Work Text:
1.
Learning other languages was something that came quite easily to Oscar. Even though he most definitely butchered the pronunciation of almost every single word. He still knew basic Japanese from the lessons at school, his time at Alpine had taught him some French. If he tried his best, he probably could repeat the handful of Italian sentences he learned from his former teammates at Prema.
So when Lando had joked about Spa being his other home race, it took less than ten minutes for Oscar to start a new Duolingo streak. He knew of Lando’s mother being Belgian - he had actually heard her speak to Max in Dutch before. But that was about a year ago, when he still thought the adoration he felt for his teammate was platonic. Back then he hadn’t thought twice about it and had awkwardly introduced himself to Cisca in English.
The words on his screen triggered no recognition at all. Oscar stared at the five words he was supposed to connect to the pictures of their translations, trying to figure out any similarities. He tapped on the pronunciation icon next to the first word that said handschoen. “How am I even supposed to make that sound,” he mumbled to himself. With no gained knowledge from the pronunciation, Oscar decided to split the word instead. He obviously recognized hand, but schoen was a bit trickier. Though there was only one picture with a hand in it - meaning that he decided to take his chance with the picture of the red glove. He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until the word lit up green.
Oscar struggled his way through the rest of the lesson and made a face at the big 24 on his phone. He was three weeks in and still did not understand how anyone could figure out the Dutch language.
An hour later, standing in a steaming shower, something clicked in his brain. The words he had learned last week drifted back into his thoughts. It might have taken some time, but the dots finally connected.
“Wait a second-, shoe? Gloves are fucking hand-shoes?!”
2.
A wave of exhaustion washed over Oscar as he took place on his couch. After spending the entire morning in meetings at the MTC, Arturri had dragged him to the gym for a workout. The media team had given him barely enough time to finish his lunch before they sat him in front of a camera and had him read from a script. The phrase “we keep pushing” was engraved in his brain at some point. When he was finally done talking about the team’s motivations for this week’s race, Oscar had driven back to London in the dark.
Oscar’s phone started ringing right as he took a bite of his dinner. Not even looking at the caller ID he accepted it, putting it on speaker.
“Hey Mark, what’s up?” Wanting to go to bed as soon as possible, he tried to shovel more food in his mouth.
“Oscar, quit trying to choke yourself. I’m too scared of your mum to tell her you died.”
Oscar rolled his eyes and slowed down his chewing. He leaned back and yawned loudly as a protest. Mark completely ignored him.
“Just wanted to check in before you get on the plane tomorrow. I received a message from a very frantic McLaren social media manager. Something about you tweeting a photo that was scheduled for next week?”
At the MTC, someone had instructed him to set a date for a tweet. It was supposed to send automatically at the inserted date - except apparently it had not done that. Oscar was currently staring at the tweet with a grimace on his face.
“Shit, sorry, fuck. My phone’s in Dutch because some website said it helped with memorising words. It’s not going great so far,” he sighed.
There was a short silence on the other end of the call. He could almost hear Mark’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Why are you learni-“ “Deleted it, thanks for the heads up. See you next week!”
Oscar ended the call fighting another yawn. While he appreciated Mark, he did not think he’d survive the shear awkwardness of the conversation they were about to have.
An hour later he had done the dishes, showered and packed. His alarm was set for the early morning - already dreading leaving the warmth of his own bed. And after four tries in which he had to resort to Google Translate, his phone settings were back to English.
3.
Zandvoort was a sea of bright orange. Nobody was really sure where the papaya fans had stopped, and where the Max fans had started. Red Bull having a special orange livery was no help either. The fan stage was surrounded by just one colour. Lando had found it hilarious, joking that even Red Bull were McLaren fans. Oscar just felt like he was part of a cult. Together they stepped onto the stage, waving to the screaming and yelling.
“Welcome, boys! So great to have you here,” the host said with a smile on her face. She introduced herself to them and then stepped back so they could acknowledge the fans.
“It’s always great to be back. Almost feel more at home here wearing the team kit than at the MTC,” Lando joked. It earned laughter from the crowd and an amused eyeroll from his teammate.
The focus shifted to Oscar when he brought the microphone to his mouth. “Hallo iedereen. Hoe gaat het?” The screaming confirmed that he more or less had gotten it right. The small smile on his face grew bigger after seeing Lando throw his head back from laughing.
“You’re such a show-off, oh my god!” Lando cackled into the microphone.
That had Oscar doubling over with laughter, which then set off a giggling fit between the both of them. When the screaming around them eventually calmed down a bit, they both got themselves together as well. That was until Lando had pointed to a fan sign of Oscar’s head photoshopped onto Pitbull, surrounded by the flags of all his “home countries”. It said “Mr. Worldwide” in bold letters and when he squinted his eyes to see it better, Oscar noticed that they had made him bald. Immediately he started laughing again and Lando began wheezing.
Twenty minutes later they walked off the stage. Oscar with the sign in his hands, which he had traded for his cap. They were still giggling when they were met by their PR manager.
“That was great, thanks guys!” Sophie smiled to them. She turned towards Oscar and showed him the tablet she was holding. “Oscar, that was amazing! They loved that! The feedback has been so positive every time you say something in the track’s language. We’re going to set you up with a language coach for every race, so you can keep doing it for every fan stage!”
Next to him, Lando clapped a hand on his shoulder and let out a cackle. Oscar’s smile dropped, an eye-twitch taking its place. He had not accounted for this when coming up with the idea. It was supposed to be fun, trying to impress Lando a bit. He had thought of ways to make Lando laugh and decided that this would get the best reaction. But in that moment of weakness, Oscar completely forgot that he was in the iron claws of the woman that held the name Sophie Ogg.
The woman that took pity on him in his rookie year, but showed no mercy after he made the mistake of saying yes to making one tiktok. Because one more had followed after that. And another one after that. And before he knew it, he spent his time trying out different filters under mandatory media obligations. Lando had escaped the same faith by throwing Oscar under the bus with the excuse that he “didn’t do TikTok, but Osc was a pro at it”. Oscar had never felt so betrayed as to when his own teammate outed him for being chronically online.
Sophie did not wait for an answer and walked away after giving them a thumbs up. The snort next to him had Oscar rubbing his temples.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
4.
The wheezing laughter coming out of his phone had been going on for about three minutes already. In the meantime, Oscar had taken one of the lunch meal preps provided by Arturri out of his fridge and started eating it. Every time there was a small pause in the laughing, he looked back at the screen in the hopes of a longer silence. He’d open his mouth to say something - only to get cut off by the high pitched cackling. Eventually it died down to just giggling hiccups. Before it was set off again, Oscar rolled his eyes and held his middlefinger up to the screen.
“Are you done?” He asked, feigning annoyance. A small smile still played on his lips.
“You are such a loser, Oscar. Oh I cannot believe this is happening again.” Hattie visibly had to contain herself from another five-minute wheezing fit. Her words made him frown defensively.
“What do you mean, again? I literally only asked you for some language tips. You’re learning Korean and I am learning- uh. I am learning another language.”
Oscar knew like no other how much Hattie loved kpop, so much that she had picked up the language. She had gone to a concert when she was supposed to be at his race, she always insisted on driving and blasting her playlist through the car speakers. He did not mind it one bit though. It was nice to spend time with her, he missed her more than he would ever admit.
Growing up, Oscar had not been that close to any of his little sisters. Even though Hattie was only one and a half year younger, different interests made for clashes in their personalities. Only when Oscar had moved to England and they started texting instead of trying to let each other trip in the hallways, their conversations became a lot more frequent.
Their texts mostly consisted out of memes and tiktoks. Hattie would send him a photo she found somewhere of him, with either a quite unflattering camera angle or him looking as if he had just woken up from the dead. She would then follow that up with a voice note of her laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. In return, Oscar would make sure to indirectly embarrass her on live tv by saying or doing something he knew she’d get tagged in by thousands of people. Him saying “annyeonghaseyo” still haunted her.
Somewhere through the years they had started facetiming. Oscar hated facetiming and would rather call instead, Hattie loved both facetiming and calling. And because she’s Hattie, she refused to answer his calls unless it was through video.
“You always do this when you have a crush. Instead of asking them out like a normal person, you have to be all like- I don’t know. All considerate and special about it or something,” she grinned. Oscar closed his eyes with a sigh.
“That’s not even true, I’m not even going-“
Both of them realized he had messed up. A look of horror spread out over Oscar’s face, while Hattie started screaming and yelling.
“I KNEW IT! You DO have a crush, oh-my-GOD!” She threw her arms up to celebrate and slammed them back on her desk. “What’s his name? Is he one of your neighbors in Monacao?” Her volume went back to normal, but the tone in her voice warned him that he had to at least tell her something.
“You don’t even know if it’s a guy,” protested Oscar. Despite never officially coming out as bisexual to his family, he had introduced his ex-boyfriend to them when he was a teen. His mum had been over the moon. She didn’t care what gender his partners were, she was happy enough to even hear about a private detail of his life - let alone meet them.
“I know it’s not a girl. They are way out of your league,” Hattie snickered over the speakers.
“Hey man, what the fuck? You don’t know- yeah, okay, fine, it’s a guy. He uh, he does live in Monaco.”
Oscar shot a prayer in his head to any ancient deity that he didn’t even believe in, for Hattie not to put two and two together. If she did, her facial expressions did not give anything away.
“Hm. Okay, well, obviously languages differ very much. But I found that the best way is to watch shows and films in that language. First with subtitles and then without, so you can focus on the pronunciation.”
Oscar stared at his sister. He knew that she was smart, of course he knew that. He just didn’t expect her to actually be of any help. Kinda just expected her to laugh at him some more and then hang up. “Oh, okay. Nah yeah thanks, I’ll do that. Okay bye now.” Right when Hattie started protesting, he pushed the end-call button.
Later that day he sent Hattie a picture of a film on his television with Dutch subtitles. Immediately he received a video of a black screen. After pressing play, the camera focused on a picture of Lando and him. Hattie’s voice once again blasted over the speakers. “Lando and Oscar sitting in a tree,-“
Oscar blocked Hattie.
5.
The microphone in front of him had the Viaplay logo on it. Oscar knew in the back of his mind that it was a streaming service in The Netherlands, but was still surprised at the reporter asking him if he had learned more Dutch after Zandvoort.
“Uh yeah, I have actually. It’s really hard, though,” he confessed with a sheepish smile.
“Hoe was de race?” The reporter asked. His mind pieced the words together while he nodded slowly.
“Yeah- ja, goed! Ik won!” Oscar answered fairly confident, smiling brighter when he saw a confirming nod.
“Gefeliciteerd! Ben je al gericht op het kampioenschap of..?” That earned the reporter a blank stare. The man started laughing at the confused expression that met his question. “Too advanced?”
Oscar started blushing after laughing awkwardly. “Nah yeah, I’m still at the beginner level. I think it’s about the championship, right?” He asked the reporter, who again confirmed by nodding. “Geen uh, geen idee nog. Te vroeg,” he said, trying not to stumble over the words too much.
Behind him Sophie tapped his shoulder as a sign to move along. Oscar thanked the reporter, made sure to excuse his horrible pronunciation and backed away.
His smile brightened when he saw who had been waiting on him. Lando had stood right behind him, meaning he probably witnessed the entire thing. “Hey, you ready?” Oscar asked him. It had became a habit for them to take the same car back to the hotel after both finishing on the podium. They would walk to debrief together, try to get out of it as soon as possible and then hang out in one of their rooms.
It was during these moments last year that Oscar started noticing a change. He felt calmer around Lando - the buzz of post-race adrenaline ebbing away faster. Instead of letting the exhaustion take over, he kept making sarcastic comments just to hear Lando’s laugh. The high-pitched giggles became his favourite sound. And when they would game together in Lando’s room at night, Oscar went out of his way to be worse than he already was. Just so he could keep hearing the fond tone in Lando’s attempts at shit talking him.
The frown on Lando’s face made Oscar falter in his steps. “Mate, are you serious?” Lando asked him, a flash of almost hurt in his eyes.
Oscar had to repeat that question in his head to check if he had heard it right. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, Lando shook his head and made a vague gesture towards the exit.
“Just forget it. They’re waiting on us,” he mumbled. He made his way through by pushing his shoulder against Oscar’s, not looking back to check if he would follow him. His shoulders were visibly tensed and his hands were twitching.
Oscar felt like he had swallowed a brick. Anxiety settled in his stomach as he walked through the exit. Careful to not slip up in front of the cameras, a stoic expression made its way to his face.
Lando made it a point to sit as far away as he possibly could in the car. There were airpods in his ear, blasting music so hard it was clear he could not hear anyone. The buzz under Oscar’s skin had worsened, as well as the gnawing anxiety. He kept replaying what happened in his head. He went through the race, the podium, the cooldown room. Lando’s laugh had been genuine the entire time. Oscar was positive he had not said anything about his teammate on his radio either - except from congratulating him. He had maintained a three second gap to Lando for the last laps, after battling him for a bit. That could not be the problem either, he knew they both enjoyed racing each other. It had been fair and fun.
Without a word, Lando bolted towards the hotel entrance at arrival. Oscar thanked their driver and then tried to catch up.
“Lando, please. What’s wrong? I don’t understand,” he tried as he managed to walk alongside of him.
Lando kept pretending that he didn’t hear anything, even though the airpods had been taken out. He held a fast pace without acknowledging him. After failing to catch his attention a second time, Oscar gave up. They walked into the meeting room that had been booked for debrief and went in separate directions. Oscar to one corner of the room, Lando to the other.
Desperate to find even a hint of what he had done wrong, Oscar started again playing the entire day in his head. He traced all of his steps and conversations. In the background Zak was talking at a volume that hurt his ears. Someone said his name, which made him snap out of his thoughts.
“Anything to add to that, Oscar? Or did the car feel good?” He sent a thankful look in Andrea’s direction for the added question.
“Uh yeah nah, car’s great. It honestly felt amazing so thanks everyone. This win wouldn’t be possible without the amazing team,” Oscar replied with a smile. It was genuine, he made sure that everyone could pick up on that.
Two hours later he was staring at the ceiling of his hotel room. The anxiety in his stomach felt even heavier and the buzzing under his skin was still going strong. A knock on the door spiked both of those feelings, which caused Oscar to jump and then immediately fall out of bed. The loud thump made him cringe a bit. He’d normally pretend to be asleep, but he had already given himself away. With a heavy sigh he crawled back up and made his way to the door to open it.
“Sorry if I woke you up. And also for what I said earlier. And my behavior as well. And just uh, sorry.” Lando’s voice had a slight rasp to it. He had switched out his team kit for black joggers and a bright blue hoodie. His eyes were red and puffy, which caused alarm bells to go off in Oscar’s head.
“Lando hey, no, it’s all good. Come in, yeah? Take a seat,” Oscar told him softly. He stepped aside to let him through and grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge. Before Lando could even protest, he had already unscrewed the cap and pushed it into his hands. “There’s no way your throat doesn’t hurt. Please just drink it.” Without arguing, Lando took a few big sips and screwed the cap back on after.
“I’m not really sure what happened, but I did not mean to make you feel bad at all. Could you please tell me? Then I’ll make sure to keep it in mind.” Oscar held his tone steady and did his best to match his expression to his words. The last thing he wanted was Lando walking out on him.
“Shit, Osc, do you not know?” Lando asked him with a small frown. He didn’t sound mad, just confused. Oscar slowly shook his head. There was a sigh and a shaky breath that followed it. “I get that you like, enjoy being better at stuff. Obviously, everyone does. But it’s kinda shitty that you keep making me look dumb.” The words felt like a slap in the face. Lando’s hurt expression, that did not waver for a second, felt even worse.
The second his brain remembered he could talk, Oscar started sputtering. He did not know which words to put in what order. Out of everything that had came to mind, that confession had not even slightly been close.
“Excuse me?” Was everything he could think of.
Lando’s frown deepened. “Dude, it’s really obvious. The pitying me and letting me win in games is one thing. Which is bizarre, by the way, because I know for a fact you’re shit anyway. But learning the one language everyone expects me to know, that I do not know because it’s frankly fucking insane, is an entire different level of telling me to go fuck myself. Come on, man.”
Lando thought he did it to him, not for him. He had picked up on all of the clues - just the complete opposite direction from what it had meant. Oscar let out a shocked laugh because there was no way his luck was this bad.
“Are you telling me you don’t know Dutch?” He asked with complete disbelief on his face. That earned him two wide eyes back.
“No?! Mate, I barely speak English. How the fuck am I supposed to understand two languages when I already struggle with one?!” Lando’s voice went high-pitched out of defense.
A bark of laughter escaped Oscar’s mouth. Out of shear shock, he started wheezing. He could not believe himself. Months, actual months he had spent on this. It had been hours of learning, researching and practicing. All for Lando - who he just assumed knew the language.
Looking back, he realized how painfully obvious it was that Lando had no clue. In fact, Oscar actually could not pinpoint a single moment in which he had heard Lando speak anything other than English. And sometimes it sounded like he didn’t even speak that.
“I started learning it so I could impress you. Lando, the only reason I’ve been putting myself through the absolute hell that is that language is because I like you,” Oscar confessed between the out-of-breath giggles. At this point he didn’t even care anymore that Lando now knew about his crush. He had been wanting to tell him the truth anyway, he just did not envision it quite like this.
Lando had been staring at him for a few seconds before his face went through a breakthrough. The full-body laughter that Oscar had fallen in love with filled the room. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he threw the water bottle against Oscar’s chest and then put his hands over his face.
“Oscar you are such an idiot! Mate, you suck, jesus christ. What’s wrong with you?!” Lando managed to get out before falling back into the laughter. “I thought you were just fucking with me at Zandvoort. And when I heard you talk to that reporter, I genuinely thought you were being such a dick. Like- dude. It was so fucked up because it’s you! You’re the least shitty person ever.”
An embarrassing sound escaped out of Oscar’s mouth, which made Lando once again double over in laughter.
Feeling a bit lightheaded, Oscar climbed onto the bed and let himself fall down next to Lando. The anxiety in his stomach was long gone - as well as the buzz that had been crawling under his skin. A content and comfortable feeling had settled in his chest.
“I like you too, y’know,” said Lando with a slight hum. He fiddled with the drawstrings of his hoodie as he spoke. “You haven’t exactly been subtle about it. About me, I mean. Thought everyone kinda exaggerated that lyric video we did until I saw a clip of it.” Lando’s smile melted into his voice. “So then I was like ‘huh, maybe they’re onto something’. And whenever I thought about it, it just made me happy, I guess? And uh, yeah, that. I like you too.”
After a beat of silence, Oscar looked to his side. He held his hand out to Lando with a smile. Lando grabbed his hand and squeezed it, wordlessly confirming once more what he had said. Oscar’s smile turned into a grin and without saying anything, he used the grip to pull Lando on top of him. The giggling started yet again - both still giddy from the whirlwind of emotions.
“Does this mean I’m finally free from that evil language?”
“Nah mate, now you gotta commit to it. My mum’s gonna love it, promise.”
+1.
Sounds of people talking over each over, laughter and music filled the backyard. To celebrate Lando’s title as the 2026 world champion, Oscar had invited their closest friends and family members as a surprise. Lando’s reaction had been worth the absolute horror that was flying everyone over to Monaco and keeping it a secret.
They had gone out for dinner the night before, something Oscar had deliberately planned so Max and Pietra had a chance to decorate the backyard. Max had then kept Lando distracted the entire night by streaming with him. In the meantime, Oscar had snuck out of the house in order to pick their parents up from the airport in Nice and drop them off at a hotel.
Everything had gone according to plan until the morning of the party. Lando was supposed to go golfing with Carlos and Max, so Oscar could gather everyone at their home without any risk of getting caught. But when he had arrived at the hotel to pick up Lando’s parents and sisters, Flo showed him a tweet with a panicked look on her face. A fan had spotted them arriving at the airport last night and had taken a video. The tweet was only a few minutes old - meaning that there was no way Lando would have seen it already. When he checked if there had been more tweets about it, photos of Oliver and Savannah surfaced as well.
Oscar had called Max and had given his phone to Flo since he was driving. It had taken five minutes of them arguing back and forth on the phone, but the situation seemed to be under control by the time Oscar parked in the garage.
“Great news,” Flo had said after hanging up and handing the phone back. “Carlos drove the golf cart over Lan’s phone and it won’t turn on anymore.”
-
Watching everyone chat with each other at the party finally put Oscar at ease. He smiled when Lando locked eyes with him, receiving a beaming grin back. It had been almost two years since they got together. It felt shorter, but at the same time so much longer as well. Even though they were experts at separating their on- and off track relationship, it was different now they were both world champions. They were still out for more titles, racing harder than ever - but they had now both done it once.
Cisca took place next to him. “When you won last year, I knew he wasn’t going to be upset at all. He’s hard on himself but not in the way he used to be,” she told him. She looked at Lando and then back at Oscar, holding the exact same expression for him that she had for her son. “All he did was talk my ears off about how proud he was. And how it motivated him to push even harder, because he knew he could do it as well. Telling me that he let you win it first because he was just so nice.”
That made Oscar throw his head back laughing. “Yeah, so nice of him. A real gentleman he is,” he grinned. Cisca waggled her eyebrows, to which Oscar let out a snort. “We made a bet yesterday on who’s gonna win it next year. Shouldn’t have done that because the one thing he loves just as much as racing, is proving me wrong.”
Seeing Lando approaching them, Cisca tried to smother her laughter. She side-eyed Oscar - who was very much avoiding eye contact so he wouldn’t start laughing again.
“What’s going on? You trying to hit on my mum, Piastri?” Lando pressed a kiss to both of their cheeks. Oscar held his middle finger up to him, to which he replied with a dramatic gasp. “Mum, are you seeing this? This man calls himself the love of- ohmygod?!” His words were cut off by Cisca holding her middle finger up as well.
“Cannot believe my own mum and boyfriend are scheming together. Here I thought you were planning a proposal or something, talking about how I’m the light in your lives.”
That made Oscar and Cisca share a look. Oscar had never been so glad for the bottle of beer in front of him, having an excuse for his flushed face. The square box in his nightstand suddenly needed a new hiding spot.
Cisca leaned over to him, holding enough distance that Lando could still hear their voices.
“Ga je het morgen vragen?”
“Morgenochtend, ja. Hij zou eens moeten weten.”
Confusion fell over Lando’s face. He then narrowed his eyes, realising what they were doing. “You two are the worst. I never should have encouraged Osc to keep learning Dutch, what the fuck.”
For the first time in his life, Oscar was thankful for that damned language.