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Liam Lawson came into the 2025 Formula one season with a seat in a championship winning team, and a dream to fulfil. He was not there to make friends, he was there to make his mark. But apparently Helmut Marko, the same fuckass who hired him in the first place, decided that he wasn't deserving of what he wanted.
So here he is, sitting back at the hospitality of the Red Bull junior team sitting next to his new team mate, and supposedly friend, Isack Hadjar, who's yapping on about something or the other which Liam is not listening to because he is fighting demons to stay awake.
You see, Liam has not been able to sleep properly since the Red Bull demotion. From the anxiety of not being able to live up to his potential, to the stupid urge to read what people were saying on twitter, his brain had just been occupied with the stress of the whole situation, allowing him to only really get maximum 2 hours of sleep per night, usually less.
And that's why he constantly finds himself dozing off mid conversation, and most conversations he's been having recently have been with Isack because he willingly talks to Liam even though there's no way he's going to get much of a response because to be honest, Liam's just too tired and too over life to really input many interesting things into interactions.
Of course because of this, Liam's brain now appears to be hard wired to fall asleep when Isack is talking. Whenever he's in any meeting where someone else is talking, he's fine, but then as soon as Isack comes in with his stupidly cute French accent, it's apparently bed time.
Following this realisation, Liam came up with a bright idea to cure his insomnia at 2:37am. He created a playlist on youtube, consisting of multiple of Isack's interviews, and played it. Surprisingly, it worked, having the Kiwi knocked out within minutes.
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The next day, Liam was feeling much more well rested and was in a much brighter mood.
As he was sitting down, snacking on a muesli bar, he looked up to see the familiar face of his team mate walking towards him, who then in a second occupied the seat across the table.
"Hey, mate! You seem a bit cheery today!" Isack greeted, his voice laced with a stronger version of his French accent. That tended to happen a lot around Liam, Isack seemed to be more relaxed and he kind of just 'flowed' around the kiwi.
"Yeah, woke up on the right side of the bed, I guess." Replied Liam, chuckling. "How are you doing, mate?"
The two boys chatted for a while longer, until a team member came over to let Isack know that he had an interview to get to. They said their goodbyes, but just as they started walking in opposite directions, Isack turned around.
"Liam!"
The blonde turned around with his eyebrows slightly raised and nodded, signalling that he was listening.
Isack continued, "Do you wanna come over to my room tonight? Just for a little hang out? We can watch a movie or something."
"Sure, text me your room number and what time." Liam replied, and Isack held up a thumbs up before waving and turning around again.
Soon enough he got the text with all the confirmation.
And so Liam started counting down until the evening.
Not in a weird way.
He was simply just excited to see his friend.
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Isack was waiting in his room, waiting for the knock he was expecting. When it finally came, he got up and opened the door to see Liam standing there in trackies, a hoodie and best of all, lightning mcqueen crocs with Cars socks underneath.
"Nice shoes." He laughed as he welcomed him inside.
"Had to wear my best ones for this special event." Liam retaliated with a wink, which definitely did not do things to Isack's stomach.
"Make yourself comfortable, you can sit on the bed 'cause the TV is in front of it. Want any snacks? I already have some popcorn in the microwave."
"Nah, mate, don't worry popcorn's fine." Liam said as he slumped down onto the bed, Isack shortly followed after getting the freshly made popcorn into a bowl and bringing it with him.
"Alright, what do you want to watch-"
"Cars."
"Why did I even ask. At least you're obsessed with a good movie and not some cringey romcom."
So he got the movie on, and both boys settled down, bowl of popcorn between them. The film went on, the popcorn finished, the boys relaxed and seemed to somehow gravitate more towards each other as their shoulders were suddenly bumping. Though neither moved away at the contact.
They had planned to watch at least the second movie in the series, if not all three, after the first one was finished, but decided they needed a break from the screen. So they just chatted about everything and nothing for a while. As usual, Isack did most of the talking with a little bit of insight from Liam occasionally, at one point the blonde fell quiet, but Isack didn't think much of it as Liam tended to just listen to him speak during their conversations.
That was until the Frenchman felt a weight drop onto his shoulder, and looked down to see his teammate laying his head down fast asleep, causing him to quite literally melt. He adjusted the Kiwi into a slightly more comfortable position, so that he was laying more on his chest rather than his shoulder, before grabbing his phone to scroll through instagram.
The goal was to not wake Liam up, Isack had noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his constant tired demeanour. He knew his teammate need
While he was liking comments on his posts and sharing sponsors' stories, he absentmindedly moved his hand up to Liam's hair and began carefully threading his hands through it. The sound of the blonde's deep breaths filled the room, Isack's mind took them as a signal to rest as he felt himself drift off alongside his teammate.
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The next day, Isack woke up and felt a weight next to him. Confused, due to the fogginess from sleep, he looked over and saw Liam lying next to him with his head rested on the inside of the Frenchman's bicep with his arm thrown over Isack's torso. He looked almost ethereal with a sliver of morning sunlight peaking through a gap in the curtains and illuminating his fair skin and golden hair.
"Liam..." Isack cooed, once again running his hand through Liam's now much messier hair, "C'mon you have you wake up, Chéri." The pet name slipped out before he could stop it, but in his early morning haze he couldn't care.
"Hmph...nooo..." Liam mumbled into Isack's shirt, having burrowed his face further into the other man's side.
"Non non, réveille-toi," He said, reverting back to his mother tongue, as a joke he continued, referencing an iconic VCARB x Kardashians lip sync video, "Rise and shine..." he sung.
That seemed to bring some consciousness back to Liam, as he finally brought his head up, looked around slightly confused before his eyes widened with shock.
"Oh my god.. Isack I'm so sorry I didn't mean to I swear I can go now if you want me to- wait why didn't you wake me up sooner?" The Kiwi's panicked rant switched up to confusion, the question causing an embarrassed blush to spread across Isack's cheeks.
"Well, I kind of fell asleep too...but it's fine! We can forget about this if you want to! I just noticed you've seemed quite tired lately and I really wanted you to be feeling better so I didn't want to wake you up when you were finally resting-"
And he was cut off by the light pressure of Liams hand cupping his jaw line and the blonde's soft lips pressing up against his in a slow, sweet kiss. When they finally pulled apart, Liam was practically on top of Isack staring lovingly down at him, both of them out of breath.
"You know what, I don't think I have any media duties until this afternoon."
"Yeah, me neither."
And so they cuddled back up, with Isack's hand once again finding its way to Liam's hair.
"Repose ta tête, Chéri."