot of alcohol, and you always met all the drivers at this party who wanted to drink with you. You just had to know how you could talk yourself out of it at some point, but Alex still didn't seem to know that.
He turned to him, sulking, and George took the glass of tequila out of his hand, pushing it out of reach.
"Georgieeee," Alex wailed, wrapping his arms around his neck.
"Alex, everyone can see us," he warned as he tried to get out of his grip. Restless, he turned his head in all directions, but no one seemed to pay attention to them. God, Alex was so unbearable when he was drunk.
"That's what makes it so exciting," he exclaimed, and he shook his head with a soft smile.
"We should leave soon so we can cuddle, okay?" He suggested. His hands now held his wrists so he wouldn't make another attempt to get closer to him.
"I want to cuddle now." With his best puppy eyes, Alex looked at him, and he sighed quietly, "All right, let's go."
"Yay," he rejoiced, and before he could do anything else, he had pecked his lips. Then he backed away.
Perplexed, he blinked several times and just stared at him. Did he really just do that?
"Are you coming?" Alex grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers to pull him towards the exit. While he was stumbling behind him, his eyes found Lando and Charles, who were watching them closely. Both obviously had to hold off a grin. So they had seen what had happened. They probably were not the only ones by far. He quickly understood they didn't have a problem with them being together.
A little helpless, he shrugged his shoulders, whereupon they just laughed and waved goodbye.
Well, at least they didn't have to worry about other drivers catching them doing anything. Now everyone knew anyway.