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8.23pm
There's a dinner a little while after Japan, celebrating the end of the '76 season. James plans on getting spectacularly drunk, of course, and he suspects the same of almost everyone else attending. It's been one of those seasons where everyone who did make it out alive is a little bit shell-shocked over how they managed it. There's a lot to regret and a lot to celebrate.
A lot of excellent reasons for a real apocalypse-averted type piss-up.
He's not expecting Niki will be there at all.
Which is probably why, when he does spot Niki twenty minutes into the evening, he resolutely tips back the last of his Scotch and strides over to the table where Niki's sitting, alone.
He's nursing the same amber Scotch James has already finished three of, rotating the glass between his hands, those thin fingers, and staring at it like he's trying to calculate something unnecessarily complicated, like maybe the exact alcohol to bodyweight ratio.
"Niki," he says, dropping into the seat next to him.
Niki looks up, and nods. He doesn't seem surprised that James is talking to him, but then, he could be having the shock of his bloody life and no one would be any the wiser.
"I didn't expect I'd be seeing you here," says James.
"I didn't plan to come," says Niki.
"What changed your mind?" says James curiously.
Niki twists his glass between his hands again, one complete revolution, and then says, shrugging, "It seemed appropriate. I almost died. Drinks for the living."
"I meant to apologise, by the way," says James. "For not seeing you in hospital."
"Why?" says Niki blankly, looking at him.
"Why?" echoes James. "Because that's what you do when someone you know is in hospital, you heathen Kraut."
"I'm Austrian, asshole," says Niki. "What good would you have been to me there? You are not my wife, you're my rival. You were exactly where I needed you: on the track."
"Alright then," says James, and snatches Niki's half-finished drink from between his hands, swallowing the lot before Niki can do more than open his mouth indignantly.
"Fucking asshole," says Niki when James sets the glass down.
"You said that already, love," says James, standing and heading off in search of some pretty distraction.
9.31pm
"I didn't want to race in Japan." James falls into the seat beside Niki again.
"And yet you did. This is why you are World Champion. I should have raced."
"No," says James. "No, you shouldn't."
"So you could win?"
"So you could live."
Niki shakes his head. "This is what we do. If you cannot face death, you should quit. Become a banker or something. A nobody. If the will to live is greater than the will to win, it's over."
James stares at him.
"You think I'm wrong?" says Niki.
"No," says James. "We shouldn't have raced the Nurburgring."
"No, we shouldn't," says Niki.
"We shouldn't have raced Japan."
"No," says Niki. "But we did, and so I should have." He shrugs. "If I was more stupid, I would be Champion. It's done now."
"You did the right thing," says James.
"I know," says Niki. "I have no regrets."
James frowns. "You do know you make no sense whatsoever."
Niki smirks slightly. "Perhaps it's your intellect that can't keep up."
"Fuck off," says James. He gets it, maybe. The human side versus the racer.
The racer will go out in the driving rain and not give a shit that he'll probably die.
The human will stop and realise that sometimes it's too much. Too much to lose.
That there's more life off the track than on it.
He wonders what that makes him, that he finds his humanity on the track.
Even Niki isn't that fucked up.
"You know why I make my choices," says Niki.
"Twenty per cent risk, yes, that old bollocks," says James, rolling his eyes.
Niki leans forward a little, eyes going bright like they do when he's gearing up for either an argument or a lecture. James wants to punch him a little bit.
"You talk all this shit about living," says Niki, "But you like knowing you might die every time you go out to race."
"Only because it reminds me how much I like being alive," says James.
Niki shakes his head. "It makes you feel alive. That's not the same thing. You like the danger."
"So?" says James. "You do too."
"No," says Niki. "I like knowing what it takes not to die. I like the precision. I like to figure out how to stay on the line between life and death, and not fall off. I will face death, I do every time I drive, but only a certain amount of it. Twenty per-cent risk. Any more and it's stupid, even for a racer. Any less and you should quit. I should have raced because everyone else did, because that's what it took to be Champion. I didn't because I'm not stupid, because it's more than twenty per-cent likely I would have died. I wanted to live more than I wanted to win, and it was over. Not like you."
He tilts his head, eyes flat and assessing on James.
"What are you missing, to make you cheat death just to feel alive? That's very fucked up."
"Fuck you," spits James. "Maybe your reasons are different, but you can't tell me you don't go out there and cheat death every time, and enjoy it as much as I do."
"Of course," says Niki. "But I have my rules. Twenty per-cent risk. If it's greater than that-- "
"You won't race, right, except that you will," says James. "Say it all you want, but you've broken your rule twice now. You're just as fucked-up as I am."
"Once," says Niki after a moment, quietly. "Only once. I learned from my mistakes."
"Fuck you," says James, and gets up to go find another girl.
He hates it when Niki is right.
11.03pm
Sometimes, when he's especially drunk and melancholic, James wants to apologise to Niki. For everything: calling him a cunt the first time they met, playing a pivotal role in popularising the 'Rat' nickname, all the prodding and poking and making fun. For the Nurburgring.
He never does. Part of it is pride-- he's never apologised for himself and he knows it's a steep downward slope from the moment he does-- and partly because Niki doesn't need it.
He can handle it; he doesn't need to be coddled, and it would trivialise their entire relationship besides, trivialise the way they're made to push each other, make each other better.
Niki's always been stronger than he looks: surprisingly wiry, razor-smart, resilient.
He did survive an eight-hundred degree inferno, after all.
Survived it in spectacular fashion, no less, returning to race a palsy six weeks later.
Hell, James suspects Niki even likes the ribbing.
He certainly seems to thrive on it. James knows he does.
So he keeps quiet, keeps those moments of weakness to himself-- and there's another incentive, Niki would give him hell if he tried to apologise again-- and thinks a lot instead about his philosophy on racing, about life and death and how in a lot of ways that's them as well.
James Hunt and Niki Lauda. James almost got Niki killed and then sort-of saved his life.
Niki-- well, James has a lot of messed-up thoughts about Niki.
He's brought James to a lot of his most extreme moments, most of them not even intentionally; the closest he's felt to death and the most alive he's ever been.
Sometimes, too, in those weak, alcohol-steeped moments, he wonders what he'd do without Niki.
He doesn't like the thought at all.
12.17am
"I've been thinking," says James, sliding into the still-empty seat beside Niki. He's starting to think of it as his chair; Niki still hasn't moved. "I do believe you are the longest-- and the most functional, how fucked up is that-- relationship I've ever had."
Niki blinks at him, frowning, and James tilts his head.
"And I don't even get sex out of it," he adds, sighing.
"From all accounts, you get more than enough sex," says Niki dryly.
"Not from you," says James mulishly.
"All those pretty girls, and you want the man who looks like a rat?"
"You don't look like a rat," says James. "You're just disfigured."
Niki shakes his head. "Have another drink, asshole."
"Maybe I will, Rat."
12.46am
"I've never beaten anyone up for a girl." James is drunk, too drunk. He's aware of this, aware he shouldn't be telling Niki about this. It wasn't that kind of gesture. He didn't do it so Niki could find out and-- and react however he'd react. He did it because it was right, and he needed to do something to ease all that anger and guilt and 'it's not fair' and 'not Niki.'
The fierce, helpless pride he didn't really know what to do with, as well.
"You've never beaten anyone up for me either."
"Shows how much you know," mutters James.
Niki stares at him. "Who did you beat up?" he says.
"None of your business," says James.
Niki keeps on staring, a frown creasing his brow, and he leans forward, after a moment, and kisses James on the mouth.
It's a stupid, awful kiss; Niki's lips are dry and chapped, and he doesn't even open his mouth.
James leans in for more immediately.
"If I find out you beat someone up for me," says Niki evenly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "I will beat you."
James snorts. "I'd like to see you try," he says.
Niki narrows his eyes.
1.27am
Niki is drunk. It's almost impossible to tell; he barely looks any different, apart from the slight glassy sheen to his eyes and the dampness of the curls that are finally starting to grow out again. James has been watching him, though, counting each new tumbler of Scotch that makes its way through the incessant rotation of glasses between his hands.
"I have a proposition," says James.
Niki looks at him, expressionless.
"If you suck my prick," says James, "I'll let you fuck me."
Niki's face doesn't change. He spins his glass in his hand, and finishes the last mouthful in tiny, measured, maddening sips. "Okay," he says at last, setting the glass down. "Let's go."
James opens and closes his mouth. "What?" he says.
Niki smirks. "You thought I'd tell you to fuck off?"
It occurs to James that Niki is probably only saying yes because that's exactly what James thought. He hates Niki a little bit. Also not at all, which is precisely the problem.
Sex is sex, though. And sex with Niki is-- he doesn't want to think about that, actually.
1.39am
Niki's mouth is tight and precise on his prick. He keeps one hand wrapped around the base and the other digging into James' hip, those thin fingers, holding him still.
James scrapes his nails through Niki's curls, the shell of his good ear, and says, "Jesus, Niki, anyone would think you did this all the time," and Niki lifts the hand from James' hip to flip him off.
It makes James huff a tight, almost pained laugh. He screws his eyes shut and tips his head back, like he does whenever someone is blowing him, but then thinks better of it, because this isn't someone, it's Niki, and God knows this deserves something special.
Some kind of recognition, maybe, even if it is just James watching as Niki's thin lips slide along his prick to meet the circle of his fingers, then up to suck brutally on the head.
It's good; almost too good.
James generally prefers knowing he won't remember one fuck among all the others.
Of course, he could hardly expect that to be the case this time. Not with Niki.
It makes him shudder harder than he normally would, when Niki uncurls his fingers a little to press his thumb under the head of James' cock. He can feel the callouses, the intensity behind the slick seal of his mouth, all of it definitely male, all of it definitely Niki.
He tugs on Niki's hair in warning when he's close, and Niki doesn't pull off, lets James come in his mouth, but he turns his head to the side and spits, after, climbing to his feet.
"Fucking hell, Niki," says James. He's sprawled out on the bed, can't quite catch his breath, and Niki is standing over him with his mouth swollen slick and his eyes shrewd, focused.
He's hard in his dress pants, and James wants to touch him all over. Wants to see skin.
"Come on," he says, rough, spreading his legs a little wider.
Niki shakes his head. "You're fucking crazy, James Hunt, you know that?"
James rolls his neck, stretching out his torso enticingly. "I have it on good authority that I'm also incredible in bed."
Niki just shrugs and says, "We'll see," and starts to unfasten his trousers.
1.57am
Niki doesn't fuck as perfectly, as precisely as he sucks cock. Or does everything else.
It's one of James' new favourite things about him.
He's jerky, thrusting in unevenly-- James can never quite catch hold of a rhythm. His nails scratch up James' slick skin, stinging and itching. He keeps his mouth closed, jaw clenched.
"You need to relax," says James, lifting his hips to meet Niki's thrusts. "This isn't a r-- oh." He trails off into a grunt when Niki jerks his hips particularly hard. He's decently wide, and it's not exactly painless. "This isn't a race," finishes James through his teeth.
"Arschloch," grits Niki, and tilts his hips, slamming in hard.
James throws his head back and cries out, because fuck, Jesus, that's it.
When his vision clears he sees Niki smirking, just a hint, eyes bright and challenging, the way he always looks before a race or when they're arguing over who's better.
"Fuck you," gasps James. "Keep that up, go on."
Niki's eyes narrow and his thrusts turn more deliberate, more precise now that he's got the angle, now that he's found James' sensitive spot.
It's not unlike the tone of their entire relationship.
Even Niki can't mechanise sex, though, James is glad to discover; soon enough his hips are speeding up in a way he can tell isn't entirely controlled, and he drops his head, maybe because he just can't hold it up anymore, maybe because he doesn't want James to see.
"Fuck," says James, curling a hand around his prick. He's hard again, God, he hasn't gone twice in such a short stretch of time in years. "Fuck, come on, do it."
Niki grunts an inarticulate, not very attractive sound and pushes in hard, and then just stills, shuddering and digging his nails so hard into James' hips they draw blood.
James groans and finishes himself off then too, with Niki's hands still on him. It makes him clench up and twist, which in turn makes Niki hiss and pull out abruptly.
It's a little too much sensation, a little too much vulnerability, the orgasm and the sudden emptiness and Niki, and James lifts his clean hand to rub the stinging sweat out of his eyes.
"Well," he says.
"Don't," says Niki. "Not a word. I don't care what you think."
That makes James roll his head to smirk at him, and Niki roll his eyes.
He stays lying beside James for a while longer, catching his breath, although James can feel the tension creeping back into his body with each passing moment.
He wonders what it takes for Niki to truly relax; what it takes for him to admit he cares.
Not that James is quite arrogant enough to assume that Niki cares about him in any unexpected capacity. He's also not modest enough to think he doesn't care at all, but it's different.
James has learned a lot of things about Niki over the years. That he's arrogant as hell but part of that is because he has to be; stems from no one ever giving his ideas or his worth the time of day. He can't afford to be subtle or modest or anything but brutally honest. That he loves what he does more than he's ever willing to admit. That admitting he cares about anything scares him. That consequently he's learned to not care about things to the point of heartlessness as a defence mechanism, a way of protecting himself because he knows he's not the strongest or the most attractive person out there. It's also why he's so brutally smart.
James knows a lot of this is because of all the people not unlike himself in Niki's life.
It has a lot to do with survival, on and off the track.
James is the way he is for the same reason, but they're different people trying to overcome different things, so it was never going to be truly the same.
He understands, though, becoming this person and rubbing a lot of people the wrong way and learning that you can't apologise for it, that it isn't worth your time or the friends it gets you.
It's probably part of the reason he can never really hate Niki.
"Are we friends or enemies, do you think?" says James to the ceiling.
He's still rather exceptionally drunk, and starting to lull towards sleep besides.
"Both," says Niki firmly. He sits up, then stands, tugging on his trousers.
"Leaving?" says James.
"Of course," says Niki.
James rolls his eyes. "If I were a less assured man, I'd feel jilted," he says.
"But you're not," says Niki. His eyes search James' for a moment, shrewd and assessing as he buttons his shirt, and then he shrugs and says, "Good night."
"Good night," says James, watching Niki leave the room quietly.
He finds himself hoping it isn't as much like goodbye as it suddenly feels.