Daniel asks him if he ever thinks about what life will be like once this is all said and done. He asks Lando if he ever contemplates what it will be like after he moves on, leaving the trackside and the cockpit forever. Lando tells him no. Only after those questions does he ever think about it.
Only on AO3. Any and all kudos, comments & shared thoughts will be loved and treasured, as always. <3
If you can a little comfort fic for Lando with Daniel after being sick + the DNF? ☹️
you asked, so i shall deliver <3 just a lil unedited drabble :-)
These things happen in racing. Lando is all-too aware of that. Not every race is going to be clean, or easy, or—quite frankly—fun. If anything, he's been lucky that his recent streak was as enjoyable as it was.
It was bound to come to an end eventually.
Perhaps everything is made worse by the fact that he's ill. He's twice as sore and twice as upset as he'd usually be over something like this, which, to be fair, is a testament to how truly dreadful he feels right now. Lando knows he can get catty and unpleasant, but right now—
Fuck, he feels like he could tear all of his hair out. And then pass out for eternity. He hasn’t been able to talk properly for a fucking week and his head feels like it’s threatening to split open. Not even the obscene amount of meds Jon had forced him to load up on prior to the race had been enough to dampen his symptoms completely.
It’s pathetic. He’s pathetic. Maybe Max is a bit pathetic too. An apology isn’t that fucking hard.
With a groan lodged in the back of his throat, Lando flops down on to the hotel room bed. His body is too achy to even remotely appreciate how much more comfortable it is than the ones he usually winds up in. He should’ve asked for a deeper massage. Maybe his back wouldn’t feel so tight.
Daniel's pottering about with his shoes at the room threshold, wrapped head to toe in clothes that definitely aren't from his side of the wardrobe. Lando isn't sure when he waltzed on through the front door; Daniel isn't stealthy by any means, but Lando isn't quite... present. It's fine.
Slowly sitting himself up against the headboard, Lando smiles. "Hi,” he says, barely a soft mumble. He rubs at his tired eyes with clammy palms. “Congrats."
"Naw, thanks," Daniel coos, a little teasing. Apparently having organised his shoes they way he wants, he saunters on over to the bedside. "So kind. What do you need?"
It's—sweet. Daniel asking what he needs is sweet. He always asks. Lando's heart still kicks into gear every time.
"Just—" His voice breaks around a half-cough, half-sigh. "Be gentle?"
"'Course." Pressing the back of his palm to Lando's forehead, Daniel's mouth shapes into a grimace. "You're a bit warm."
Lando tries not to frown too deeply. He's scared if he does, it'll only serve to worsen his headache. "Am I?"
"Mm." Humming, Daniel turns to rummage through the bedside table drawer. His fingers, whorls of ink shifting in the low lamplight, remerge with a little silver sleeve in their grasp. "Here, c''mon, take these and 'll sort out dinner. We can watch some stupid telly, too."
God, he's so—everything, maybe. All Land can manage is a brittle, "Okay."
Daniel's moving again, and Lando is briefly awash in baseless fear that he's leaving. All he's doing is moving to the other—his—side of the bed. Fucking hell, Lando needs to... He doesn't know.
"Any requests?"
For Daniel to hurry up and get in bed already, really, because Lando's uncomfortably aware of how his body keeps on flushing with relentless heat and how the blankets are clinging to him in all the wrong spots. But that's not what Daniel's asking.
"Um, no," he says, clearing his throat. A soft haze has begun to swell in the corners of his brain. "You—you can decide."
"Alright, baby." Doing that infuriating waggle thing with his eyebrows, Daniel grins. "A metric tonne of Austria's finest chicken schnitzel comin' right up."
Lando wrinkles his nose. He has a feeling it isn’t as exasperated as he wants it to be. "You're so weird."
"I got a tractor into the points,” Daniel says, already tapping away on his phone. “I think I deserve the extra schnitzels."
Lando doesn’t mention the fact that they’ve got approximately ten packets of three chicken schnitzels in the freezer at home. He’s far too fond of the shimmer in Daniel’s eyes to do that.
"You always do,” he says instead, which—well. If his cheeks are burning, that’s his own business.
"You're cute," Daniel tells him, like it's the simplest thing in the world. "Gonna cuddle you to death in a minute."
Oh, Lando’s heart hurts. "I'll get you sick,” he whispers, a small thing. He doesn’t want to say it. He wants Daniel’s arms around him, unafraid and unbreakable. He wants to be held and kissed and coddled until he’s too full of love to hold anything more.
Daniel's lips twitch. With a laborious sigh, he swings himself down atop the bed.
"Babe," he starts, amusement wrapped around the syllable, "we've been sharing a bed for two weeks nonstop. If I'm gonna get sick, I already am sick." Gently, with heartbreaking care, he reaches forward and cards Lando's damp curls out of his eyes. "I just wanna take care of you."
Lando has become very well acquainted with ignoring the soft singe of tears along his reddened waterline. Swallowing thickly, craning into Daniel's touch, he curls himself into a ball so tight he's not sure if he can possibly be unravelled. "Okay."
The shape of Daniel's mouth finds his sweaty temple. "I love you."
It's so easy, these days, for Lando to mumble a soft, "I love you, too."
Hii, Maybe "You make everything better just by being here." or "You're the reason I smile so much." with dando
some comfort :) it's not very high quality given how i've been putting all my energy into df2 and another fic, but it's something.
tw: swearing, mentions of the truly rancid shit said on comms, implied past mental health issues.
Daniel's barely undressed where he sits on his massage table, race-suit hanging loosely around his waist and shoes kicked off somewhere out of sight as he fiddles with something on his phone. Lando doesn't question the fact that his door has been left wide open; it's sort of a thing. Sort of. It's not like anyone walking by is gonna complain about getting an eyeful. Lando certainly isn't.
Softly, he raps his knuckles on the door frame. “Hey.”
Jumping, Daniel's head whips to the side. His expression of surprise melts into something so unabashedly fond that Lando's world rocks beneath his feet.
“Hey, handsome," he grins, tipping his cap like a cringe cowboy from one of those old western movies he likes. He drops his phone to the side. "‘Sup?”
Lando shrugs, sliding into the room. The door clicks shut behind him. “Just wanted to see you.”
It's not quite true, but it's not a lie, either. Lando's a dreadful liar. He wouldn't even dream of trying it with someone who's seen him curled up on the floor of the shower or with his head down the toilet at two in the morning.
“Aw," Daniel coos, "aren’t you cute.”
“Shut up," Lando chirps. Ignoring the way heat burns his cheeks from the inside out, he holds his arms out like a lost child. "Can we cuddle?”
Shuffling to the side upon the massage table, Daniel pats the newly vacated space. "C'mere."
Lando doesn't need to be asked twice. He all but dives into the circle of Daniel's embrace, ending up half in his lap and curled around him like vines upon a fence. A honking laugh is punched from deep in Daniel's belly, vibrating through Lando's bones as though they share the same body.
"That can't be comfortable," Daniel manages through chortles, snorting like a pig. It's stupid, unattractive. It makes Lando want to crawl under his skin and stay there forever.
He pouts, just a little. "It's not."
"C'mon," Daniel says. "Lemme fix it."
Lando goes slack. It's frighteningly easy to let Daniel slide a hand beneath his thigh, guiding him sideways into his lap. Terribly easy to let him grope him however he likes, lingering on the curve of his spine, right where it dips into his arse. It's so, so nice.
What isn't so nice is how the shuffling ends up accidentally shoving Lando's face into Daniel's armpit. He wrinkles his nose. "You stink."
Daniel pokes him in the side. "No shit," he drawls, and Lando doesn't need to see his expression to know he's smirking at the ticklish squeal he's earned. "You want me to change?"
"Mm." Lando burrows in closer, moving to hide his face in Daniel's neck. He's a little slick with sweat. Lando fights not to steal a taste. "No. You're not allowed to move."
Again, Daniel splits into a brash guffaw. "Guess you'll have to deal with my stench then."
The air bleeds from Lando's parted lips in a gentle breeze. "Guess so."
He must not sound as brazen as he thought he did, given how Daniel's embrace strengthens, just the smallest bit.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks, a soft thing. Lando doesn't like it when his voice goes like that. It's the one that comes out when sadness clings to him.
His arms around Daniel's waist squeeze, hold tight. Maybe it's stupid how closely he focuses on his shape beneath the fabric. “Nothing.”
Daniel's body rocks with a sound Lando doesn't know how to name. “I can tell there’s something.”
“No you can’t," Lando mumbles. It's petulant, somewhat whiny. It's embarrassing how Daniel can read him like an open book.
“I can feel you doing the weird eyebrow thing.”
Lando pulls back just far enough so that his face isn't touching Daniel's skin anymore. “What weird eyebrow thing?”
“You know," Daniel insists, "the thing." He makes some appalling gesture with his arms that makes absolutely no sense, and Lando thinks there's maybe a nonzero chance he's going to smack Daniel in the face. And then kiss him silly. Obviously. "You always do it when you’re thinking too hard about something.”
Maybe Lando needs to learn how to resist Daniel's needling. Maybe he needs to grow another pair, train himself into being resilient, because it should not be so easy for Daniel—sweet, funny, annoying, observant Daniel—to have him vomiting, "are you okay?” all over the floor.
Daniel's body goes rigid. “What?”
“Like, I dunno." Floundering, Lando fractures into a whine he's not proud of. He's squirming, he knows he is, but he can't settle back down. The itch beneath his skin is growing frantic. "Just… how are you?”
“I’m fine, baby," Daniel tells him, and he—well, he sounds fine. But Daniel has always been a better liar than Lando. "Why?”
“Just..." Lando shakes. "Worried about you, I guess."
“Hey." A chilly, calloused hand sneaks up the back of Lando's hoodie. Familiar fingertips trace unfamiliar shapes, and even though the touch makes him shiver, Lando can't help but sink into it. "I’m okay. You don’t need to worry.”
Sighing, Lando presses his thighs together. “Okay.”
“What’s this—" Daniel inhales—not sharply, but nothing else either. His arms have gone tense around Lando's waist. "Why are you asking?”
A swallow. Lando knows it's audible; wishes, for a selfish moment, that he could hide things better, keep himself under control. “Just... stuff.”
He's heard the sound bites. Of course he has. The whole fucking world has probably heard them by now. He can just pray that—
“Is it about comms?”
Lando's heart drops into his stomach.
“You’ve heard?” he asks, quiet. Subdued. The voice of someone who is expecting the world to crash and burn around them.
Daniel shrugs. It's the kind of shrug he does when he refuses to look Lando in the eye. “Yeah.”
Fuck.
And that—Lando fucking explodes.
“It’s fucking—they’re ridiculous," he spits, yanking himself almost clean out of Daniel's grasp. If it wasn't for the hand stubbornly glued to his hip, he'd have sent himself toppling to the ground. "It’s so just—fucked up that they were saying all of that—”
Daniel clutches him so close that it's almost as though he's trying to melt them together. "Lando."
"And it's not even true!" He bursts, audible even above the ringing in his head. He's so rarely so acrid. He can't make himself stop. The room is blurring around him, staticky. "None of it, they're all a bunch of cunts, it's so fucking..."
A lump sits heavy and expectant in the back of his throat. It tastes bitter, spoiled.
Daniel's lips find the clenched hinge of his jaw. "Baby."
And it's like everything comes crashing in back at once, a tidal wave upon the shore. Lando can hear everything, every little creak. He can hear the mumbled voices beyond Daniel's door, can hear the way Daniel's breathing has begun to rattle like it always does when he's pretending not to be anxious. He can hear his own heart hammering as though it's nestled in between his ears, can hear the faint sound of music booming next door.
"Sorry," he mumbles, a quiet thing. It's all he can do not to shrink in on himself, a tortoise back into its shell.
Daniel sucks a kiss against his freckled skin. "You don't need to say that," he murmurs. Another kiss drips just below Lando's ear. "Nothin' to be sorry for."
"Hey." A gently coaxing finger slips beneath his chin, and Lando follows the unspoken command. The fiery, fierce stare Daniel meets him with roots him to the spot. "Don't shoulder this shit for me, okay? It's not your fight."
Lando swallows his fury; feels it burn all the way down his throat. "It is."
"No, it isn't." A frown draws Daniel's brows together, capsizing the corners of his mouth. "Seriously."
"Why not?" Lando demands. He sounds like a bratty kid. It's fucking humiliating. He can't help it—not when it comes to this.
Lips parting around a delicate sigh, Daniel presses his forehead to Lando's temple. Letting his eyes flutter closed, Lando allows the knots of tension to unfurl from his sinews.
"'Cus you make, like—" A hitched breath, a flex of his hand where it remains upon Lando's spine. Lando waits; he always will. "You make everything better just by being here. I don't think about this stuff when I'm around you."
"But you're not always around me," Lando argues, kind of wanting to claw his own eyes out. He can't handle the greying despair in his chest; can't process the fog in his head, stained red. "You shouldn't have to think about it at all."
"I know, I know." Gentle circles resume their pathways upon the small of Lando's back. Sparks don't crackle in the way of the touch like they normally do; it's a quiet warmth this time, like a fireplace in the dead of a winter night. "But it's just gonna happen anyway, y'know? I've always thought about it."
His bottom lip is between his teeth, now. Lando forces himself to let go before he can taste blood.
"You do know it's not true, right?" he says, less of a question and more of a demand. "What Villeneuve said."
Daniel's chest rumbles with laughter. It isn't as full as his normal one, the one that rings out shamelessly whenever Lando does something silly or Max tells a joke that isn't all that funny. It's the one Lando hears on weekend mornings they spend at home, shared over coffee and gossip that they pretend they don't care about. To hear it now is somehow both soothing and concerning. It's not the one he wants.
"I'm the one who raced those five years he was dogging on," Daniel says eventually. "'Course I know."
Lando digs his teeth in harder. He doesn't remember when he bit back down. "And Crofty—"
"He's a cunt," Daniel interrupts, and maybe it's not the right thing to do, but Lando can't help but twist enough to draw him in for a kiss.
"Love you," Lando mumbles, gasping to catch his breath. The faint tang of blood singes his tongue. It's his own—Daniel's teeth reopened the scar he'd already been teething at. He doesn't mind. "I'll, like, kill everyone at Sky if you want."
This time, the laugh that booms from Daniel is exactly the one Lando wants to hear.
"Aw, thanks buddy bear," he says, nuzzling in close. It's so stupid, how he can contort himself to fit right into Lando's side. Lando doesn't want to let him go—ever, maybe. "Good to know I've got a personal hitman at my disposal."
Lando makes a sound that can only be described as a snort.
"Always, baby," he says. He means every letter of it.
It probably means something. No—it definitely means something.
OR: Lando accidentally kept Daniel’s hoodie in his nest during a heat. He’s not quite sure how to give it back to him.
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