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His heart is pounding out of his chest. He did it. A podium, at his home race, in front of all the British fans.
Lando hasn’t even begun processing it when Jose crackles to life in his ears. “And P2, P2. Great job man! Vamos! Great job.”
“Yeah, ay, ay! Podium in my home race!” he replies, much calmer than he actually feels, “podium in our home race!”
He can’t help but laugh. This is insane. This entire race was insane.
“Yeah man, fantastic! Podium on our home race. And Oscar got P3 as well, so that is a double! Well done, mate. Great job!”
Whooping and cheering, Lando punches his fists in the air. Over the radio, his engineer starts rattling off dash positions and post-race procedures. Lando goes through the motions on muscle memory but barely registers any of it. The rest of the cool-down lap passes by in a blur. He takes his time, tries to wave at as many fans as possible and soaks up the cheers which are audible to him now.
It’s all overwhelming.
“I love you guys, you know that?”, he radios, and he means it.
A chuckle sounds back. “Yeah, we know that. We love you too as well, mate. We love you too as well” says Jose.
Pulling up to the board adorned with the big ‘2’ feels surreal.
Before he’s full and well unbuckled he feels someone gently slapping his head, and when he looks up he’s met with the happy eyes of Max Verstappen, there to congratulate him.
Lando clambers out of his seat, steps out on his car and promptly slips as he goes to throw his arms up in excitement. He saves it though. As he steps off he sees Oscar parking next to Max’s Red Bull.
His heart swells with pride. He quickly runs up to the other McLaren and sticks his right hand into the cockpit. Oscar clasps it in his and looks up at him through the opening of his visor, his gaze radiating calmness as always. Lando shakes his hand around with probably a bit too much energy and garbles something that hopefully sounds like “congratulations, amazing job” before letting go.
He leaves Oscar to climb out with a few pats on the helmet.
On his way to the weighing scale, he congratulates Max once more in passing, who doesn’t pass up the opportunity to tap Lando on his ass. Lando is smiling from ear to ear. The biggest result of his career - so far - and he gets to share it with his friends on top of that.
After getting weighted he takes off his helmet, places it on his designated table and quickly rubs his face down with the provided towel. He foregoes the bottle of water and beelines directly to the team opposite of parc fermé.
Lando jumps into their arms and lets himself be hugged, patted, and slapped from all sides. Zak gets him in a proper embrace, yelling how proud he is. Lando firmly hugs him back. He doesn’t get a word out, but he’s thinking it. How grateful he is that McLaren is his team. His family.
He feels another set of arms around him and lips on his cheek. His dad.
Lando doesn’t consider himself a crying type, but he nearly - nearly - bursts into tears right there and then. His dad is here. His grandparents are here. His family is watching. His actual family and his racing family.
A podium with all of them present.
He barely dared to dream of this at the start of the season.
Barely, because a podium at Silverstone has always been the dream. Well, a win, really, but a P2 is as good as it possibly gets right now.
Disentangling himself from the sea of papaya he tries to get his head back together. He poses for the cameras before turning back.
That’s when he spots Oscar, just walking over to the team to accept the congratulations himself.
Lando starts running.
He doesn’t quite know what’s possessing him, but he throws himself around his teammate, arms wrapping around his shoulders.
“Fuck, you did great”, he says somewhere close to Oscar’s left ear. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for your driving I'm not sure either of us would be standing here.”
He isn’t trying to flatter his rookie teammate. Oscar’s defending on the last few laps held off cars that clearly had the pace and tyres to get them both.
A hand sneaks around his waist and comes to rest on his lower back. Another, on his hipbone.
Oscar still hasn’t said a word.
Lando can feel him smiling, though. That small, reserved smile he often wears.
“I was watching you on the screens the entire time”, Lando tells him.
He feels Oscar start to pull back, so he lets go. To be honest, he has no idea how long they were stood there like that.
Oscar’s looking at him now, and there’s a sparkle in his eyes. A kind Lando’s never seen in him before.
“Mate, I could fucking kiss you right now!” Lando says. He’s so happy. He’s so proud. He’s still holding onto Oscar’s shoulders.
“Then do it.”
What.
“What?”
“Do it. Kiss me”, Oscar replies, matter-of-factly.
There’s that twinkle in his eyes though.
And- oh.
Oscar’s pretty.
Lando’s not even sure what’s happening. His brain short-circuits. It feels like he’s suddenly moving on autopilot.
His right hand moves to Oscar’s jaw, and he’s leaning in, and suddenly he’s not thinking of the fans in the grandstands or the team behind the barriers clad in orange.
And he’s kissing Oscar.
Right there in parc fermé.
The world around him seems to go quiet for a moment.
Oscar’s lips feel soft. They taste salty from the sweat formed during an intense race.
A race that got both of them a podium.
Lando’s nose is touching Oscar’s cheek, grazing over the reddened skin.
All sense of time is lost. It honestly couldn’t have been much longer than a few seconds but it felt like the whole weekend was in that kiss.
When he pulls back the noise around them returns like a wall.
It’s then Lando notices everyone is staring at them. Apparently, Max was in the middle of his winner’s interview. The man in question catches Lando’s eye and just gives him the biggest smile.
The two McLaren drivers have probably taken away the attention from his win here.
Somehow, Lando doesn’t think Max minds. He has enough of them anyway.
Lando just smiles wider than he ever has, turns back around to Oscar, and leans in again.