Chapter Text
MONACO 2026 GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING
Postrace Interview - LANDO NORRIS
TRANSCRIPT; For internal use only
F1TV: Hello Lando, it’s good to see you again.
LN: Likewise.
F1TV: So from that big smile, are we right to assume you feel pretty good about that final Q3 lap?
LN: [laughs] Uh, well. Yes! Yes, it’s great to be back. Pole in Monaco is very special. It’s a tight race, narrow streets, no room for overtaking, so starting positions and this pole are even more important.
F1TV: It’s your second time on pole in a row here in Monaco. Is there anything you’ve done differently from last year? Or maybe the same?
LN: [laughs] Well, I was on time to the track, that’s something that’s been pretty consistent. But more seriously, I’ve just really been, like, focusing heavy on this race, and this track, so it’s been wonderful to see all that hard work pay off. I also had a whole bunch of Twizzlers right before, so maybe that’s where all the energy came from in that last lap.
F1TV: That’s great to hear. It’s a McLaren 1-2 start tomorrow, do you think Oscar Piastri has any chance of an overtake? We’ve seen some incredible starting line getaways so far this season.
LN: That is … well, that’s up to him, I suppose.
F1TV: Thanks for chatting with us, Lando, always a pleasure.
McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team @McLarenF1
The secret to a papaya 1-2 start in Monaco? Twizzlers, apparently. 👇▶︎ #McLarenF1
↳ Twizzlers @Twizzlers
Maybe some special edition papaya vines are in order? 👀
↳alex @arllyok
twizzlers sponsorship incoming i guess 😭
↳ anna @norristris
WAIT not to get parasocial up in here but hasn’t he said before he hates twizzlers ????
↳ln1 wdc defender @n0rstppns
YESSSS i rmr that too twin it’s not just you
↳ anna @norristris
RIGHT in the halloween video or am i making that up ???
↳ln1 wdc defender @n0rstppns
to be a lando fan is to be gaslit every race weekend 😔
↳julia @PAPAYAJULES
not twizzlers replying sorry to break your heart but 💔💔
↳ln1 wdc defender @n0rstppns
@FIA INVESTIGATE #TWIZZLERGATE
Flavour: twizzlers
Tested: Yes
Rating: 9.15
Notes: i don’t believe in luck but i don’t love twizzlers so im not sure w can you kiss me like that before every race pls and th i rmr this one smelling like ass on the plane that one time but turns out in practice its pretty good
osc 🐨: so i’m right
Lando frowns at his phone. Presently, he’s tearing through a bowl of pasta in his kitchen in only boxers and an old karting shirt, the only clean shirt he has left. His trainer keeps bugging him to quit eating after 7 PM, something about his metabolism, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Leaning on the counter, he taps out a reply with his ring finger.
abt wut lol
osc 🐨: chapsticks are different when you kiss someone
Oh, right. Oscar’s little theory. The whole reason Lando even got himself into this mess.
sure. ur right
osc 🐨: and ? …
and ….
zak looks like that guy from modern family?
osc 🐨: NO
osc 🐨: i’m right so that means you’re …
Gay and stupid? Lando wants to reply. Sexually frustrated?
wrong 🤦
is tht what u wanted to hear
osc 🐨: mmm one more time 👂
ur right and i’m wrong
osc 🐨: music to my ears
haaaa don’t get used to it
ur rlly something else, osc
Oscar’s dots reappear and disappear for several moments, so Lando takes this as an opportunity to put his bowl in the sink. But when his phone dings again, he does an impressive lunge that would’ve won him an Olympic gold medal.
osc 🐨: what are you doing rn?
did u just hit me with a ‘wyd’?
osc 🐨: i literally didn’t
yes u did
oooo u wanna know what im doingggg
what’s next, a ‘u up?’
osc 🐨: 🙄
osc 🐨: well i WAS gonna ask if u wanted to come over
osc 🐨: but since u think i have impure intentions ….
Lando almost throws his phone out the window and into the sea. The sad reality is that at this point, he’d let Oscar act on any impure intention with him.
well i WAS having dinner alone in my underwear just now
so nothing important
osc 🐨: ha
osc 🐨: well
osc 🐨: wanna be alone together then?
Oh, shit.
Look, Lando has had his fair share of booty calls. He knows what the texts look like, and they look exactly like this, like horny Bat-Signals projected right onto his phone. A hookup?? Is Oscar Piastri, of all people, asking for a hookup?? The what-are-you-doing, the lets-hang-out, it’s practically textbook. That familiar champagne feeling is back, bubbling from his chest to the tops of his thighs. The night before a race, too … the idea of it is so thrilling that he almost doesn’t notice the follow-up text.
osc 🐨: play fifa or something
Yeah, or something. It doesn’t do anything to quell the sparks now spreading to his toe and to the very tips of his fingers. There’s an odd buzz in his ears, like he’s just downed a shot. Great. Just great. Oscar’s gotten him all riled up by hardly doing anything at all, which is so Oscar and so unfair.
But maybe he’s reading too much into it. Maybe it is just FIFA…
Alone …
In Oscar’s apartment …
cool, i’m in
i can be there in 10
The night air is warm and inviting on his skin; he’s walk-running along Port Hercule when his phone buzzes in the pocket of his sweats. He yanks it out with a little too much gusto, but it’s only Charles.
b16 leclerc: Everyone’s saying you hate twizzlers
hahahaha sry to outquali u in ur home race twice in a row must be hard 💔
my condolenses
b16 leclerc: Salt in the wound, but don’t change the subject
b16 leclerc: Does a certain Mclaren driver have something to do with it ???
maybe
b16 leclerc: Omg
b16 leclerc: Max told me to tell you ur both stupid
max knows ???
b16 leclerc: Not about your weird chapstick thing, no
b16 leclerc: Secret in the safe, remember? 😎
b16 leclerc: But everyone knows you’re weird around each other
we’re not weird around eachother
b16 leclerc: Yes you are and you make it everyone’s problem
ur so dramatic
anyway im heading to his rn so shut up
b16 leclerc: To do what ??
play fifa idk
b16 leclerc: FIFA ???
b16 leclerc: Is that a euphemism?? Is that the new Netflix and chill
god i wish
idk he might be deadass lol
but i’m not abt 2 turn him down
b16 leclerc: Oh of course not
b16 lerclerc: So his tongue has been in your mouth and you’re really just going to play FIFA
Wrong, actually, there hasn’t been any tongue yet, but Lando isn’t about to tell him that.
yeah
b16 leclerc: 😪You’re hopeless
maybe so
The ten minutes have become fifteen, since he’s slowed to something more like a mosey as he’d been texting Charles, but Oscar’s building looms in front of him soon enough. He’s been to Oscar’s flat before, but that was years ago, when he’d first moved here and invited him for the courtesy tour. He’s buzzing with anticipation in the elevator, and he realizes with a not-unpleasant tingle that it’s the same kind of butterflies he still gets before races. The butterflies he gets when he knows he’s about to do something exciting and dangerous and ill-advised.
Maybe that’s why he goes for Oscar’s front door assuming it’ll be unlocked, like maybe Oscar’s read his mind and expedited the process for both of them. That’s happened before with hookups. Not that this would be a hookup -- relax, Lando. Just going to meet up with your good friend Oscar and --
THWACK!
“Ow! Fuck!”
“Shit!”
Oscar is doubled over, cradling his nose with both hands. Lando shuts the door and surges forward, prying Oscar’s hands from his face. There’s already a steady stream of blood dripping out one nostril, and the look Oscar gives him from under his eyelashes, equal parts confounded and furious, reminds Lando that yes, he is still attractive, maybe even more so now that he’s covered in blood.
Lando immediately shoves Oscar’s head back. He’d say it was him trying to get him upright so the bleeding will slow, but for both their sakes, he can’t have Oscar looking at him like that for longer than a few seconds.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry --”
“You’re subbosed to knock,” comes Oscar’s accusatory tone. His p’s turn into b’s, like he’s underwater. “I can’t believe you.”
“Me?? And what were you doing, lurking at the peephole??”
Oscar chooses to ignore this. “If you’ve broken my nose, I’m bushing you off the track tomorrow.”
“Oh, funny.” Lando’s still shaken up, but if Oscar can still joke about it, surely it can’t be that bad.
One of Oscar’s hands returns to his face. “I’m gonna get some baber towels and see if I still have a nose.” He gestures to his living room, head still tilted up. “Wait here.” With that, he hurries off to what Lando can only assume is the bathroom, leaving him alone for the first time in Oscar’s living room.
Lando has been in flats like this before -- the starter apartment of a single guy with cash to burn and a schedule that precludes actually being at home. It’s objectively nice, with modern fixtures and a balcony overlooking the harbor, but it’s definitely more of a long-term AirBnB than it is a home. There’s a few photos and notes on the fridge, and some of Oscar’s trophies are dotting the shelves around the TV, but that’s as far as personalization goes.
There’s also clearly been an effort to tidy up, with a throw blanket folded neatly over the top of the couch, takeout bags shoved into the humble trash can in the kitchen. There’s a glass of water on the coffee table like an offering. Also on the coffee table is Oscar’s laptop, something involving charts and graphs still on its display.
A faucet turns on down the hallway Oscar has disappeared into, and an idea edges its way into Lando’s brain.
What if I just …
Lando darts over to the couch and pulls the laptop closer to him. A cursory glance over the current screen tells him Oscar had been looking at upgrades for tomorrow’s race, but he’d been doing so in that magical, magical app known as Google Sheets. He opens the main dashboard and --
Fuck, wait, no. This must be Oscar’s work account, because everything that pops up is McLaren-related. Race data, engine data, tyre specs; it’s all somehow more intimate than a diary. As much as Lando would love to snoop, he’s a man on a mission right now. Oscar wouldn’t keep chapstick_thing.xlsx here.
He clicks on the profile icon in the top right corner and there, in the dropdown menu, is what he’s looking for.
Hi Oscar!
Show more accounts +
↳oscar piastri
[email protected]
A new tab opens and, mercifully, there it is, under Suggested Files.
chapstick_thing.xlsx.
There’s the page Lando has always been able to see, his own words reassuring if not beautiful. He navigates to the bottom of the page.
Sheet2.
At first, Sheet2 looks exactly like, well, Sheet1: Flavour. Tested. Rating. Notes. But the words underneath those headings are what’s new, because they’re not Lando’s.
They’re Oscar’s.
Flavour: York Peppermint Patty
Tested: Yes
Rating: 7.5
Notes: on the roof at woking, how romantic. points off because he hit me with his huge head, the muppet. i think we were both just nervous.
Flavour: Bubblegum
Tested: Yes
Rating: 6.15
Notes: didn’t love this one, turns out car kisses aren’t all that. maybe 8am on race day isn’t the vibe??
Flavour: Hershey’s Classic
Tested: Yes
Rating: 8.9
Notes: i probably would’ve kept going if sasha hadn’t come in.
Flavour: Cookies and Creme
Tested: Yes
Rating: 5.4
Notes: complicated. he’s a good kisser, but i don’t love kissing someone’s sloppy seconds… or being the sloppy second. wtf are we even doing? i can’t tell him to stop kissing other people. as if he even would. maybe we should quit while we’re ahead… but if he hasn’t caught on yet, he’s a moron
Flavour: Almond Joys
Tested: Yes
Rating: 8.1
Notes: fuck, this was a good one. elevator kisses might be underrated.
Flavour: Twizzlers
Tested: Yes
Rating: 9.2
Notes: call it a good luck kiss, if you like, even if he so famously doesn’t believe in luck. idk what he’s doing, mentioning twizzlers like that in the postrace, but i like it. it feels more real now.
Down the hall, the faucet shuts off. Heart pounding, with Oscar’s words still swirling inside his head (if he hasn’t caught on yet he’s a moron) Lando closes the tab and gingerly pushes Oscar’s laptop back to its spot on the coffee table.
Just as he lifts his hands off, Oscar rematerializes, still dabbing at his nose.
“Right, I think that’s the last of it,” he says. “Nothing’s broken, so I’ll be able to race tomorrow. Lucky you.”
“Oh.” Lando’s voice sounds high-pitched and unnatural, even to his own ears. “Great.”
“Maybe,” Oscar’s head gives a playful waggle, “we’ll even have matching scars.”
Normally, the thought alone would send Lando’s head into a tailspin, but he’s already so lightheaded that he’s afraid he might keel over and pass out.
(i like it)
“So.” Oscar balls up the tissue in his hand, finger-guns to the TV console. “FIFA?”
(it feels more real now)
Lando slaps a smile on his face. “Yup. Definitely.”
Luckily, Lando has played so much FIFA in his wasted youth that muscle memory remembers all the controls for him, so he’s able to pretend like his entire brain hadn’t just blue-screened right here on Oscar’s couch.
Sheet2 was Oscar. Oscar rating the kisses, Oscar writing what could’ve been spoken word poetry in the notes. It makes Lando only a little embarrassed about his own notes, but he supposes he would’ve been a bit more vulnerable too if he had the privilege of locking his sheet.
Oscar liked kissing him. Oscar liked him.
If you had told that to Lando at the start of the season, he would have laughed in your face.
“Oh, you fuck!” Oscar groans, falling back into the cushions. Onscreen, Lando has just scored his third match goal for his Arsenal team. “I can’t believe this.”
Lando shrugs, jutting out his bottom lip, putting on a show of humility as he tosses his controller to the coffee table. “Melbourne Heart? More like Melbourne Fart.”
“You did not, Arse-nal!”
Lando considers himself, as do almost all the other drivers, a professional athlete. He works out. He’s strong. He has to be. But sometimes he forgets how much bigger than him Oscar actually is, because Oscar pins him down on the couch in two seconds flat like he’s a rag doll and now he’s leaning over him and oh.
Thump, goes Lando’s stupid heart in his stupid chest.
“You’re such a sore loser,” he manages.
“I think you’re just a loser,” Oscar grins, but all the bite is gone, melted into something softer.
Oscar’s bangs are falling into his eyes. Before he can overthink it, Lando cards his hand through them, feeling the silky strands between his fingers -- and he swears he hears Oscar exhale, like he’s been waiting for him to do it.
Oscar folds over him, one of his hands coming to rest lightly on his waist, and Lando almost dies right then, swear to fucking god. Lando moves his hand further down Oscar’s head, to that coveted spot just above his spine, the one he’s been dreaming of, if only to keep him tethered to his plane of existence.
With every kiss, Oscar rewrites his brain chemistry. With every kiss, it feels like they’re getting closer and closer to the precipice of something, and now Lando’s desperate to know what’s on the other side.
There’s a moment of hesitation where their mouths hover close.
Lando should say something.
Hey. Is this real? Did you mean the things you wrote? You’re the only one I wanna kiss, by the way. In driver rooms, in elevators, in the car park, anywhere. Tell me you can meet me somewhere halfway.
He needs to let go of him.
Instead, he tilts his chin up to him, and Oscar leans down, and oh, do they meet.
The other kisses were always short, either by design or tragically cut short by elevator doors or marketing assistants named Sasha. But now, tucked away in Oscar’s living room, Oscar kisses him long and slow, with none of the hard edges that Lando has grown accustomed to. Kissing Oscar had always yielded that funny sensation in his chest, that unstoppered cork feeling he gets right before he laughs. That’s still there, but this time it’s not without a strange, paradoxical sense of calm. Welcome back, it seems to say. Stay a while.
Lando, impatient as always, is the one to edge his tongue between Oscar’s lips, and Oscar responds in kind by opening his mouth, and everything gets a little dirtier, hotter. Oscar sighs into his mouth, breathless and eager, and Lando’s no better as he runs his other hand up Oscar’s back, underneath his shirt. He’s his favorite track, the curves and the straights as legendary to him as Monza or Suzuka, and now he gets them all to himself.
Their game, all but forgotten, spitefully defaults back to the title screen, bringing with it the blaring trumpets and drums of the theme song. Lando, for his part, was mid-sucking on Oscar’s bottom lip, and is only a little disappointed when Oscar pulls away.
“Fuck. Sorry,” Oscar mumbles, fumbling for the remote.
“That’s okay.” Lando is still taking in the pretty flush on Oscar’s cheeks, the way his lips glisten in the glow of the TV. “First in our bloodlines to make out with the FIFA theme playing.”
“You’re unbelievable.” TV successfully muted, Oscar tosses the remote onto a chair. Then, he sits back on his heels. It’s only them right now, in this room, in this building, in the whole world for all Lando knows, but his voice is still quiet when he says: “Can I tell you something?”
Lando hoists himself onto his elbows. “‘Course.”
“I can see the version history. In the spreadsheet. I can see, like, what edits you make to it.”
An uncertain smile tugs at Lando’s lips. “Okay….?”
“But that means I can also see, you know. The stuff that you delete.”
It’s still not clicking. So what if Lando deletes a few words here and there? He locks eyes with Oscar, searching. It’s not like --
Oh, no.
It finally slots into place.
(just tell me it doesnt mean anything)
“What you wrote in Miami …”
(when u kiss me does ur chest also go aaaaaa or is that just me)
“Did you mean it?”
The butterflies are actively turning into wasps, pinching and stinging his insides. He feels alone, spotlighted. And he doesn’t know how to stand in the spotlight if Oscar isn’t there, too, so --
“What about what you wrote?” Lando blurts, and Oscar blinks.
“What?”
“On the fucking --” Lando gestures wildly to Oscar’s laptop, innocent on the coffee table. “Sheet2!
Red flushes across the bridge of Oscar’s nose, his mouth quirking the way it does when he’s thinking, and if they weren’t having this discussion Lando would yank him back down and rip all his clothes off. He’s got the prettiest boy in Monaco right here, and they’re talking about a goddamn Excel spreadsheet.
“You saw?”
Lando lets his head fall back to the cushion so he’s staring pathetically up at the ceiling. “Yes, Oscar, I saw. I saw there was a second page and I couldn’t fucking help myself.” He drapes one arm over his eyes, so at least when God finally puts him out of his misery and strikes him down over his tragic little life he won’t see it coming. “I fucking -- I like you, Osc. Like, a lot. I think about you, all the time, and I’ve even started --” he lets out a maniacal little laugh, oh, he is so far gone, “-- dreaming about you. I can’t kiss anyone else since you started kissing me and it fucking sucks.”
He sighs, every butterfly, every wasp leaving his chest with it, so there’s nothing left. “And yes. I meant it. Every deleted thing I said.”
Oscar is cute.
The FIA is shit.
Mac and cheese makes my stomach hurt.
Oscar makes my chest and my everywhere else hurt, in a different way, in a good way.
“Me too.”
Lando sits up so suddenly that he thinks he might be the only person to see proof of his iron deficiency while still sitting down. “What?”
“Me too,” Oscar repeats, slowly, quietly. “I meant it. In the spreadsheet.” He stares at his hands. Vulnerability is strange on Oscar; cars, engineering, physics, it all comes easy to him, but feelings are another matter entirely. “In Miami I saw what you wrote and deleted, and it -- well, it made me really happy that you felt that way, so I went to find you. And then …”
“And then I was drunk,” Lando supplies. He remembers the tartness of the vodka cran, the sickly sweetness of Michel’s lips. “And then Michel …”
Oscar nods. “So I thought you would never … and with me, I mean …”
Lando is going to jump out this fucking window. Oscar Piastri thinks he would never have a chance with Lando. Oscar! The one who Lando always looks for first in a crowd or a group photo, the one he makes fun of people with in corners at parties, the one he can barely talk about to other people, he’s so far gone about him.
“You? But I thought you would never…”
Oscar winces. “Yeah. We’re pretty fucking stupid, aren’t we?”
Lando lets himself fall back on the couch again, covers his face with both hands, and groans. His whole body is buzzing with the ridiculousness of this moment, the elation, the relief.
“I can’t believe you fucking like me.”
“I know, I was surprised, too.”
Lando points an accusing finger at him. “But you’re always talking to girls! That engineer girl at Woking --”
Oscar rolls his eyes and pushes Lando’s finger out of his face. “Please, like you aren’t. And I already told you, she wasn’t my type.”
“Okay, so what is your type, then?”
A more familiar smile spreads across Oscar’s lips then. The shit-eating one. The devastating one. The let’s-kiss-with-different-Chapsticks-for-fun one. “Well. I like boys with curly hair.”
A single butterfly flies back into Lando’s chest, but he won’t let Oscar have it so easily.
“I should’ve known you liked Antonelli.”
Oscar falls forward to his knees again, and inches closer to Lando. “I like boys with green eyes, and a mole on their cheek.”
“Charles?? Don’t let Max hear you say that.”
“I like boys who are messy--”
“I did hear Ollie’s driver’s room is a wreck--”
“ --with a gap in their teeth --”
“Gasly can be pretty cute--”
“-- and drive me crazy on and off the track.”
“That’s no way to talk about George.”
Oscar’s back where he was before FIFA had interrupted them, knee slotted between Lando’s legs, one hand gripping his waist. Lando’s hand finds its spot on the back of Oscar’s neck, threads its way through the hair there.
“I like boys who don’t know when to stop. Talking.”
“Now who could this b--?”
Lando never finds out, because Oscar’s lips are back on his and that pretty much erases any hope of other brain activity. He laughs into his mouth, wraps his legs around Oscar’s waist. Yeah, he’s never kissing anyone else after this. It’s the best feeling in the world. And considering he's been crowned a World Champion, that's saying a lot.
Flavour: idk. whoppers. fuck
Tested: Yes
Rating: 10000000000
Notes: WOWOWOW AWOOOGAAAAA
Lando doesn’t end up winning Monaco, but he finds he doesn’t much care -- just this one time.
Oscar ends up on the podium next to him, right on the top step. Through the champagne spray, Oscar is all warm brown eyes and rosy pink cheeks, with eleven tiny suns sparkling up and around his face, and Lando can hardly believe that it’s all his.
“A nosebleed?!” Charles gapes.
Next to him, Max howls with laughter. “You gave Piastri a freaking nosebleed!”
“I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” Lando mutters, spinning his Padel racket in his hand.
Charles still looks horrorstruck. “I mean -- and then what did he do?!”
“He went and cleaned up.”
“And then you made out?”
“And then we made out.” Lando bobs his head from side to side. “More or less.”
“You’re mental, Lando.” Max swipes at the tears in his eyes. “He must really like you.”
Lando hums, feeling the lovebites under his polo positively glowing. “Yeah, I think so.”
There’s a sound of a chain link fence rattling, followed by a familiar Aussie accent: “Hey, guys, sorry I’m late! Fucking traffic…”
“Only you would hit traffic in a town that’s 3 miles wide,” Lando calls, and Oscar flips him off from the bench.
“I’m going to bash your loser head in with this racket, Lando, so help me.”
Max and Charles exchange equally indulgent smiles, and let Lando know he can take some time, get ready for the game. Lando jogs over to the bench Oscar has camped out at, tying his shoes.
“Hey.”
Oscar squints up at him in the sun. “Hey yourself.”
It’s a little like having a new girlfriend at school, where Lando’s suddenly shy and doesn’t know what to say. Lando nudges Oscar with his racket.
“So is this our first date?”
Oscar’s smile is so stupid and big, and Lando’s heart swells at being on the receiving end of it.
“No, I believe our first date was the Monaco GP.”
“Oh, haaa. Funny.”
Oscar stands and presses a quick kiss to Lando’s lips, and Lando thinks he might blast off into orbit. It’ll take some getting used to, the casualness of it. The I-can-do-this-whenever-I-want-and-so-can-he of it.
“But sure. If you like. Or, I can wine and dine you tonight. Like real people do.”
He’ll also have to get used to how Oscar can just scramble his brain whenever he wants, because all Lando can come up with is, “Well, what if I want to wine and dine you?”
Oscar just snorts. “Sure. I’d like that, too.”
He pulls Lando in by his waist for another kiss, and Lando is all but pudding in his arms. When Lando pulls away, arms hooked around Oscar's neck, there’s a familiar sweetness on his lips. Very familiar. Airport convenience stores and hotel elevators familiar. Peanuts and chocolate familiar.
“Reese’s.”
Lando wants to drown in Oscar’s breathy giggle.
“Yeah. I tried to save the best for last.”
"Oh, thank God. Imagine if it was the Twizzler one?"
Welcome back. Stay awhile.
“Hey, can we play some Padel or what?!” Max calls from across the court.
“I told you they make it everyone’s business," Charles sighs.
Flavour: reese’s
Tested: Yes
Rating: 10/10
Notes: so blessed to live in a world where reese’s exists, where reese’s lip balm exists, and where oscar can kiss me whenever he wants with said lip balm. what a time to be alive, for truly. science fucking rules. shoutout science