Lifeline (Sebastian Vettel)

Chapter 14: The Morning After

Seb stirred at the sound of people talking out in the hotel hallway. Their voices slowly faded as his senses kicked in and he opened his eyes. He found himself laying on his side on the couch in the lounge room.

Oh.

4am came flooding back to him, explaining why he was there and why Tully was curled up against his chest with her head tucked under his chin. Fuck, shit.

His mind kicked into sixth gear as he began to process the situation. He could feel one of her arms draped over his waist but, for fear of moving a single inch and disturbing her, he couldn't tell where the other one was. Her soft, warm breathing filtered through the cotton of his t-shirt. In the otherwise icy air of the hotel room, her body was incredibly warm against his. Just fucking calm down, nothing happened, this isn't that bad.

He noticed he'd been holding his breath for some time and exhaled slowly, closing his eyes again. As the initial surprise subsided, he realised that something about this felt incredibly right.

He lifted his free arm that had been awkwardly balanced on his side, daring to reach over Tully before burying his hand in her veil of blonde hair. She sighed faintly in her sleep and nestled into him even closer. For someone who appeared so outwardly independent and fearless, god damn was she cuddly beneath it all.

For the next 3 and a half minutes, everything felt serenely peaceful. Seb couldn't remember the last time anyone had slept next to him like that. It must have been literally years by now. Hayley preferred her space and often called it 'suffocating' when he held her like that. After 7 years, the novelty had simply worn off. He didn't realise how much he'd missed the feeling until now.

And then the 3 and a half minutes of serenity were up.

A tentative wave of anxiety flowed through him as he felt Tully stir in his arms. She stretched, subsequently squeezing herself against him extra tightly before relaxing her muscles again. Her consciousness was quick to follow as she suddenly went very rigid. Seb pretended to be asleep and waited for her reaction.

"Jesus fucking christ." she exclaimed, ripping herself out of his arms and scrambling backwards. She immediately tumbled off the edge of the couch on to the floor, taking the blanket with her.

Seb's brow shot up and he snickered to himself before leaning forward and peering over the edge, "Morning?"

Her panicked, sky blue eyes stared back up at him, wide with horror at what she'd found herself doing. For the first time, Tully seemed to be out of words.

"You're taking blanket-hogging to a whole new level." Seb said casually, reaching down and tugging on the soft fleece tangled around her body.

"I..." she began, really not getting far with stringing a sentence together.

"Don't worry, Heikki and I do this all the time." Seb joked, reaching his hand out to her.

Tully smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Now there's a mental image I didn't need."

She glanced at his hand and seemed to contemplate it for a second. Seb wiggled his fingers, "Come on. I'm fucking freezing. Can you have your internal crisis back up here, please?"

Tully glared at him half-heartedly before reluctantly taking his hand and letting him pull her back up. She sat on the edge of the couch and immediately felt bad as she saw a shudder ripple through his body. The temperature in the room couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 degrees Celsius.

With a sigh, she de-tangled the blanket from around her shoulders and fanned it out over him before laying on her back in the safely-distanced position she'd intended to stay in last night.