Work Text:
Lando enters the recording location not knowing what is going to happen. His manager had just told him that he’ll be doing an interview with another driver of the grid today, and that it’s supposed to be a fun one, nothing more.
It’s kind of a strange feeling because normally, you’re either on your own or with your teammate, because that is A the easiest to organize, especially with Covid restrictions, and B the best thing for marketing purposes. But yeah, apparently someone thought this was a good enough idea to make it possible despite the challenges.
He sits down on one of the chairs in front of the camera, still not knowing who he’s going to film with and what’s going to happen.
Maybe it’ll be some twitch quartet thing? But that doesn’t really make sense, there’s only one other chair next to him and well, Alex isn’t a real F1 driver anymore and by what he read in the group chat so far, it also seems like they all have quite different schedules today.
These thoughts are leading to nothing, so Lando decides to take his phone out and scroll through Instagram for a bit, maybe text his friends if waiting takes much longer. He’s just about to make a quick story when he hears the door to room opening. Lando subsequently decides to abandon the story idea – he didn’t have anything exiting to tell anyway – and rather focus on who’s going to be his interview partner.
Some people in red clothing – Ferrari, his brain supplies – enter the room. Maybe this will be an interview with Charles after all? Or, it – yeah. It’s Carlos. His old teammate is stepping through the door next. Great. Absolutely great.
Lando had thought that all this talk about their ‘bromance’ and whatnot would’ve died down by now, they’re nearly halfway through the 2021 season after all, but apparently that’s not the case.
Is it because he and Carlos both didn’t move on to have the same ‘great’ connection with their new teammates as they had between them? Lando asks himself that while Carlos comes over and flops down on the chair next to him. He immediately feels uncomfortable, his whole body tensing up, but Carlos doesn’t seem to notice.
Why does it have to be Carlos?
“Hey Lando. You know what this interview is about?” the Spaniard asks. Lando just shrugs in response, hiding his hands in the sleeves of his McLaren sweater so he doesn’t bore his fingernails into the palms of his hands.
Why do they all have to go on about their time as teammates?
“Probably the typical bromance stuff.” Carlos answers himself with a smile and a playful roll of his eyes. Lando doesn’t answer.
Why can’t they just shut up?
“Since everybody’s here now, we can get started.” One of the people from behind the camera says, taking his place facing them with a good distance. The cameraman counts down from ten to one, and Lando takes the moment to take one last deep breath before plastering on his happy media face. As much as he hates this situation, showing his emotions won’t help with anything, he won’t be able to get out of this anyway.
“Action.” after that, there is a short moment of silence before the interviewer explains what the video is going to be about. “Today we’re here at the Hungarian Grand Prix with Carlos and Lando. Those two were inseparable teammates for the last two seasons” Lando’s throat tightens at that. Yeah, inseparable, right. Always inseparable up until they weren’t. Up until everything got fucked up and Lando couldn’t stand being close to Carlos anymore. “and had one of the best bromances in F1.” At least at the beginning. At least in front of the cameras. “But since they’ve parted ways at the end of last season, they’ve barely interacted ever since,” Wonder why that is? Lando most definitely won’t tell them! “we’ve decided to bring them together once again and make an ex-boyfriends ex-teammates tag.” Seriously? Lando asks himself. This must be some kind of joke. A bad dream maybe? Not that they’ve been together. But… “Lando and Carlos both have a stack of question in front of them, that they’ll now ask each other. It’s only few questions, as the two of them are busy people today, but we hope or viewers will enjoy it anyway.”
And with that the interviewer leans back in his chair and lets them do their thing. Carlos gets the sign to start and turns the first card. A look at his eyes shows Lando that his former teammate isn’t overly excited over the interview idea either, but he’s by far not as opposed as Lando, and also for different reasons.
“Okay, first question, how did you learn that I’d be leaving McLaren and therefore breaking our relationship as teammates up?”
“Errr, I mean, it wasn’t really special, or something. I guess? The team informed me shortly before making their announcement to the public. In case someone, err, like, asks me about it.” Lando stumbles over his response and he hates himself for it. Come on! Hold yourself together!
“Were you disappointed that I didn’t tell you myself?” He can’t figure out if this follow up question is part of the interview cards, or if Carlos just wants to make it more interesting. The other definitely seems interested in his response, tilting his head to the right lightly and looking at Lando intently.
“Not really. We weren’t like best friends or something,” Carlos throws him a mock offended look at that “just teammates that got along better than most. So I wouldn’t have really expected you to tell me first or whatever.”
Lando goes to read the first of his questions to Carlos, just relived that he somehow managed to not stumble over all of his words in his second answer. “Ok,” he tries to look Carlos into the eyes while talking, but doesn’t really manage to, it’s just-. “seems like the next questions will be more of an reflection on our time as teammates.” Lando actively changes ‘our relationship’ which is written on the card to ‘our time as teammates’, he just wants everybody to stop. “What were your initial expectations for our time together?”
“I didn’t really know what to expect of you because you were completely new to F1 and all, but I’d hoped that we’d get on alright.” Carlos chuckles “And I think that’s definitely what happened.” Yeah, at least when you take the last few weeks of them being teammates out of the equation, Lando thinks bitterly.
“What is your least favourite memory with me?” is Carlos’ next question for Lando. He swallows hard at that. He obviously can’t talk about this here.
Can hardly tell the media that it was the day after his 21st birthday when Carlos walked up to Lando in the morning and told him that last night obviously only happened because he was drunk. He would never kiss Lando again. Clearly, he isn’t into guys.
And look, Lando had never thought more would come out of his crush on Carlos. Never ever. But then Carlos had kissed him saying ‘it’s your birthday present’. It had just felt so good that someone wanted to be with him. The moment Carlos kissed him, that was the moment when Lando started to hope that maybe…
Evidently not.
Lando takes a deep breath, he shouldn’t think about this now, or ever in general. He needs to focus. Come up with something he can say.
“I – errr – the time you beat me in golf?” Lando’s stumbling over his words again, and it sounds more like a question, like he’s unsure. He is. He still tries to add a giggle at the end of his – honestly pretty weak – answer, it comes out sounding awkward to his ears.
“You mean every time we went golfing together?” Carlos is laughing. An honest laugh. The whole media team tries to suppress a loud lough as well. Lando forces a smile onto his face.
“Nooooooo. Not true.” he pretends to be offended, pouting. He quickly goes to the next question. “Anyway. Back to you. What’s your favourite memory with me?”
“Probably something simple, like when we’d be in our rooms before a race, blasting music through the whole building. It’s something I haven’t really had with previous teammates.” Carlos is right, that was indeed nice. Sad only that this will never be the only way Lando will remember his first F1 teammate. It seems so easy for Carlos to just say he kissed Lando because he had too many drinks and then pretending like nothing happened.
“Yeah. That was great.” He says. It comes out sounding stiff, once again a forced answer.
“Who do you think put more effort into our relationship?” Carlos asks, Lando once again hates the word relationship being used. How is this supposed to stop when everybody keeps suggesting a very close bond?
“You maybe at the beginning, because I was pretty shy and overwhelmed with this all. I still needed to find my place in F1. But then after, I think it’s me that initiated all the fun.” The fun that Lando can’t enjoy anymore in retrospect.
“Rude. I can be fun too.” Lando doesn’t respond to that.
“Last question to you Carlos. Is what you’re looking for in a teammate different now than before we were teammates?”
“I would say so. I didn’t really see the perspective of having a connection to your teammate and having fun with them before, but it makes media stuff so much more fun. Therefore, that’s something I’d definitely like having with my future teammates.” Lando likes having connections too, it eases his mind. He just hopes there will be no crushes or anything of that sort involved in the future.
The last few weeks with Carlos were hell.
With Daniel, it’s going well so far. They’re still working out their positions as teammates, but they can have fun together. No crush potential involved at all, at least from Lando’s side, so luckily the likelihood of another heartbreak is low.
“And now we’re at the very last question.” Carlos says, continuing enthusiastically. “Oooh, that’s an interesting one. Will we be teammates again and how would that make you feel?”
Like shit.
No. He can’t say that.
“I mean it’s very unlikely. I can’t remember it happening in the last few years because there’s always the shift between old and new generations, adapting to new scenarios and of course the team’s needs are always different as well.” This is good, Lando’s on safe territory with that part of the answer. Now he only needs to come up with the rest. “In terms of how being teammates would make me feel…” Like shit, his brain supplies again. Not helpful, he scolds it. “I think that would be some time from now so it would be very interesting to see how both of us have changed and evolved with the different influences over the seasons.” That wasn’t too bad. “I would beat you then no doubt.” Lando tries to add some banter at the end to distract from the fact that he didn’t mention their hypothetical off grid relationship in the future.
“Never.” Carlos laughs again, Lando tries to join in.
And then the interview’s over. Lando leaves the room as fast as possible. Not wanting to be forced to spend more time with Carlos.
Finally a safe distance recreated between them, Lando allows himself to take a shaky breath in and wipes his sleeve over his face with pressure. It’s not like he’s about to cry or something, but this was hard and overwhelming, it took a lot off Lando to keep it together. He’d really love to just go to bed now. Or maybe get a hug? He could look for George for that.
Alex would be great too, to talk about all these weird feelings – he isn’t into Carlos anymore, but being with him still hurts for some reason – and being overwhelmed. Alex is the right address when it comes to that, talking about what you feel. But he’s obviously not here.
And right now, a hug is more important anyways.
(And George is the best hugger. There’s no doubt in that.)