Chapter Text
Straight out of the car, Nico ran up the stairs to hug Valtteri, ruining the crown prince’s planned greeting.
“Princess you look great!” Nico screamed and patted Valtteri’s head.
“It is nice to see you as always, prince Nico,” Valtteri mumbled as they separated from the hug. He was aware that his face was red like a fire engine and there was no way he could hide it from Lewis, who walked up the stairs in a much more calm manner. Valtteri smiled and offered his hand to Lewis.
“A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Hamilton,” Valtteri said, cursing the royal habits Heikki had hammered into his head. Lewis stared at him, their handshake suddenly frozen.
“Ooooh he said pleasure,” Nico pointed out and whistled, breaking the awkward silence.
As they walked in, Valtteri could hear Lewis whispering with Nico.
“What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
“He’s just trying to impress you,” Nico whispered back. They stepped into the grand entrance hall. Shiny wooden floors, perfectly set up flower vases and gorgeous chandeliers perfectly executed the image of elegance and wealth without being too pompous. Lewis whistled quietly.
“I am impressed.”
“It’s so cool to see where you grew up!” Lewis said. They were sitting in one of the formal living rooms and Lewis was scared to touch anything there. All the furniture was no doubt irreplaceable antique and there was expensive looking vases everywhere. Nico had thrown himself on one of the sofas, not worrying about the age of the furniture, Valtteri was sitting in one of the chairs, not exactly relaxed but also clearly not scared of breaking anything. Lewis turned to look at Nico.
“So this is where you spent your summer vacations?” It was kind of hard to believe. Nico was so lively and for a kid like Nico this fancy castle seemed like a boring place to be in. Yet Nico had always talked about his trips to Finland with great enthusiasm.
“Not exactly, no,” Nico answered. “There’s the summer place in the west part of the country. I must have told you about it?”
Lewis shook his head. Though it made sense, Nico had talked a lot about swimming in the sea but this spot didn’t seem very good for it, not with all those ships around and the lack of anything resembling beach. The square in front of the castle had paved steps going into the sea and that was it.
“We are going there tomorrow,” Valtteri pointed out. “We just wanted to give you a chance to see our beautiful capitol.”
“The tourist guide strikes again,” Nico said and rolled his eyes. Lewis burst out laughing and Valtteri felt blush creep on his cheeks.
“Don’t worry princess,” Nico said, referring to the blush, “Lewis thinks it’s cute.” Lewis punched Nico playfully, but he was right. Valtteri’s blush was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen.
“This is not what I was expecting,” Lewis said, sounding disappointed at the sight of Valtteri’s royal bedroom. He had begged for him to show it for the past three hours and Nico had joined the choir. The room was quite basic. Not many personal items visible. Just his antique bed, some tables and chairs and doors leading to his walk in closet and en-suite bathroom. It was all sophisticated and neat, not too luxurious. Valtteri shrugged.
“This was all here when I moved in,” he said. “My maid keeps it clean and I don’t spend much time here anyway.”
“The royal bed is not seeing much action then?” Nico teased, drawing out the blush again.
“Only all the action of me sleeping in it,” Valtteri responded, hoping to sound nonchalant about the matter. It was no secret that unlike many princes, he didn’t sleep around. He had kept his private life off the pages of gossip magazines and he intended to keep it that way.
“If you don’t spend time in here, then where?” Lewis asked, not acknowledging the bickering of the two princes.
“In my office,” came the response.
“Christ, you’re so boring,” Nico whined.
Valtteri raised one eyebrow.
“You haven’t seen it yet.”
The theme of antique furniture continued in the office but that’s where the similarities ended. It was clear Valtteri spent a lot of time here. There were large bookshelves filled with study material and a tidy pile of notebooks on the desk. In one corner was some neatly organized training equipment. All the walls were covered with posters presenting various subjects of interest, some to do with politics, but also mechanical drawings of locks, exercise programs and some pictures of F1 cars. Compared to the bedroom, this room looked like someone actually lived in it.
Valtteri waved his hands around. “So this is it.”
Lewis smiled at him, and Valtteri melted at how cute his smile was. He busied himself with going through the desk’s drawers, picking up a very special lock; the first one he had ever picked. Valtteri held it up, smiling at his friends.
“We are going to need this for your lessons.” Both stared at him, puzzled looks on their faces. Valtteri sighed.
“It’s a practice lock. Lets you see what you are doing,” he explained, showing them that the lock was made of see-through plastic which allowed a good view of the mechanism.
“I have a couple of others but we won’t have time for special locks,” he said, genuinely sorry that Nico and Lewis didn’t have more time to visit him over summer, just one week over their summer break from racing. He carefully placed the lock in his suitcase that was sitting on a chair next to the door.
A big ball of fur slipped through the open door and brushed itself against Valtteri’s leg before proceeding to hiss at Nico.
“You still have that devil’s incarnate around?” Nico asked and backed away from it. Valtteri picked the giant cat up, rubbing its belly adoringly.
“Turbo, meet Lewis,” he said to the cat. “Lewis meet Turbo.”
Lewis approached cautiously. The cat was huge and looked quite grumpy. He put his hand forward to pet Turbo, but the cat hissed at him and threw its paw with nails extended out, scratching Lewis.
“Ow!” Lewis yelped and leapt away from the cat. “He’s quite a charmer.”
Valtteri wasn’t listening instead staring at the cat.
“Why must you always do this?” he complained and THEN turned to look at Lewis. “I’m sorry, he doesn’t like strangers. Or, you know, anyone.”
Valtteri poked his head out of the room. “Emilia come here!”
They heard hurried steps from the hallway and then a maid appeared and bent her knees in greeting of her prince.
“How may I help your highness?” she asked and bent her knees again.
“Could you please call me Valtteri?” Valtteri groaned, clearly uncomfortable with the formal approach.
“As you wish, Valtteri. How can I help you today?” she asked again. Valtteri passed Turbo to her and Lewis and Nico watched in awe how the cat just accepted it and no one got scratched.
“Get him ready for the trip,” Valtteri said and the maid bent her knees once again, which was quite impressive when she was still carrying the large cat. Nico looked after her in horror.
“You’re taking him too?” he said hysterically. “He’s going to kill me in my sleep!”
Valtteri rolled his eyes and took Lewis’ hand.
“Come, let’s get this cleaned!”
With that he pulled Lewis out of the room.
“I didn’t take you for a cat lady,” Lewis smirked while Valtteri rummaged his medicine cabinet for bandages. He was cleaning the scratch, sitting on the toilet seat while Nico was leaning on the door frame.
“Well you are absolutely correct, because that furry bastard isn’t a cat, it’s the satan dressed as a cat,” Nico responded from the door, prompting Valtteri to seize his search and turn around to look at Nico angrily.
“Don’t you dare insult my cat,” Valtteri snarled, waving a tube of toothpaste at the prince. “This is exactly why he doesn’t like you!”
Nice lifted his hands up in surrender. “Okay okay, I’m sorry, I’ll apologize to his royal furryness next time I see him.”
Valtteri glared at Nico suspiciously but turned around to resume his search, passing various items to Lewis, who was starting to struggle to hold everything.
“I think this is enough,” Lewis said, trying to not laugh at Valtteri’s blush. “This is a small scratch, I only need some bandaids.”
Lewis passed rest of the items back to Valtteri. Valtteri put them back into the cabinet while Lewis covered the wound with a bandaid. He noticed too late that it had a moomin print. Valtteri smiled at his choice of pattern and then took Lewis’ hand to check on the wound.
“Have you been vaccinated against tetanus?” he asked with all seriousness, catching Lewis and Nico unprepared.
“I don’t know man!” Lewis answered and threw his hands in the air. Valtteri sighed.
“Let me call my doctor.”
Both men stared at him.
“Are you serious?” Nico asked. “It’s a scratch!”
Valtteri shrugged. “I like him and I prefer to not get him murdered by my cat.”
It was Lewis’ turn to blush.