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The morning started with fingers tracing the sweeping lines of the wings etched in ink on his back and blue eyes gazing down at him from Sebastian’s place perched on the bed next to him. He’s always been an early riser.
Lewis had groaned into his pillow and claimed the excuse of needing more beauty sleep, but a reminder of the Saturday morning farmers market that would soon be bustling further into town drags him out of bed at the promise of sugar beets and freshly baked vegan dog treats for Roscoe. He’d started removing his (Sebastian’s, if he’s honest) joggers to get dressed, but pale hands made their way to his waist and before long they’d somehow wound up back in bed.
They’re half an hour late to the market, but Seb’s satisfied grin at the high-necked sweater Lewis had to dig out from the back of their closet was worth it.
They wander the small Swiss town hand in hand, stopping at each booth along their usual route to make small talk with the locals and buy the essentials- this time consisting of a new set of beeswax wraps for Seb and an assortment of handmade candles Lewis claimed were going to be life-changing.
There’s always town gossip to catch up on, and not for the first time Lewis finds himself immensely grateful for this small corner of the world they’ve found that doesn’t seem to know or care about them.
There’s something special about being free to kiss his partner on the cheek for picking out the perfect loaf of bread for sandwiches later or to not-so-humbly brag about how his husband’s woodworking skills have actually gotten suprisingly decent over the past few weeks to the sweet old woman named Maria who runs the produce stall. They’ve lived here on and off for the past few years between seasons- if someone was keen on going to the press, it probably would have happened by now.
Instead of questions about the team’s strategy this upcoming season and how he feels about his rivals and whether he heard the newest insulting rumor about him spreading around the paddock, his morning rounds are spent dealing in stories about how Gaberial’s daughter Emma has picked up the French horn and how the pub down the road may yet bring back the particular flavor of ale Sebastian had grown to frequent last year. Their usual universal tender of scathing commentary on other drivers’ performances or predictions for the races ahead isn’t accepted here. It’s refreshing.
Roscoe runs ahead to say hello to everyone he can possibly find, and Seb’s hands linger around his shoulders while an older man with an impressive beard talks them into some sort of tart jam that his trainer would despise, but they’ll get it anyway for biscuits tomorrow. Lewis can hear barking and children laughing and he knows they’ll have to collect the dog and head back to the house eventually- but for now, he rolls his eyes and shouts at Roscoe not to jump on the kids barely twice his size.
They spend the afternoon in the greenhouse and Lewis is just awful at gardening but he knows how to work a pair of scissors, so he sets about gathering the rosemary and basil they’ve been growing while his husband fiddles with some sort of DIY irrigation system on the other side of the shed. He probably over-pruned the poor plants, but they’ll make focaccia dough tonight and get plenty of use out of the leaves in his basket.
Sebastian swears as a stream of water shoots out from the tube he’d been securing to a planter and the German pretends to be scandalized by Lewis’ snort at his now-soaked jeans, but he still trails after him back into the house to change. The sprinkler set-up can wait.
After lunch consisting of a fresh salad topped with their bounties from the market that manages to be both healthy and overly indulgent, they pile onto the love seat on the back porch for a mid-day nap. The older man sighs as he wiggles his cold bare feet under Seb’s thighs and grins at the perturbed look he’s rewarded with.
He can hear the snuffling and snorting of a bulldog traipsing through their tulips on a mission, but the warmth of the sunlight urges his eyes closed and before he can think to tell him off, he’s already asleep.
Lewis awakes to a sun just starting to set and the sight of Sebastian’s sun-kissed nose in a book whose size would rival most encyclopedias. The hand resting against his bare ankle gives a gentle squeeze- just an acknowledgment of his presence that leaves the option to be ignored if he wants to continue dozing. He doesn’t want to destroy his carefully crafted sleep schedule though, so instead he pulls himself up just enough to twist into a lean against the shoulder of the man next to him.
Maybe it’s the crisp mountain air that stings as it fills his lungs or the daze that always seems to find him during his rare days where nothing found its way into his schedule.
Maybe it’s the glass of iced coffee sweating a stain into the wooden slats of the side table that Seb must have made for him while he slept, or his husband’s voice as he reads aloud to himself about the ice caps melting with a tone that could make even the eminent dread of climate change soothing.
Maybe it’s the phone he left plugged in face down in the kitchen so he could get a break from the constant buzzing that follows his every waking moment, or the car awaiting him that he knows is going to predictably underperform no matter how many hours he spends pouring over data and running simulations in Brackley. Whatever the cause, everything seems to click in an instant.
He doesn’t want to leave- not for a second; let alone months on end.
The great seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton isn’t afraid of much- but the idea of leaving behind an entire life and legacy may just be the thing to do it. He’s built a name for himself off years of podiums and trophies and championships and he lives for racing. To give that up would be to give up himself.
The feeling of the pedals under his feet, the g-forces pushing against him as he hurdles down the straight at 200 miles per hour, the warmth of his cheering pit crew’s arms dragging him over the barrier after he pulls himself from the cockpit- he doesn’t want to lose that.
But his flight back to the Mercedes headquarters before the first race of the season leaves in three days and all he can think about is how he’ll miss these slow moments just as much.
One could argue he’s already lost whatever career he’d had- those proud moments and motivations depleted by a car that somehow still drags them kicking and screaming into a second-place position in the Constructors’ Championship, but just barely. A car that kindly greets him with a complete lack of pace on qualifying days and dismisses him with a gift of chronic back pain that leaves him with stinging eyes when he curls up in his hotel room bed on race weekends.
He loves his team- of course he does. That’s probably the worst part of the past few seasons- the eager look in their eyes as he tears out of the garage and the avoidant gazes when he emerges from the car in park ferme and doesn’t so much as lift his visor until he’s safely inside his driver’s room. Toto will visit him with empty reassurances and they’ll walk together to the debriefing with bowed heads and he’ll get on his knees and prostrate himself to them for barely breaking into the points this week and they’ll say it’s not his fault and he’ll skip the after parties and get on a plane back to Monaco to sit in a dark apartment and pretend his lover is in the other room and ignore that it’s been weeks since worn lips have pressed into the crown of his head as he drifts to sleep.
He knew what he was signing up for by the time he’d reached Formula 1, but at age twenty-two the commitment to weekly races that brought him across the world to compete was a dream with few downsides. Sure- he was worked to the bone by Mclaren and later Mercedes, but it was well worth the champagne and cheers and the rush of knowing he’s the absolute best on the track day in and day out.
Sixteen years later, he’s starting to think that there’s possibly more to life than jetting across the world to drive a car he can’t stand and miss out on time spent on all the things he lets pass him by in favor of chasing that next win.
He feels like a hypocrite.
The night Seb had told him of his plans to retire, they’d fought. It had been bad- the worst fight he could remember them having. He'd shouted and thrown around every insult his stupid 20-something self had stored up from earlier on in their careers.
His rival had never actually been a coward or a waste of talent, but if he was truly quitting then when else would those biting words get the chance to leave his mouth?
In return, he’d been called naive and childish and selfish and Sebastian was looking at him with reddened eyes and balled fists like he might actually believe it and suddenly Lewis’ hand was throbbing from abruptly meeting the kitchen wall and that got to be his excuse for the welling of tears that filled his eyes far too quickly.
A tense silence blanketed the room when the plaster cracked, and it wasn’t dignified the way the sob tore from his throat- but any embarrassment or shame brought to the surface was dulled by the intense wave of hurt that passed over him.
His fingers throbbed as Seb wrapped his knuckles while he sat on the edge of the tub. There was a panging in the base of his skull from the tears that continued to silently make their trek down his cheeks despite being gently kissed away. It wasn’t until a hand tangled itself in his braids as he lay pressed into warm collar bones in the pitch-black bedroom that he’d dared to pull himself out of his own anger and anguish long enough to ask.
“Why?”
There’s a million questions hidden beneath that single word spoken wetly into the bare chest below him. They’ve known each other long enough that he’s certain Sebastian hears them as clearly as if he’d spoken them aloud.
Why not just move teams again? Why are you giving up? Why now?
Why are you leaving me?
A deep hum rumbles from beneath him that he felt reverberating throughout his body long after the sound peters out. The question lingers long enough that if it wasn’t for the finger on his back blindly tracing the tattoos Seb knows by heart, he’d almost believe his partner had fallen asleep.
“I know Sebastian Vettel the Formula One driver,”
“Yeah, I’d hope so-” Lewis can’t help himself from dryly commenting, but a bony finger to his side disrupts his quipping as he squirms before settling back into place.
“Oh- shut up, will you?” There’s no malice behind the words, just a hint of a smile he can hear without even seeing the way Seb must be rolling his eyes above him. There’s another pause before he breathes deeply and starts again.
“I know myself as a driver, but I don’t know Sebastian Vettel as the person, yeah? I’ve been racing my whole life- and I’ve loved it, truly, it is one of the greatest things I’ve done and I wouldn’t change a thing.” The hand in his hair twists a braid before stilling against his scalp. “But I just feel that it’s time I try something new- find a new adventure where I can take the time to learn who I am outside of just racing. It is not- I don’t want to…”
He trails off and Lewis realizes with a pang of guilt that this may be the first time he’s ever said any of this aloud. His husband had come to him with something that was clearly weighing on him and he’d not only rejected it, but likely given him taste of some of the backlash he’d probably hear for announcing his retirement publicly. He didn’t understand it, but he hadn’t been supportive in the way he’d hope Seb would be if their situations were reversed.
He worries the thick material of the quilt they’d picked out at a street market in Monaco last season between his index finger and thumb and now that he’s realized how badly he’d reacted and what it must have meant to his partner, he can’t help the next question on his mind from making itself known.
“Do you want me to-”
“No, not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t- just- I’m not done yet, man. I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, you know that- but I’m so close to an eighth title and then maybe I’ll-”
There’s a disbelieving snort and the palm in his hair trails down to the nape of his neck to give him what can only be described as a firm scruffing. He melts.
“Liebling, don’t make any rash decisions on my behalf. If your heart is still on the track, stay. I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”
There’s muffled apologies for insults not meant and tempers not held, and promises to do better are made that night that he holds on to like a lifeline over the next year. He still felt raw and confused and if he’s honest- just a bit sad. But if they weathered this upheaval, they can make it through anything.
They’ve never intertwined cleanly- they’re simultaneously wildly different people and also carbon copies of one another. If this was the path Sebastian was determined to go down, then Lewis would bend heaven and earth to make it work. It’s not like it was new territory for them to rearrage themselves, twisting and pulling apart and rejoining in new ways to fit each other’s needs.
If there was one thing that defined the start of their relationship, Lewis would have bet anything it was the concept of compromise. Not in a bad way, but in the sense that racing and dating and sleeping and living together all came with adjustments they had to make.
He’s vegan and Sebastian isn’t, but that doesn’t stop him from sending suggestions of YouTube cooking tutorials of crumbled tofu tacos to Lewis in the middle of the night and always picking up his favorite oat milk between race weekends. Sebastian is militant about short showers to conserve water whereas Lewis prefers to linger, but they figure showering together every once in a while is a pretty amenable solution for a number of reasons.
Over time they’ve fallen into each other's habits and preferences and eventually Roscoe is allowed on the bed and Seb’s constant fixer-upper projects take up the entire garage and Lewis doesn’t know when the adjustment of Sebastian’s retirement became part of all of this, but it did. He jets off for weeks at a time for races and press tours and sponsorships and Seb has his own engagements- sometimes in the paddock and sometimes not, but they always seem to make it back here- back home once every few months or so.
It’s a system that has worked for them so far- an endless push and pull and give and take that they plan their lives around and occasionally they’ll catch each other at just the right place and time to share a nice dinner and maybe a hotel room over a race weekend, but all at once it isn’t enough. They’ve done this since Seb retired and Lewis was distraught at the time before they’d settled into their new routine, but now?
It’s taken nearly two years, but Lewis finally understands what his rival meant that night.
He longs for the off-putting morning breath and shared jogs before the sun rises over the mountain peaks just outside their small town. His heart aches at the thought of not being able to spend his afternoons chatting with neighbors and lounging in the warm sun with his husband’s fingers ghosting his ribs as a German accent that has mellowed with age and travel narrates Roscoe’s romp through their carefully curated flowerbeds.
He can’t stand missing another shared bottle of wine over a dinner of homemade vegan lasagna from a recipe Sebastian read online and substituted a few too many ingredients in for it to taste as good as it looks. Sleepless and lonely nights in a hotel halfway across the world never compare to the feeling of arms dragging him into bed by his waist, and Lewis can’t bring himself to do it all again for two- maybe three more years.
More than anything, he wants to find out who Lewis Hamilton the person is- not just Sir Lewis Hamilton the seven-time world champion Formula One driver.
He feels light tugging on a braid at the base of his neck that continues until he tears his eyes from the dimming light playing across the folliage of the garden before lifting them to meet Sebastian’s. That warm smile greets him- the one that he finds in small moments between rambles about obscure motorsport history and the neighbor’s amazing tomato harvest and whispered declarations of loyalty and love.
“Everything alright, schatz?”
The warmth in his voice is muddied by worry, and God, he’s so glad to have fallen for his own rival and to have the privilege of being someone this ridiculous, obnoxious, wonderful man finds worthy of his concern.
Lewis hums, turning his head to press a kiss into the palm that had found it’s way against his jaw.
“Yeah, just takin’ in the view.” He punctuates his response with a wiggle of an eyebrow that pulls a hearty chuckle from Seb because he’s never been resistant to his stupid sense of humor.
Tomorrow they'll have to talk. There will be calls made and tears shed and plans put in place for what will happen after the season ends- but that's for later.
For now, he watches the sun linger over the peaks of the mountains lining the horizon, listens to the sound of Roscoe digging in the cabbage bed Seb has continued to be unsuccessful in fencing off, and presses his head into the nails gently scraping against his scalp.