Chapter Text
For a moment, in the heartbeat of space between asleep and awake, Nigel can't work out where he is.
It's not his bed. Feels all wrong. The sheets are scratchy on his skin; the mattress hard and thin; the pillow full of unfamiliar lumps. He is much too hot besides, much hotter than he likes, as if someone left a window uncovered to spill morning sunlight over him.
And yet. And yet...
It feels like home, his half-asleep brain insists. It smells like home.
Not the home he lives in now, with its beige bricks and neat privet hedge, but some other wilder warmer home; a home he had long ago, maybe, and has forgotten he belonged to.
He hasn't opened his eyes yet, but can feel the morning light on his face, pulling him awake. He tries to fight against it, and sink back into sleep. He's not ready to lose this feeling, this weird familiar home feeling, just yet.
He wriggles into the mattress, in an effort to get more comfortable, shorts bunched awkwardly around his hips, and in doing so realises his body is tangled with something solid, something warm, and it's the thing that feels like home and then it makes a noise, a little soft sigh, and he realises it's a person-
He blinks his eyes open.
It's dawn. Early light is creeping through the windows, settling over an odd scene; a vast ballroom full of sleeping bodies, mismatched pillows and blankets, discarded clothes, shoes and socks and shorts, strewn between bare mattresses. A grand piano glints in the far corner, pink hued in a shaft of sunlight.
It's almost peaceful. Almost, except Nigel is paralyzed, skin crawling from head to foot with rigid embarrassment, as he sees who he lies pressed against.
He's face to face with his teammate, almost nose to nose with Elio de Angelis.
The Italian is still asleep (and thank God for that), but slow shame still burns through Nigel, at them waking up like this. They have almost completely combined themselves; arms and legs interwoven, a hand on a waist, hips slotted together as sure and snug as puzzle pieces.
His first instinct is to pull away, but that would surely wake Elio and Nigel wants to prevent that for as long as possible. He takes a shaking breath, laying as still as he can, and tries to piece together the night before, and whatever could have lead them to this.
He only gets a sense of it, in flashes. The strike. The coach, the hotel, the police banging at the door. Niki and Didier, trying to keep order. Gilles' jokes, and Bruno's drawings. All thirty of them locked in together all day, laughing and bickering and joking and shouting... and then all thirty of them stunned into silence, by the startling grace of Elio's recital at the piano.
The music had been haunting. Beautiful, certainly; slow and soft, but full of melancholy too, and yearning. It was strange to think, as he sat listening in the darkness, that Elio was the person behind it. He'd known Elio just over a year, as a teammate; known him as charming and urbane, funny and sometimes fiery. But Nigel hadn't known he could do this .
The music had inspired an odd feeling inside him. Pride, if he had to name it, though he couldn't really explain why. Pride in having someone so talented as a teammate, maybe.
Their fellow drivers had encouraged the feeling, as they sat listening in a circle behind the piano; he was nudged and patted on his shoulder by those around him almost in congratulations, as if the glow of Elio's music reflected on him too.
Later, long after the performance had ended and they were instead busy scrambling for space to sleep, Elio had appeared beside him with a grin, and to Nigel's surprise the Italian asked if he could share the double mattress Nigel had claimed. There weren't many spaces left, so Elio didn't have much choice, but still, Nigel had felt the same little fizz of pride again. It felt like being back at school; deemed cool enough to sit beside the popular kid.
When the lights went out there had been all sorts of mischief around the ballroom; a trio of René, Didier and Jacques in a laughing embrace on one mattress, Patrick making cheeky comments about Gilles and Alain, and even Niki with a flower between his teeth as Riccardo giggled beside him.
The thought of joining in with it, of making some ribald comment about Elio, or rolling on top of him like the French drivers were doing to each other was unthinkable, for some reason. If it was one of his mates like Derek, or Wattie, he wouldn't think twice, it would just be a laugh, but... not with Elio. He couldn't explain to himself why, what the difference was, and instinct told him not to examine his shyness too closely.
Instead he’d left himself a respectful twelve inch gap to Elio, as they settled down onto the bed. The Italian had wished him goodnight with a small smile, and pulled the sheet over them. Nigel somehow fell asleep, despite every nerve of his body hyper-aware of how close Elio was, to him, and the fact they were sharing a bed.
It's not like that, he told himself. Everyone's sharing beds.
It's not weird.
In the night, however, all polite distance between them has been lost.
He’s still trying not to move, but it’s proving difficult. Elio nuzzles into him, his head coming to rest in the crook of Nigel’s shoulder and Nigel can only remain frozen in place, barely breathing, scared that even the tiniest movement will wake him. The next time he takes a breath he can almost taste the scent of the Italian’s hair, mixed with stale aftershave and a slight tang of clean sweat. It's not totally unpleasant. In fact, the longer it goes on, he realises he’s alarmingly close to being comfortable like this; the solid weight of Elio’s body against him, the scent of him, how warm his skin feels, within Nigel’s arms…
Quite suddenly Elio shifts against him again, murmurs something unintelligible and his eyelids flutter open.
"Uh-"
Before Nigel can even pretend to be asleep, or Elio can do anything but blink in confusion as he realises where he is, Nigel becomes aware of something else. Something that makes the situation… worse.
About fifty fucking thousand times worse.
It's a matter of biology. It's morning, first thing, and he has not long woken up, and that has only ever meant one thing since Nigel was a teenager-
Elio moves against him again and he sees the Italian's eyes widen as he feels… and that's it, that's enough to jar Nigel into action and he recoils away, scrabbling himself free across the mattress, a thrill of shame snaking up from the pit of his stomach.
"It's ok, it's ok." Elio insists after him with a whisper, his voice soft with sleep. "It's normal. Just morning. I, uh... I'm the same." The Italian tries to laugh under his breath, to make light of it, but Nigel is too mortified to join in. He can feel the blush burning across his cheeks and up his neck, as he takes shallow breaths.
He doesn't care if Elio was, too. That doesn't make it any better. All that matters is he… he had a fucking hard-on, and Elio felt it.
He rolls onto his back, so he doesn't have to look anywhere but at the ceiling. He feels the mattress shift, as Elio pushes himself up onto an elbow, and glances around the room. "The rest of them are still asleep, I think."
Thank God for that.
"Do me a favour." Nigel mutters, as he wills his breathing to slow down, wills the blood to drain from his face and... other parts, "Let's pretend this never happened, right?"
"Of course." A delicate blush is forming now too on Elio's cheekbones, pale pink, and pretty. Nigel can see it from the corner of his eye. "Whatever you would like."
"Never happened." Nigel repeats. And, he thinks to himself, it certainly won't happen again.