LH44 x MV1

12.

Max had been worried about his husband for the past couple of days. Lewis hadn't been acting like himself lately, but Max had kind of put it down to tiredness as they were on the last race of a triple header. However, Max himself had also been feeling a bit under the weather as well and was just hoping to get through the weekend before going off on holiday with Lewis and getting a good rest in.

It was the Friday and Lewis had only managed to get p14 in his Mercedes whilst George got p3. Max didn't fare much better, with p12 in his Red Bull whilst Checo got p4. After the first practice session had finished both him and Lewis faced separate questions from the media and their respective teams about why they had both performed so badly compared to their teammates. Unfortunately for both Max and Lewis, FP2 came around rather too quickly and they soon both found themselves back in the cockpit of their cars. It was about 15 minutes into the session and Lewis was doing a flying lap that was set to give a good lap time, but on the penultimate corner he made a slight error and nearly stuck the car into the barrier. The commentators had both picked up on Lewis's mistake, saying that it wasn't like him. Max was in the garage when it happened and saw it on the screens, having to agree with what the commentators said. Pretty much everybody expected Lewis to then stay out and give the lap another shot, but to everybody's surprise he came into the pits. The car got wheeled into the garage and Lewis got out and disappeared to the back of the garage.
Angela got sent to check on Lewis when he didn't return, and she found him in his drivers room looking quite ill with his head resting on the cool metal frame of the bench. She went over to feel Lewis's head and found that he was experiencing a very bad fever so Angela went to speak to Toto to tell him what was going on.

'Toto'
'Angela, where is Lewis'
'He's in his drivers room, but he looks ill and I just checked his forehead and I think that he has a fever'
'That explains why he has been off the pace all weekend, and could explain the uncharacteristic mistake he made earlier'
'Yeah, I don't think that he is fit to drive this weekend'
'Right, Nyck your going to be driving the car for the rest of the weekend, I'll get the mechanics onto sorting the car out for you'

Nyck de Vries was sitting next to Toto, when Angela said that Lewis was ill, but wasn't expecting to be driving the car this weekend.

Whilst the drama at Mercedes was going on, everyone else was carrying on with their FP2 session. It was 45 minutes into the session now and Max was on a better run than in FP1, currently in p5, but when he was on his outlap after just coming in for a change of tyres. During the middle of his outlap, he suddenly felt really ill and came into the pits much to everyone's surprise. When the car got taken into the garage, Max just took his helmet off and sat there in the cockpit of his car. Eventually Max got out of the car also looking quite ill.
The last 15 minutes of the session took place and at the end both Max and Lewis got taken to the medical centre to be checked out. Unknown to the rest of the paddock and the media, the two drivers ended up having to be taken to the local hospital. The rest of the paddock only found out about this when there were questions as to what happened to Lewis and Max.

At the hospital, both Max and Lewis were in the same room, as they didn't want to be separated. Blood tests were done and taken off for analysis, and they were both put on IV drips. The reason they were taken to hospital was because of the weight loss both drivers had because they were unable to take in the nutrients from the food. This was the reason why they had both been feeling so tired and lethargic recently.
They spent the night in hospital and the results of the blood tests got back the next day. It said that Lewis and Max both had bad infections, that one had likely caught off the other via kissing (or at least that's what the doctor said anyway). After giving them the correct antibiotics, they were both discharged from the hospital, but weren't allowed to race as they had to rest. However, they did watch the race at the circuit together. When they were standing together, Daniel came over to see how they were both doing.

DR- 'So, what happened to you guys'
LH- We both have an infection'
DR - So I heard that the infection is a very rare one and you both have the same one, how is that'
MV- I don't know
DR- I also heard that this particular infection is passed from person to person usually by kissing'
LH- Is it
DR- I'll leave you guys to watch the race then

As Daniel walked off towards the Mclaren garage, Max turned to speak to his husband

'Do you think that he knows'
'Probably, or at least I think he might have suspicions'
'Well, let's leave him to his suspicions then'
'Yes and go back to the hotel and get some rest like the doctor ordered'

Max laughed and they both set off back through the paddock, to get to the hotel but making sure to stay out of sight of the cameras.

***
Authors Note

Sorry for the delay in bringing out the chapter, hopefully the length of it makes up for the delay 😊