Brake check- autistic Oscar Piastri, ADHD Lando Norris

4: explanations

Oscar's POV:

"Is Lando in today?" I asked Kim. We were doing some training in the gym but my mind had been elsewhere all day.

"Uh yea, Jon had a meeting with him and a bunch of others I think. They're revisiting the support. We can do that for you too?"

"No, it's okay, things are good so far and I feel like I can say when it's not working." I got the impression Lando was not at all at that point. I just wish he'd talk to me about it. I wished I could explain how the scary feeling goes when you realise that you can put that trust in people and it goes okay. I understood what he was feeling because it had held me back from being myself for years but now it was like coming up for air after an entire life underwater. I wanted him to be able to feel like that too.

I had lived the negative version of this and whilst I'd tried to forget it, now I was having a positive experience it was clear how horrific it had been the first time around. The smaller your cage was before, the better it feels when you're finally set free.

"Alright then, you just keep telling me if anything I'm doing is wrong. I'm uh doing my best to learn on the fly. Jon and I have been swapping tips."

"What kind of tips?" I asked, continuing with the neck exercises we'd been doing.

"Well he's known Lando a lot longer so when Lando got upset yesterday he knew what to do."

"He did say it wasn't the first time he's run off."

"It's not. It's happened at races. I've seen it. I think everyone knew it wasn't normal but then he talked about the mental health and we all sort of automatically assumed it was that. Except Jon, he's known something else has been going on for a while but didn't think it was his place to bring it up."

"Oh."

"But anyway, I was asking what he did to help calm Lando down. I uh, well I know you well but not stressed you very well. It's definitely still a thing I'm getting used to." He was right, I knew Kim well but I had never really felt able to unmask around him.

"I do try and keep calm-"

"I know but it gets a lot sometimes for everyone and I want to be in the best place to support when when you feel like that."

"Okay."

"Like I'm learning about the breaks and the fidgets and the processing in these sessions oh and the ear defenders of course, but all of that feels quite preventative? Maybe that's not the best way to put it. What I mean is, if you had a meltdown in front of me, I wouldn't know what to do and that concerns me."

"I've been doing it by myself for ages so I don't really know what to say."

"How about when you were younger?"

"Well uh I don't know, Mum's quite good at it. She's ruffles my hair," I smiled and we took a small break so we could continue talking. I gulped down some sports drink and sat back on my hands. "She speaks really calmly and slowly and explains everything. And when I'm worried about something she just seems to take all the venom out of it with one sentence."

"Would you accept a hair ruffle from me?" I shook my head, biting my lip in anxiety. "That's alright, we can work something else out."

"I like squeezy hugs but I also get quite upset when people touch me when I don't want them to and I'll kind of like lash out?" I instantly felt quite embarrassed about it and took some more sips of my drink to try and steady myself.

"Okay and does that look like hurting yourself or others?"

"Both." My voice had gone small and quiet.

"So note to self: wait for Oscar to ask for the hug and otherwise steer clear and bring a first aid kit?" I nodded.

"Sometimes I can't ask though?"

"Okay?"

"I just go quiet and uh, yea but, I'm fine, I just I don't really know."

"That's alright, we can umm, we've still got a bunch of time to work this all out. I can't promise to get it right first time but we've got this."

"Thanks Kim."

"No worries, thanks for helping me understand. Now, you've got to do those exercises on the other side remember?" I groaned but smiled at him. I could tell he was hesitant about 'meltdown me' but that was okay, I needed to remember that whilst this was not exactly new to me, it was to nearly everyone else. And that people were trying their best and it not going well wasn't always matched with bad intentions like it had been before.

Lando's POV:

"Lando you missed a meeting with the aero team yesterday, you alright to do it now or you do want five minutes first?" Will didn't look up from his laptop but awaited my answer. I didn't need a break so to speak but I didn't feel in the right place to talk to the aero team either. When I stayed silent, Will eventually looked up. "Everything okay?" I nodded, biting my lip and spinning to and fro in the chair.

"I don't need a break but I don't know if I can talk to them either?" I eventually managed to say.

"Okay, well uh, tell you what, you don't have to be there for another 20 minutes technically. Do you want to talk about radio communication with me first? Maybe afterwards you'll know what you want to do?" I nodded and shifted closer so I could see his laptop.

There was a transcript of our radio conversations there from our past few races. I felt embarrassed looking back at some of the things I'd said.

"Okay you see here, we talked about this at the time and again recently but we're totally scrapping this," he pointed to a large paragraph of him speaking (mostly about tyre strategies). "It's not helpful for you or me or the team and I think it was more overwhelming than informative." I gave a short nod and read through some of the other messages.

"I kind of spiralled a bit when you said that." I built up the courage to say it but all that courage almost immediately disappeared when I'd finished my sentence.

"Which bit sorry?"

"There," I pointed to the laptop, finger shaking.

"Okay I'm sorry for that and thank you for telling me. Was there anything particular about -" I shrugged before he could even finish his question and spun in the chair again. "I'm not judging you Lando, I'm trying to work out where I went wrong. You weren't over sensitive or anything like that."

"I just, I know how easily I get in my own head and I hate myself for it. Even over stupid little comments like that, it's like I can't help myself."

"I understand but we're talking about it to try and avoid that. Do you remember anything else I've said that's had that same impact?" I listed off a few other times with scary accuracy, watching the instances play out in my head and hearing Will's voice over and over. The feelings came flooding back and felt so real that tears were tingly at the corners of my eyes. Will made notes of each moment and asked questions to understand what the core parts of each upsetting message had actually been.

20 or so minutes later, I left the room with a smile on my face (not exactly feeling great but Will had managed to pick up the mood and get me laughing) and headed to the aero team. As far as I knew, none of them knew about the diagnosis yet but that was okay. It was just a chat about the car and I was still me. They didn't need to know.

A/n Hello! Thanks for reading. I hope you are all enjoying this book as much as the first one in the series, anything you want to see (even like in oneshot style) let me know!