Chapter Text
Lewis would be lying if he faced the cameras head-on and said that Nico’s choice had been something he understood fully.
Many F1 drivers can never even fathom getting out of the car for a few weeks, spending down time in the factory doing sim work and finding ways to push the cars to their limits. The hunger for more had always been interlinked with racing—many drivers pushing for more and fighting for a title no matter how many trophies they already have lining up their shelves. So, to get up and fully walk away after winning your first ever title? Nobody could understand. They couldn’t even begin to. It was a madness that nobody quite understood.
Why? They’d ask. Why now, when he’s at the top of the world? As he sits and listens to the press asks him uncomfortable questions about his teammate’s retirement, he can’t help but find his mind wandering alongside them as well. Lewis knew him well to understand enough, he guesses. He understood the hurt and the desperation, the need for the win. The relief that overcame him when he finally, finally held that trophy in his hands after fighting for it his entire life. Nico had been dreaming of it for years, Lewis dreaming alongside him.
He’s known this man for his entire life, knew how he loved racing and how much it took from him. How the passionate spark in his eyes as he’d talk about racing in Formula 1 when Lewis was still in GP2 never quite took away the pinched expression on his face when he’d talk about his team.
But that was a Nico of before, his expressions so open and his touches always lingering. Nico had stopped doing all of those things somewhere along the line, closing himself off and building walls Lewis could never dismantle as easily as back then. He could not understand his hurt, could not understand how deep it went. Not quite like he used to.
He snaps out of his thoughts, realizing the journalist was waiting for his answer to a question he didn’t quite catch. Lewis fidgets with the rings in his hands, feeling a little sorry before smiling and answering with empty platitudes he’s already said countless times about Nico’s retirement throughout the week. He silently hopes none of his true feelings bleed through his words.
(It does show, of course. Lewis never has mastered the art of being subtle about Nico’s effect on him. He thinks he never really will be.)
Adjusting to his absence was harder than expected.
It was summer break now, and Lewis had found himself running to the factory the moment Toto called.
Lewis tried to enjoy his time off, he really did, but maybe trying to do that in Monaco of all places was a downright horrid idea. Really, if he hadn’t run as soon as he did, he might have done something crazy. Maybe Lewis would’ve called him and told him he missed him. Maybe he would have knocked on his door and sat down with him like old times, pretending nothing ever went wrong with them.
Or maybe, he’d have finally given in and looked him in the eyes during one of their shared elevator rides and asked him all the questions he couldn’t answer on his own. He could even imagine himself screaming at him; waiting for a reaction, for anything that would give him just even a meagre sign—
Why?! He’d yell in the cramped elevator of their shared apartment building. Perhaps he’d flinch then. Maybe even look at him. Why would you leave me behind to race on my own when we had dreamed differently as kids? The tension would be suffocating. Maybe he’d shift uncomfortably, but that wouldn’t matter if all he’d do was ignore Lewis. Maybe he’d smirk even. Like he did in 2016, when he’d spend hours searching for some kind of answer tucked inside his eyes.
Lewis thought the previous season was outright hell—that it would be some sick blessing to wipe that unreadable expression on his face and shake him back to the previous person he’d grown to care about. But this? This was worse somehow, trying to get used to a ghostly version of the very same man who’d snarled at him. The very same man who he used to know like the back of his hand.
A part of Lewis thought it would be easy. After all, wouldn’t all that effort the both of them had put into ignoring each other in and out the factory halls be enough of a preparatory for his absence?
Even now as he walks through the factory halls, Lewis feels the heavy weight of his absence.
He glances momentarily at the display Toto had put up a few months ago—a reminder of the before, a whisper of a warning to never repeat the mistakes of the past ever again. The two salvaged pieces of the cars they had crashed into each other shined underneath the display lights, the scratches catching light and making them seem all the deeper. If Lewis looked hard enough, he could feel the horrifying sound of their cars coming together ringing in his ears.
He tears his eyes away and continues walking to the meeting rooms, ignoring the phantom feel of gravel underneath his shoes and the sticky clinging of leather to his palms before he could lose himself again in the memory.
Maybe all he needs is more time.
(Once he walks into the room, Toto tells him the news. Valtteri would be taking the vacant seat for the next season, and the contract was all signed. All they had to do was announce it now.
Lewis ignores the bitter feeling in his chest, the part of him screaming that it was too final. It was irrational, too emotional. A younger, more irrational Lewis would’ve given in to the need to voice that—but he didn’t feel the need to anymore. It was like someone had taken it from him.
Toto gives him a warning, thinly veiled between fake niceties to never repeat what happened. His mind can’t help but remember all the times he’s done this already, thousands of team debriefs over the years that had the very same conclusion. Lewis can’t help but laugh silently at the deja vu that takes hold of him.
Just like all those times before, Lewis reassures Toto that there will be no repeat of whatever happened in the past. It’s the first time he has meant it since 2014.)
Lewis wins in China, taking the record back from Nico.
It felt wrong somehow, to erase a bit of what was left of him in the sport. Everything he seemed to do this season felt off—felt like something was missing and so wrong. He had felt ill throughout the weekend, his gut twisting and yelling at him fix it, fix it god just fix it—but he does not know what there is to fix. It had started in Melbourne and had followed him all the way to Shanghai, and he just couldn’t quite place a finger on what exactly it is There’s nothing wrong with his car, nothing wrong with his body—everything was perfect. And yet his body kept on insisting, kept on feeling empty.
Even when he has his helmet in his hands (a beautiful full yellow, something it hasnt been for three years now), It does not feel enough. It felt lighter now, like some chord that had wound itself so tightly around the helmet piece had been cut off harshly and was now set free—and with the reduced weight, all he can do is try to adjust to the emptiness it leaves behind.
But maybe it shouldn’t really matter now, when he’s got a trophy in his hands and a smile on his face. He raises the trophy to the sky, the cheers and yells of the crowd getting louder and washing over him. The feel of the weight of the trophy in his hands brings a satisfaction that, paired with the leftover race adrenaline, creates a high that nothing else can ever really replicate. And yet, he searches for more. Just like he has all season.
Lewis looks to the bottom steps of the podium instinctively before averting his gaze when it clicks. He reaches for the champagne bottle, ignoring how his heart wrenches when he finally realises he’d been searching for something (or someone, his traitorous brain whispers—) that wasn’t there.
In the quiet of the night with the buzz of alcohol still coating his mind, Lewis wonders when he had stopped referring to Nico by name. To the media, to Toto, and even sometimes to himself—he’s refused to say his name out loud, an embarrassing coil wrapping around his throat whenever he catches himself starting to form out the syllables.
It wasn’t recent—he knew that much. It was a gradual change, Nico slowly turning into this…nameless entity he’d refuse to name. When did that start? When had he started erasing him out of their memories all those years ago? He tried to rack his brain for an explanation, the years blurring together and leaving him with nothing but an ache in his chest he couldn’t quite understand.
He turns in his bed, looking at the empty space next to him. He moves his hand over the expanse, searching for a warmth that should have been there.
“Nico.” He whispers, testing the feel of it on his tongue. There was a time his name had been as familiar as his own on his lips. Yet now, it felt strange. Foreign.
When did that ever happen?
He brushes his hands against the pillow, silently wishing that if he curled his hand in he’d feel soft locks in between his fingers—that if he blinked hard enough he’d see the faint outline of the rise and fall of a boy he’s grown to know so well and love over the years.
Lewis dreams, and he knows it is nothing more than a fool's wish.
Days pass and weeks blend together. Lewis wins the championship, and he traces the grave of his signature next to Nico's with his fingers when he receives the trophy. It does not feel enough.
Another year passes. And then another. He wins and wins again, breaking the records of the greats before him and further cementing himself to be a part of them. Countless podium celebrations pass by in a flurry, all of them done with his complicated feelings neatly tucked away in a corner of his mind.
Lewis has won 7 world titles now—and he’s one last race away before securing his 8th. Still, it does not even begin to feel enough. He constantly feels like he’s missing something important, grasping at nothing when what he needs is far out of reach. No matter how much he tries to rationalize why, his mind can never seem to explain the reason behind it.
(His heart, though—it knows exactly why. It always has.)
When Lewis finally crosses the finish line, the world shatters before him.
He positions his car in parc fermé, staring at the wheel in his hands in silence as his vision slowly tunnels. Bono says something into the radio he doesn’t quite catch, the words not really sinking in. Nothing has quite sunk in just yet.
He gets out of the car and goes through the motions expected of him — feeling disconnected from it all. Lewis is barely there on the podium, his body on autopilot as he watches it helplessly go through the motions of the post-race duties demanded of him.
It’s only till he feels his hand curl around the second? third? drink of the night that he allows it to fully sting. He’s alone—tucked into a hidden corner of the bar far from the prying eyes of the media. Toto had taken him aside earlier and looked in his eyes, trying to tell him how awful everything was, how he was robbed—but all of it didn’t mean much to him, Lewis knew enough of that. Even then, Toto was looking through Lewis’ eyes to look at his own. No matter how much he tries to hide it underneath some nice wrapper, Toto has never been good at hiding his negative emotions. It has always been like this—Lewis’ successes were theirs, but his losses were always solely his.
Even now, here he was nursing another drink to drown out the sting of his fresh wounds while Toto and the team were probably off celebrating constructors somewhere, partying their hearts out and getting blackout drunk without him. Bono had at least tried to accompany him and comfort him, but Lewis had later shooed him away saying he needed some time alone. He had thrown him a worried glance, poorly hidden concern all over his face before he finally relented and let him be.
He downed what was left of his drink, the aftertaste on his tongue nothing but bitter. Nothing stops the strange sense of deja vu kicking in, a reminder of the past seeming to ghost him even now. He silently wishes the sting would go away as he reaches for the half-empty bottle next to him, but then something stops him. A hand wraps around his wrist before he can pour what’s left of the wine into his now-empty cup.
“Lewis.”
He furrows his eyebrows and looks up, a ready-made hollow sentence on his lips to tell this person to politely leave because he wanted some time alone and—
He freezes and the words die on his lips. His hazy mind going into overdrive; trying to make sense of what he sees, reasoning with himself before he could slip up and say,
“Nico?” Lewis says, a hint of disbelief bleeding into his words. Too much of it probably—and too much had always meant war between them.
“We both know you’re going to regret this tomorrow, Lewis.” Nico says, lowering the bottle in his hands as gently as he could. Lewis hates himself for allowing him to do it so easily.
He snatches his hands away from his, a small flash of hurt showing up on Nico’s face before he smooths it down to a neutral, careful gaze. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to—” He pauses, seemingly trying to search for the right words. Lewis finishes it for him.
“To do what exactly? Here to gloat?”
“What? No!” Nico looks at him incredulously, sitting down next to him before Lewis could protest. He hates himself for letting it happen. “It hasn’t been that way for years, Lewis. You know that.”
He can feel his gaze on him, all-knowing of his emotions in a way he wishes Nico wasn’t. Lewis looks at the glass in his hands instead, clinking the ice on the sides of the glass, never returning the gaze. Refusing to.
A hundred unanswered questions rack his mind, but he instead says: “Then why? What are you here for?”
“Is it not obvious? What else would I be doing in this shit bar seated next to you?”
“Well, what would I know? For all I know, you could be here for Sky!” Lewis spits out. He looks up then, finally locking eyes with Nico again. He pretends it doesn't affect him as much. “Is that it? Here to get an exclusive quote from the loser?”
Lewis knows his tongue is loose, he is not drunk enough to not be aware of it. He knows he is antagonizing Nico, but he can’t help it. It might be the only way he knows how to at this moment, scared that if he wasn’t careful something would slip and he’d do something as stupid as maybe fall for his tricks again—
“Verdammt, No! Do you really think I’d do that? I thought you knew better, that you knew me enough to realize—“
He looks pained, with a pinched expression on his face before he looks away. Always hiding, never vulnerable. Lewis snaps.
“I don’t know you, Nico! You can’t expect me to, not when we haven’t talked to each other in years—not when this is the first time you’ve even approached me since you retired! So forgive me for being suspicious, because how else am I supposed to react?”
How else, when it’s all I’ve ever done since we were teammates?
Silence takes over, as awkward and tense as it was the last time. Lewis waits and waits for Nico to answer, maybe with something biting. A reaction. He thinks of shared elevator rides and gravel underneath his feet. Damaged side-pods on display, and unanswered questions wrapped underneath layers of anger. Maybe he will get that answer now, through an ugly sentence meant to hurt.
He anticipates and waits, waits, waits for Nico to snarl at him and curse him out. Instead, Nico sighs. He looks defeated and it looks so, so wrong.
“Lewis, look—I’m sorry. I did not come to fight. What happened earlier, with the race... it wasn't right. That win was yours. Seeing it happen in the box, seeing your face on the podium. I couldn’t just stand and watch.”
Nico goes quiet then, fidgeting with the sleeve of his polo, waiting for him to pick up on the answer tucked underneath careful words. Vulnerable enough to hint at, but never to say in plain words.
I wanted to be there for you. I knew you needed it.
Two things they’ve never let themselves have.
(There was a time then, right? When we allowed ourselves to, back when there were no consequences. When there was nothing but shared hotel rooms, frosties straight out the box, and laughing and dreaming underneath the stars—when needing and wanting was enough for the both of us.)
Lewis can’t help but ask, “But why?” Why do you care?
“I never stopped,” Nico says with a smile barely there. “I was so angry at everything—so in need of that title that I couldn’t do anything but pour my soul into anything that would make me faster, fast enough to beat you. Even then, when I tried to..I never did.”
Lewis looks closer then, searching for something—but he finds nothing. To see him so open like this, so different from the teammate he had five years ago…it reminds him of the Nico he used to have, back when competition had only meant pizza and wrestling. This was a ghost of their past life, long buried alive. And here it was to haunt him, pounding at the walls he’s created for himself, a begging to be let in.
(Kicking, screaming, clawing at the dirt around it for a chance to make it right—please, god, just make it right—)
There is dirt underneath its fingernails, remnants of what it's gone through to be unearthed. He picks at his own, looking for the evidence that he’d helped it come alive. He thinks he chips dried blood.
Lewis pours him a glass and the rest of it into his own. Nico doesn’t stop him this time, taking it as the sign that it was. An invitation to stay. Nico drinks and the silence visits them again, but it takes a different form. It’s not tense or jagged in nature—it’s comforting somehow, somewhat nostalgic with the way it settles over them softly, without the weight of a competition or a title fight hanging over them.
They share more drinks, just like they used to. His heart aches, but he blames it on the alcohol. Time passes and Nico is still here and real and it just does something to him—
He feels the coils around his heart loosen, and he pours his heart out to a man he knows will listen still.
Losing tonight after fighting tooth and nail over the course of the season had felt like an unravelling. It was no secret that Mercedes was struggling, the fabric of knitting the team together starting to fray at the edges ever since Lauda had gone. Paired with the rise of new talent and even newer regulations for next year—the glaring reign the team had carefully built was starting to wane and crumble. He had done everything he could to piece it back together, extracting everything he could from the car for the past few races to quell the growing whispers of the team’s downfall. His downfall. He’d thought it had been enough by then—with one lap to go and a race win so incredibly close that he could envision himself touching it. He was so close, the feeling of leading and anticipating slowly building an excitement at finally, finally getting an unbelievable 8th—but then Max overtakes and his heart drops.
You see, there was one thing he had not taken account of, despite everything this season. Red bull schemed dirty and messy today, and it paid off. His hold on the weakening stitching of the silver arrow’s dominance slips and he feels sick as Max overtakes him, the newer tires having a grip stronger than Lewis’ own. He fights and fights, pushing the car to its limit—refusing to just let this happen, not after everything, god dammit—and he does everything to ignore the feeling of nauseousness that started to build and build as the chequered flag gets closer and closer—
They crown a new world champion, and the old records that Lewis Hamilton had set with the silver arrows had been shattered as they’d done so. The last thread of silver glory that he held onto so tightly this season had snapped and broken, and the great Lewis Hamilton does alongside it.
Nico tries to press the pieces back together, trying to remedy the cracks and caring for him like he used to. Lewis is not whole yet and his efforts are nothing but fruitless, but he tries all the same. It’s the only thing he can do, the only thing he knows.
Somewhere along the lines, Nico had carried him back to his hotel room, taking him to bed and helping him change into more comfortable clothes. But he doesn’t hold him, not like he used to.
A part of Lewis missed this, and he’d be foolish to try and deny it. He feels his eyes close and he welcomes it, a silent prayer on his lips for him to stay. He doesn’t realise that he says it, nor does he see the pain that furrows Nico’s eyebrows together.
Nico apologises and it goes unheard, the man that it's meant for already fast asleep. He lays down on the couch near him, lingering long enough to make sure he’s here if Lewis needs anything. Lewis does not know this, and he tells himself it’s better this way.
When Lewis wakes up in the morning, he wakes up alone.
He tells himself it was a dream, something he had deliriously made up last night—but the pills neatly placed next to a glass of water screams at him for recognition. Telling him it was real, it was real, and you know what you’ve been missing—
He looks away and feels his chest hurt. He blames it on the hangover.
(Lewis texts him a simple thank you, wondering if the number he has saved is still Nico’s. He gets a message back in seconds.
I’m here for you.
He does not know if he believes it yet.)