Soulmate AU
1.
When Sebastian first meets Nico Rosberg — and his hair more specifically — again after the crash, he nearly pisses his pants laughing.
“I see you have a type, eh?” He asks Lewis. He runs a hand through his own blond hair.
“Tell me,” he starts, leaning forward over Lewis’s left shoulder. Bono is saying something in the seat beside Lewis. Lewis’s face is relaxed and calm.
“Did you jerk off to Michael too? Blond, German, very fast. He’d fit in your collection.”
Lewis’s face doesn’t even flicker. When he asks a question about whatever Bono is saying, his voice is steady and quiet. They could be back in their regular driver briefings. Something in Sebastian’s chest swells up, pushing at his heart and lungs, mean and sour.
“Don’t worry,” he tells Lewis. “We all did. Can’t have you thinking you are special, hmm?”
2.
There are stories — old ones — that one hears over the years.
Stories of those who don’t meet their soulmates properly in life, and so join them in death.
Sebastian used to love stories.
When he opens his eyes after going into the wall too fast and too hard, he is standing beside Lewis Hamilton.
Lewis is talking to Ted, the camera on. His eyes are shadowed and his shoulders are curved slightly inwards.
When he sees Sebastian next to him, he startles, mouth falling open. “I — You.”
“Lewis?” Ted is frowning, concerned. “Are you alright?” He has a hand up as if to tell the cameraman to get ready to stop rolling. Or to zoom in on Lewis’s face. Sebastian isn’t sure.
“Um.” Lewis blinks, swallowing. He glances at Ted and then back at Sebastian.
Never let it be said that Sebastian isn’t ever helpful.
“He can’t see me, I think,” Sebastian says, and then mimes a blowjob with his hand and mouth, tongue in cheek, in front of Ted, who doesn’t stop staring at Lewis.
“Right, yeah,” Lewis says, as shakey as Sebastian has ever heard him. “Um.”
“Funny story,” Sebastian says, furious. He wants his dad. He stays looking into Lewis’s tired shocked face. He thinks if he sees his mom, he will never be able to stop crying “Turns out we are soulmates.”
“Lewis, you okay? Do you need a minute?”
Lewis inhales. Sebastian can see him visibly remember there is a camera on him. When he smiles, it is a thin slight of a thing.
“Sorry, man, what was your question again?”
3.
Lewis gets more curled in on himself as the year goes on, face thin. Quieter too. Him and Nico snap and snap at each other’s heels. Toto nearly has a stroke keeping them from biting.
Sebastian is self aware enough to know that he is not helping. That his commentary — one sided that it is as no one other than Lewis can hear him and Lewis rarely responds, not through words nor expressions — is only making things worse for him.
He can’t bring himself to care.
It drives the cold away a little. That short spark of satisfaction and victory when he pokes and pokes and pokes and Lewis keeps a straight face through it all.
Sometimes, if Lewis breaks, either in a flinch or an aborted eye roll, or god forbid, a laugh, then Sebastian can even make himself pretend that he is still alive.
“I have a question,” Sebastian declares. He is standing over by the window, looking out at the paddock.
Lewis ignores him.
Nico is saying something in response to James Allison. He looks tense. The entire room looks tense. Sebastian rolls his shoulders.
“Did you stop fucking Nico before I died, or do you only not like exhibitionism? I could leave if you want privacy.”
This makes Lewis look at him. It is a quick glance, cutting and sarcastic, eyebrows slightly raised. He somehow manages to look pissed and amused and embarrassed, all at the same time.
Sebastian smiles sunnily at him. It is often exhausting to be around Lewis, especially when he is like this. Lewis might be quiet, packed in tightly, but he spills over most of the time. No one can ever accuse him of being small.
“You are right, I guess,” Sebastian muses thoughtfully. “I would not leave you alone. I would be too bored.”
Nico wins. Nico retires. Lewis disappears home for the break. Sebastian follows his brother around for a few months, chattering at him, even though Fabian doesn’t ever respond. It’s not that different from before if he is being honest.
There is a Lewis light in his chest, always pulling. It’s not that bad of a sore, Sebastian reasons. Only a little achey.
4.
Formula One has started back up again when Sebastian follows the tug back to Lewis.
Lewis doesn’t say anything at Sebastian’s sudden appearance in the garage. His shoulders relax slightly though when Sebastian makes a quick quip about Valtteri’s blond — Seriously, Lewis, Sebastian thinks, half fond — hair.
He looks less like a scrunched up tissue someone used to blow their nose with. Sebastian tells him this. He catches Lewis’s badly smothered eye roll in the sleek reflective black of Mercedes’ desks.
He even makes Lewis laugh, startled, when he asks him if he managed to get laid while Sebastian was gone.
“So,” Niki says, sitting down beside Lewis in his motorhome. Lewis hums, pulling out his earbuds. Sebastian is slumped on the floor, back against the opposite wall. They’re waiting to be called for the post practise debrief.
“So.”
The half grin, all teeth and eyes squishing up, that Lewis sends Niki reminds Sebastian of Formula Three. His fingers itch for a steering wheel.
“Are you going to introduce me to your soulmate anytime before I die?”
Lewis goes very still. Stupidly, damningly, his eyes dart to Sebastian before he looks back at Niki.
Niki raises his eyebrows. He, eerily, manages to look Sebastian directly in the eyes. Sebastian waves. Just in case.
Niki’s expression doesn’t change.
Sebastian’s exhale could be a laugh.
“Well?” Niki nudges. “I am not getting older, you know?”
“Jesus, Nik,” Lewis says, automatically, like it’s rote. “I’ve told you. Stop making those jokes.”
“You’re the one who calls me ‘old man’.”
“It’s a term of endearment!”
Niki stares at him down. For the first time in Sebastian’s life — and death — he watches as Lewis Hamilton gives in.
“I don’t need to introduce you. You already know him.”
“Knew him,” Sebastian corrects. Lewis ignores him.
Niki watches Lewis for a moment longer. Lewis, resolutely, refuses to look away.
“This is ridiculous,” Sebastian informs him.
“Hello, Sebastian,” Niki says, and for the second time in not even five minutes, Sebastian wonders if Niki can see him. He doesn’t bother waving this time but it is a little freaky.
“I hate you,” Lewis tells him, sulkily.
“Yes,” Niki says, patting him on the shoulder. “I know.”
“How did you know?”
Sebastian isn’t sure if Lewis is asking how Niki knew that Lewis had a dead soulmate or how he knew that dead soulmate was Sebastian.
“Hmm, last year, you were weird. Weirder after Sebastian. Not how Nigel was, with Elio, or Michael, with Aryton.” Niki doesn’t take his eyes off of Lewis. His voice and face is softer than Sebastian has ever heard or seen. “Just. Weird. And still too, after Nico left.”
Lewis swallows thickly. “Right.”
“Some of me hoped.” Niki stops. He looks over at where Lewis looked earlier, when he is steadily refusing to look now. “When James died, I looked out for him.”
He shrugs. There is something hanging heavy in his face. “We knew each other too well in life, maybe. Or that was all the time we were given. More than most.”
“Yeah.”
Lewis meets Sebastian’s eyes. Sebastian looks back at him.
“And,” Niki says. He reaches a hand behind them and raps on the wall. “These are a bit thin too. I heard you talking to someone, once or twice.”
“Fuck off,” Lewis laughs. He scrubs an open palm down his face.
Niki reaches over to pat his cheek firmly. “You are sleeping better, this is good. Keep it up.”
“Aye, cap’n,” Lewis says dryly.
5.
Jenson: you cheatying slag
Jenson: i knoiw 4 a FACT that you dont know all the wdcs off by heart
Jenson: usinh seb as your own fuckinh wiki is wrong
Jenson: always knew you were a cheater aty your core. fernando warned me about you LOL
Jenson: also. tell seb hes a nerd
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