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Post Shanghai Strollonso

A/N: I am coping well, in case you couldn’t tell :)

“Fuck!” Lance yells once he’s back in the safety of his drivers room, letting out the expletive with a breath he’s been holding since he first climbed out of the car and was cast familiar looks by staff. Not the pity, or the mildly impressed arch of an eyebrow that had come last year, when he’d had to use all of his willpower to pull himself out of the car with his wrists on fire and tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. But instead it was the usual cool indifference, the barely hidden smirk, the look that told him he should probably just avoid social media for the next few days - prepare for the meeting with his team where statements, and image, and body language were the terms of the day.

“Fuck!”

His race suit is low on his hips, sleeves brushing the floor because he’s too lazy to bother tying them around his waist, but it still feels too hot. Still feels like he can’t breathe. Even with the AC in the room blasting, even with the damp towel he’s got wrapped around his neck. He knows it’s not the heat at all, but he still fights to strip off the fireproof undershirt that’s clinging to his skin anyway.

He pulls at the neck of it, rubs at his Adam’s apple, the soft spot under his jaw, until the buzzing in his ears subsides enough that he can peel the sweat soaked nomex off of him with desperate fingers.

“Fuck!” He yells again, because the shape of the word feels nice on his tongue and the sound of it in the quiet space makes the ache in his chest hurt a little less.

His skin is red, flushed with heat and his own frustration, his fingers leave white flashes of colorless indentions when he presses them to his chest and tries to still the quickening beat of his own heart. Post race adrenaline, he tells himself, even as he knows the truth of it.

‘That weird incident’ comes the journalists voice playing on repeat in his head, along with the whir of the AC and the rapid pace of his own heart.

His front wing going up the ass of Riccardo’s visa-cashapp-Red-Bull-toro-rosso-whatever-the-fuck. Him looking away for one fucking millisecond at the apex and then turning back to find himself sending Daniel into the air.

Idiot.

He’s not sure if he means himself or Daniel anymore, is certain he knows who the internet will be directing the term at. Despite the fact that he’d tried to brake, slammed on the pedal so fast that his body had jerked with force of it. Hadn’t mattered in the end because he’d made contact anyway and that would be enough to cement the barrage of comments he’s sure will be flooding the Aston Martin Instagram any second now. At least there’s dependability in that.

The pressure in his chest isn’t fading, it’s spreading and making a home in the pit of his stomach. He presses a hand to his abdomen, the other to his collarbone, tries to breathe slowly even if it catches in his throat. In through his nose, out through his mouth, choke on the taste of it and start over again.

Sometimes he thinks it would be easier just to let himself vomit, hyperventilate until he’s dry heaving over the toilet, his body seizing with the force of it. Press his forehead to the cool porcelain to maybe ease some of the heat roiling off his body, sit there until someone came to pull him to the debrief and he’s forced to pack it all back away.

But right now he’s not sure if he’d even make it to the bathroom, knows it’s not vomit that would come up anyway, just his own bitter disappointment. He’s not sick, he’s just a screwup. There’s no amount of surgery or PT or encouraging words that are going to fix that.

His breath catches in his throat again. Loud, weak.

“Fuck,” he cries, this time feels the sting of tears that accompanies it.

He presses harder on his collarbone, moves to the soft skin of his neck, digs his fingernails in until there’s the pinprick warning of pain and then collapses down onto the couch behind him with enough force that it forces air back into his lungs. He keeps a hand to his neck, trails his thumb along his carotid.

It helps, gives him something to focus on other than the rattling feeling of his teeth clacking together when he’d hit Daniel.

The knock on his door, when it comes, is almost expected. Quiet, unsure, followed by Fernando saying his name.

“I’m here,” Lance forces out around the lump in his throat, hates how pathetic he sounds.

“Coming in,” Fernando warns before he’s opening the door, sliding through the crack big enough for his lithe frame, and then closing it behind him just as fast. It’s not the first time someone from the team would see him slinking in. Fernando doesn’t care, he only cares that they don’t see Lance. Pathetic and miserable as he must look.

He’s not crying yet, which feels like a plus. But he knows from how Fernando looks at him he must not appear entirely put together either.

“You are okay?” And he means the crash, it is always the first thing he asks, because the one time he didn’t Lance was hiding bruised ribs that were already turning his skin a dark purple.

“Yeah,” Lance breathes, tries to, grimaces when the word comes out strangled by his own incompetence. “It was small.”

Fernando would have seen the footage by now, playing on repeat in the media pen similar to the loop in Lance’s head. He would be able to assess that his inability to breathe properly stemmed not from the pain, but from the noise in his own head.

Lance presses harder at the soft skin of his neck, tries to stop the rising tide of static that is building in his ears so he can focus on the way Fernando sighs his name. He likes how he says his name, likes that it doesn’t come with any sort of expectation, or disappointment.

“Come here,” Fernando commands, grabs Lance’s hand that had been rubbing absentmindedly at his stomach, tracing patterns over bare skin, and pulls until Lance is sitting up on the couch.

“It is okay,” he promises as he inserts himself between Lance’s knees, holds the back of Lance’s head as it slumps forward to rest against Fernando’s abdomen.

Lance swallows, tries, blinks back tears.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. At this point the word has become as familiar to him as the expletives he’s fond of shouting in his empty drivers room. It comes easy in the space between them, hidden in the comfort of Fernando’s embrace. Easier here, where he knows it cannot be used against him, than to the microphones that had been demanding it.

Fernando doesn’t acknowledge the apology, instead he just presses his palm to the nape of Lance’s neck until the warmth of his touch forces Lance to feel something other than his own crushing ineptitude. His fingers are rough, calloused, where they find the soft skin and baby hairs, Lance pushes himself further back against them.

He’s got his arms wrapped around his body, hands tucked under his biceps, one protectively covering the tattoo at his ribs, the raw spot aching with the ghost of a needle and teenage nativity. His stomach still hurts, his chest is still tight. Like he’s got the full effect of g-forces still pressing on him and he can’t quite get the air into his lungs. The tears haven’t fallen yet, but he can feel them beading on his lashes when he tries to blink them away.

“Just breathe,” Fernando demands, thumb finding the hollow spot behind his ear, where his jaw gave way to muscle and vein, and pressing.

Lance stutters in a breath, swallows again, nods his head so Fernando knows he’s listening. That he’s trying.

“It is over.”

Lance wishes that were true, wishes he could close his eyes without seeing Daniel’s rear wheels come off the track. Wishes he could take back his own impulsive radio message because it will be nothing but fuel to the fire. Wishes Daniel would text him back, or hit him, anything to snap him out of this muddled headspace he’s found himself in.

“It’s over, Lance. In the past.”

“I tried to stop,” he hates how small his voice sounds, whiney, strangled. Nothing like Fernando’s and nothing like the usual indifference he shoots for. It makes him feel small. His hands wrap more tightly around his sides, his knees pull closer to his chest as he curls tighter in on himself.

“No, tesoro, come on.”

Fernando follows him, kneels until he can take either side of Lance’s neck in his hands and hold him up enough that Lance has no choice but to meet his steady gaze. There’s grey in his eyebrows, in his beard, age in the lines of his face that make Lance feel even smaller.

“I fucked up,” he cries, and this time the tears do fall, trail down his cheeks until Fernando wipes them away with the pad of his thumb.

“This race, yes. So you go to the next one.”

“I’ll just fuck that up too.”

“Maybe not. Maybe you win.”

The laugh that Lance lets out is stifled only by his own sob.

Fernando’s lips quirk up, “No? You don’t think so?”

“Not unless half the grid gets appendicitis.”

“Or food poisoning,” Fernando says suggestively, light in his eyes, mischief in his smile.

Lance laughs again, feels the rumble of it when Fernando’s hands cradle his neck tighter. But then he thinks about how Daniel has left him on read and the laughter dies in his throat. He thinks of future awkward FaceTime calls with Scotty and a cold shoulder from his sister and something icy twists inside him. His stomach hurts all over again.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles again.

Fernando’s smile shifts to something smaller, “is okay,” he promises before leaning forward to rest his forehead against Lance’s.

Not for the first time, Lance finds himself yearning for Bahrain. Not this year, but last. The way that when he’d come sixth it may as well have been a podium with how the team reacted. How they smiled at him and it felt like the closest he’d come to tasting champagne in a while. How Fernando had praised him and it felt like winning the championship. He never could tell if it was the pain meds or his own euphoria that made everything seem brighter that night. By the time he woke up the next morning his wrists were so sore it felt like he’d snapped them all over again and so Bahrain had become nothing more than a sweet taste at the back of his throat that he would forever remember the aftertaste of but never the full flavor.

“Should break my wrists again, maybe then we’d get a podium” he says, before he can think to keep that inside his own head, knowing it’s the wrong thing to say when Fernando tenses.

“Sorry. Joke. My bad.”

“Not funny.”

Lance isn’t really sure he meant it to be funny at all. Instead, he’s thinking about how easy it would be to replicate the accident. Take Fernando’s stupid little scooter and trip it over a crack in the pavement, let himself fall and land at the same angle. He’s thinking about the singleminded focus that had come with trying to keep his car under his control with pain killers in his system and fire in his veins. How there had been an almost startling clarity to it.

“Could be your hero again,” he teases, even as a small part of him means it, misses Fernando’s praise even if it’s still something he gets freely.

Fernando scowls, “You still are.”

“I wasn’t looking when I hit him. I was looking at the stupid apex.”

“And? You are both okay, yes? So it is over.”

But it isn’t, because Lance has been here countless times before, keeps landing here. In Singapore when he’d split the car in two. In Jeddah when he’d clipped the wall then been asked to bring his lifeless car back to the pit. Narrowly avoided it all in Suzuka. Either the universe has it out for him or theres something wrong with him. Lance is beginning to lean toward the latter, beginning to believe some of the toxic shit he’s managed to catch glimpses of online before the functioning part of his brain has enough sense to close out of Twitter.

Fernando wipes away the fresh wave of tears, but it isn’t enough. Lance is hungry, desperate to rid himself of the ache in his gut and the pain in his chest and the hole in his heart that searches for that last bit of champagne in a bottle that’s run long dry. He’s tired too. Wants it all to end. Wants to sink into Fernando’s arms and be told that he’s doing a good job and for it to not be a lie.

Stupid fucking apex, stupid fucking breaks, stupid fucking safety car.

Fernando pulls him closer and Lance goes, lets himself be guided to the crook of Fernando’s neck and held there while he sobs. Both of them ending up curled up on the floor, Fernando’s fingers trailing a path up and down the notches of his spine.

Fernando twists enough to press a kiss to Lance’s temple and he sobs harder. The softness of it all, kindness from a man who owes him none, makes him sick all over again. He wants to be hit, but Fernando only holds him like he is worth holding and it’s cracking something inside Lance.

Something in him has maybe broken, more than his wrists.

“It will be okay.” Fernando keeps promising.

Lance wants so badly to believe him. He thinks Fernando would keep repeating it until he does. Both of them stubborn, both of them unyielding. Lance fears it will eventually land them both in the wall, fears he’ll be the one to send them there. He hates that he’s old enough to have fears now.

Everything is so much easier when you’re seventeen.

“What do I do?” He cries against Fernando’s neck, the warmth of him, the strong scent of him that Lance has smelled in sheets and pillows and the hoodies he sometimes stretches out to force his way into. Like a panther that’s confused itself with a kitten, or a pampered lapdog the size of a Great Dane. Fernando’s been buying larger sizes out of expectation that Lance will eventually ferret the clothing away from him.

“Right now you just breathe. We deal with the rest later.”

“Danny hasn’t texted me back,” he maybe won’t ever, floor damage and a dnf might have been the final thing to sever whatever feeble string kept them on speaking terms.

Fernando keeps trailing a hand up and down Lance’s back, pauses at the nape of his neck to soothe at the skin there, waits until Lance relaxes marginally before he resumes his slow track back down Lance’s spine. The pattern, repetitive in its nature, is helping.

“Just breathe, Lance. For now, this is all.”

He breathes, it hurts to do so, but he manages. He’s become good at that, managing. His expectations, his emotions, everything but his view of himself and the way that everything he manages comes crumbling down the second he messes up. So maybe he isn’t actually managing at all.

“Lance,” Fernando says, hard-edged when he hears Lance’s breathing stutter again.

“Sorry.”

“No more sorry. No more thinking, yes? Just you and me.”

Lance finds the fabric of Fernando’s undershirt, grabs fistfuls of it so the world can maybe become a little more real, his head a little less floaty. Fernando makes a pleased sound.

“I am here,” Fernando promises.

He feels just as real as Lance’s hands on the wheel had, just as solid as the barrier, as Daniel’s silent, steely, anger. Lance’s grip tightens, keeps tightening until Fernando becomes more real than anything else. Until he can feel the floor of the driver’s room pressing hard against his knees and has enough sense to complain about it.

Until he can breathe and Fernando’s hand at the nape of his neck becomes a grounding point.

Later, in the debrief, he wears Fernando’s hoodie. Aston Martin green and tight on his shoulders. He pulls at the hem of it, breathes in the scent of it, thinks about Miami. He’s told to stay off of socials. And his chest tightens, until Fernando’s hand finds his under the table. A thumb tracing the ridges of his knuckles.

“I’m not the TikTok guy anyway,” he jokes, tries to anyway.

Fernando smiles, “Too old for it?”

“Nah, not cool enough.”

And what he maybe means is never enough. Means that Fernando is good at pleasing a crowd, drawing an audience, doing all the things Lance just can’t seem to get right. But Fernando knows that, which is why he squeezes Lance’s hand tighter- why he doesn’t let go.

“I think you are.”

Lance supposes that’s enough.

#it’s not even 8am AND IM CRYING LIKE MY EYES ARE THE NIAGARA FALLS HERE #god this makes everything feel better i love you so much

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