Archive of Our Own

[Lando]
u still at the office 

[Oscar]
No, getting in the car actually. Have to drive out to a client site

[Lando]
a client at 7pm ?? what for
illegal software drop?

lol now im picturing u in a dark alley w ur usbs in a ziploc

hood up too ofc

 

Lando seems to find romance in every bit of life. Must be pretty easy, when your daily is a Miura. It has to grant the fundamentally boring its own imagined-patina. Oscar doesn’t get it, but he’s grateful all the same, slumped in his damp work-clothes, in his messy hatchback, dreading the M1.

[Oscar]
Nothing that exciting, sadly
 Just a routine thing.

[Lando]
im onto u mate

Oscar nearly laughs. His gaze drifts to the emptying car park, rain-streaked pavement, reflecting bruised sky. 

[Lando]
wanna call? stuck in traffic outside circuit nd bored out of my mindd

[Oscar]
Sure

Incoming Audio Call: Lando
Nov 08, 07:09 PM
Duration: 1hr 13 min

When they finally run dry of embarrassing stories to trade, of incidents to dissect and competitions to compare, the conversation lapses again. 

Lando breaks first, voice a bit rougher than when they'd started. He's probably tired. Had probably dealt with the media all day. "It's nice to talk to someone who gets it, but isn't like. In it. If you get that. My best friend Max — Fewtrell, not Verstappen —, we do too, but it's still a bit raw."

"Yeah," Oscar says. "I get that." Because the last hour has been great, and because he does.

But also, he knows Max. A lifetime ago, they'd been teammates, in a way. Same academy, same dreams.

And Oscar, he'd continued on when Max had stopped. So it's not really something that makes sense to say.

Lando continues, still pensive. "It's different with you, you're so calm about everything. Makes me feel more grounded."

Oscar's brow furrows but he hums. Busies himself with getting past a camper van, which is odd on so many levels.

It's better not to wonder.

Lando probably means nothing by it.

The man in question inhales abruptly, something remembered. "Oscar, you're around next week, right?"

He pushes it from mind. "If 'around' means London, then yes."

"I know you don't really keep up with the sport — besides me, of course — but there's an extra week after Qatar this year."

"Cool," Oscar says, glancing in his rearview before merging back into the left lane. 

"I wouldn't go that far. It's mostly just annoying," Lando pauses. "They're trying to up the suspense."

"Forgot to account for you then." Of course Lando had to go and dominate, throw a wrench in the FIA's plans. It was only right, only in-character.

Lando exhales through his teeth, a cocky almost-laugh. "Oh, stop it, you."

"You hate it, I'm sure."

"I'm very humble." There's another lull in conversation, not quite awkward. "But, my point was, we're coming back to the UK for the extra bit."

"That'll be nice," Oscar comments, finally. "The team probably appreciates it, even if they're still working. Good to see family."

"The team? I — Yeah, I mean, sure," Lando sounds properly bewildered. Oscar's brow wrinkles. "I was thinking more me though."

Well, that's... "Obviously your family, too." That went without saying, he had figured. 

There's a muffled bit of noise from the other end, like a cut-off murmur, or a snippet of a radio station. When Lando speaks again, there's an edge of playful exasperation that has Oscar instinctively listening harder, an antennae tuned to the sound.

"Man, Piastri. You're really gonna make me spell it out."

Oscar's confused smile feels plastered-on at this point. "Well, yeah. Can't read minds, can I?"

"Aughh," Lando whines. "C'mon. Please?"

It's not endearing. It's not. Oscar does not have a thing for men whining.

His grip tightens on the steering wheel. "Gotta use your words, mate."

"You're so," The noise cuts out. Oscar blinks. Lando's side comes back, voice abruptly casual. "Wanna meet up?"

So that's why he'd asked. "Do I want to meet up."

"Oh my god! I already said it," Lando accuses. "What more do you want from me."

He traces a stitch in the leather. Game on. "And what does meet-up mean?"

"Oscar," Lando whines, again. Oh my god, Oscar is driving. That has to be against some law. "Come on."

"You're not being very clear here," he chides.

"That's because I have a driver," Lando hisses. "It's called being discreet."

Brow raises have to be at least somewhat audible. "Oh, so it's that sort of meet-up."

Lando groans. "I'll be around Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You've been warned. Make sure to clear your calendar."

"Demanding, aren't we?" He taps the wheel. "I've got work, so. Dunno."

"Funny, " Lando says, teasing. "I'm there for work too."

"Yeah." It's not the same, really. "I'll try to find time, but I'm pretty booked up."

"As long as you're fitting me in somewhere. I mean, I know where I'd prefer, but—"

"Driver?"

"Oh fuck, yeah. Nevermind," Lando says sheepishly. "Oops."

"Your situational awareness reaches new lows every day."

"Shut up," Lando says. "I'm not that bad."

"'I want to touch you' ?" Oscar mimics, in possibly the worst Lando impression to grace the Earth.

"Osc," Lando gasps, dramatic. "Not with the driver here! What's gotten into you?"

"It's prolonged exposure," he deadpans, eyes shifting absently to his exit sign. 1 mile. "They say at large doses the effects are permanent."

"We'll have to prolong it some more next week then," Lando murmurs. "I like you forward. Don't get me wrong, though, I still love the hard-to-get act. And when you're a little mean..."

Oscar scoffs. "That has to be a form of self-hate."

"Aww, don't worry about me, Osc." He can hear Lando's smirk through the phone. "I'll give it right back, promise."

Oscar’s reminded abruptly of Vegas, that night, the slightly condescending laugh as Lando had swiped a hand across his spent length, tracking Oscar's involuntary shudder.

Yeah, that's something to box away. Examine later, when he's not responsible for a twelve-hundred-kilo hunk of machinery.

Max had gone out for race sims today, quali sims tomorrow.

Pressure, all of them are feeling it. All hands on deck. Oscar’s got three nights in a row — now, Friday, Saturday. 

The constructor’s is out of reach, has been, but everyone’s pushing anyways. This weekend, then one final race, then it calms down.

Except for the development team. Already, Oscar’s bracing himself for the sim rotation for next year’s car development. It’s always brutal.

But exciting too, he knows. So many things have been changing as of late. 

“What’s the damage?”

Joel looks up from his monitors, exhaustion evident. The other engineers seem no better, not even tearing their eyes away from their frantic typing to brief Oscar.

“It’s, you know.” Joel says. “Three tenths down in FP3. Max isn’t happy.”

“Fucking dismal,” an engineer chimes in.

Oscar puts his bag down, and sets to putting his gloves on. 

“He was so close just a few races ago,” Joel mutters, rueful. “Ten points.”

Oscar doesn't know how to return the sentiment, when here Lando and McLaren are the enemy. When Lando’s been in a championship run of his own nearly the entire season. So, as he’s wont to do, he bites his tongue.

The sim is rough, sure. The RB21 is kind of a shitbox, even as it's quicker than the second drivers’ performances have let on. 

It’s not three-tenths-down slow. It’s not Max-throwing-his-helmet-onto-a-table bad. Nor Max-throwing-a-fit-over-radio bad.

Evidently, there’s something being lost in translation. Some snap in the corners, by the looks of the data, not yet replicated. And so, not pinpointed.

Oscar climbs out of the rig, and steps out from the loop room, back into the muted hum of engineers’ domain. His sweat is already cooling in the air unheated by banks of electronics.

“Thanks, mate,” one of the engineers mutters offhandedly. “Good running.”

“Sure,” Oscar says. He reaches for his bag, and begins to strip off all the gear he’d put on just three hours earlier.

The other four haven’t moved, it looks like. Yikes. Long fucking night ahead.

He undoes the velcro, freeing his damp hands from the polyester and Nanofront.

“—stable in sector 3, still,” Joel mutters, a few feet away. “Dunno what he was talking about…”

Max, presumably. About snapping, or mid-corner lift, or whatever it was that’s plaguing the car. 

That had caused four-time driver’s champion Max Verstappen to nearly lose it in Free Practice.

Oscar hums neutrally, unsure if the complaint was a to-self or commiserating thing. In the periphery, Joel taps on the keyboard a few more times before bringing his hand up to pinch at his bridge.

It’s a feeling Oscar can sympathize with.

So he risks it, undoing the plastic toggle on his shoes. “Yeah. Remember seeing that in his telemetry. Don’t feel anything like it, though.” 

Joel nods, visible from the shifting of the back of his head. He clicks his mouse, and resumes typing. Oscar slides his boots off, tucking them away in their designated pocket. “Difference in the tyre-load model, maybe,” he muses.

He rights himself, zipping up his bag and standing.

Joel’s got the telemetry suite pulled up, a sprawling display of numbers and figures. He glances back at Oscar, before tilting his head to the side slightly, which happens to reveal the monitor in its whole.

Oscar watches over his shoulder as Joel clicks into the differential, adjusts a few things, and runs another sweep.

Keys and computer mice are like white noise, lulling Oscar into a trance-like state, gaze combing across the displays, the lines of code sliding down the screen there.

Abruptly, the cascade stops. Joel sits up, scrolling to the bottom. 

Oscar watches over-shoulder. 

Joel does not move. “Interesting,” he says at last. Still unmoving.

“Or, I mean—” Oscar hesitates, shifting his bag higher on his shoulder, eyes scanning the screen, the inner workings of the sim. “You guys use standard piecewise interpol for the contact matrices on entry, right? If there’s aliasing, the solver makes an artificial discontinuity—basically, it forces a snap in the sim that the real car isn't actually experiencing. Which, usually bad, but maybe you could use it to mimic this snapping, if it’s not showing up the normal way.”

He trails off, mouth catching up to his brain. Snapping — and the pun isn’t funny, not now — back to reality. 

He’s most definitely stepped out of his lane. And stated what is honestly obvious, to four engineers who’ve got intimate knowledge of vehicle dynamics, and tyre thermodynamics, and the McLaren sim, to a degree Oscar never will.

“Which — you know, obviously,” he tacks on, wincing slightly. “Just, um. Yeah.”

The silence is awkward in a way it hasn’t been, really. 

Oscar locks back into neutral, grabbing the rest of his things. He’s flushing, he knows. Joel isn’t saying anything. None of them are. “Um. Ignore me. Goodnight.”

“Night,” Joel echoes, flat. Staring studiously at his computer. Not turning.

The door shuts, and Oscar finally exhales.

This is what Lando does. He texts, and calls, and it has Oscar feeling seen and panicked and raw in the most unhelpful ways. Forgetting what used to be his, misplacing it into the now. 

He still misses his voice on the drive back, though.

 

[Lando]
just landed

[Image Attachment] [A corner of face visible, leaned against plane window. It's grey and clearly raining outside.]

[Oscar]
City seems happy to have you

[Lando]
she plays hard to get

but i can see right thru her rly

[Oscar]
Right

[Lando]
still good to come to mine tn?

[Oscar]
Yes

[Lando]
sickk [Location Pin]

come over whenever;) i'll be ready

 

Lando’s flat is nice, obviously. That much Oscar could tell from the outside, and the fact that his building can be seen from Oscar’s own window on a clear day. Tallest one, north side of the Thames.

The landscaping is immaculate. Through glass double-doors Oscar’s sure are everything-proof, he’s spat out into a white-walled, high-ceilinged lobby, where two concierges immediately greet him, and ask none too quickly who he’s there to see.

“Lando Norris,” he says. It all reverbates, carrying through air smelling of verbena and luxury, giving him whiplash of the purest kind. He wonders if they can smell the Tube on him.  “My name’s Oscar.”

One of them sets to typing, and the other ushers him to an adjacent room, where Oscar waits, weirdly nervous. It’s just. It doesn’t feel believable. It isn’t, really.

He’s not even doing badly for himself. He’s doing really well, even. Just not this. Not Lando fucking Norris. Not concierges where butler-suited employees have to look up Lando fucking Norris.

After a few long minutes, one of the employees returns, and Oscar’s ushered to an elevator, where the guy keys in Lando’s number. Penthouse.

The doors open to a hallway. Tall, wooden double-doors. There’s only one option, so Oscar steps forward and knocks. 

He’s better prepared this time. Work clothes, still, but nicer. Black tee that’d cost just a bit too much, trousers, the like. He’s really hoping they’ll survive the encounter. God knows the last shirt had been unrecoverable.

Not to get ahead of himself, but this could turn expensive very quickly.

There’s just the one pair of doors. He checks again, just to be sure – yep, still penthouse.

So. They wouldn’t have sent him to the wrong floor? Right?

He slides his phone out from his pocket, and opens their text thread. 

hey I’m here

He types out then deletes. 

Here

He hits send. 

After a moment, he hears the first sign of life, footsteps. Then finally, the wood shifts, swinging back. 

Lando, in a black tee as well. Grey sweatpants too, the kind that sits low on hips. He has socks on, no shoes. 

Oscar opens his mouth, a half-formed quip about So much for ready, but Lando holds his finger up, and Oscar finally registers the laptop in left hand and the earbuds, tucked beneath curls.

Oscar takes the hint, sliding silently through the gap. Lando swings the door closed behind, gaze already back on the screen.

‘Hold tight,’ Lando mouths, glancing back over. He holds up all his fingers on the hand not currently juggling a MacBook Pro. Oscar shakes his head, hopefully conveying that ‘It’s okay’. Lando nods small before stepping through a doorway, and out of view.

Oscar scans the vestibule. Open, tall, clean lines. There’s a cluster of shoes behind a bench on the opposite side, so he ditches his sneakers there. 

Unsure if he’s meant not to follow, Oscar steps carefully through the doorway Lando’d exited through.

The living room is huge. But beyond the curated furniture, it’s lived-in, undeniably, even as it’s unpacked. Cluttered with real objects. He feels overwhelmingly like he’s intruding.

Lando’s stood at the kitchen island, already peering back down at his laptop. Oscar watches as he nods along, before replying with something that has Oscar immediately moving away, back towards the windows. 

Whatever it is, if it’s McLaren, he should not be listening. Or caught anywhere near the camera, if Lando’s maneuvering earlier had been any indication.

Windows stretch all along the curved walls, so high the ground’s not immediately visible, just river below. It’s like the apartment is suspended, floating above the Thames. The sun is setting, casting shades of sparkling orange across the water. It’s closer to Dutch orange than papaya, which Oscar will take as auspicious.

Finally, after what feels like ten minutes but is probably closer to the promised five, Oscar catches a ‘Goodbye’, wrapping up what had to have been a semi-important call. He gravitates back over.

Lando steps over to his sink and dumps a dirty plate and fork in before tossing his earbuds onto the counter. “Sorry,” he says, “Meeting ran long.”

Oscar watches him slide the dishwasher shut before leaning against the counter. From a few meters away, he says, “No worries.” 

He’s a bit disappointed that Lando hadn’t washed them by hand. That would’ve been special, in the way that each new angle Oscar unlocks is precious, never-before seen. 

Lando snorts softly. “You’re so Australian.”

Oscar knows he should have a better quip, but he’s off-kilter from the past few minutes, so the best he manages is a brow raise, followed by: “Observant, are we?”

Lando’s arms glow against the marble countertops, light reflecting off and around. They could be floating, rays against untouchable cloud, could blend right in. 

Hazel eyes carry a heat too, like walking out into afternoon sun — Oscar feels it hit his face before traveling lower, before the glint is back, and he’s blinking away the bright spots. 

He needs to sleep more, probably. Metaphor this early in is a bad, bad sign.

“So,” Lando says. “You feeling it yet?”

Yes, Oscar almost says. All of the things, fleeting and long-wicked, bubbling and sparkling, electric and hollowing. But that’s for him to deal with, and Lando to find out never, preferably. For the extent of this whatever, to prolong it as far as its course will run. 

He frowns, making a show of glancing around, tilting his head. “Reckon it’s got a radius, probably.”

“AOE, that’s called.” Lando sinks down against the marble, waist pressed flush against the edge. “What about now?”

4 feet. “Hm. Don’t think so.”

Oscar watches as if through a phone screen as Lando shifts forward, onto his propped elbows. 2 feet. “Now, surely.”

White space, stretching between them. “Still nothing.”

Meteoric, those arms arc downwards. 2 inches. The sleeves of Oscar’s jacket are ground, apparently. Fitting, if Lando’s words last week were anything to go by. Sun dips low, approaches horizon. Not-crossing.

Oscar shakes his head, slow, once.

“Damn,” Lando says. “Pretty weak, huh?”

“Concentrated, we’ll say.”

“Shitty AOE. We’re at an impasse, then.”

Impasse, Oscar would correct. Lando’s added an ‘-ay’ to the end, treated it like cliché. But there’s more important things on the line than words.

“There is a solution,” he says.

“Share with the class?”

“Nah,” Oscar manages, holding the line. “Your turn to figure it out.”

“Dangerous, letting me decide.”

“Maybe.”

Lando’s hands glide across the cloud-cover, coming to a stop right next to Oscar’s own, clasped and aching. He can feel the shift in the air, all the almosts. “You could touch me. Might be the trigger.”

“Where?” Oscar prompts. He looks up from their hands. Lando is very close. “Your thigh area?”

Some of the tension goes, euphoric as it lands, as recognition flashes. “No,” Lando groans. “Fuck off, that’s unfair.”

Oscar smiles innocently. “What is?” 

“What am I meant to say next? Yes Oscar, come skip across my waters? You make my heart skip? There's an inequality of material here.”

He’s so. He is so.

He is backlit, still, by the kitchen lights. They’re both hunched over the ridiculously sprawling kitchen counter and it’s so stupid.

Oscar feels so alive. 

“Well that won't do,” he volleys back. “How do we even it out?”

Lando tilts his head, sliding easily back into character. Pretending to consider.

“You could tell me your deepest, darkest secrets,” Lando muses. 

Oscar hums, watching the line of his throat work, the words form. 

“Or,” he continues, eyes sliding languidly down. “You could fuck me.”

Oscar is trapped, fly in honey. “Right,” he hears himself reply, distant, lost in the sensation. The possibility, the sweetness, the draw. “And that evens it how?”

Canines. Sharp, quick-witted. “‘Cause you'll tell me anything, then.”

And Oscar’s done with the metaphors. It's hot. It's hot, and he has been waiting, and it can be that simple. 

“You're that good, are you?”

The marble is smooth. Lando’s all rough edges. “Wanna find out?”

Hard-to-get, he reminds himself.

“You know…” He glances down at his watch, shrugging his shoulders to complete the act. Lando looks seconds away from laughing, or leaping across to counter, sinking his teeth into Oscar's throat. Oscar would spill a thousand embarrassing stories for either. “Sure. I've got some time.”

They’d started out across the counter, but it’d dug into ribcages too hard, and they’d quickly come to the same conclusion, Lando rounding the corner to better the angle and lead Oscar further into what had begun to feel increasingly like a movie scene.

Oscar wouldn’t’ve minded staying in the kitchen, but that’s the sort of thing you wait on the homeowner to suggest. Apartment-owner, maybe, but who the fuck cares, when —

They pass a half-opened door, bed just visible in the gap. Second one so far. Lando’s supposed to be leading the way, but he keeps stopping to shove them up against every single wall he comes across. 

Oscar tilts his head back against the paneling, gathering his thoughts as Lando moves to his neck. “How many, fucking.“ Teeth graze, so nice. Thoughts, thoughts— “Bedrooms d’you have?”

Lando draws back again, hair a mess. “Through here, mate. Just, like, a bit further.”

Oscar can’t help it, tugging waist back and re-closing the distance. Kissing Lando is kind of all he can think about right now, besides— “There’s a perfectly usable bed right there.”

“Want mine, though,” Lando mumbles against his mouth. “Oscar.”

Why, he wants to say. Can something be yours, if you only see it a month out of the year? He wants to ignore, press back in. “Walk,” he says instead. 

Lando hooks his right index through Oscar’s belt loop, and walks. 

Vegas had been fire. Light, and smoke, and desire that sparked, burned hot and long and bright. 

This time is different. Has lost none of the heat, but some of the urgency, maybe.

Oscar wants to savour this time.

Wants to lose himself. Does, into flashes: 

London skyline, arcing behind Oscar’s head. A view Lando’s paid several mil for.  But centerstage: Lando, from above, flipping the world on its head.

Luxury sheets, silky, buttery as they tangle in their legs. Lando has a fucking top sheet, and it’s inconvenient, unnecessary, a thousand adjectives Oscar doesn’t care to find. Instead, he pushes Lando down into them, lets them be enveloped, lets them tangle, and catch, and ruin.

The warmth, freedom that comes with seeing someone at their barest. At pushing them there, being met, never left behind. Never too much.

Lando lit up gold, as always, by a single lamp in the corner. 

It’s probably worth at least ten thousand. 

Oscar knows how this could sound. He’s not money-motivated. Not really, not any more than anyone. But he’s been careful, for so long. In so many ways. 

It feels like letting go. Like an ancient part of him, resurfacing. Looking for gaps, where to push, where to ease off. 

Chasing, always. Leading, sometimes.

Lando does, in fact, give it back. Makes Oscar work for it. Is fucking good. 

Really fucking good.

After, when it’s late enough the sun’s disappeared completely, but early enough Oscar’s fucked-up sleep schedule hasn’t brought exhaustion.

This feels, Oscar realizes, like a start. Even as the night is ending. Even as he’s relocating his shirt, flipping Lando off when he finds out he’d been hiding it under the pillow.

It feels like it. It could be. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday had been the docket.

“Want me to get the light?”

“Nah, I’ve got it.” Lando’s laying languid across the mattress, on top of the blankets. A minute ago, Oscar had been his blanket. He should add that to his resumé. November 20th-21st: Blanket, Lando Norris’ Bedroom.

Red Bull would flip their shit, probably.

He steps away, across the large room. Leaving. 

It’s a start, he reminds himself. He’s not reading into things. This isn’t the end. As much as it always feels like it.

Lando slots in so well, though. In Oscar’s life. In the space between cloud and skyline. In… other ways.

Oscar lingers in the doorframe for reasons he cannot articulate, but knows. He’s known for a while now. Too early to be good. Or healthy. Or normal.

“See you tomorrow?” Lando asks. 

“Yes,” Oscar says. Tomorrow, he repeats. Turns over in his head like a stone, thumbs over like a new steering wheel, finding the bite of every button, the slope of every curve. “See you then.”

The grey takes a while to set back in. But with London drear, it’s inevitable. Seeps in on the Tube ride, on the doorstep, fumbling with his keys for the millionth time. Throwing them onto the counter, and collapsing into bed.

Five A.M., he’ll have to do it all again. 

The nebulous tomorrow. Every day feels like tomorrow lately, a blur of in-front then behind. Crawling all the same. 

But maybe these next two…

He turns off the light, and closes his eyes.

Miranda wasn't exaggerating. This new project’s data is a mess. And that’s putting it nicely.

There’s a lot of it. Pages and pages of nested strings, high-frequency telemetry, mixed in with raw sensor logs. Desynched timestamps, hundreds of errors thrown, missing information. 

His first move had been to use the built-ins. Routine: DateTime, DataCleansing, re-join based on the fixed timestamps.

The canvas had run for ten minutes. He’d taken his opportunity to get up, refill his mug.

Sat back down to over a hundred red flags. Failure, Failure, Failure.

Arrays filled with complete gibberish. It’s no wonder the usual sorting and clean-up wasn’t working. 

So, now he’s having to go in and run things by hand, custom-code interpolation algorithms.

It’s frustrating, difficult, and time-consuming. 

It’s below his pay-grade.

He sucks it up, he sips his coffee, and he watches the time tick down as he types out line after line.

“Sorry,” Oscar says. “Work ran late.”

Lando is stretched out across the couch, socked-feet propped up on his glass coffee table. It’s a strange inversion of the other night, but Oscar has no energy to explore that.

“All good,” Lando dismisses, standing and crossing to where Oscar’s still toeing his shoes off. “You’ll make it up to me.” 

The sun set hours ago, so Oscar can’t rely on anything but tone and the sensation of Lando's hand, warm as it pulls Oscar forwards, leads him to pillowy mattress and skyline. 

Ten minutes have passed, since they collapsed into Lando’s bed after showering. It’s a societally acceptable length of time.

It’s still early, relatively. Pre-double digits.

He’s waiting for the boot. It hasn’t come yet. Instead, when Lando rolls over, fumbling for his phone he murmurs something about watching a movie.

Oscar agrees, obviously.

Lando’s idea of a movie is apparently Youtube.

The line at the bottom trudges on, ever-closer to the end of video one. Oscar watches it go.

Is he being boring? Is he meant to, like… he glances over at Lando, subtle as possible from right beside. His gaze is fixed on the screen, moving only to track the movement of a man onscreen.

Eventually, the video reaches its end. Oscar braces once more, readies to entertain or stand or whatever’s expected.

But Lando just taps the screen, clicking to the next video in the series. 

Oscar takes that as permission, settling deeper into the mattress, and very valiantly resisting sleep, a more difficult task the longer he sinks into luxury sheets, and presses against Lando’s space-heater body.

He offers some sparse commentary, which Lando comments on in turn, and that takes them until a pretty decent hour, actually.

Lando’s stomach growls. He sighs, swiping the video to be small and tabbing over to Chrome. 

Oscar watches absently as his fingers type out a saved website. He adds two things to cart before pressing the phone into Oscar’s hand, which had been sitting loosely atop of Lando’s chest, being used as a phone stand. 

“Their bowls are good,” Lando says, like that’s adequate instruction.

He blinks, unable to discern much beyond a green check mark. He hits it.

Lando hums, satisfied. “Good choice.”

Oscar lets his lids slip shut once more, secure in his choice to go along with whatever Lando had suggested.

“You should stay over,” Lando says, no segue. Oscar feels it, the bass as each word vibrates against his face. “Save more sleep. You need it.”

Oscar doesn’t protest.

He drifts back off like that, face tucked into the junction of Lando’s neck and shoulder.

He’s awoken by movement.

“Food’s here,” Lando murmurs. 

Oscar groans.

“C’mon,” Lando urges. “Gettup.”

Oscar acquiesces, loosing his hold and sitting up so Lando can escape from the bed. Lando’s phone lays stranded on the bed, video paused.

He blinks groggily, grabbing the phone before following Lando’s path.

In the kitchen, Lando’s already unpacked the takeout containers from the brown paper bag. The smell is suffusing the room, salt and spice and the warmth of a proper meal. Oscar’s stomach makes itself known, and he stumbles over to sit next to Lando at the bar.

“Here,” Lando says, sliding silverware and two containers Oscar’s way. He tucks immediately into his own, leaving Oscar no response but to follow suit.

It’s an amicable few minutes that they spend collectively stuffing their faces. Only once the hunger’s had its edge taken off, does Lando start patting down his pockets.

Oscar wordlessly pushes Lando’s phone across the counter. “Thanks,” Lando says, signing in. Oscar nods, bringing another forkful to his mouth.

Their legs are pressed together under the marble lip. Lando’s starts to bounce slightly. “My flight’s at 7:30,” he reads off. “PM.”

Oscar stops chewing. “I won’t get off until six tomorrow.” 

And that’s optimistic. With the fucking project, it’s not unlikely he’ll be on the hook until seven or eight, if not worse.

“Oh.” Lando’s leg stills.

Oscar really, really doesn’t want this to end. Not before it has to. 

He’s not misreading, he thinks.

“We have the morning,” he says, trying to sound casual. “I was going to go on a run, but we could get breakfast instead. Or eat it here.”

It’s not sex. But neither was the majority of tonight. A lot lately, if he’s honest with himself.

Lando perks up, before his mouth purses. “I don’t want to ruin your schedule.”

It’s sweet. And kind of the last bit of assurance Oscar needs.

“I want to see you,” he insists. It comes easy, in a way nothing does, the admittance. Nothing except all of tonight.

Lando softens. “I could join you on your run?”

Oscar nods. Their knees press together under the counter.

They finish up the food, dump the containers in the trash, abandon the silverware into the dishwasher, and stumble back to Lando’s bedroom.

And they fall asleep much like before; with the series’ last video left running, leading into a sequence of autoplay.

In the morning, they awake to Oscar’s alarm. They get changed into workout clothes, Lando’s shorts thin and fluorescent in a way that shouldn’t be so endearing.

There’s a path by the riverside. It’s early enough the only people they pass are fellow runners, brief blips. Oscar takes greedy inhales of the November air, goosebumps each time their elbows bump. 

After the run, they stop briefly at the cafe next-door, picking up coffees. They take them up to Lando’s apartment, because the sun has fully risen, and a steady stream of normal people, and business people have begun to flood the street.

They’re not stalling. Not at all.

In the entryway, Oscar stands. He should exit. He needs to get to work. Lando needs to pack.

“I could,” he starts. Lando is clutching his latte in both hands, thumb worrying at the edge of the cardboard sleeve. “For lunch, I could go out. And meet you somewhere.” 

Lando nods immediately. 

Oscar feels a bit more relieved, in front of the door. “Okay. Okay, there’s a sandwich place nearby, I think. Or Italian. Um.”

“Go to work,” Lando says. His stare is something incredible, warm to exist in. Oscar wants to stay in its light, unfurl like a plant under a growlight. “Just text me.” 

Oscar checks the time. “Shit, yes.” He slides his shoes the last bit on. “See you later?”

It’s heady to say. It’s the last time now, for real. For a week and a half, at the very minimum.

Lando smiles, crooked and small and there’s a bit of foam at one edge. “See you later.”

Over plates of pasta, they pretend not to check the time.

Lando spools a string of spaghetti on his fork, bringing it up to his lips. 

Oscar kind of wishes he were the pasta, or the fork. Unfortunately, he is a human being with a job, and annoying human emotions. Such as wishing, of all things, to be a fork.

“It’s starting to feel real,” Lando says, too momentous a thing to be said around a mouthful of pasta sauce. But well, that’s Lando for you.

“Yeah?” Oscar says. “It hasn’t yet?”

Lando shakes his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, still clutching the fork. “I don’t think it’ll fully set in until I’m holding it. Probably not then either.”

Oscar nudges Lando’s foot with his own, under the table. He has another twenty minutes. “You’ll have time, after. It’s not going away.”

Lando kicks back. “Haven’t gotten it yet, though.”

He’s fiddling with the handle of the silverware, gaze bouncing around the mid-tier Italian place across the street from Alteryx London. 

“Mate.” Oscar smiles far too softly, trapping Lando’s foot between his own. “You’ve got a thirty point lead, for Christ’s sake. You’ve won it.”

Lando huffs out a breath, foot wiggling beneath the table. Oscar pretends not to see him glance at the clock across the restaurant. “Y’never know. They could always change the rules last minute. ‘S happened before.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “They’ve already posted the graphic. Too late now.” And this isn’t ‘21, he thinks. You’re not Verstappen. You’re not Hamilton.

Lando smiles, catlike again. “Are you following my Instagram yet? Or still playing it cool?”

“Hey,” he protests. “No play about it. I’m very cool.”

“You’re wearing a quarterzip. And this morning you tripped over your own trainers.”

He squints across the table, and very deliberately looks down, then back up. “You have pasta sauce on your chin.”

It’s not true, of course. But Lando doesn’t know that, floundering to get it with a napkin. 

When the clock strikes :55, they stand. Oscar pays, and Lando pretends to be annoyed, even as he fiddles with his baseball cap in a way Oscar is coming to associate with his emotions, bubbling over and manifesting as aborted movement.

They hug briefly, heedful of central London as Lando steps into his Uber. 

Oscar walks the twenty meters back to the office, and only looks back once.

He doesn’t watch the races anymore. He made a point of tabbing past the F1 section before moving to the feeders, back when Tristan and he had still been talking. When he had a reason, an excuse, and his weekends had plans beyond Milton Keynes and the gym.

He forgot to cancel his subscription, after. It’s probably paid through the next season, anyways. The sport’s never been the type to take anything short of everything, from those it ensnares.

The point is, it’s entirely easy to open the app on his TV, unused as it is. 

He’s early, too. Martin Brundle takes up the screen, prowling up and down the pitlane, in search of celebrities or team members to prod for content.

It’s entirely easy to sink into his couch, pull a blanket up to his chin, and listen.

Brundle’s commentary is deeply aggravating. Grating. Oscar endures.

It’s felt assured, this whole time, from the outside, but as they cut to the McLaren garage, to Lando, pushing through throngs of cameras to swing his way into the car, it feels, as Lando had said a week prior, abruptly real. 

He’s fiddling with his gloves in a way Oscar recognises from the Italian place, he’s still got the sides of his hair cropped close, and Oscar knows the texture would be the same, prickly-soft against back of knuckles. 

Lights out, and it’s like he’s in the car himself. The tension, the adrenaline, the waiting. He has the TV set to the broadcast, but they keep cutting away, showing some midfield battle for the dregs of the points — the Alpines and Haases — and Oscar cannot bear it, it’s an injustice. 

So he opens Lando’s feed on his laptop, cranks the volume to the max and watches. Crofty’s voice cuts through the roar of the engine at times, putting words to the pulling in Oscar’s chest, the sympathetic tensing of neck, leaping of heart.

Max is P1. Starts on pole, and stays as such the whole time. The changes the team has made have worked, evidently. 

Lando’s never really challenged. The only time he drops in the places is a tense moment — McLaren pits earlier than Ferrari, and Lando has to get around a stubborn Charles Leclerc, making it difficult on thirty-lap old tyres.

Oscar feels his stomach drop through the floor, Lando taking an unnecessarily aggressive dart down the inside. But it works, fucking beautifully.

Chequered flag is effervescent. Ahead, behind. The graphic is…

It’s a double win. 

Max on top of the podium. Lando, on top of the world

Maybe he can count this win as his own, too. 

In a way, he has won today, in that partial-win way every fan feels, every stretched semi-related connection. He’s a Red Bull employee, even if it doesn't feel like it counts as a team, exactly. 

And Lando, well. He’s something to him, he hopes. That’s what he’s sensed budding, hasn’t dared to put name to. He’s felt it though, a tenuous connection, line ensnaring, reeling ever-closer. It’s too soon to say. But it’s there, that something.

He watches as Lando burns donuts into the asphalt, tyres squealing and smoke pouring out into the night. He runs to the crowd, gets clapped by a hundred hands. He’s crying under the helmet, Oscar can tell. Could hear it in his voice. Can see it on the screen.

His mom hugs him. His dad. His engineer.

He watches him stand on P2, smiling like he’s won the race, like a weight has gone. 

He watches Max on the top-step, and thinks of nights in the sim, and he tries out the thought again: In some miniscule way, I won today. It rings a bit realer each time he tries.

Leclerc rounds out the top-3, and Oscar can’t help but imagine other worlds.

One where he stuck it out, watching the fireworks from the back of a garage. 

One where that spot really did come, and he watched the championship battle from behind blue-flags. 

The third possibility he doesn’t touch. Because it was never a possibility, was it? There was no world with him standing up there, on those steps. 

But he does dare imagine a future, maybe. Stood below, looking up. Instead of Tristan…

Lando would be even more radiant, in person, he knows. Vegas-pretty, London-glowing. Maybe, so bright that Oscar wouldn’t even mind, would be able to ignore the rest of it. It’s not even close to as important. Insignificant.

Oscar: Congratulations!

He doesn't expect a reply so quickly. Nearly immediately after Lando’s off-screen, gone from the team pictures being taken, freshly showered in rose water.

[Lando]
I FUCKINGDID IT
u were watching??

 

[Oscar]
Yes
You were amazing

.

[Lando]
i cantbelievs it

 

Incoming Audio Call: Lando Norris

 

The feed, Oscar realizes. Ruth Buscombe and Laura Winter, mid- race dissection. 

Lando, blurry and on the phone in the background. Media handler in front of him, holding his water bottle while Lando swipes a hand over his face, smiling giddily. Relieved. 

“Oh my god,” Oscar says as the call connects. “Lando.”

“I can’t fucking believe it!” Lando’s voice spills out. “Oh my god,” he echoes. “Holy shit.”

“You were amazing,” Oscar manages. “I’m so happy for you. You– You’re a world champion.”

“I won. Fucking champion, baby.”

“Fucking champion,” Oscar echoes, reverent.

“I’m just, it feels like it was all worth it. It feels so good. I can’t believe it.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Oscar repeats. “That late move into turn six was insane. The traction, the cut inside.”

“I thought I was going to bin it. I’m–” The Lando onscreen leans in to hear what his handler says, before moving the phone back up to his face. Oscar watches it all happen delayed. “I have to— I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yes,” Oscar says, and believes. Slowly, gently, reality filters back in. The distant cheers on the TV, the buzz of his fridge. The tinny edge to Lando’s voice. “Go celebrate. World champion.”

Lando laughs. “Bye, Osc.”

The fireworks go off again, brilliant things of gold and fire.

World champion, Oscar thinks. 

He can remember how it felt, back in F2, in F3. It’s unreal, in retrospect. That many emotions at once. That weightlessness, gratitude and pride and relief intermixing until all that remained was fizzing, bubbling joy.

Lando is something else. World champion. He’s, wow.

He thinks of Lando. 

He thinks of Joel, of the people back at the factory. The cost cap, he thinks of. Horner’s name in his contacts. Another tally on the wall, another trophy in the hallway leading to the loop room. Not WCC, but the best they could manage, with one driver in a two-driver game.

He thinks of Verstappen.

Of visiting Milton Keynes a lifetime ago, a tourist imagining a future team. Hoping to catch sight of Mad Max, or Mark, or even better, follow in their footsteps.

World champion, he thinks. Winner. 

It’s, it’s good. 

Different, like this, but good.

He turns off the TV. 

It’s a good day.