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The door handle to the hotel room rattles, and Lando, standing at the room’s mirror, turns to it in fear.
“Lando! You have my team jacket instead of your own. We need to swap,” Carlos calls through the door.
Lando turns back to the mirror, wincing. “Okay,” he calls back, “I’ll grab it.” He doesn’t want to face Carlos right now, doesn’t want to face anyone for a little while, but he snatches the jacket off the back of the desk chair and runs to the door, where he opens it a crack and shoves the coat out at Carlos.
He takes it, but before Lando can shut the door in his face, he asks through the crack, “Are you dressed?”
“Yeah. Why?” asks Lando, already itching to turn away. He’s drawn to the mirror again, it’s calling him—he hates to see his own face, but he has a problem and today the compulsion won’t quit.
“Can I come in?” Carlos asks.
“No!” yelps Lando, throwing himself against the door. It bashes Carlos’s foot shoved into the gap, and Lando’s stomach twinges at the rejection he’s enacted. “Bad… hair day,” he offers lamely.
“Your hair is always the same, liar,” Carlos dismisses, voice muffled through the door. “I’m coming in.”
Lando flees before the door swings open.
He ducks into the bathroom and turns the tap on hot, all the way, scalding his hands as he re-wets the soggy facecloth he’s been clutching. Carlos follows him, a frown forming as he watches the increasingly frantic boy scrubbing at his face, eventually collapsing to perch inelegantly on the closed toilet seat.
“I look fuckin—I look disgusting, ” he says, voice cracking and verging on a sob.
“Hey, hey—Lando, look at me,” Carlos says quietly, but firmly. “I am sure you aren’t disgusting.” Lando drags the dripping washcloth from his face, and like tearing a bandaid off the skin, meets Carlos’s gaze.
Lando knows the harsh bathroom light isn’t doing him any favours, but his eyes would be this red-rimmed and his nose this blotchy in any lighting right now. His acne comes and goes, but god, this weekend it has come. His brain has been screaming don’t fucking touch it but his hands are definitely not wired up properly this weekend. It would be more romantic, or dramatic, he supposes, if his face was littered with smallpox spots or some sort of wasting disease rash, but instead he’s standing there like some 14 year old with a dozen painful pimples and no impulse control. His skin is raw and there are a few specks of blood on his facecloth, and he doesn’t know how Carlos can handle looking at him.
“I am disgusting.” It’s cathartic to say so, but his gut still wrenches.
“You’re not, and don’t say things like that about yourself,” Carlos gently scolds. Lando doesn’t look his best—for a twenty year old he’s looking a little haggard, but overwhelmingly just sad right now. Carlos struggles to focus on anything past that fact.
“I’m so sorry,” Lando mutters, “I have to be on stage for the press in ninety minutes and it’s just—” he gestures vaguely at his face— “not working out great for me here.” His gaze drops again.
Carlos doesn’t grimace, nor does he frown, or snicker, or sigh exasperatedly like Lando’s mother always does. He only reaches for the cloth Lando still clutches, wrings it out into the sink, and runs the cold tap over his fingers until it flows cold. Filling a glass with water, he passes it to his teammate, who gratefully clutches it.
“There’s nothing as good as a cold glass of water after a cry,” Carlos notes, now rinsing a clean facecloth and wringing it out. “Here,” he says, folding it neatly. “Lay this across your eyes and you will feel better.”
Lando takes the cool compress, after gulping down the glass of water, and presses it to his face in silence.
A moment later, Carlos speaks. “I don’t want to tell you this is not a big deal, because if you are upset about it then it is clearly important.”
“I really try not to care,” Lando admits, his voice muffled in his hands and the cloth, though Carlos still catches a quaver.
“But then it is really hard in the moments when you do care, no?”
“It’s stupid, isn’t it? I’m not even a teenager now and I’ve had a breakdown about spots; I’m here to drive, not sit around looking cute, but Alex has nice skin and you have the nicest skin and George’s is so clear and Lewis’s face is perfect, and I don’t know how any of them do it, ” Lando almost moans. He knows he’s nearly rambling but he hasn’t said a word on the topic in years, and it’s all coming out now.
“Lewis is vegan,” Carlos almost snorts.
“Oh god, that helps, doesn’t it?”
“Usually cutting out dairy—”
Lando takes the cloth from his face and tosses it in the sink. His skin looks less angry now, but he stands up to look in the mirror and grimaces. “I think I remember that; when I was 16 I googled how to get nice skin and one of the first suggestions was ‘cut out dairy,’ so that was the last time I googled that.” He leans toward the mirror, reaching to touch a particularly painful spot on his temple, but Carlos snatches his hand before he does.
“Don’t touch!”
Lando clenches his fist, Carlos’s hand wrapped around it, and sighs. “Carlos, you’re a freaking skincare brand rep, they put you in magazines because you look so damn good, and I… apparently I’ve been washing my face wrong.”
Carlos nudges Lando to face him, and takes his teammate’s hand in both of his. It’s chilled from the compress so he just holds it for a moment, warming it between his own until Lando loosens his fist. Carlos knows what he wants to say, but isn’t sure how to impart it, so he speaks carefully.
“You are only 20, nobody is expecting perfection. You are most brilliant with your helmet on, and the most cute when it is off.” Lando begins to protest, but Carlos simply shakes his head and squeezes his hand. “I know this and you cannot change my opinion, so don’t try. I am your teammate, and your worst enemy, so if your worst enemy tells you that you are cute, you listen to them and never doubt that everyone else thinks at least that or even better.”
There’s a tear halfway to spilling over Lando’s cheek, but Carlos decides not to address it. “And I know you know about the Shiseido deal—” Lando nods glumly, and the tear falls— “but if we are being honest, I have to admit it upset even me.”
“How, though; you looked perfect in the ads—”
“Oh, does someone have the photos saved?” Carlos asks, raising an eyebrow. Lando bites his lip a little and doesn’t exactly make eye contact. “No, though, that was the problem. Look at my face.”
Lando looks up, studies Carlos’s face. Carlos has pulled him closer, and it takes all Lando’s strength to not look him in the eye, so his gaze travels over the man’s soft— so soft —and warm— I can feel it from here —skin. It looks human. Lando wants to touch it.
“I’ve got pores, right?”
Lando almost laughs, a short, sniffly laugh that he instantly regrets for how gauche it sounded. “You’ve got pores,” he mumbles.
“Shiseido thought maybe I should not have pores, so they took them out of the photos. And I am a grown-ass man, I am here to drive, and still I felt like shit whenever I saw my poreless fake face in them.” Carlos gives him a lopsided smile. “I am, as you might say, not immune to propaganda.”
“They didn’t have to do that,” Lando says, wrinkling his nose. “You look better right here with the pores.”
“Thank you, you are standing very close so I’m sure you can see all of them to be sure of that.”
“I’m sorry,” Lando hastily apologises, taking a step back to bump into the sink cabinet. He flushes. I need another cold cloth.
“No, no, come back,” Carlos asks softly. He releases Lando’s hand only to drape both arms over his shoulders and lock him there, closer than ever. “Don’t worry about the press conference,” Carlos commands, seeking and finally receiving eye contact. “I’ll help you with concealer, I will get you some moisturiser.” He smooths a thumb along Lando’s jawline. “Don’t worry about it, or about anything. You’re not disgusting and you will not say that again. I’m right here, okay?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Lando admits, but this time he’s smiling a little.
“I am right here and I can see your whole face and you are the most cute,” Carlos whispers. He leans forward, and they press their foreheads together like the doomed couple in a drama film at their final reunion before unchangeable forces tear them apart forever. At least, that’s how Lando thinks it looks. He certainly hopes they’re not doomed; they’re not even dating. Yet. Maybe? He hopes there’s a yet.
“Thank you,” Lando says, not truly believing yet that he’s the most cute. He wants to shift a little and kiss Carlos, but he’s not there yet.
But he doesn’t have to worry about that, because Carlos says, very seriously, “The best thing you can do for your face is to love it no matter the conditions. If you can’t love yours right now, just know that I definitely do.”
Lando is wearing a little smile when Carlos kisses his forehead, and he’s not worried at all about wearing his own skin.