Any Word I’ll Take and Turn It
Title: Any Word I’ll Take and Turn It
Series: None (one-shot)
Rating: R
Warnings: Some possibly dubious consent
Characters: Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton
Pairing: Nico Rosberg/Lewis Hamilton
Disclaimer: Lies; title from Franz Ferdinand's Swallow, Smile
Word count: 1395
Notes: Written for 31_days' prompt for today (August 30), at night, magic felt like it might be a terrible thing. Content note: contains no magic whatsoever, just angst.
Summary: Nico intends to make a point. It's all downhill from there.
Link to AO3
( Fake cut, i.e. actually takes you to the entry )
Nico regrets it immediately when it’s over. Lewis turns away as soon as he can, unfinished, staring blankly at the far wall. A moment, Nico watches him. Lewis is a tense line on the bed, his body rigid with shame and guilt. A moment, then Nico can no longer stand it.
He lets himself fall back and aims his gaze at the ceiling. At the edge of his vision to the right he still sees Lewis, out of focus and closed down but not out of reach. He supposes he should leave. (He knows he never should have come here in the first place.)
He hadn’t meant for things to go quite like this-or so he had let himself believe at least-but ultimately that makes no difference. It was only supposed to be a bit of fun, as well as a none-too-subtle reminder to Lewis that no matter what, Nico still had that (that power) over him. And it worked, at that, but not in the way he meant.
Nico won’t, can’t in good conscience, deny that he wanted to claw some advantage back from Lewis. Lewis, who looked through him as if he weren’t there, who had made himself utterly inaccessible to him, who had mentally written him out of world championship contention months ago and now paid lip service to his challenge but only when asked, who had been trying to put Nico behind him this whole time and was coming too close to that goal for Nico’s comfort.
And the thing was that he could lose to Lewis. Not gladly, mind, or necessarily well, and never-despite what anyone said-without a fight, but he could handle that. Always, eventually, he could deal with it. But to lose Lewis? No, that he couldn’t do.
So, what Nico had wanted was to pointedly re-establish himself in Lewis’ life, and he’d succeeded. Another point well made, he thinks bitterly. He honestly doesn’t know what it is about Lewis that makes him unable to hold off on his stupid instincts, that makes him go headfirst into avenues of action he knows he’ll regret the nearest rational moment later.
But it’s always only after the fact that Nico realises his obvious mistakes, when the damage has been done and there’s nothing anymore to be done about it.
Like now. Although in hindsight he isn’t even sure if he’d ever thought this was a good idea. He wishes he would think these things through before he committed to going through with them. But it had been easy enough to convince himself of the merits of his so-called plan, especially at first.
Lewis had let him in and they’d managed a surprisingly amicable conversation (this fulfilled step one of the plan, do net get thrown out of his room as soon as I open my mouth-which, yes, had happened, and more than once, at that), at least until Nico had crowded Lewis up against the wall and kissed him and said something that might under ordinary circumstances even have been romantic (step two, make my move), and then Lewis had melted against him as broken needy little sounds spilled from his lips and Nico had said that he could have Lewis do anything, couldn’t he, and Lewis had agreed breathlessly while Nico nipped at his neck, very consciously and deliberately above the neckline, yeah, he thought so, good, good, good (the beginning of step three, question-mark-question-mark-question-mark; a clear warning sign, that, looking back).
Nico had laid Lewis out on the bed and undressed them both, and everything might not have turned out to be a complete and total disaster if he had just managed to keep his fucking mouth shut or if he’d been left as speechless by Lewis as Lewis was by him. (Lewis had clung with one hand to the bedding and with the other to Nico and had been reduced to one-word phrases, all Nico and please and moaned interjections. (As if this was a fleeting moment too good to be true and too volatile to last. And he’d been right.) If Nico didn’t know better, he’d have thought Lewis was too lost in this to have heard, let alone to have been able to understand, all his uselessly true, pointlessly cruel nonsense.) I missed this, he’d thought, and said instead things which were as true but all wrong and twisted and that implied something entirely different altogether still.
Lewis had held on to his hair until his arm couldn’t stretch further, then he’d had to let go and it had fallen and bounced on the mattress bonelessly, as Nico had pulled away in search of lube and condoms. It had taken a while to find: he’d rummaged around in Lewis’ nightstand but the stuff wasn’t to be found there, then when Lewis had come back to himself enough to communicate, eventually, that it was under the bed, he’d had to hunt around for it hanging off the bed upside down. Nico had returned triumphant and prepared him swiftly but methodically; the hand that Lewis had had in his hair had scrabbled for purchase, found it on his knee and held on tightly enough that he could feel the bite of nails despite their length.
Nico had pushed in. He’d done so leisurely, gradually, not out of any consideration for Lewis, who could take it and was ready to, now wholly past the ability to speak and reduced to breathy desperate vocalisation, but to savour the moment for himself. He, on the other hand, had been unable to stop talking, the words spilling forth like a tide, uncontrolled and unstoppable.
And, oh, the things Nico had said. Look at you, how desperate you are, desperate for me, what would they think if they saw you now, would they like it? I can do this to you anytime I want, can’t I, what if I do it Sunday morning, leave you hot and hard and useless, I could, couldn’t I, anytime at all, now I might, and then where would you be. Hmm, if this right here is your only weakness, if I am your only weakness, don’t you think it’s not something I could exploit, not when you have it so bad for me it would be this easy, no, not when it is so, so tempting, to have you like this, to see you like this, to have you all to myself like this. All true, in a way, in many ways, but not in those that mattered and not, never, a match for the things he had thought, meant, been unable to say.
Look at you, you’re so beautiful, do you even know what the sight of you does to me, I wish I could share this, how you are like this. I miss you, and this, so much, why can’t we do this all the time, forever. You know I love you, right, I love you too.
Nico had come, hard, glorious and effortless. Lewis hadn’t. No, Lewis turned away from him as soon as Nico pulled out, as soon as he was able, ashamed of himself for his desire and guilty for having given in to it. Nico feels sick.
He knows there’s nothing else he can do to make up for this but leave. He makes himself stand, hunts for his clothes and is glad, selfishly for himself but mostly for Lewis, that they’ve landed on this side of the bed and the room and he doesn’t have to go round to the other side to where Lewis would see him. He puts them back on in a fraction of the time they came off in. He studiously avoids looking at Lewis until he’s fully dressed again.
Lewis still hasn’t moved.
Nico hastily looks away again. He thinks he should say something to counteract all the other things he’s said. But there’s nothing he can think of that’s not at least in part a lie, or a meaningless platitude. I didn’t mean it, he considers, it was a mistake. He’s said those, tried that, and as statements they’ve already been found wanting. I didn’t know what else to do. He says nothing.
At the door, Nico hesitates. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says from the doorway, worthlessly. He leaves and the door shuts behind him as if in answer.