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Carlos knows it’s been a shitty weekend. He knows that Monaco is never easy, for anyone.
He knew that in McLaren, and he now knows it in Ferrari.
Monaco is hard.
Carlos knows personally how tolling the weekend in Monaco can be, but it’s a surprise to him when his phone lights up with a call late Sunday night. It’s close enough to be early Monday morning, he thinks, sparing a brief glance to the clock.
Lando’s name, profile picture, and phone number have made themselves at home on his phone screen, and he stares uselessly at the device for a moment.
The fact that Lando is calling him so late is cause enough for concern.
Then again, Carlos is up, too, so he doesn’t have much room to talk.
A jolt of anxiety—or maybe nausea—is enough to have Carlos clicking on the green phone icon, lifting the device up to his ear.
“Lando?” He asks, his gaze flickering out to the balcony of his hotel room, watching all the sparkling lights of the marina and the yachts.
Lando doesn’t say anything at first, but Carlos can hear him breathing. Or rather, the lack thereof. His breathing is choppy and minute. Carlos thinks he can hear whimpering replacing it.
“Lando.” Carlos’ voice is firmer now, trying to hide the fear that’s coursing through his veins.
This could be ten different things. It could be a panic attack. It could be a sudden onset illness that could have come about mere hours after Lando and Carlos had seen each other last. It could be a mental breakdown.
Carlos couldn’t blame him if it was the last one.
“Lando, please say something,” Carlos says. He’s standing now, having pushed himself up off his bed without even realizing it.
Carlos listens carefully to the other side of the phone call. The lack of breathing has him spiraling. The whimpering, too.
“Landito, I am going to come to McLaren’s hotel if you do not say anything.” Carlos starts for the door, kneeling down to put his shoes on before he makes his way out. He tucks his phone against his ear, bringing his shoulder up to keep it snug in place as he ties his laces. Lando’s whimpering has become louder, almost like he’s in pain. When Carlos stands up, he feels for his wallet in his pocket, where a McLaren and a Ferrari hotel keycard sit snugly in the same inlet.
The sounds tug at Carlos’ heartstrings.
He remembers a time where almost every weekend he’d hear those sounds. The two of them, tucked away in McLaren hospitality, huddled up in a king-sized bed as tremors and panic worked its way through Lando’s body. He remembers the planes of Lando’s body that he used to hold on to, trying his hardest to bring the panic and the pain to an end. He remembers the way Lando’s body would eventually come to a standstill, the way that Lando would melt into his arms. He remembers the way they used to fall asleep together, pressed together so tightly that Carlos didn’t know where he ended and Lando began.
He misses those days.
“Lando?” Carlos throws one more piece of bait out, his hand resting on the doorknob.
“C-Carlos.”
And the sound of Lando’s voice has Carlos halting in all his movements.
Lando’s voice is quiet. It almost sounds like his teeth are chattering. His voice is unsure and afraid.
Carlos’ heart thuds in his ears, almost too loud to hear Lando’s quiet words. His body is frozen, glued to where he stands in the doorway. His eyes are wide, staring at the white metal of the door in front of him. His mouth is dry, like he’s suddenly been transported to the middle of the Sahara Desert.
“Carlos,” Lando’s voice comes again. Carlos can hear now that he’s crying.
“Landito,” he whispers, inhaling deeply as he forces himself back into his head.
A whine comes from the other side of the line.
“I d-did something b-bad, Carlos.”
Carlos’ heart falls, wrenching the door open roughly. He barely pays attention as it slams shut on his sprint down the hallway.
“What do you mean, cariño?” Carlos asks, his thoughts running a mile a minute as he descends down the stairwell. It’s a slip of his tongue really. He hasn’t referred to Lando like that in what feels like ages. The last memory he can recall of it was his last night with McLaren.
That night had been rough. Carlos remembers that much. He remembers holding Lando until the younger had exhausted himself with his tears. He remembers rocking Lando back and forth just to try to get him to stop shaking. It had been futile wishing. If Carlos thinks hard enough, he can still hear the way Lando had cried that night. It’s something he never wants to relive.
Though, he supposes the call right now is infinitely worse.
Carlos listens to Lando’s choppy breathing as he rushes through the hotel lobby.
“Mi querido, what did you do?” Carlos asks once he’s made it outside the hotel.
“I just wanted it to stop,” Lando whispers, causing Carlos’ heart to fall all over again. Lando sounds so scared, so unsure of himself as he talks. Carlos takes in a big gulp of air, willing his lungs to expand so he can keep Lando awake.
“Wanted what to stop, amor? ”
“E-everything,” Lando whispers. Carlos’ feet are quick as he makes his way down the sidewalks of Monaco. He is forever grateful that the walk from Ferrari’s hospitality to McLaren’s isn’t a far walk. “Can you tell me more, amor?”
Lando pulls in a breath, one that sounds akin to a shit muffler. It makes a shiver zip down Carlos’ spine.
“I just did…I did…So shit t-today. And, and my team…” There’s a stretch of silence. For a moment, Carlos thinks that the worst has happened.
“Baby,” he whispers, desperately. The tears that he’d been keeping at bay finally start to leak as he turns the final corner to McLaren’s hotel.
The more Lando keeps talking, the more Carlos is piecing together what’s going on. The thoughts that consume him terrify him.
“They were so…so mean and I-I just…I wanted to make them p-proud. Zak w-was so m-mean to me…Why was he so m-mean, Carlos?”
And the downright anguish in Lando’s voice makes Carlos want to break down in tears.
“I don’t know, baby. I’m sorry that they were so mean…But I’m right around the corner, okay? Can you stay awake for me, please? I promise you I’m walking through the hotel doors right now.”
And he is. He wishes he could just fly up to Lando’s room or something.
“I’m s-so tired, Carlos.”
Lando’s teeth chattering is getting louder as Carlos heads for the stairwell. The implication of Lando’s words causes more tears to fall from Carlos’ eyes. The lobby of McLaren hospitality is dead. There’s no one in the open space, and for that, Carlos is grateful. He walks quickly, borderline running, to the stairwell. Once he’s hidden in the stairwell, he ascends over the concrete steps like a bat out of hell.
He can’t afford the elevator right now.
“I know you are, baby. I know. But I really need you to stay awake, alright?”
Carlos hopes to God that his voice isn’t all-consumed with fear and panic. He hopes that Lando can’t hear it, if it is.
On the other side of the line, Lando’s breathing has slowed. The whimpering has reduced. Carlos feels like he might break down completely.
“Lando?” He asks, feet flying fast over the concrete stairs beneath him. “Lando, please.”
“Carlos…‘m cold.”
And that is what finally breaks Carlos.
“Fuck baby. I know. I just need you to hang on, though, okay? I’m almost there, I promise.”
Carlos breaks out of the staircase frantically when he reaches the third floor of the hotel. He’s being entirely too loud as he thunders down the hallway, reaching for his wallet as he goes. Carlos can’t really find it in him to care about how loud he’s being, though. Lando is in pain, he’s suffering, and Carlos needs to get to him.
Stopping outside of Lando’s room sends a rush of nostalgia through him.
Carlos is so glad that Zak never changes their hotel or their rooms. It’s situations like these that he really appreciates that.
He fumbles the keycard out of his wallet, pressing it up to the sensor at the doorknob.
“I’m here, Landito,” Carlos says, wrenching the door open quickly.
A whine comes from down the line, but Carlos can hear it from within the room, too.
It breaks his defenses completely.
Carlos hangs up, as much as it pains him. He pockets his phone and heads for the bathroom door. His heart rate echoes in his ears, and the pounding is starting to encompass his entire head.
Carlos doesn’t even bother with checking the main part of the hotel room, knowing Lando well enough that he would keep himself in the smallest part of whatever space he encompasses.
The bathroom doorknob just jiggles when Carlos tries to open it.
“Lando?” He calls, trying with more vigor to open up the door.
There’s no answer from the other side of the door.
Carlos curses, angling his body to the side and jiving his shoulder into the wood of the door.
“Lando!” Carlos yells, sending his shoulder into the door a couple more times.
On the fourth try, it gives way.
And what Carlos finds in the bathroom breaks down every single defense he had built up on his trip from Ferrari’s hotel to McLaren’s.
Lando is sprawled out in the bathtub, his clothes still on, but Carlos can’t see what he’s wearing on the lower half of his body due to the red tinge of the water.
“Lando,” Carlos whispers, his voice losing all the fierceness it held when he was trying to get into the bathroom.
He can feel the coolness of the room starting to take over his body. He can feel the ice seeping into his skin.
For a moment, he just stands there, in total shock.
“Oh, Lando, no…No, no, no.”
Carlos’ body kickstarts, and the next time he blinks, he’s kneeling next to Lando in the tub. Lando looks at him sluggishly, his head lolling to the side first, his eyes following shortly after.
Carlos had spent the entire run from his hotel preparing for something, anything, really. But he couldn’t have prepared himself for this.
“Cariño, what did you do?” Carlos breathes out, reaching out to steady Lando’s head with his hands.
When Carlos looks in Lando’s eyes, there’s not much left in there anymore.
“Baby, please, please stay with me, okay? I’m gonna…I will be right back, okay?”
There’s no answer to Carlos’ rambling, but the Spaniard can’t find it in himself to care all that much. He stands, looking around the room in desperation. A glint of metal catching light leads him to find a bloodied razor sitting on the floor next to the tub. There’s splatters of blood leading down the white linoleum, and it causes bile to rise in his throat. Carlos rushes around the bathroom, then, on a mission to find as many towels as he can. He gets five towels from the linen closet just outside the door, racing back into the bathroom just as fast as he left.
Carlos works methodically as he sits back down on the side of the tub. Lando’s eyes are still open, though when they open back up from a blink, the skin is sluggish to lift all the way.
When Carlos reaches into the water to pull Lando’s arms out, the first bout of bile rises in his throat. He wrestles it down, focusing on getting Lando’s arms wrapped.
The cuts on Lando’s arms are jagged. Uneven, shaky, and deep. When Lando’s arms surface from the water, the cuts look much worse than they are. The water dripping off of Lando’s skin causes the blood to run quicker.
Carlos cleans away blood until the crème color of the towels has been stained to a deep red.
Once Carlos has wrapped the towels tight around Lando’s forearms, he fumbles to get his phone out of his pocket. The phone call between him and 112 is brief. He somehow gets his composure together enough to tell the dispatcher where they are and what had happened. All the while, Carlos pulls the drain on the tub, letting the blood-tinged water recede from the basin.
“Alright, baby,” Carlos starts, reaching out to tighten the towels. “The paramedics will be here soon, yes? Can you talk with me?”
Lando just blinks at him. The light in his eyes has diminished so much in the short time that Carlos has been here.
Lando slowly opens his mouth, and the inhale that comes from him terrifies Carlos. The sound isn’t a healthy one. It rattles in his chest, a cough rips from his chest like a ripple effect. The cough produces a splatter of blood that lands on Lando’s chin.
The sight of it makes Carlos’ heart fall to his stomach, but he refuses to show his fear on his face.
Instead, he smiles at Lando, wavering and not even at all, but he still tries his best.
“I love you so much, you know that? I know I have not said it a lot lately, but I do. I love you so much, Lando. Every day you deserve to hear that.” Carlos takes a deep breath, darting his gaze from Lando’s face to his arms.
The blood hasn’t made it to the surface towel, but Carlos thinks it’s only a matter of time; if the blood splatters on Lando’s chin are anything to go by.
“I am so proud of you, too. So, so proud. You make me proud every time you get in that godforsaken McLaren.” A mirthless laugh escapes from Carlos’ lips, but it dies pretty soon as it escapes his mouth as Lando’s hand worms into his own. Carlos looks up with red-tinged eyes, finding Lando’s watery blue looking at him.
“I…I love you……too.” Lando’s breathing is reedy and whiny, but Carlos just nods, resting his forehead against Lando’s hand.
It’s quiet for a couple of minutes. The only sounds are Lando’s shrill breathing and Carlos’ sniffles.
Then,
“A-am I dying, Carlos?”
Vehemently, Carlos shakes his head.
“No, cariño, you are not dying. You are going to be okay. The paramedics are going to take you to the hospital and they are going to stitch you up. You will be good as new.” His voice is firm. Like there’s no room for argument.
Lando nods.
“But you just need to stay away for them, okay?”
“For you, too,” Lando whispers.
Carlos ducks his head, letting the tears fall freely.
“Yeah, baby. For me, too,” Carlos agrees, his voice clogged with tears.
“I’m gonna stay awake,” Lando whispers, looking at Carlos with half-lidded eyes. The sight has Carlos biting his bottom lip to keep a sob in. The tears still flow healthily from his eyes, though. There’s not much energy left in his voice anymore. And Carlos knows what that means. “I know you will, baby,” Carlos says, reaching out to smooth out Lando’s hair.
Carlos knows that Lando’s words are futile, no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it.
There’s no more words to say after that, or none that Carlos can find, anyway. So they wait in silence, just staring at each other as the light seeps from Lando’s body. Carlos is quick to check the towels and even goes as far to check Lando’s pulse point on his neck. While it’s not strong like normal, Carlos can appreciate that it’s still slightly steady.
When a knock comes at the door some ten minutes later, Lando’s eyes have slipped shut. Carlos had let them slide without protest, just watching, keeping a steady two fingers against Lando’s pulse point. Carlos doesn’t move when the knock comes, just sits next to Lando. He lets the paramedics rip the door from its hinges. McLaren can pay for it. Zak can pay for it.
At the thought of his ex-team principal, Carlos’ rage fires up. It spreads through his body as paramedics flood into Lando’s hotel bathroom. They surround the two of them, and Carlos lets the apathy take over him as the paramedics lead him out of the room.
***
The ride to the hospital is rough.
Carlos sits on the bench in the back of the ambulance, watching as two of the paramedics work on Lando. They don’t dare take off the towels that Carlos had wrapped, leaving them for the surgeons and the doctors to deal with. They hook Lando up to a heart monitor and keep him on an oxygen mask, trying to keep him as comfortable as possible until they get to the hospital.
Lando’s eyes flutter every so often, but for the majority of the ride, his eyes remain shut.
Carlos doesn’t speak much to the paramedics. They ask him questions, like if Lando is on medication or if he has any allergies. He gives them head shakes or nods as answers. Nothing, not even their questions can break his concentration on Lando’s face.
Then the first flat-line comes.
It’s abrupt, really. In the grand scheme of things, it’s one of the most out-of-the-blue things. It happens when Lando is stable, aside from his still-bleeding arms. His blood pressure tanks, and then his heart-rate follows; and it sends both of the sitting paramedics back to their feet. They work quickly, speaking to each other urgently as Carlos watches on helplessly.
As they work, Carlos does something he hasn’t done in a very long time. He prays. He closes his eyes and lets his hands come together close to his mouth, his pointer fingers making contact with his bottom lip. The words of hymns and prayers that have almost been forgotten, but are well remembered from his childhood work their way across his lips.
He prays for Lando and he prays for himself and he prays for the two of them together.
Carlos doesn’t know how long he blocks out the prolonged beep, but he peeks his eyes open when the consistent beeps come back.
The paramedics are looking at him with sorrow and pity, Carlos can see it out of the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t look at them, though. He looks at Lando.
Lando, who’s skin is deathly pale.
Carlos bites back a scream. He bites down on his knuckles, finally allowing himself to look up at the paramedics.
Their eyes say what words cannot.
And Carlos lets himself fall.
***
Sitting in the waiting room of the hospital at three in the morning is not something that Carlos had planned at the beginning of the night. His bottom is sore in the plastic chair he’s called home for the past two hours.
Lando was whisked away once they made it to the hospital, and Carlos hasn’t seen him since.
Now, Carlos sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a deserted waiting room. The only people he’s seen are nurses and doctors, but even then, they’ve been slim in their attendance. His phone feels like it’s burning a hole in the pocket of his sweatpants. The sweatpants that are stained with blood. When Carlos looks down, he finds that his shirt is bloodied too. The worst of it, though, is his hands. The stain on his skin makes his stomach coil in nausea. Lando’s blood. His hands are shaking, he realizes, the shock finally rolling through his body.
No matter how much he wants to, he can’t get himself to stand up and find a bathroom. He wishes he had clean clothes. He wishes he could burn the clothing on his body.
The nurses he had seen had been giving him sad looks. He gets why now.
Carlos moves on autopilot, reaching for his phone. He scrolls through his contacts before landing on one that hasn’t been dusted off in quite some time. He presses call, and he prays to a God that he doesn’t really believe in anymore that she’ll pick up the phone.
It’s two in the morning in England, but he’s got a feeling that she’ll be up.
It only takes two rings.
“Carlos?”
Cisca’s voice is panicked and full of fret. Carlos knows that Lando texted her. Just hearing her say his name like that is enough to send more tears falling down his cheeks.
“Is my boy okay?” The more she talks, the more Carlos can hear the waterlogged-ness of her voice. “I’ve been calling him but he won’t pick up the phone, and now, now you’re calling me…Something happened, didn’t it?”
Carlos doesn’t even know where to begin.
“I…” He says, mentally kicking himself as that seems to trigger Cisca again.
“Carlos, please tell me what happened to my boy!”
Carlos takes a deep breath, rubbing his forehead with his index finger and thumb. His body starts to sag with the exhaustion that has taken so long to catch up with him.
He tries to get himself back into his head. Cisca deserves that much.
“He…He called me, and it was around midnight. I knew something was wrong because he would not speak. I kept calling out to him but he…he just wouldn’t.” Carlos finds a panel of the linoleum flooring to keep his gaze at. Just to keep him from breaking down. “I went to McLaren’s hotel and I…” His voice starts to crumble, quivering as he continues to recount the night.
“I found him in the tub. He was awake and coherent when I wrapped his arms. I went with him in the ambulance.” Carlos’ voice has a clipped tone to it now. He leaves out the bad parts, especially the I watched your son’s heart stop. I prayed for the first time in years to a God I do not believe in because your son’s heart stopped.
Carlos can’t bring himself to bring that amount of pain to the already grieving mother.
Cisca is crying down the phone, and Carlos can’t do anything but listen to her cries. He doesn’t know or have the words to bring her any comfort. He supposes he doesn’t know how to bring himself comfort either.
The Spaniard isn’t sure about how much time he spends on the phone with Lando’s mother, not bothering to check the little stopwatch at the top of his screen when he eventually hangs up the call. In some messed up way, Carlos thinks he misses the phone call, because without Cisca’s crying, he’s left to his own devices in the desolate waiting room.
He does little things to pass the time. He tosses his phone back and forth between his hands, he picks at the corner of his screen protector that has started to curl up from his phone. He debates on calling other drivers; Daniel, Max, Oscar, Charles…Carlos just doesn’t want to feel so alone here. But he knows better. He knows that it’s early enough in the morning that no one has gotten up for a morning run or workout.
He knows his attempts would be futile.
That doesn’t stop him from scrolling until he finds Daniel’s number, though.
The ringing tone in his ear makes Carlos wince, tired eyes finding the familiar panel of linoleum once more. On the fourth ring, Carlos starts to lose hope, picking at the threads of his sweatpants.
Miraculously, though, the line clicks, and Daniel’s voice is in his head.
“Carlos?” And it is so evident that he’s just woken up, probably sprawled out on his bed in Red Bull hospitality. Carlos would usually be able to find that image in his head funny, but he’s not feeling much of anything currently.
At first, Carlos doesn’t say anything to Daniel. He lets himself dissociate, staring intently at the panel of linoleum. The only thing reminding him about Daniel’s presence on the other side of the line is his voice and the fact that his phone is warm against his ear.
“Carlos, you there, mate?” Daniel’s voice is sleepy as he continues to talk. Carlos doesn’t know how he hasn’t fallen back asleep or lost his patience with him, but he’s grateful regardless. He sucks in a breath, feeling slightly wheezy as he does.
“I’m…here.”
A happy noise comes from the other side of the line, and it dissolves some of Carlos’ apathy. He even smiles a little bit.
“What’s going on, mate? It’s not even five—”
“Lando tried to kill himself.”
That shuts Daniel up.
The sound of rustling sheets and muffled curses meet Carlos’ ears next.
“What?!”
Carlos nods, forgetting that Daniel can’t see him for a brief moment. “Yeah…This morning. He called me and I just…I found him, Daniel. It was so bad, I couldn’t tell his mom that, though.”
“Fuck, Carlos. Where are you?” Daniel asks, and Carlos can hear him stumbling around. “The hospital…I have not seen him since we got here, and I cannot remember anything anymore.” Carlos’ rambling is all over the place and he can’t seem to get himself to stop. He really wishes someone was here with him.
“Okay, Carlos, I need you to take a deep breath, okay? I’m on my way right now, Max and I will be there soon, I promise.”
Daniel and Max, Carlos thinks gratefully.
Their phone call ends with rushed goodbyes and then silence takes over Carlos’ world all over again.
***
Carlos doesn’t get to see Lando again until six o’clock on Monday morning.
He’d spent the early hours of the morning in the waiting room with Max and Daniel. They’d taken turns falling asleep and staying awake just in case some nurse had come to fetch Carlos. No one came.
Now, with the early morning sun spilling into the waiting room, Carlos tries to orient himself with an unbearable crick in his neck. Daniel and Max are curled up on one chair together, and the sight has Carlos softening. It’s easy to forget where they are for a moment with a sight like that. When Daniel wakes up a moment later, Carlos watches as he gazes down at Max with a smile so soft that Carlos can feel the love from where he is.
Daniel shoots him a smile when they meet gazes, sending him a sleepy wave.
The hospital seems to come alive once Max wakes up. Daniel and Max make their way down to the cafeteria in search of food, promising Carlos to bring him back some. While Carlos appreciates the gesture, he’s not sure if he can stomach food at the moment. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them that, though.
Carlos takes comfort in the alone time he gets. It’s better now, as patients, doctors, visitors, and nurses start to populate more and more of the hospital. The space doesn’t feel as desolate and suffocating as it did just hours prior.
Daniel and Max return when a nice looking nurse comes into the room. They speak with a soft French accent, calling out Carlos’ name patiently.
Carlos stands on legs that are akin to a baby fawn, walking unsteadily towards where Max and Daniel are hovering near the nurse. The nurse gives all three of them a warm smile, and Carlos can only hope that means good things about Lando.
“Bonjour, my name is Olivier, the nurse on Mister Norris’ case. Mister Sainz is listed as the emergency contact for Lando…” The nurse makes brief eye contact with Carlos again before looking back down at their tablet.
“Is he okay?”
It’s Max that asks this.
Carlos looks at him, sees the way the younger Dutch is worrying his fingernails between his teeth. He remembers when Max used to do that when they were teammates, back in Toro Rosso. He remembers Max doing that whenever his father decided to grace the paddock with his presence, and back then, that used to be a lot. Carlos remembers seeing Max’s cuticles bleeding and the remnants of ripped-off hangnails.
Olivier smiles softly at Max, and Carlos thinks that the periwinkle of their scrubs contrasts nicely to the color of their hair.
“Lando is okay, oui. He lost a lot of blood, though…” Olivier’s eyes shift from Carlos’ eyes to his clothing, which is a striking reminder that Carlos is still covered in blood. He shifts uncomfortably under the gaze of the nurse. “I will send someone to get you a change of clothes, but you can follow me. We will talk more in the privacy of Lando’s room.”
The group of drivers follow the nurse through the hospital, walking silently until they stop in front of a door. Carlos eyes the little plastic color-coded signs above the door. The green and red/white are out. Carlos knows what green means, but he can’t help but ask what the second one means. Olivier gives him a steady look before answering.
“It is for our patients who are under suicide watch.”
And, well. That makes sense.
Carlos nods steely, forcing himself to look back at the nurse.
Olivier talks slowly, making sure that they have the attention of all three of them. They tell the group that Lando had to be given blood transfusion because of how much blood he’d lost, and they tell them that there’s about thirty stitches in each arm.
Carlos lets himself go numb as Olivier keeps talking. He doesn’t really want to feel his feelings as he hears more and more about what happened in the hours that he’d been separated from Lando.
When Olivier lets them go into Lando’s room, Carlos tries to prepare himself. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, so he lets himself start to catastrophize a little bit.
In the room, Lando is laying back in his bed. His skin has more flourish to it, more liveliness to it. It’s a sharp contrast to what Carlos remembers Lando looking like just mere hours ago, and he’s incredibly grateful for the newfound flush. Lando’s eyes are shut, but Carlos doesn't mind all that much. The consistent beeping of the heart monitor next to Lando is enough for Carlos to breathe evenly in the room.
Carlos takes a seat next to Lando, being mindful of the bandages that have been wrapped around his lover’s arms.
Daniel and Max sit on the couch on the other side of the bed, both looking at Lando with sad eyes. Carlos doesn’t let himself look at them for too long; he knows he’d break down if he looks at them for much longer. Instead, he lets his eyes roll over Lando’s body. He takes inventory. The splatter of freckles on the Brit’s face, the ones that litter along his neck, too.
The bandages on Lando’s arms bring some fucked up form of comfort. To know that Lando isn’t bleeding anymore, isn’t wounded and left out in the open, brings an immense amount of peace to Carlos’ mind.
A nurse—not Olivier—interrupts the peace a few minutes later. She brings in a fresh set of clothes, pointedly avoiding Carlos’ bloodied own before scampering from the room. Carlos doesn’t think much of it, just glances at his two friends before heading into the bathroom attached to Lando’s room. Carlos feels better once he’s stripped himself out of the clothes he’d been in for hours. They fall to the floor in an unceremonious lump, and Carlos kinda just stares at them. The splotches of blood bring back roaring reminders of what had happened just mere hours ago.
Eventually, he breaks himself out of his dissociation, unraveling the t-shirt and sweats he’d been given. He puts the clothes on quickly, eager to get back to Lando.
When he re-enters Lando’s room, he finds the Brit coming into consciousness. He’s quick to slide back into his seat, leaning forward as Lando blinks deliriously.
Blue meets brown, and everything feels alright again.
Carlos smiles, reaching out hesitantly for Lando’s hand. His touch is gentle as he tries his hardest not to move Lando too much. He doesn’t want to risk pulling a stitch, or anything like that.
“Hi, cariño,” Carlos whispers, grinning through his tears.
Even though he’s swaddled up in blankets and bandages, and even though he’s looking tired beyond comparison, Lando still smiles at him.
And Carlos knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself when he flips over Lando’s forearm, gently of course. He can’t help it when he presses two fingers to the skin near the junction of Lando’s wrist and hand.
And he can’t help it when the tears fall when he feels Lando’s pulse. Strong and healthy.
Carlos kisses Lando, then, with his two fingers keeping a constant pressure against his pulse point. He nearly breaks into tears all over again when he feels Lando smile against his lips.
And here in this hospital room, Lando is alive and Carlos can feel his pulse and it is healthy and it is strong, and the beeping from Lando’s heart monitor is consistent.
Here, Carlos can let himself love Lando with no worry in his body.