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Lewis didn’t get migraines very often but he did after this race.
He told a few half-hearted lies about heat stroke and dipped out of his post race interviews, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He wasn’t lying about being warm, and he felt dizzy too, so heat stroke was a believable lie. He didn’t want to explain that the heat paired with the stress of the race had made him feel like his head was being split in half by an ice pick. He felt sick and weak and he just wanted to hide out in his driver room until the worst of it passed. He didn’t want to have to deal with the press like this, when he knew he wouldn’t be able to put on a fake smile and talk about the race as if Mercedes hadn’t fucked up his strategy again.
He turned off the light in his driver room and laid down on the couch in there, hoping everyone else would listen to him and leave him alone.
He dozes for a while before there’s a light knock on his door and then it cracks open. He half opens his eyes and is greeted by Nico, backlit by the lights outside of his room. He looks almost like an angel like that, golden hair forming some kind of halo around his head.
“What’s going on?”
It comes out slurred and messy but Lewis trusts that Nico will understand. He steps inside and closes the door behind him, plunging the room back into darkness.
“Someone mentioned that you had heat stroke, and I knew that wasn’t something you’d skip interviews for, so I figured you probably had a migraine.”
Lewis sort of hates that Nico can still read his mind after all of these years of stony silence and passing glances. He likes to tell himself that friendship between the two of them would never work again, that they were too different now to fit the way they used to, and then Nico does something that proves that theory wrong, proves they still fit together perfectly, and it throws Lewis for a loop every single time. He was there after Abu Dhabi in 2021, and since then, he’s seemed to appear when Lewis needs him, without Lewis ever having to ask.
Nico holds up a small box of painkillers and Lewis forces himself to sit up, reaching for the bottle of water he left next to him on the floor. His stomach rolls as he sits up and the pounding in his head worsens at the movement, which makes his stop to catch his breath for a few seconds. In those few seconds, Nico crosses the room and sits next to him, rubbing his back soothingly like he used to whenever Lewis felt sick after a night out or a tough race. It feels right, having Nico’s warm hands on his back again, even though there’s a layer of clothing separating them that there wouldn’t have been in the past.
Lewis’ stomach eventually settles and the pounding in his head fades to a dull throb, so he lets himself lean into Nico’s side ever so slightly as he takes the offered painkillers and tries to just breathe through the pain. He’s a seven time world champion and a migraine is what has him incapacitated. Nico just keeps rubbing his back, holding him close and keeping him safe. Lewis wants to say something, but Nico hushes him when he opens his mouth to thank him, tells him to just focus on feeling better.
Lewis eventually pulls away from Nico but he doesn’t let him move away when he tries to, reaching to hold his wrist when he tries to get up, taking the distance as his cue to leave.
“Stay?”
It’s said in a quiet voice, and Lewis knows he’s going to regret this moment of weakness once he feels better, but Nico is here and he’s soft and welcoming and he wants his best friend back, even if only while he’s sick. Nico studies Lewis in the dark and his face softens ever so slightly as he nods and says he’ll stay. He guides Lewis to lay down in his arms on the couch and kisses his forehead, which seems like it's crossing a line for the two of them that they’d never actually dared to cross. They’d gotten close so many times but they were both too scared to take that final step. Lewis turns so he’s facing Nico and brushes their lips together, revelling in the shocked gasp of air that Nico sucks in. He's tired and he’s sick and he’s so bored of pretending that he doesn’t ache for Nico in a way he’s never ached for anyone else.
Nico kisses him again, just as softly as their first kiss, and tells him to go to sleep. He tells Lewis that he’ll still be here when he wakes up, and they can talk about this when he’s feeling better. Its a promise that Lewis knows Nico will keep, and he lets himself melt into his arms, safe with the knowledge that he won’t have to wake up alone.