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azzy421 · 4 months

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Married to the Job + Sick/Injured Fic

For any ship tbh, because the end of year burnout is real and a snippet would fix 99% of it’s problems

“It should probably go without saying,” Sebastian says. “You need a break as much as the rest of us. Them. You should go home.”

“I’m having a break,” Mick says feebly, and Sebastian doesn’t say anything at all, just waits him out. Mick squirms inwardly. “For - I’m eating dinner, I’m not in the sim, I’m not -”

“You’re in the canteen,” Seb says. “In Brackley.”

“You don’t know that,” Mick says, and sneezes. A passing data analyst, balancing an improbable number of coffees on one tray, gives him a wide berth. “Or what, does Lewis send you spy reports?”

“I have a few different sources,” Seb says. Mick can hear the way he’s smiling. “Actually he told me you were too sick to go to the team meeting yesterday. And then I hear from your mum -”

“Oh no, come on -”

“Yes, I did, because she called me to pass on Christmas wishes, and she thinks you’re in the sim this week doing night shifts and you somehow miraculously escaped the end-of-season plague.”

“I’m fine,” Mick says. “ I just, I caught it late. I’m not seeing anyone so no one’s going to catch anything from me, I’m still putting in decent lap times, I can still get data for -”

“I get that you want to,” Seb says, his tone softening. “But don’t - I remember doing shit like this. You don’t have to punish yourself.” Rich, coming from Sebastian, king of self-flagellation for his own perceived failings. Mick lets it slide. “Where is your girlfriend, is she in the UK?”

“Don’t have one,” Mick says shortly. “Since last week, actually. So.”

“Ah.”

“And it’s no use asking me if Esteban is around,” Mick says, wearily. “He’s gone home.” At least, Mick hopes he has. The last time he’d seen Esteban, he’d leant against Mick’s side like a tired greyhound and all but fallen asleep, right in the middle of the departures lounge in Abu Dhabi airport. It’s almost certainly where Mick caught this cold.

“I wasn’t going to,” Sebastian says; he sounds slyly amused, like he’s put two and two together and come up with five. Mick doesn’t have the energy to protest, not least because Esteban has called him twice over the past two days and Mick hasn’t picked up; it’s become a whole thing. Mick doesn’t want to think about that, or about broken relationships, or really about anything other than driving. “I think you should go back to your apartment and sleep it off.”

“Well, thanks for that, Dr Vettel,” Mick says. His head is aching; he leans it against the cool glass window and takes another sip of water from his bottle. It does nothing for his throat. “So when does Lewis arrive?”

“Ah, no, you can’t change the subject like that,” Seb says indignantly.

“First Christmas together,” Mick says, honing in on this weakness like a shark, albeit a snotty, raspy-voiced one. “Feeling nervous?”

“That is not fair,” Seb says. “I’m not, it’s not - I’m going to hang up. Go spread your germs all over your simulator.”

“Don’t tell Mum,” Mick says hurriedly. It comes out alarmingly childish, like he’s a little kid staying up late and Seb is his big brother trying to get him in trouble, not like Mick is a professional racing driver having a professional conversation with his mentor. “She’ll stress out.”

“Take care of yourself, Mick,” Seb says gently. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” Mick says. The call ends. Seb is presumably off to start another round of stress-tidying or go on a five-mile jog or cycle up a mountain or bake five different loaves of bread for Lewis to choose from, whatever he needs to do to alleviate first-Christmas-together nerves. Mick picks himself up from the table, abandons his half-eaten sandwich in the bin, and heads back to the sim. It’s not like he has anywhere else to be.

The sim makes things worse. Mick crashes out once, then again, then a third time. His hands are clammy; when he takes the helmet off the room feels like it’s spinning. “Shit,” he says quietly, and leans his head back, scrunching his eyes shut. “Shit, come on.”

There’s a knock on the door, and it swings open before Mick has chance to respond. “Hey,” Lewis Hamilton says, hovering on the threshold. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Mick says as brightly as he can, which isn’t very, and trying not to act surprised. “Good to see you. It’s late, right, aren’t you -” he makes a vague hand motion. “I mean, it’s really late.”

“Just had some bits I wanted to discuss with the team,” Lewis says. He's eyeing Mick thoughtfully. “Seb said you - might want a ride back to your place?”

“No, thanks, I mean I’m - I drove myself in,” Mick says firmly, and flushes as Lewis peers at the times on the screen. “It’s fine. I just got this stupid cold, but I’m good to drive.”

“You’re just down the road, right?” Lewis asks, politely disregarding this. “Or I’ve got a spare room, if you want to come back to mine?”

“To - stay over in -”

“I mean, yeah, if you want,” Lewis says, with a shrug that might be called awkward on someone else. “I’ve already had the plague, so. And there’s a place near me does this amazing miso soup, I swear it cured me literally in hours.”

“A lift home would be great,” Mick says, giving in. He can no more imagine himself staying in Lewis Hamilton’s spare room than he can imagine flying to the moon right now, but he also can’t remember exactly where he’d parked this morning, which probably isn’t a good sign. “Thank you.”

Lewis doesn’t drive; Mick had forgotten that. They sit in the back, Mick’s rucksack on the seat between them. The driver is behind a privacy screen. Mick swallows his awkwardness as they roll smoothly out of the Mercedes complex and searches for some common ground. “How’s Roscoe?”

“He’s great,” Lewis says, smiling, eyes on his phone. “Still back in LA, I’ll see him at New Year. How’s Angie?”

Mick hasn’t seen Angie in weeks. He feels a rush of shame. “She’s fine,” he says. “We, um, we’ll have to get them together sometime. When do you fly to Switzerland?”

“Tomorrow,” Lewis says. His face has gone still, like he doesn’t want to give too much away. Maybe he hadn’t known that Mick knows. “You?”

“Next, um. Next Tuesday,” Mick says, grabbing on to the change of subject. His head, briefly cleared by the walk out to the car in the crisp night air, is fogging up again; he presses his fingers into the bridge of his nose. “Hoping I’m a bit more alive by then, you know? It’s been a week already.”

“These things go on for ever,” Lewis says sympathetically, thawing a little. He hesitates. “You’ve got to let your body recover, though, right?”

Here we go again. Mick leans his head back on the headrest with a thunk. “Yeah, I got the message,” he says.

“I knew it, I knew he’d given you a lecture,” Lewis says with an unexpected grin. “Did he call you?”

“Yeah, he did,” Mick says, peering at him sideways. Emboldened, he adds, “He’s been baking again, just to warn you.”

“It’s all good, I’ve packed indigestion pills this time,” Lewis says, and Mick can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not. “Sorry if we’ve all piled in on you, man.”

“I know he means it in a good way,” Mick says, feeling absurdly as if he now needs to spring to Seb’s defence. “The lectures, I mean. It’s nice. It’s just, considering he’s - you know.”

“Mm,” Lewis says. He rolls his head back as if considering. “He’s always been pretty good at it. Finding the balance. Making space for family, for - I mean, he’s definitely pushed it to the limit, but - we both, I guess, when we were your kind of age, I think we both burned the candle at both ends, you know? It definitely took me a while to learn how many things I needed that weren’t just - proving something. It’s something you learn to -”

“Yeah, well, you never ended up on a ‘career break’,” Mick says sharply, interrupting Lewis’s speech. He takes a deep breath in, trying to steady himself, but ends up coughing instead, over and over, doubling up miserably and muffling his face as best he can with his sleeve. “Sorry,” he croaks when he can speak again. “I don’t mean -”

“No, you can mean it,” Lewis says, passing him a tissue. He’s frowning. “I remember feeling like I had to put myself through hell and back,” he says abruptly. “So I get it, I get the - but - make space for the other things. You can’t go without them forever; they catch up with you, one way or another. That’s my advice.” He wrinkles his nose, gives an embarrassed little laugh. “Unasked-for advice, jeez, sorry. Has Esteban gone home?”

“I don’t know,” Mick says, trying not to show how taken aback he is. He’s going to store this whole conversation away to analyse later, when his head is clearer. It always feels as if there’s a gulf between him and Lewis. Too many things - Seb, Dad, Mercedes - pulling them together and pushing them away from one another all at once, equal forces, just enough to maintain a steady, cautious not-quite-friendship. Does the gulf feel a little bit narrower than before? Maybe. The car rolls to a stop and he adds, belatedly, “I’ll, I might call him tomorrow.”

“Have a good Christmas,” Lewis says as the driver opens the door. He offers his fist, leans back in the car, that easy public smile back in place. Mick’s familiar with those, at least; another thing they have in common. “Take care, man.”

“You too,” Mick says, sliding out. He’ll see Seb over Christmas at some point, find out how it’s really going. “Thanks for the lift.”

Esteban calls again, seemingly on cue, just as Mick has dropped his bag down on the floor of his apartment. “Hey, you answered!” he says when Mick accepts the call. He sounds far more like himself than he had two weeks ago. “Is everything okay? Did you go home yet?”

“No,” Mick says, wearily, flicking on the kettle in the little kitchenette. “Waiting for this cold to pass, sorry, I'm just. I’m a week behind everyone else.” There’s a not very funny joke in there somewhere about being behind everyone at the moment. Mick lets it go. “Did you, or -”

“No, there’s a load of filming, we finished yesterday,” Esteban says. “Ah, no, I probably gave it to you on the flight home! Sorry. You sound like shit.”

“I feel like shit,” Mick says. He can be pathetic with Este in a way he can’t with Seb, or Lewis, or anyone else. “I feel really, really shit.”

“You know what’s good for a cold, yes? Soup. There’s a Thai place down the road, you want me to come over?”

“You know, that’s actually my second offer of soup today,” Mick says blearily, a lump in his throat.

“Was it Lewis, with that miso soup he was saying about in Abu Dhabi? What is miso? Anyway, I have - no, it’s only fifteen minutes, I can be there in ten. I’ll bring a bad movie. No, it’s not bad, you’ll like it. Sounds good?”

It sounds amazing. “Yeah. Please,” Mick says, and sits down on the floor. The little apartment already seems a tiny bit less soul-crushingly empty. “Thanks, I owe you.”

“That’s not how it works,” Esteban says cheerfully, and hangs up. Mick stretches out his legs in front of him, closes his eyes, and settles down to wait.

#shoutout to that end-of-season cold #this is more gen than anything. but implied possible future:#schucon #and (of course):#sewis #because sometimes accepting a ride and letting someone bring you soup are bigger things than they seem #my fic #i hope this hits the spot anon!

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