"Lightning Mcqueen and Chick Hicks to stage 2, please." The woman over the intercoms voice was muffled through the door, but unmistakably asking for them as she parroted the message another two times.
Lightning snorted, pulling back, "Looks like duty calls." He commented at the vague outline of Chicks mullet that he could see in the minimal light.
"Eugh, don't these people know i'm trying to get laid?" Chick grumbled, eyes closed as he pressed another kiss to the corner of Lightning's mouth. His arms were wrapped lazily around lightnings waist, and lightnings were wrapped casually about chicks neck. It was a comfortable, cozy position and both of them found that the desire to separate was lacking.
Lightning snorted, and finally decided to untangle himself, "You wish." He joked, turning around to put his back to chick, "Did you see where we flung my jacket?" He needed the collar to hide the hickeys chick had just sucked onto his neck, plus- it was his jacket! Kinde his signature thing! He had to wear it. He's sure Chick would want his green one for the same reason, which was around here somewhere too.
"Oh come on," Chick whined as he held out the last word, "We can be a little late!"
As cute as he was when he did that, and as much as lightning would love to continue their make-out session, work was work and they had both decided keeping work and personal life separate was the best idea at the moment. They really shouldn't have run off to this little closet to kiss anyway- "Oh yeah, that won't look suspicious at all- both of us walking in late, together?" Lightning groped around in the near blackness for fabric on the floor, "I'm pretty sure that would send the McHicks fans into cardiac arrest."
Giving up on convincing lightning to stay, chick began to search the nearby shelves of the broom closet for his own jacket. It's wouldn't be proper to show up to an interview on Live tv in just his plain white undershirt. "'McHicks?' Is that what they're calling us now a days?" he asked as his fingers brushed familiar fabric.
"Eh, it's better than Chickning." Lightning commented, smiling as he found his own jacket, "Now come on, we gotta get down there. I'm sure The King is already waiting for us."
Zipping up his own jacket, Chick leaned in an kissed lightning one more time on the forehead, "Alright, i'll see you down there." they had a system where they always tried to never show up to the same place at the same time, and it was working so far. Chick slipped out of the closet quietly and took off at a brisk pace to stage 2.
As he passed, he noticed people very obviously and unabashedly staring at him. It wasn't too unusual, being one of the most famous racers on the circuit at the moment, to have people fawn over him and his amazingness. That was normal, but this was bordering on creepy- he'd seen someone almost run into a door because he was distracting them. Yes, he was intimidatingly handsome and awe inspiring, but these people were supposed to be professionals for God's sake. Maybe he had something on his face? Other than his devilishly beautiful good looks.
Walking onto set was a relief- even if he had lettuce stuck in his teeth, these people had the good graces to at least talk about him in secret, behind his back. He spotted his crew chiefs familiar silhouette and made his way over to him, determined that he would tell him if something was up with his face.
"Hey. chief, do I got something on my face?" He barks, walking up behind him.
He was distracted, and jumped at chicks voice, spinning around to face him, "Oh, thank god youre here Chick it's about to start, have you seen-" And once his Chief got a good look at him, the words died on his lips and his mouth dropped open.
Massaging his temples, Chick found his patience wearing thin, "Do i have something on my face or what?"
"No, but-"
"Is my hair messed up?"
"I mean- a little but it looks fine- but that's not-"
"If I look fine," Chick cut him off, " Then what's the big deal?"
"Y'know," His chief said, smiling a smile that didn't exactly promise good things, "You're right. You look fine, why don't you go get fitted for a mic? Timers counting down until the show goes live." And if Chick heard the absolute glee underlying his voice, he didn't mention it as he walked on stage.
A wide-eyed tech was the one to fit him. He heard the sound of people greeting Lightning and decided to play it cool and look the other way. Aloof. The Tech ran off to get Lightning his Mic before he'd barely passed the threshold. They were cutting it close.
The King was the one interviewing them. He'd got a small job as a reporter after he'd retired from racing. You can take the man out of racing but you can't take the racing out of the man, right? Something like that. The older man was dressed sharply in a blue blazer as he walked up on stage, moving to take the chair directly across from where chick and Lightning we supposed to sit on the couch. Once he caught sight of chick, surprise flashed across his face and then settled into knowing mischief. Things had been tense between them (well, tense on Chicks part from some guilt he hadn't wanted to acknowledge) after The King's crash, but that had all been resolved and now they were close to friendship. Or already at friendship. Chick wasn't very good at measuring relationships.
"Oh," Strip said, smiling amiably, "I think this is going to be a fun one."
There was a big commotion- and oh, it looks like the countdown for the show had begun! A swarm of people got into place, and Lightning was shoved on stage to get into position and Chick kept playing it cool- up until lightning actually began to talk to him.
"Oh my- fuck. Shit!" Lightning sighed, and Chick glanced over to see him hiding his face in either tired defeat or embarrassment. It looked a bit like embarrassment because of how his face was turning red. He was so cute.
"What?" Chick frowned, What was the problem? There were going to be live in 10 seconds, so it better get resolved quickly or the were shit outta luck.
Lightning didn't respond, but the King jumped in to explain with this sneaky smile on his face, "Come on now, Chick, use your eyes. What are you wearing right now?"
"We're going live in 5!"
Chick didn't understand what the big deal was, he was wearing his jacket like always. He looked down just to humor him.
"Here we go! 3!"
He almost snapped his neck turning to look at Lightning, who was trying to get his composure before the cameras officially started rolling. It was too late to change now.
"2!"
"Well, shit." Chick said as calmly as he could.
"And we're live!"
The King did his usual introduction as Chick grappled with the fact that he and lightning were on live television, wearing each other jackets. They must have accidentally swapped in the dark of that closet, and now thousands if not millions of people were going to see them. He had the urge to laugh, but decided that was a Bad Idea. Time to just roll with this.
They did the interview like normal, and Chick thought for a moment they were just going to ignore it- The King was only asking them predetermined questions and keeping things somewhat off the topic of why they were wearing each other clothes. The end was coming up fast, and Chick thought the coast was clear- but he forgot one thing. The King always had question pulled, live, from twitter at the end so the show was a bit more interactive. There goes any hope he had of avoiding the subject.
"Our first question comes from Jessica Mohen, and she asks 'Are we just going to ignore the jackets? Care to explain?'" He looks up, expectantly.
Chick really wishes he could have asked Lightning what he wanted to do before these questions rolled in- but now they just had to answer and talk later. Wonderful.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Lightning beat him to it, "I guess it's time to give up the ghost." and he reached over, very obviously, and held Chicks hand. Which he knew was to symbolically show they were dating or whatever, but was weird because they never normally held hands.
"We're dating." Chick confirmed, nodding.
Chick knew the questions from twitter were probably only about their relationship, but Strip had the good manners to only ask the ones about racing after the first one. Chick Appreciated that. Admittedly it felt good, holding his boyfriend's hand in public, and he thought maybe this had been a blessing in disguise.
He glanced over at lightning and watched him talk, feeling affection and love swell up in his chest. This was good.
He was embarrassed to learn later, that his face in that scene became a sort of meme. People kept adding "I wish my boyfriend looked at me the way Chick looks at Lightning."
How silly. No one could ever love anyone as much as he loved Lightning.