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Nico wakes up in the middle of the night, itching to piss.
At first, he thinks it’s already day time, the way they’d forgotten to switch the lights off before drunkenly falling into bed, so that the whole room was washed in the most glaring fluorescent yellow lights Nico has ever seen in a swanky hotel. He pushes himself up off of a distantly grumbling Lewis and keeps his eyes firmly shut while he stumbles out of bed, getting momentarily tangled in the sheets. A foot at a time, he feels his way over to the light switch and flips it off, finally opening his bleary eyes to a dimly lit room, nightlight by what was supposed to be his side of the bed still on. He says ‘supposed to be,’ because he and Lewis always end up clambering over one another if they’re sharing a bed anyway, like disgruntled sea urchins.
His friend is sprawled diagonally, body only half-covered by the sheets still and face twitching involuntarily at the cold air. If Nico were any less still-drunk, he’d go cover him back up.
He nearly falls backwards into the huge bathroom, sleek metal towel holder catching his tumble. The lights don’t even need to be on. He’ll just do his business as quick as possible, wash his hands and wipe a damp towel over the strange sticky spot on the back of his foot, and climb back into their bed to deal with everything else in the morning.
It’s not like he regrets taking enough shots to wreck his stomach lining and put a curse on his liver—he was only trying to be a good friend to Lewis! By… drinking enough to match him, who was celebrating Seb’s fourth in a row and spending most of the night with the champion’s arms around his neck and waist, and Nico was more-so in the corner with Jenson, smiling blissfully and taking every shot he was handed as Lewis just kept buying rounds and rounds, and it was a whole thing.
End of the day, Lewis came back to Nico’s room, which is all a man can ask for. Maybe not the bit where he puked on the carpet, but that’s been rinsed off by a very annoyed Jenson Button, so all is good.
Actually, he’s only been asleep for 2 hours or so, since it’s just about to break daylight outside. Some of those far, far away clouds are starting to reflect the sunny state of his insides, coated in foul bile and probably some eggs Jenson forced him to eat before he actually fell asleep on his designated side of the bed, at least. He has no idea what the man did to Lewis, who he last vaguely remembers was slumped over himself on the floor by the foot of the bed.
He shakes it off. The faint memory, not his piss. That’s done and good, hands washed and mind empty, and he’s so ready to just fall right back into bed, except Lewis’s eyes are wide open and he’s laying sideways, now, staring at Nico through the syrupy dark. “You okay?”
Lewis blinks, slow like an old cat. They’re probably both still a little drunk. And stupid. Nico huffs, inching closer to the bed, and then he sees Lewis’s hand swung over the empty side of the mattress, four nimble fingers listlessly bouncing on the sheets. Too tired to try to figure out any kind of secret Morse code right now, he just nudges the hand over until it’s tucked back up on Lewis’s stomach, and slides in next to him, warm arm to arm, thigh to thigh. It’s easier than trying to figure out the thermostat, or the blanket for one, and it’s more comfortable than pretending they both prefer to sleep without the warmth of another person. That hasn’t been true since they were 14.
Nico shifts a little, and Lewis takes it as an invitation to nudge even closer, swinging that same twitching arm from earlier over the span of Nico’s softly rising chest, grasping at the meat of his upper arm. His other hand is still tucked underneath them both, burning against the sliver of skin Nico’s fumbling has exposed at the small of his back. He breathes very slowly, not wanting to spook the weary cat that is a post-loss Lewis. Not a loss, Nico’ll repeat, adamant. 4th place in the WDC is a podium slipped, but not a loss. Nico’s 6th place, though, may as well be.
He tries to distract himself from that line of thought, and the irregular swirly pattern on the cream ceiling, but the only point worth focusing on is the creeping stare of Lewis’s blown-wide eyes, looking up at him from where he’s tucked himself length-ways into Nico’s side, a cheek smushed against the crook of his elbow. He’s drooling a little, but so is Nico.
He’s just looking at him, barely moving. Nico holds his breath, afraid of disrupting whatever trance he’s put himself into mapping the uninteresting crests of Nico’s face and the smile lines he’s gained from a lifetime besides the very boy. It is a lot, Lewis’s attention on him. He’s got a way of making you feel it undivided, and forcing his gaze down your throat until it’s all you can taste, and his shuddering breath is all you can feel. Then he laughs a little and goes to hide in that same crook of Nico’s elbow, tickling his arm with his grown-out braids.
He’ll swap them out soon, probably, so Nico sees no harm in reaching up with that arm Lewis is hanging onto and scritch-scratching between the neat rows of his head, rubbing with just the right amount of pressure on the outermost strands of hair with their roots a deep, dark pink. Lewis breaths into his skin, kicks a leg up between Nico’s thighs and grips one of his legs with his own.
Nico giggles, jostling the leg with his trapped one but not throwing him off. “What? You missed me when I went to the toilet?”
Lewis’s eyes focus in and out, following Nico’s gentle scratching up and down his scalp. “Mmm, next year,” he mumbles, squeezing Nico’s bicep lightly.
“What about next year? Lewis, it’s not even January yet! God, you really are eager to win another one, aren’t you?”
He sounds dismissive, but he’s aiming for fond, because he is fond. His little winner, blasting through much better cars and much older drivers. His teammate. His best friend.
“No, no…” he moans, slapping an uncoordinated hand over his sensitive eyes, from where he’s directly facing Nico’s nightlight. Taking pity, Nico reaches behind him and yanks it shut, too. The room plunges into complete darkness, the half-drawn curtains doing nothing to let in the first dregs of the Emirati sun. It’s easier to look at Lewis how he really wants to, full send and unabashed, when he’s too drunk to look at him back. “Us. Both. We both go on the… the podium, and… and—“
Nico’s hand resting gently on the back of Lewis’s neck finally stops his incoherent mumbling, and he drops his head half on Nico’s stomach, and starts snoring within a minute of soothing the tiny hairs there with Nico’s familiar fingers.
It’s certainly an image, him and his Lewis racing each other for the world title starting from the same garage. Toto praising both of them, one after the other, clapping their backs with both hands and taking them out to the same dinners. Of course, it’d be different for Lewis. He’s already won one. Nico only wants the one.
One first, talk later. For Lewis, this is later.
No wonder he’s so calm about the idea of it, them racing each other. It’s never been a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ for Lewis. Nico has always had a harder time connecting his father’s greatness with his own, in his head.
No matter. He has all the support in the world to do it, and Lewis, who even in 10 years he can’t imagine growing too old and mean to shove his prickly head into Nico’s arm and carve the shape of his head into Nico’s side like that, over and over.
Nico falls back asleep smiling, and he knows next year, either one of them will win it or they’ll kill each other trying.