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Lando knew something wasn’t right from the second that the door to the briefing room slid open, it was that all too familiar prickly feeling that builds up from the base of his spine, sending goosebumps and a feeling of dread shooting through his body. He’s no stranger to this feeling, anxiety is something that has plagued him for long enough for him to recognise all the possible ways it could manifest, the one thing he isn’t so good at however, is figuring out the cause of it.
A quick mental check brings him no closer to the answer either, he feels calm about the meeting, knows exactly what he wants to say about how the car was performing around turns three and nine. He doesn’t have any other media commitments tonight weighing him down and he feels comfortable and healthy. All things considered Lando is feeling pretty good right now, but yet the anxiety continues to build.
The sound of a chair to his right scraping across the floor drags him out of his thoughts as he turns to greet his teammate, the last to arrive to the meeting, enthusiastic about the distraction the Aussie can offer him.
“Hey- Are you sick?” The Brit asks, pivoting away from his usual greeting the moment he takes in the other man’s green hue and heavy eyes.
If Oscar feels caught off guard with the blunt way that the question is asked he doesn’t show it, or maybe he does, truth be told Lando is doing his best to angle his body away from the other in the small amount of space that they have around the table.
“Just a touch of food poisoning.” The Aussie explains, grimacing as he speaks. “I should be fine to race though, I think the worst is over now.”
Lando regards his younger team mate with a sense of unease, taking care to take only shallow breaths while face to face with the other. At face value Oscar looks much worse than someone who has just a “touch” of anything, His usually pale skin has taken on a greyish green hue, shiny with the tell tale signs of a fever taking a toll on him. He looks exhausted, like he could fall into a deep sleep or just pass out at any moment.
All in all, the Australian may as well be carrying a neon sign flashing in bright blinking red to warn others. CONTAMINATED.
Lando is many things, but oblivious is not one of them… well not when it comes to things like this anyway, he’s spent many a sleepless night counting his own pulse and pressing the back of his hand against his forehead to gauge his temperature while googling his symptoms with a shaky hand and clouded mind. It’s why he’s so sure now that this is not food poisoning at all but a thinly veiled excuse to allow the Australian to be able to race freely all while spreading whatever violent plague he had actually contracted all over Lando’s space.
Fucking selfish if you ask him.
“Are you sure?” He blurts out, unable to keep the scathing tone from his voice.
“Yeah, Kim’s got me on these rehydration packets, I’ll be fine once I get in the car tomorrow, don’t worry.” Oscar smiles a tight lipped barely there smile, obviously mistaking Lando’s scepticism as concern over his team mates well-being.
Lando wants to cry, he is worried, extremely so actually, but not about that; honestly, he could not give a fuck about whether or not his team mate is capable of driving the car right now. All thoughts of the team and racing in general are so far from his mind that they may as well not even be at a race weekend right now.
“I meant are you sure it’s food poisoning.” He clarifies and then immediately cringes. He probably sounds like an asshole right about now.
“Pretty sure yeah.” Oscar nods, but Lando doesn’t miss the way he grimaces at the movement of his own body.
“But not 100%?”He pushes on against his better judgement.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, buried deep in the area that’s forcibly gone offline to make way for the frantic waves of anxiety and emboldened voices in his head he knows that this is wrong. Lando isn’t a neanderthal, on a normal day he is capable of empathy and he knows that this, his cold and calculated battery of questions, is not the appropriate way to respond to a sick person but the Brit’s stupid fucking brain just isn’t capable of reacting logically in these kind of situations.
It doesn’t even matter that this is Oscar. Oscar who is always there for Lando when his thoughts go dark, and everything feels like its on the wrong side of too much. Oscar who is unbelievably supportive and unnecessarily nice to him even when he doesn’t deserve it. Oscar who has definitely probably almost kissed him on more than one occasion now and who Lando is also certain he is slowly falling in love with. But none of that matters once the anxiety of potentially being exposed to a bug sets in, he would throw it all away- everything they were building towards in the blink of an eye if it meant that he could avoid it.
It's a terrible and selfish thought but Lando’s brain is terrible and selfish.
“More or less, why does it matter.” Oscar asks, still completely oblivious to the wars waging themselves in the older man’s head.
It’s better this way, he would rather Oscar just thought he was an insensitive asshole than completely bound by the unrelenting anxiety that someone might throw up around him or worse make him throw up. Oscar doesn’t need to know how pathetic his brain can be.
“Just don’t want whatever you have do I?” He shrugs in an award worthy performance of nonchalance.
“Well, it’s a good thing that eating bad chicken isn’t catching then isn’t it.” The Australian smirks despite his condition and Lando has to physically stop himself from noticeably flinching as his brain begins working on autopilot, mentally cataloguing all of the meals he had eaten recently.
“If you say so.” He replies, voice hollow, scooting his chair a little further away just to be safe.
***
The debrief is absolutely terrible, stretching on for what feels like forever and yet Lando is almost certain that he could not recall a single piece of relevant information even if it was tortured out of him. He spent the whole time with one eye trained on his team mate, analysing every small movement and noise that the other made while the other eye cautiously surveyed the room, attempting to map out the quickest exit route should he need to make an escape.
In the end Oscar had made his own quick exit around ten minutes before the end of the meeting, standing with haste and muttered apologies as he went, looking significantly greener than he had on arrival.
Really this should have been enough to calm the chaos in his brain but just because the other man was no longer contaminating the air directly beside him didn’t mean that the threat was over. If anything, it had only made it worse, so many variables were now in play at the table. At least prior to his team mates hasty exit Lando could live in quiet denial of what symptoms were plaguing his team mate but now there was no denying exactly what they were dealing with here. The added and unwanted knowledge that somewhere nearby his team mate was most likely emptying his guts into a toilet bowl comes barging into his brain like a missile, exploding into fragments of uninvited graphic images and scenarios. The younger man really hadn’t looked well at all, what if he hadn’t made it to a bathroom, what if Lando was about to walk out of the door and into his worst nightmares. There was really no way to know for sure.
His stomach hurt- why did his stomach hurt?
He was never going to speak to Oscar again if the other had passed on a bug to him. – Really budding romance be damned the other can go fuck himself for all Lando cares.
He lingers in the meeting room for much longer than he really has too, bathing in the contaminated air for several suffocating minutes as he watches the others slowly file out of the room, searching for any signs that something unsightly is waiting for him in the corridor.
Once he deems it safe, or as safe as he can be Lando bolts.
***
His drivers room feels safer, with the air purifier shooting refreshing peppermint air into the room. His noise cancelling headphones act like a warm hug, blocking out any noise travelling through the thin walls between their drivers rooms. Lando doesn’t know if Oscar is there or already back at the hotel, but he isn’t willing to take any chances.
He washes his hands three times, sanitizes them once and pops a few antacids before he lets himself settle right there on the floor by the fan and the purifier inhaling mouthfuls of icy peppermint air in between his short breaths.
This is fine, you’re fine, you’ve handled it well.
He takes a deep breath.
Fuck is that a normal amount of saliva to have in your mouth?
Does that taste normal?
Lando exhales shakily, lunging forward to grab another antacid and his water bottle. He cannot be sick right now, this cannot happen, he won’t let it.
His heart is racing, whooshing loudly in his ears as it tries with all his might to beat right out of his chest; he almost wishes it would after all you can’t throw up if you are missing a heart. Sure, that probably sounds dramatic but honestly if the Brit was given the choice between throwing up or certain death, he knows for sure that he wouldn’t hesitate, at least then he would never have to go through this again. He already feels like he’s dying with the way the world is spinning around him dangerously, it wouldn’t feel so different to just finish the job.
Lando shakes his head violently, cringing at how the spinning only gets faster; he can’t think like that, he can’t let the thoughts win, this will pass. These episodes, as frustrating and horrible as they are happen often enough that somewhere deep down in the logical part of his brain, he knows that nothing ever happens not that it does anything to calm the anxiety after all there is a first time for everything.
The Brit hates more than anything that they are in the middle of a race weekend where the beta blockers which his therapist had fought so hard to convince him to try, were completely unavailable to him. Seriously fuck the FIA for prohibiting the one thing that actually helps him, if he dies from a heart attack because of his thumping heart then it’s on them. It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t have access to them at all on a race weekend because right now he might be willing to risk it all- random doping test be damned- for the comfort of that little pink pill.
***
He’s barely moved from that spot by the time Jon comes to find him almost an hour later. The majority of the panic had thankfully subsided but that didn’t mean that he was doing any better, not really. The anxiety of the whole situation still clung to his skin like a wetsuit, thick and heavy. The packet of antacids, considerably emptier than they had been before- sat beside him as he picked absent mindedly at the skin on the edge of his thumb willing himself to focus on any sensation other than the heaviness that had settled into his stomach.
Surely if anything was going to happen it would have happened by now, right? But how can, he be sure.
“I thought I would find you in here. ”His trainer says, voice soft as he takes in the sight in front of him. “ Didn’t feel like heading back to the hotel?”
Lando wants to bristle at the tone of the older man’s voice, Jon has been part of his life for long enough to know more about Lando than he would like which means that he both knows exactly what is running through the Brit’s head right now and also how much he hates to feel pitied for his stupid brain and it’s dumb reactions.
“Do you want to head back together?” Jon asks when he realises that he’s not getting a response from the other man. “You should probably have dinner soon if you want to stay on your weekend schedule.”
“M’not hungry.” Lando mumbles not looking up from where he continues to pick insistently at his thumb.
Oops he’s bleeding a little.
“Maybe something small then, I have options…” His trainer continues, not discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm from the other.
“I said I’m not hungry.” He snaps this time, feeling the tug of mental pressure at the corner of his patience as he whips his head around to meet Jon’s eyes for the first time.
The other man only sighs lightly in response.
“Is this about Oscar?”
The Brit shrugs, refusing to meet his eyes once more as the all too familiar shame and embarrassment come hurtling forward right on time.
God, he hates being like this.
“Lando, I thought we agreed that you would come to me when it got this bad.” Jon says, taking a few more steps into the room.
“I’m fine.”
“Oh yeah?” The older man pushes, nodding towards the antacid wrapper littered on the floor, torn to pieces like shameful confetti around the racing driver. ”How many of those did you eat.”
“Not enough probably.” He shrugs, eyes tracing the remains surrounding him.
It’s almost like he can feel the acid climbing up his esophagus for every second that passes now that he’s aware of the distinct lack of the chalky tablets.
He needs to get more or he’s going to throw up.
“Lando…”Jon warns, almost like he can read the younger man’s mind. “You’re not going to get sick.”
“But-“
“He has food poisoning.” His trainer states calmly, kneeling down in front of him now.
“But-“
“It’s definitely food poisoning.” He says again, voice steady.
“Well, what if-.”
“Were you with him last night?”
“No.” Lando, shakes his head, still in awe after all these years how well his trainer can read him.
“Where were you? “He pushes.
“Playing paddle with max, in the hotel.”
“Then you didn’t eat from the same place as him. “He smiles softly, patting the younger man’s shoulder. ”You aren’t going to get sick.”
At those words the Brit feels the tension leave his body in one fell swoop, his shoulders drop, and his body instantly feels lighter. The anxiety and the worry aren’t gone, not fully, he’s spent too long on edge for them to retreat fully but everything feels much more manageable now.
He's so tired.
“You’re sure?” He asks, voice small.
“Positive.”
“Now let’s get you to the hotel yeah?” His trainer smiles, pulling himself to his feet and offering his hand to pull the other up.
“Yeah okay.”