Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

* * * * *

"Are you fucking daft?" Lando asked as he shoved the chopsticks away.

"We already went over this."

"You are being silly," Carlos snickered in his soft accent, "it is good for you. Come here, try it."

Lando was annoyed. Carlos had made him the same offer weeks ago during a candid video for their media team. It was good fun at the time, but then, as now, even with Carlos' tempting counter-offer of allowing a pass in the next race, Lando had firmly declined. Ever since, Carlos had made it his mission to change Lando's mind about sushi. Every weekend at the track's caterers, every team dinner, and now, apparently, every hotel room service order.

"You know I'm not eating raw fish wrapped in slime. Give off."

To emphasize his point, Lando dramatically bit into a steaming egg roll with one hand and picked up his idle PS5 controller with the other. He exited their FIFA match — which he was pitifully losing anyway — and began scrolling through Hulu dismissively.

Carlos tisked softly beside him, still snickering.

"You, Lando, are too stubborn. It is unbecoming."

Lando's eyebrows shot into his hairline as he turned toward his friend.

"Unbecoming? What's that supposed to mean? I just don't like fish. Should be plainly obvious by this time, mate."

Carlos delicately placed the rejected sushi roll back on his plate and picked up his beer. He looked at it carefully, eyebrows furrowing.

"You are... how you say," he paused, took a swig, then added: "the head of a bull." It was almost a question and it endeared him to Lando, despite himself.

Lando rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the latest Hulu releases, hoping to find something quickly to change the topic.

"Bull-headed," he corrected, "and yes, I am. My mum says it's a defining characteristic. A good one, mind you," he added on impulse, "got me to where I am."

Carlos smiled and returned his beer to the table top.

"And your darling mother is correct. But as I say, it is not good."

He folded his arms behind his head and leaned back, exhaling loudly, "you should be more open to try new things."

Lando rolled his eyes again but allowed the corner of his mouth to curl upward. He enjoyed Carlos, they were very close, a celebrated rarity for racing partners. But it was sometimes when they were alone like this that he felt Carlos... what was the word... babied him? No, that wasn't right. It was something else but Lando couldn't conjure the proper word to describe the feeling.

"Put on the American Horror Story," Carlos suggested, "I like watching the blood and guts."

It came out like “de blud n' goots."

For some reason this made Lando snort with laughter and he spit out a bit of his egg roll. He still wasn't used to some of the quirks of Carlos' accent and it often made him laugh, as much as he didn't mean for it to.

"The what?" He managed through a small cry of laughter.

Carlos wagged a finger at him from his relaxed position.

"I like when you laugh. That is more flattering to you."

Something about the way he said it made Lando pause. Memories of past interviews flooded in where Carlos had often commented on Lando's smile, his hair, his laugh, his eyes. It wasn't a blush that crept over his features now, but more an expression of familiar bewilderment.

Gathering himself, Lando turned back to him with raised eyebrows again.

“Ahh, so I am not entirely hopeless then?”

He cocked his head to the side and gave a large, cheeky grin.

Carlos smiled softly at him, his dark Iberian features emanating warmth and genuine affection. Considering Lando’s question, he closed his eyes and leaned back into his folded arms, crossing a pajama-ed leg over one knee. "No, Lando, you are not hopeless. But," he paused and thought for a moment, "but you are close."

Lando then smacked him over the head with an accent pillow.

"Ay!" Carlos laughed as he ducked an arm to ward off successive blows. "I said close!"

Lando eased up but not before one last half-hearted thwap to his friend's laughing face. He let the pillow fall, then turned back to the television which was obediently playing the next episode of American Horror Story.

"Fuckin' wanker."

* * * * *

"Ok, Lando, just one bite."

Lando shot a long look across the hotel cafeteria table at Carlos with an expression that very much said 'are you fucking serious?'

The spaniard waggled his eyebrows at him playfully but, taking the cue, didn't press him further. He greedily popped the sushi into his own mouth instead.

"You know you are very unusual, Lando. What Englishman doesn't like fish?"

Ignoring this quip, Lando sighed and dragged a hand through his unruly morning mane. It was early that Saturday morning. Practice hadn't gone well for either of them yesterday, and Lando was feeling more anxious by the minute about that day's qualifying. He'd been having difficulty getting full throttle at seemingly every opportunity and nothing he tried was improving his performance. Carlos had spun out on the second turn, causing damage to the car which was loudly protested by the mechanics when he returned at session's end. It was, in Lando's opinion, an abysmal start to the weekend and he didn't know how Carlos maintained any of his trademark cheer.

He said as much and Carlos politely finished chewing before responding.

"Good company means small worries. Or something like that, that's what we say."

Lando smiled a little at his friend’s warmth, but pressed him.

"No really, how are you not bothered at all? You're always so... stoic.”

He forked scrambled eggs around on his plate as he said this, resting his face in his palm with a heaviness that he was sure Carlos would notice.

Carlos shrugged and took a sip from his styrofoam cup which made Lando crinkle his nose — imagining the mixed taste of coffee and sushi made his stomach churn.

"I am seasoned, I guess. You take the good with the bad and it does work out," he smiled gently at Lando's sullen expression, "you will understand, chulo."

Lando frowned further at Carlos' use of his newest pet name. At first Carlos had jokingly refused to tell him what it meant. After severe pestering and prying, Carlos had yielded that it meant ("Eh, something like..") 'cute' and that had sent Lando's blood pressure skyrocketing. Not because it was sarcastic or mean-spirited, that wasn't Carlos' way, but because of the uncomfortable ambiguity of its context. As weird as it made him feel, he never protested its use. He had eventually decided it was just one of those things about being friends with Carlos.

His friendship with Carlos had begun as all good friendships do: with common interests and commoner enemies, but there was a ferocity to it now that it was different from any friendship he had had before. This being his first year in Formula 1, and perhaps being a bit naive, he had originally suspected that it was just the nature of the beast, so to speak. F1 racing is intense, F1 racers are intense, so their friendships must be as well. It wasn’t so different at the lower levels he’d come from. After all, he was still friends with many of his former teammates. However, after observing the other F1 driver pairs, it had become increasingly clear that his genuine friendship with Carlos was unusual.

Then he had thought maybe the cultural differences could be influencing his feelings — with the constant contact, touching, hugs, and general disregard for personal space — but something was telling him that wasn't it either. The physical displays of affection didn't bother him, quite the opposite in fact. He had never had a friend with whom he could could be so openly and unabashedly physical with. When he returned home after spending months on the road with Carlos, the differences in his friendship dynamics there were undeniably different. He wouldn’t dream, for instance, of hanging on his best mate, Loyd, for a hug, or tackling him to the ground and wrestling about after he ruined the perfect bowling game. He certainly couldn’t imagine laying his head on Loyd’s shoulder for a quick rest between meetings and press interviews. And what would Loyd think if Lando leaned into him and touched foreheads while they talked quietly together on the train?

With Carlos, Lando always felt like he was walking a disorienting line that would eventually toss him over one side or the other. What the two sides were exactly, he didn't know, but it was a constant distraction.

"Who eats sushi for breakfast, anyway?" Lando asked, obviously deflecting.

Carlos beamed at the question.

"I do! Of course. Just for you. Eventually, Lando, I will wear you down and you will see the error of your ways."

He said this last bit while twirling his fork in an obnoxious airplane motion and mimicking propeller noises.

"Here comes the airplane, Lando, nrrrrr..."

Lando sighed heavily and leaned back in the chair hard enough for the metal legs to scrape against the floor.

"I dunno what's wrong with me lately," he began firmly, but then hesitated, looking absently around the empty dining room. Ungodly early team meetings be praised.

"I can't get it together."

Carlos leaned toward him on his elbows and his dark, fervid gaze slowly found Lando's.

"You are worried," was all he said.

There was a heavy silence that followed while Lando scrambled to gather his increasingly panicked thoughts. Whenever Carlos looked at (no, that wasn't right: bore into) him like this, it was impossible to string anything articulate together.

"I feel on-edge all the time. I can't, like..." Lando stumbled for words, "I can't focus. At all."

He briefly broke Carlos's gaze then returned to it with impatience in his voice, "especially with you staring at me like that."

The moment the words passed his lips he regretted them but he was just too unbalanced to attempt a save. He knew he was being touchy and he thought he knew why, but he also knew Carlos didn't deserve to be the target of his frustration. Not for this, anyway.

Carlos leaned back, thoughtfully running a palm along his stubbled jaw.

"Lando," he began carefully, "I see in you a very promising driver. Everyone at McLaren thinks you are the new superstar. Why so many troubles? You had one bad practice, so did I, it happens. We get up, we move on to the next day, no?"

Lando's pout lightened but he still couldn't meet his friend's inquiring look, opting to resume playing with his eggs instead.

"I know first years are hard," Carlos continued anyway. "We all have expectations on where we will be, how things will go, what will happen…” he trailed off with a casual wave of the hand.

“We are the victims of our own ambitions sometimes."

He leaned across the table and extended a hand toward him, and when Lando ignored it, he tapped his finger tips encouragingly on the table top. Lando reluctantly reached his hand out to meet his friend's but, try as he might, couldn't restrain the smile that came when the spaniard gently grasped his fingers with his own. His grip was warm and strong.

"Lando," Carlos began softly, his soothing voice washing over Lando like a warm wave. Lando raised his gaze from their grasped fingers to finally meet his friend’s. Carlos's deep, dark eyes were shining. There was a ferocity in his expression that Lando had rarely seen off-track and it unsettled yet comforted him seeing it now. It made his stomach churn again but this time with excitement instead of disgust.

"You will do great things, Lando. Just give it time. Have patience, chulo.”

He squeezed Lando's hand firmly but gently and added, “you have a long way left to go. All will come in good time.”

* * * * *

Lando was struggling. The car just wasn’t cooperating.

“We need to increase pace, Lando.”

He thought about complaining on radio again but opted not to. What good would it do now?

“Yeah, copy.”

He shoved the throttle in and gritted his teeth, fuming at the whine of the car as it refused to surge properly.
They were 21 laps in and he had already dropped three places to P10. Perez had been on his ass the last couple laps and Lando was fighting to keep him there. A quick glance in the mirrors confirmed he really needed to get something going.

“Where is Carlos?”

“Carlos is currently P6 behind Charles.”

Lando glanced in the mirrors again as they approached the turn and quickly maneuvered a better position to keep Perez behind him through it. It worked but barely, he knew he was in trouble on the next straight. The car just wouldn’t go.

“Perez looking to overtake. Defend.”

* * * * *

Lando angrily brushed confetti out of his hair and off his suit as he stalked toward the McLaren garage. Mercedes and Redbull had podiumed to no-one’s surprise and he was eager to get this finish behind him. He had managed to bring the car home but with a very disappointing P12 finish and he needed to get to his room to compose himself before the press interviews.

He politely nodded to the mechanics and returned a few offered fist bumps. He didn’t even look to see if Carlos was back yet, he desperately needed those few minutes of solitude.

He opened the door to his room and closed it quietly behind him. Setting his helmet down on the table, he turned to make his way to the couch and collapsed on it, his face in his hands. It wasn’t the car, he told himself repeatedly, Carlos has the same one. You can always do more. There’s always something you can do. Fuck me, what is wrong with me.

He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face, trying to conjure some kind of explanation for the press and his team but coming up empty. This was the part of racing that wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t fun. It was agony, frankly. He’d been here plenty of times in his young career, but this time was hitting differently. He knew going into today he had been distracted and off-target. He’d tried to make corrections but nothing had worked.

It was times like this that the self-doubt he’d experienced throughout his career came rushing to the surface and there wasn’t much to remedy it except another top finish. It seemed a long way off at this point.

He was beginning to pull himself up to retrieve his phone from his bag when there was a knock at the door.

“Lando?”

It was Carlos.

“Come in.” Lando said sullenly, aborting his intentions to get up.

The door opened and Carlos moved in quietly, shutting the door behind him.

Lando couldn’t look at him. He was so disappointed in himself, disappointed for his team, and especially disappointed for Carlos. A heavy silence followed as Carlos waited by the door. He seemed to be waiting for Lando to launch into a rant or throw a tantrum, or maybe even ask him to leave.

“You deserve better,” was all he could manage, lacking the courage to look up at his teammate.

Carlos hung back near the door for a moment, then retrieved two beers from the fridge beside the couch. He opened them and sat them down on the coffee table in front of Lando without a word. Lando was looking at his hands which were wrung between his knees, thoughts of self-loathing and frustration swirling in his mind. He wasn’t sure what Carlos was getting at but he lacked the emotional energy to inquire much.

“Lando,” Carlos said softly, seating himself on the arm of the couch beside him, “I want you to do something for me. Can you do that?”

Lando kneaded his knuckles but nodded.

“Good. I want you to pick up that beer and smash it on the floor.”

Lando looked up, surprised, to see Carlos looking very seriously down at him, hands folded neatly in his lap. His expression gave nothing away to his intentions.

“What? Why?”

Carlos raised a hand to silence him, “no questions.”

Lando looked back at the sweating beers and picked one up tentatively. As he looked at it, he briefly imagined it was one of those expensive champagne bottles that Mercedes and Redbull were presently waterboarding each other with.

He gripped it and tensed his arm, feeling a surge of anger pulsing upward through his chest. Suddenly though, it passed, and he let go and put it back on the table.

Carlos watched on curiously.

“Lando?”

Lando looked up at him, feeling his face heat up a bit.

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” Carlos inquired gently.

“Because I’m not mad. I’m…” he struggled for words and Carlos waited patiently.

“It was my fault. I can do better. There wasn’t anything wrong with the car, I know I was complaining about it but I just couldn’t…” he struggled for an explanation again.

Carlos looked down at his own hands and paused before offering, “…get your head in it. I know."

Another pause.

"That is my fault.”

Despite his brooding mood, Lando’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline as he rounded on his teammate, wide-eyed. Lando's tired mind spluttered, trying to come up with a suitable response but it failed him. He wasn't sure if it was his rapidly declining emotional state influencing his thoughts, but something about that admission from Carlos evaporated most of the doubts about their friendship that had been clouding his mind for months.

Carlos rubbed his own face with his hands then looked away. For once, Carlos wasn’t pressing him with that intense, searching gaze. He wasn’t stopping Lando’s train of thought or rattling him. This was the first time he could remember having a conversation with Carlos without being the subject of those soulful, dark eyes he had grown so fond of. It unsettled him.

Without thinking, Lando put a hand on Carlos’ padded knee and gazed up at him. He felt Carlos tense under his touch.

What the hell was going on? All of this was so unlike the Carlos he knew.

“What do you mean?” He asked directly.

Direct wasn’t Lando’s usual style but his emotional threshold was well-past spent.

Carlos shifted his weight to the leg that was still standing and stood up, forcing Lando’s hand to slide off his knee. He suddenly grabbed one of the beers and chugged it down in only a few gulps.

Lando stared.

Carlos pulled the empty bottle from his lips, looked at it a moment, then turned and threw it against the wall with such force that the glass shattered outwardly in several directions.

Lando winced instinctively but looked on, completely stunned. He had never seen Carlos like this and it both disturbed and intrigued him.

Carlos wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then turned full-square toward Lando. The intense gaze was back but it was wilder than Lando had ever seen it.

Carlos had always been the picture of composure. He was collected, charming, funny, and playful. Always. Seeing all those traits disappear leaving only this impulsive stranger was unnerving.

Lando took in the state of him with his wind-swept black hair still sweaty from the helmet, his face flushed from the heat of the drive, his suit hanging halfway off in the casual position of post-racing cool down. He noticed the sweat on his white thermal outlining the definition of his torso and arms. Had he noticed these things before?

He couldn't remember but the fact that he was noticing now was enough to produce an anxious lip bite.

“I mean,” Carlos started roughly, then English words seemed to fail him and he spoke softly to himself in spanish, running a hand through his shock of sweaty black hair.

Perhaps out of a lapse in patience more than actual bravery, Lando suddenly stood up and met Carlos squarely in the middle of the small room. He was still a few inches shorter than his teammate, so he had to look up slightly to meet his eyes, which he noticed were filled with something he sensed was pain. Pain? No, that's not right. Can't be right. Really, what is going on. Am I fucking losing it?

“Carlos… look, I really appreciate you coming here to try to make me feel better, but I still have no idea what I’m going to say to Zak or the fucking media, I have no idea what you’re on about, nothing’s your fault I’m just a fucking wank today and—“

Carlos grabbed his face roughly with both hands and Lando stopped mid-sentence. His heart jumped into his mouth and he swallowed roughly. He keenly noticed the space between their bodies closing.

He didn’t know what to expect next. Nothing was making sense, his emotions were completely shot. Carlos had clearly lost his mind, or maybe he had lost his own mind somewhere and none of this was actually happening. Maybe he’d gotten into a crash during the race and this was all some coma-dream.

“Lando… chulo—“ He briskly shook his head, as if defecting a thought. “No— mi amado.”

He breathed so hard that Lando could feel his hands and body shake. He was so close Lando could smell the beer on his breath, the blend of exhaust, motor fumes, sweat, and even a ghost of cologne. Lando suddenly felt his knees go weak and his vision swam.

He couldn’t help it, his body and emotions gave out and he fell against Carlos’ chest, burrying his face into his neck, roughly inhaling the intoxicating aroma that only made him weaker. He felt Carlos’ strong arms catch him, pulling him into an embrace that made Lando sink even lower until Carlos was holding both of them up.

It was such a release.

Between his track failures, his confusing emotions towards his teammate, and his own unyielding self-punishment, this day -— fuck it, the whole weekend — had been absolute hell. This moment was all it had taken to finally break him.

He felt hot breath in his ear and a strong hand caressing the back of his head, the fingers twining into and grasping his hair.

Lando felt tears running down his burning cheeks. He couldn’t help it. He’d never felt such relief, such understanding, such comfort or such…dare he think it?

He heard a hoarse whisper in his ear, “how can you say I deserve better, mi amado…”

He felt his chin being tipped upward until Carlos' beloved features came into focus through his blurred vision.

"There is no better.” He finished resolutely.

Lando wailed softly and frantically reached up to touch Carlos’ face, something he’d never done before.

“I need you, Carlos. I need you.” He shut his eyes tightly and then reopened them with a shuddering breath, hardly knowing what he was saying.

“I didn’t know…I—"

Carlos shushed him gently and held him closer but Lando felt Carlos’ chin pass over the top of his head toward the direction of the door. His embrace was still strong but Lando felt him tense and he peered over Carlos’ shoulder with sudden alarm. The door was mercifully still closed, but for the first time he noticed voices and steps approaching. Instinctively, he jumped out of Carlos’s arms and backed away, stumbling into the fridge and nearly knocking it over.

It was the nearest miss of Lando’s young life.

The cheerful piping of his assistant, Emma, announced it was time to go as she opened the door without knocking.

“Time to go Lando! You’ve got Sky first then—" she stopped in surprise at the sight of Carlos standing in a pile of glass splinters and Lando in the corner looking like he’d just fallen out of the sky.

“Er… what happened in here?” she asked bluntly, clearly unsure of what else to say.

Carlos immediately sprang back into his usual self and smiled graciously at her, laughing dismissively. He ran a hand through his hair in mock exasperation.

“Oh, Lando was a little mad earlier and smashed a bottle. Good beer, too. It is a shame.”

He threw a disapproving look toward Lando and shook his head, returning his twinkling eyes back to Emma, as if to say ‘can you believe this rookie?’

He breezed smoothly past her without another word.

Emma stared after him, blinking rapidly and tapping her pen against the clipboard she was carrying.

Lando, who was finally beginning to compose himself, noticed Carlos' backwards glance as he headed toward the press chute. His true feelings were written in his expression: I need you too.