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It’s weird feeling nothing. After a race, Lance would usually feel his wrists throb or feel fatigue sink down to his bones but right now, he feels nothing. He doesn’t feel the flaring pain in his wrists, he doesn’t feel the fatigue swimming through his veins and he doesn’t feel a single ache in his body despite the crash.
The crash. Lance might throw himself off a cliff if he keeps seeing clips of the crash. Actually, he might shoot himself in the middle of the paddock if the media keeps asking him about it. He can already imagine it. The loud gunshot causing everyone to freeze then the first scream pushing everyone to run away. He can feel the warm blood dripping down the side of his head and his heart slowly stopping its rhythm.
A hand lands on Lance’s shoulder and he doesn’t even flinch, just turns to look at who it is. It’s Fernando. Fernando who finished the race in P3, Fernando who is much more better than Lance, much more loved than Lance could ever be and it’s Fernando whose looking at Lance with worried eyes, as if Lance would shatter within the next few seconds.
It’s sweet to have someone look at you like that but with everything that’s going on, Fernando probably wants Lance to not be a fuck-up for once in his life. He steps around the couch and stands in front of Lance. A million thoughts pass through Lance yet he can’t fully grasp one. They don’t stop when Fernando cups his cheek but they do settle down, muttering out their grievances instead of shouting them like before. Lance melts into Fernando’s touch before he could stop himself.
“You alright, Lancito?” Fernando asks, voice softer than Lance deserves. He’s always been like this, caring and soft and gentle in a way that makes Lance’s stomach churn. Rough hands, hands that have hurt people, cradle him like a diamond, precious in a way that is overlooked. A diamond. Lance was never a diamond. He was the pebble kids kicked when they were forced outside. He was the remote people threw when the channel wouldn’t switch. He was the extra coins he would drop on the sidewalk just because he couldn’t be bothered to carry them.
He was never precious but Fernando ‘teammate killer’ Alonso would treat him like he was. Everyone has a limit though. Everyone can pretend until the wrong breath ticks them off and Lance has done way more than breathe wrong. He was ruined everything for Fernando, crashed car after car and trashed Aston Martin’s reputation in a way that historians in the future will still talk about.
Lance mumbles out something, inaudible to his own ears and hopes Fernando would grimace and move on. Move on and leave, Lance thinks, move on and stop forcing yourself to care. Fernando doesn’t move on. He stays. Hand still cradling Lance’s cheek and eyes still worried, it would make Lance sick if he had the willpower. He’s just tired. Not the type of tired after a race, the adrenaline fading away painfully slow but the type of tired where every blink and breath needs to be done manually.
Sleep wouldn’t fix it, as much as he wished and prayed, sleep would just be a bandage for this never-ending leaking wound. Arms wrap around Lance and hold him. Not squeezing or swaying, just holding. Fernando leaves with a sad whisper and a kiss on Lance’s forehead. It was nice, cute even. Fernando’s cologne lingers and it makes Lance’s head want to explode. It’s usually a calming scent for him, floral and musky in a way that fits Fernando, but now it’s making Lance wish he was dead.
What if Lance quit F1? No one would really care, maybe Esteban and Fernando but they’ll realise that Lance was just a pest and that they’ll be better without him. Fans and the media would celebrate though. It doesn’t hurt Lance anymore to see people hate him. It hurt when he was in Williams, crying into Checo’s shoulder about things he’s seen people say but Lance has gotten older, he’s seen worse things and he realises that they aren’t wrong in their hate. He wants to have at least one more podium before he leaves, just to spit in the face of his haters.
What would he do if he left F1? He could go play tennis or surf or snowboard. He could also be a playboy and go sleep around the country, really live up to the things people say about him. Maybe he’ll just disappear from the public and live in the Canadian mountains with animals and chop up firewood and grow his own garden.
He forces himself to get up from the couch and sinks into the hotel bed. A bed is supposed to be comfortable but the sheets are just making Lance’s skin crawl, screaming to get away from the coarse material. If this is the best F1 can do for their drivers, he really should leave. Lance digs his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling. TikTok, Instagram, X (with hesitation and grimaces, Grok really did become a Nazi) and real estate sites. A cabin in the Canadian mountains should be attainable for a millionaire.
Lance starts actually thinking about it. If he’s in the mountains, taking care of animals would be tough because of the cold but he doesn’t want to be anywhere that’s too sunny. Maybe just some dogs then, he can’t even take care of most farm animals anyway. Huskies are cute but too loud. Maybe a Newfoundland dog? They’re big and built for the snow. Lance thinks again, maybe a bit too big. Samoyed could work but they’re a bit hard to train. Lance runs through the rest of the dogs he could think of and ultimately writes them off his animal list. He runs through every other animal he could think off and also writes them off. Looks like he’ll be alone in his cabin then.
He’ll find a place very far from any town, a cabin right in the middle of nowhere. He’ll make his own greenhouse and garden and never go out unless life-threatening necessary. That would be a good life, he thinks as sleep catches up to him.
Lance wakes up in the morning and he doesn’t want to die.