Chapter Text
Oscar remembers the first time Lando Norris ever came into his life. Of course he remembers, how could he not? The way the bright smile and brown curls suddenly appeared in front of him during lunch time, how Lando insisted on speaking with Oscar even if the Aussie rarely gave him more than a nod or a ‘yep.’ But the routine continued for months, and eventually Oscar had to admit that maybe, just maybe he enjoyed the constant interruptions to his day.
They were only 10, maybe 11 when that happened. But since then the two of them have weathered through school, long nights of studying where Oscar would only be kept awake by the Brit’s whining and complaining. Though on Oscar’s 18th birthday the man realized something that he knew Lando hadn’t yet.
Oscar had always waited for his 18th birthday, wondering who his soulmate would be. He hoped it wasn’t anyone who was too clumsy or careless, considering he would have to share their pain for the rest of their lives. He didn’t mind what gender they would be, he didn’t care what they were like honestly so long as they weren’t an asshole and they actually did make an effort to care and love for him.
But when Lando Norris himself burned his finger on Oscar’s own birthday cake, yeah that was a day. Oscar vividly remembers how Lando had let the match burn too close to his fingers while lighting the birthday candles, the flames licking at his tan skin. Oscar watched in slight concern as Lando pulled his hand back quickly with a slight grumble.
But when Oscar felt the tinge of a burn on his own fingers, he tried not to make it too obvious. Luckily for him he never really was that expressive. He kept his mouth shut considering his best friend was apparently his soulmate, and he really did not want to freak Lando out. As far as Oscar knew Lando was very straight, and the heartthrob of any girl he met.
It’s been extremely difficult keeping this secret from their entire friend group, Oscar is pretty sure that George has caught on that something isn’t exactly right between the two. But for now, Oscar is fine. Oscar is safe in his little bubble of secrecy and only occasionally gets the shit scared out of him during the day when Lando somehow manages to injure himself.
Today Oscar was just sitting in their shared flat and trying his best to wake up fully when he heard and subsequently felt the crashing chaos that came from their kitchen. Oscar’s shin hurt slightly, so that must’ve meant that Lando very smartly dropped a pan on his leg. He could hear what sounded like hopping around and a bunch of muttered, ‘fuck’s from the kitchen.
“Lando! What did you do?” Oscar asked with his same unamused and bored tone as he slowly got out of bed. The unexpected pain to his shin had done a good job at waking him up. He heard a slight sheepish noise from the kitchen and then more shuffling, another aching pain erupted from Oscar’s hand as a smaller crash sounded from the room.
“Uh- Nothing!” Lando quickly said as he tried to do some sort of damage control on the situation. Lando had been extremely lazy last night putting all the pots and pans away from the dishwasher, and figured that they were stable enough for him to just leave it alone. Unfortunately Lando was never good at jenga and the entire thing came crashing down on his leg first thing in the morning.
Lando always felt bad for whoever his soulmate was, having to deal with his constant clumsy moments and random injuries. Part of him questioned if they would smack him the moment they met or not. His soulmate wasn’t nearly as clumsy as he was, he almost never felt pain from them other than a stubbed toe or sometimes a slight burn that had to have come from cooking.
He always wondered about what his soulmate was like, perhaps they spoke a different language? Maybe they had some hidden cooking talent that caused all those random burns. They might even work an office job considering how little they seemed to get hurt by things. Lando didn’t care much if they were a girl or boy, but part of him was curious how exactly it would work out if they were in fact male.
Lando had never really dated men before, even if he had felt some attraction to them in the past. He knew his friend’s would be fine with whatever it did end up being, his family would be overjoyed that he found someone to love and take care of him. But Lando was always pushing that to the back of his mind.
He came out of his trance to see Oscar snapping his fingers in front of his face as if Lando was some sort of dog, trying to catch his attention. Lando looked down to see that Oscar had properly put the pans back without it being an architectural hazard and was now attempting to speak to Lando.
“Oh uh.. Sorry Osc, What?” Lando asked with a small confused look on his face, Oscar let out a small exasperated and almost endearing sigh as he stood up.
“I said, are you okay? What were you trying to do?” Oscar asked as he looked down at Lando, it took the brit a few moments to respond because what was he doing again? The gears were turning in his head and he was very clearly trying to remember in the early morning haze.
“Oh! Right! For my stream tonight, I’m going to make pancakes and try to do that cool pancake art thing,” Lando gestured somewhat vaguely with his hands, “so I needed to make sure that we had enough pans that were big enough for it.”
Lando had been streaming for a while now, it’s nothing new for him to have a random wild idea that could possibly put their flat in danger. Lando was actually one of the main reasons they were able to live in a flat instead of a cramped dorm apartment, of course Oscar helped out a lot, taking up shifts at a local cafe and bringing back a good amount of money from his engineering internships. But Lando’s streaming was the main push that made them move.
“Alright… Do you want me to stay back tonight? Make sure you don’t burn the entire place down and cause a scene?” Oscar asked with a slightly raised eyebrow, Lando thought about it for a moment.. While Oscar being there as a safety net would be nice, he didn’t want Oscar to have to babysit him all the time. Lando quickly shook his head as he frowned a bit.
“Nuh uh, I’ll be fine. Don’t leave George hanging by dropping your shift last minute, I promise! Don’t look at me like that! The pizza incident was a one time thing!” Lando insisted as Oscar’s doubt grew with every word the brit said. The pizza incident had happened because Lando wanted stuffed crust pizza and it somehow exploded. Oscar came home to dough everywhere in the oven and the smoke alarm going in full force. That was not something Oscar wanted to repeat.
Oscar had come home from his shift early because he had felt numerous burning sensations along his arms from Lando desperately trying to clean the bubbling mess of cheese and dough before it got worse. Lando of course thought that Oscar had just been extremely lucky to show up when he did and save the horrible situation that Lando put himself in.
“If you’re absolutely sure.. But if I come back to a mess again I’m going to ban these cooking streams of yours for at least a year.” Oscar grumbled, Lando let out a soft whining noise in protest and Oscar nearly folded instantly at the sound. God was he gone for the other man.
“Fine fine fine, but it won’t happen so it doesn’t matter anyways!” Lando said confidently as he started to shoo Oscar out of the kitchen and back towards his room. Oscar raised an eyebrow but complied anyway, he had to get to some work in the engineering department for a project and then show up at the cafe by 3.
As he walked back into his room and shut the door he stretched a bit and went to grab his normal work clothes for whenever he needed to be around the machinery and oil and then hopped into the shower quickly.
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Oscar was clearly distracted when the clock hit 5 at the cafe, that was when Lando normally would start his cooking streams so that he had enough time to clean the mess up before Oscar got home. Oscar was tapping his fingers on the counter and waiting for some sort of random pain to happen, sure he was being a bit pessimistic but he was very much not trusting of this idea.
“You alright Oscar? You look like there's a time bomb attached to your back.” George commented with a small sarcastic tone, Oscar looked back with a slight roll of his eyes as he shook his head a bit. He mumbled something along the lines of ‘Nothing’ as he began to wipe the counter down for the third time.
George raised an eyebrow before handing Oscar an order. It was just a simple coffee really, it shouldn’t have been anything too difficult to deal with. But for some reason the damned espresso machine decided not to work, it was always on the fritz and no matter what Oscar tried it wouldn’t be fixed. Oscar was debating on just taking the cursed thing into the shop and dismantling it entirely.
But as Oscar was poking and prodding at the machine it spat hot espresso right onto his hand, he pulled back with a soft hiss as he rushed to put water on the burn. He said a silent apology to Lando in his head before feeling an entire burning sensation on his lower forearm. He groaned softly as he leaned his head against the counter.
George of course was around the corner and checking on Oscar in an instant, staring at the angry red that was spreading onto his hand. He frowned softly and started to lecture the younger man on machine safety, being careful and knowing better than that considering how often the machine did stuff like this.
“Yeah yeah.. I’m sorry George. Look, can I just take that thing into the shop? I promise I won’t break it more, maybe. I don’t know much about coffee machines but surely it’s not that complicated.” Oscar grumbled, aiming his anger towards the inanimate object instead of thinking about what Lando possibly could’ve done to his arm. He heard a soft sound of acceptance from George and took that as a yes.
Meanwhile though during Lando’s stream everything was going pretty well, he had made the batter and made the different colors and currently was trying to flip a pancake that somewhat resembled a papaya. Though he kept throwing it in the air only for the same side to come down face up.
“Chat I can’t be that poor at this. Gravity must hate me I swear.” He went for another try before his hand exploded in a burning pain, he hadn’t touched the pain or anything so he assumed that it must be his soulmate messing up their own cooking. Though because of that slight distraction Lando failed to catch the papaya pancake and it landed square on his forearm. He let out two sounds of pain in a short amount of time as he leaned against the counter.
“I’m alright Chat, I’m fine. No I’m not dead, calm down. I guess good ol’ soulmate was also cooking something and got burned. Isn’t that fun? Getting burned twice.” Lando said with a small smile on his face as he washed his arm with cold water, there was a weird tingling sensation on his hand so he was assuming his soulmate was doing the same. Almost as soon as he turned the water off though he got a call from Oscar.
“Oh hold on chat, the mother of the flat is calling.” He said, flashing the camera a cheeky grin as he reached for his phone and picked up the call. He put Oscar on speaker as he leaned against the counter and towards the camera so his stream could hear. “You’re on speaker Osc.”
“Lando, I was watching the stream, are you okay? Seriously, I told you to be careful.” Oscar’s voice was soft over the phone and barely got picked up by the camera. Sure Oscar knew it was partially his fault, well, mainly his fault that Lando got hurt, but he couldn’t just say that.
“Yeah I’m fine I’m fine, I have a papaya on my arm now though. You see it?” Lando asked as he held his forearm up to the camera with a bit of a smile.
“Yes Lan, I see it.. You rinsed it with water and everything?” He asked, Lando could faintly hear the sounds of coffee machines and measuring tools in the background so he assumed that Oscar had the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear
“Of course I did, Mom, thanks for asking.” Lando said with a somewhat sarcastic and teasing tone, he heard the call dropping noise and then made a fake offended face at the camera. Showing his phone with the ‘Call ended’ screen front and center.
“Did you see that? That bloke hung up on me!” Lando complained with a small huff as he went back to his cooking, across town Oscar stared at his phone and let out a small noise of amusement before closing off the stream and going back to work.