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Oscar Piastri had always known there was something a little bit off about Lando Norris.
Not in a bad way. Not in a oh no he collects his toenails in jars under the bed way. Just… in the way you knew a guy who smiled a little too easily probably had a list of forbidden cheeses tattooed somewhere on his body. The signs were there, even before they started dating. Even back when they were just teammates, just sharing debriefs and memes and the occasional jet-lagged, 1AM existential crisis in a hotel hallway somewhere in Singapore.
Oscar had always clocked the energy . That Lando’s laugh was always a bit too close to a cackle. That he clapped his hands when he laughed. That he would randomly throw grapes across the room and mutter test your reflexes, Piastri like it was part of a sacred martial art. That he stared at birds like he was personally offended by their existence.
The bird thing was strange.
Oscar had noticed it during pre-season testing when a pigeon had landed on the pit wall and Lando had stiffened like it was an armed intruder.
“Everything alright?” Oscar had asked.
Lando didn’t look away from the pigeon. “It knows too much.”
Oscar had nodded slowly, backed away, and immediately texted the group chat:
Lando’s beefing with a pigeon. Am I hallucinating or is this normal.
Charles had sent back a photo of a goose in a boxing stance and written He’s right to be afraid . Max had replied don’t get involved . Ollie just sent a thumbs up and a skull emoji.
It wasn’t long after that that Oscar began to collect these little oddities.
Lando never ate bread crusts. Not because of texture, taste, or health. But because “that’s where they hide the micro-trackers.” He never explained who they were. Oscar didn’t want to know.
He never wore green on Thursdays. When Oscar asked why, Lando said, “You’ll see.”
He slept diagonally on every bed, regardless of size, and claimed it was for “evasion purposes.”
He would, at least once a week, try to fake his death via increasingly elaborate scenarios. One time it was choking on a peanut. Another time it was being replaced by a clone. Once it was “forgot my own name, who am I, do you know me?” followed by the most unconvincing amnesia performance Oscar had ever seen.
He also had an extremely detailed mental map of the McLaren motorhome’s escape routes in case of “sudden duck-based attack.”
Oscar had laughed. Lando didn’t.
Oscar stopped laughing.
The real shift had come somewhere between Austria and Silverstone. Lando had gotten injured—nothing dramatic, just a nasty wrist sprain from being an idiot on a bike—and Oscar had, naturally, offered to help him eat lunch. Lando had looked at him, slightly drugged on painkillers and mashed potatoes, and whispered “you’re the only person I trust not to poison me.”
Oscar had blinked. “That’s really sweet.”
“No, I mean it,” Lando had said seriously, pointing at Charles across the paddock. “That one’s been trying to kill me since Monaco 2020. Ask the ducks.”
Oscar had simply nodded and said nothing.
And somehow, somehow , three weeks later they were dating.
Oscar wasn’t sure how it had happened. One moment they were arguing over who had better reaction times (Oscar, obviously), and the next, Lando was kissing him mid-sentence like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like they hadn’t been circling each other for months. Like this wasn’t the slowest, stupidest mutual pining event in recent Formula One history.
And the thing was—Oscar was happy. Like, dangerously happy. Like “I’ve been staring at my phone smiling like an idiot for ten minutes” happy. Like “I’m going to write your initials in the frost on the window” happy.
But the weirdness? The weirdness remained.
Actually, it increased .
Now that they were dating, Oscar got the full Lando Norris experience. He got the 2AM “I just remembered a duck made eye contact with me during FP3 and now I can’t sleep.” He got the seven-minute monologue about how Charles once offered him a banana and said bon appétit in a way that “sounded too threatening for fruit.” He got the nightly rituals of checking behind curtains and in shoe closets for “avian surveillance.”
And the worst part?
Lando was kind of right about Charles.
Oscar didn’t want to admit it. He liked Charles. Charles was his friend . Charles bought him coffee, complimented his telemetry, and once carried him out of a rainstorm bridal-style because someone had stolen their umbrella.
But the moment Lando was around, Charles… changed.
He’d slink into rooms with way too much confidence, perch on armrests like he was preparing to strike, and smile with the smugness of a Bond villain who’d just sabotaged your drink. He made intense eye contact, always leaned too close to Lando when speaking, and once referred to ducks as “my comrades in the eternal war.”
Lando had screamed and climbed onto a chair.
Max had been there. He did not help. He simply said, “Charles, please, not again,” while trying to hold back laughter.
Oscar began to understand that this was a long-standing thing .
The others knew.
Max definitely knew. He had the same look people got when they witnessed something hilarious but tragic, like a raccoon getting stuck in a vending machine. Kimi also knew and had apparently joined the Duck Watch task force with the solemn dedication of a boy scout trying to earn his Avian Paranoia badge.
“Kimi,” Oscar had once asked. “Why does Charles terrify Lando?”
Kimi had blinked slowly, petted Jimmy, and said, “Because he is bird-shaped and emotionally slippery.”
Oscar hadn’t known what that meant, but it sounded correct.
Now, two months in, Oscar had adjusted. He could decode Lando’s warning signs. He knew that “there’s movement in the shadows” usually meant “a duck walked past the window.” He knew Lando had a personal vendetta against the goose at Hyde Park and that he kept a log of all bird-related incidents in a colour-coded Google Sheet titled The Fowl Agenda.
He knew that cuddling sometimes meant wrapping Lando in three blankets and letting him monologue about how Charles was plotting to replace him with a duck-shaped android.
He knew that forehead kisses solved 80% of Lando’s problems and that the other 20% could be solved by letting Lando win at Mario Kart (but only sometimes , or he’d get suspicious).
He knew that Lando Norris was a ridiculous, over-dramatic, emotionally constipated ray of sunshine with the survival instincts of a squirrel on Monster Energy.
And he was so deeply, horrifyingly, terrifyingly in love with him.
Even if their shared calendar now had an event titled Annual Duck Evacuation Drill scheduled every March.
Even if Charles Leclerc sometimes FaceTimed Lando just to quack into the mic and hang up.
Even if Max had recently bought Lando a duck-shaped soap dispenser and left it on their doorstep like an omen.
Oscar looked at the man currently trying to tape googly eyes to the bottom of the balcony railing because “the ducks fear being perceived” and smiled.
He really wouldn’t have it any other way.
Even if, as Oscar was now discovering in real time , Lando was in the process of constructing an anti-duck defense system using nothing but a cardboard Amazon box, three paperclips, the remnants of a Nerf gun, and what looked like his old driver’s seat from Formula Renault.
Oscar blinked. Then blinked again. Then checked the timestamp on his phone to confirm he was, indeed, awake and not hallucinating at 7:24 AM on a Thursday.
“Lando.”
No response.
“Lando, baby, love of my life, light of my forsaken universe, what the actual fuck are you doing?”
Lando looked up, safety goggles askew, hair in chaos-mode, one sock missing, a trail of peanut M&M’s behind him like a breadcrumb trail leading to a padded cell. “They’re evolving.”
Oscar, who was holding a coffee and wearing one slipper because Larry the dachshund had stolen the other, stared blankly. “I beg your deeply unstable pardon?”
“The ducks, Oscar. They’re evolving. I saw one yesterday with a Bluetooth speaker. It was playing Highway to Hell .”
Oscar was still blinking. “What… What would a duck need Bluetooth for?”
“ Moral intimidation. Psychological warfare. They’ve upgraded from surveillance to active offense. Charles is behind it, obviously. He’s building an avian militia.”
Oscar slowly placed the coffee cup on the table, just in case he had to tackle Lando mid-breakdown. “Lando, I know you think Charles is trying to assassinate you via goose, but maybe—”
Lando whipped around. “Don’t say goose in this house.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Avian adversary.”
“Thank you.”
Oscar rubbed his face. Somewhere in the flat, Larry barked three times, then went ominously silent. Oscar made a mental note to check if their dog had been radicalised.
Lando returned to his cardboard contraption, muttering things like “a decoy drone disguised as bread” and “feather velocity calculations.” Oscar wandered closer, squatted next to him, and picked up what looked like a Lego duck with a red laser pointer glued to its beak.
“Is this meant to be...?”
“A warning beacon. In case of direct attack. We’ll activate Code Orange.”
“What’s Code Orange?”
Lando looked up, solemn. “We scream and throw bread in the opposite direction.”
Oscar covered his mouth and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a dolphin being slapped. “You want me… to go to war with ducks. For you.”
“I want you to survive,” Lando said dramatically, eyes intense, like a man about to nobly sacrifice himself for the greater good. “If they take me, promise me you’ll keep the line. Protect Kimi. Don’t trust Charles. And burn my browser history. ”
Oscar cackled and fell backwards into a pile of anti-duck blueprints that included diagrams labeled goose step countermeasures and duck decapitation? too far? in very messy sharpie.
“I’m going to tell Charles,” Oscar said, grinning madly. “I’m going to tell him you’ve started building weapons of bird destruction and he’s going to send you a duck in the post with a tiny knife taped to its beak.”
Lando screamed and launched a cushion at his face. “Oscar. That is literally a hate crime.”
Oscar ducked. “You ducked me first.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It is, actually. It’s hilarious. Oh my goodness.” Oscar scrambled to his feet. “I’m texting Max.”
“NO—”
Too late. Max’s contact name in Oscar’s phone was “Duck Victim Support Hotline” and the last message he’d sent was a video of Charles quacking at a pigeon while holding a trophy like a wand.
Oscar:
Lando’s building an anti-duck turret in the living room. Cardboard-based. Possibly sentient.
Max:
Oh no. He’s reached Stage Six.
Oscar:
What are the stages.
Max:
- Denial
- Suspicion
- Yelling at geese
- Building traps
- Barking at birds
- Engineering
- Migration
Oscar:
What the fuck is migration?
Max:
He’ll try to move to Antarctica. You have 48 hours.
Oscar:
Charles is gonna send him a penguin with a sniper rifle.
Max:
Charles is the penguin.
Oscar locked his phone and looked up to see Lando now attempting to tape a fake moustache to Larry. The dog looked thrilled . Oscar was spiralling.
“Babe, what—?”
“He needs a disguise. If they know he’s ours, they’ll use him as leverage.”
Oscar tried to remain calm. “Larry’s two kilograms and eats drywall. I don’t think the ducks are recruiting him.”
“You’re naive, Oscar. You don’t understand the duck mind.”
Oscar’s eye twitched. “I do not want to understand the duck mind, Lando. I want to drink my coffee, go to the simulator, and not find a decoy pigeon stuffed with explosives in my shoe again.”
“That was one time and it was not armed.”
Oscar screamed into a pillow.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Both boys froze.
Lando held a plastic spoon like a dagger.
Oscar whispered, “Did you order anything?”
“No. Did you?”
The doorbell rang again.
Oscar moved cautiously to the door. Peeked through the spyhole. Paused. Stared.
He turned back to Lando, eyes wide with dread. “It’s a duck.”
Lando shrieked and somersaulted behind the sofa. “THIS IS IT. IT’S HAPPENING. EVACUATE THE PREMISES. ACTIVATE CODE ORANGE. ACTIVATE EVERYTHING.”
Oscar opened the door.
It was a prank.
A fucking prank.
Charles had zip-tied a rubber duck to a Roomba and programmed it to roll up and quack upon arrival.
Oscar didn’t even scream. He just stared down at it as it bumped gently into his foot, made a mechanical QUACK , and rolled in a circle.
There was a note stuck to it.
Tell Lando I’m always watching.
Oscar turned slowly, expression blank. “Charles says hi.”
Lando was hyperventilating behind a cushion fort. “We need to move countries. Or planets. Oscar. Oscar. I can’t live like this. My hair is falling out. My dreams are in quacks. I think I saw a duck driving a Fiat 500 yesterday.”
Oscar, who had just made eye contact with the Roomba duck again, genuinely wasn’t sure if Lando was hallucinating anymore. He gave the duck one gentle kick (just a nudge! a nudge!) and watched it spin in an angry circle and shout QUACK MOTHERFUCKER in Charles' unmistakably edited voice.
“Why does the duck swear,” Oscar said, deadpan.
Lando whimpered. “Because Charles is a degenerate. He’s weaponising innocence . He’s using ducks as sleeper agents, Oscar. That’s not just avian espionage. That’s psychological warfare with beaks. ”
Before Oscar could form a response that didn’t include the words “mental asylum,” the doorbell rang again.
Both of them froze.
Oscar, in his post-coffee semi-awake state, was weighing the pros and cons of opening it again and possibly being attacked by a Canadian goose on wheels.
Lando hissed, “Don’t open it. It could be a bigger duck. Or Charles. In a trench coat. Pretending to be Amazon.”
But Oscar peeked anyway and let out a soft, confused oh.
“It’s Ollie.”
Lando screamed. “HE CAN’T BE INVOLVED. THE CHILDREN—THE CHILDREN AREN’T SAFE.”
Oscar opened the door, and Oliver Bearman, glowing with the healthy flush of youth and the smug confidence of someone who has never paid taxes or had a real hangover, strolled in holding a Tupperware full of what looked like evil.
“Hey, losers.”
Oscar squinted. “Why are you here.”
“Free food and emotionally compromised gay people,” Ollie said brightly. “Also I left my bucket hat here and I think Larry’s been sleeping in it.”
Lando emerged, twitching, from behind his fortress of couch cushions and betrayal. “Ollie. Don’t touch anything. We’re in a security lockdown.”
Ollie looked around. “You built a sniper nest out of IKEA throws and a yoga mat. I don’t think GCHQ is quaking.”
“Don’t underestimate the ducks.”
“Oh my goodness, are we still on this?”
Ollie dropped his Tupperware on the kitchen island and peeled off his hoodie to reveal a t-shirt that read DUCK YOU VERY MUCH in Charles’ handwriting. Lando screamed so high-pitched that Larry barked in harmony.
“WHY—WHY—WHY WOULD YOU—”
“It was a gift from Charles. He said it was for educational purposes.”
Oscar leaned over to Lando and whispered, “I think Charles is radicalizing him.”
“I’ve lost him,” Lando whispered back. “He’s been converted. He’s one of them now. They’re recruiting the youth. This is how fascism starts.”
Ollie opened the Tupperware. Inside was a glistening horror: rice krispie treats, shaped like ducks. Each one had a tiny candy eyeball. One had a gummy worm in its beak. One had been stabbed with a toothpick holding a tiny flag that said VIVE LA DUCK.
Oscar stared. “What the fuck is that .”
“They’re gifts,” Ollie said. “Charles taught me how to make them. I brought them as peace offerings.”
Lando was backing away. “He’s a double agent . You’re a double agent , Oliver. I can see it in your eyes. Those are traitor snacks .”
“They’re marshmallow-based.”
“They’re lies-based.”
Larry jumped up to try to eat one and was immediately wrestled away by Lando, who screamed, “THEY’RE POISONED. THEY’RE BIRD-TECH. THEY’RE FULL OF NANO-DUCKS.”
Ollie shrugged and ate one himself. “Tastes like betrayal and diabetes.”
Oscar leaned against the counter. “Ollie, why are you actually here. Like really.”
Ollie licked marshmallow off his fingers, grinned, and said, “To deliver a message.”
Lando froze.
Oscar blinked.
Ollie smiled.
Then he pulled out a rubber duck from his backpack—wearing a tiny red Ferrari cap —and set it on the counter.
The duck’s eyes glowed red . Then it said, in Charles' demonic voice, "This is only the beginning, mon canard."
Lando SCREAMED, launched himself out the back door, and scaled the garden fence like a feral cat in survival mode.
Oscar and Ollie stood in silence.
“…That was a bit much,” Oscar said.
Ollie shrugged again. “Charles said if I delivered it successfully, I get to drive the simulator at his house and feed Larry foie gras.”
Oscar blinked. “Larry is Lando’s dog.”
“I am talking about Charles’ Larry,” Ollie said with the unbothered tone of someone who’d already sold his moral compass on eBay. “He has a goose now. Also named Larry. It bites people. It’s kind of iconic.”
Oscar genuinely felt something in his soul snap in half. “Charles. Has. A goose. Named Larry.”
“King Goose Larry,” Ollie clarified. “He has a tiny gold crown and a miniature cape made out of Max’s 2023 race suit. Max doesn’t know. Charles cut it while he was sleeping.”
Oscar dropped his face into his hands.
Outside, there was the unmistakable sound of someone kicking a recycling bin and screaming something about avian surveillance states .
“Lando is going to go full feral,” Oscar muttered. “He’s going to live in a shipping container in the woods. He’s going to make a hat out of tinfoil and scream at pigeons. He’s going to legally change his name to Duckless McQuack-Free.”
Ollie pulled out a Capri-Sun from his hoodie pocket and stabbed the straw in like it owed him money. “Honestly? I support that journey.”
Larry—the dog, the original Larry, the one who used to be a normal dachshund before getting caught in the crossfire of geopolitical duck warfare—wandered into the room with one of the duck-shaped Rice Krispie treats in his mouth and what looked like Ollie’s Ferrari cap on his head.
Ollie grinned. “Oh my goodness. Larry’s a double agent too.”
“HE’S NOT,” Oscar snapped. “He’s just dumb.”
“Exactly. The perfect cover.”
“PUT THE DOG DOWN,” Lando shrieked, re-entering the flat like a man who had just punched a squirrel in self-defense. He was covered in grass stains and paranoia, holding a garden rake like a battle axe. “PUT HIM DOWN OR I SWEAR I’LL FILE A RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST DUCKS AS A CONCEPT.”
Ollie pointed at Larry. “He’s eating the evidence.”
Larry stared back, innocent. Then slowly, deliberately , he blinked one eye.
Lando dropped the rake.
Oscar honestly thought Lando was about to have a full psychic break and begin speaking in tongues. He was already halfway there. His hands were vibrating. His eyebrows were doing things that should require a permit. His mouth opened and closed three times before he finally managed to hiss, “That’s it. I’m building a moat.”
“You live in a flat,” Oscar said.
“I’ll dig one. ”
“With what?”
“With rage , Oscar. With rage and a fucking tablespoon.”
Ollie looked around at the chaos, the smoldering remains of the confetti duck bomb, Larry licking marshmallow off the couch, Lando now googling how to install drawbridge on rental property , and said, “This place has great vibes.”
Oscar was beginning to suspect Ollie was the final boss.
Or maybe just possessed.
Or maybe— universe forbid—working with Charles in a long con psychological operation to drive Lando to the brink of duck-induced madness.
“Ollie,” Oscar said very carefully, like you might talk to someone who’d just made a Pinterest board called Duck Cult Aesthetic, “Have you ever… lied to us?”
Ollie sipped his Capri-Sun. “Define lied.”
“Have you ever betrayed Lando for Charles’ approval.”
Ollie pretended to think. “No.”
“That was a four-second pause,” Lando hissed. “You counted that pause, didn’t you, Oscar.”
Oscar nodded grimly.
“I’m going to throw him into the Thames,” Lando whispered.
Ollie smiled. “You’ll never find the second duck.”
Everyone froze.
Oscar’s voice was very soft. “There’s… more?”
“There’s always more,” Ollie said, stepping backwards toward the door like a cartoon villain disappearing into smoke. “This was only the appetizer.”
Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a second rubber duck.
This one was wearing sunglasses.
And it spoke in Max Verstappen’s voice.
“Bonjour, Lando. Quack quack, bitch.”
Then it exploded into glitter and played the Dutch national anthem.
Lando screamed so loud the lightbulbs flickered.
Oscar started laughing. Not normal laughter— demented laughter. Laughter that would make priests nervous. Laughter that hinted at years of therapy and possibly a 300-page thesis titled My Boyfriend Is Afraid of Ducks and My Little Brother Is a Goose Cultist.
Lando turned to Oscar, face wild with fear. “He’s escalating. He’s building a quack-based militia.”
“We’re under fowl occupation,” Oscar agreed solemnly.
“I have to go call Interpol.”
“Should we warn the FIA?”
“Too late. They’re probably already compromised .”
In the hallway, Ollie giggled and dropped a final envelope through the mail slot. Inside was a photo of Charles Leclerc, shirtless, holding a real duck and winking.
Written on the back: Vive la révolution.
Oscar picked it up. Showed it to Lando.
Lando stared.
Stared like he was trying to rewrite reality by sheer force of will. Stared like if he glared hard enough, Charles Leclerc would simply evaporate out of existence, taking all waterfowl with him into the abyss.
Then he grabbed the envelope with both hands, tore it clean in half, tossed the halves into the air like confetti, and screamed—
"THIS IS A PSYCH-OPS ATTACK. THIS IS GENEVA-CONVENTION-LEVEL MENACE. "
Larry barked.
Possibly in agreement.
Possibly because he was now fully coated in glitter from the exploding duck bomb and had finally realized he was no longer just a dog, but a statement piece in an international conspiracy.
Oscar, who hadn’t stopped laughing since the duck detonated and Charles Leclerc’s criminally photogenic torso was revealed to the public mailstream, wheezed and dropped to the floor, hands on his knees, tears in his eyes.
“Lando,” he said between gasps, “I don’t know what’s funnier. You swearing vengeance like a telenovela heiress or Ollie selling his soul for foie gras and ten minutes in Charles’ sim rig.”
Lando collapsed onto the couch like a tragic maiden. “It’s a cult , Oscar. You don’t understand. He has them all under his spell. First Ollie. Then the goose. Then Max. Then the FIA. Then France .”
Oscar raised an eyebrow. “What did France do?”
Lando sat bolt upright and whispered, “He’s been learning French. Voluntarily .”
Oscar blinked. “He is Monegasque.”
“EXACTLY,” Lando yelled, as if that proved anything. “He doesn’t have to! It’s optional ! Nobody does anything optional in this sport unless they’re plotting something. Like how Max started drinking water the week before Spa ‘22. Or how Seb started composting in 2021 and suddenly became the moral compass of the grid. It’s always a sign. It’s always the beginning.”
He paused, narrowed his eyes, then leaned forward and hissed, “Charles Leclerc is going to declare himself Emperor of Europe. ”
Oscar stared. Blinked once. Twice. Tried to calculate the odds of Lando being both serious and severely sleep-deprived, which was currently sitting at a solid 110%.
Behind them, Larry was trying to wrestle a duck-shaped bath toy under the couch, growling like it owed him money. The glitter bomb had settled into a fine mist over the entire apartment, making it look like the aftermath of a toddler’s birthday party crossed with the final scene of Midsommar .
Ollie, still chewing on a cereal bar he’d mysteriously pulled from his sock , raised a finger. “Isn’t Monaco not even in the EU?”
Lando’s eyes widened like he’d just been offered a handshake by Satan. “EXACTLY, OLIVER. IT'S TOO PERFECT.” He pointed at an imaginary map. “He’ll use the technicalities. No one suspects the microstates. That’s what he wants . First he gets control of all the swans, then the border ducks, and suddenly—boom—no more Schengen Zone. You can’t travel without passing a Charles checkpoint where he smiles at you and makes you feel inferior in three languages.”
Oscar, who had long accepted his role as the only person with a semi-functional grip on reality in the room, pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down beside Ollie.
“You do realise none of this is normal , right?” Oscar asked. “You’re saying our Ferrari teammate, who looks like a sexy Bambi and feeds foie gras to his dog, is waging psychological warfare on you via ducks, baked goods, and the EU parliamentary system.”
“YES,” Lando snapped. “Why is that so hard to believe ?”
Ollie, now picking glitter out of his hairline , nodded thoughtfully. “I mean. I believe it. Have you seen the way Charles walks into a room? Like he knows everyone’s tax evasion history.”
Oscar turned on him. “You literally helped him deliver the cursed duck bomb, you traitorous cornflake.”
“I was bribed!” Ollie cried. “You’ve never tasted Charles’ French toast. It’s not food, it’s religion . He uses brioche from a nun-run bakery that only opens on equinoxes. I had no choice.”
Lando groaned. “You always have a choice. One of them should be loyalty .”
“I am loyal!” Ollie protested. “To the side with the foie gras and high-end sim setups. You’d do the same.”
Oscar looked at him. “I once watched you cry because Charles gave you a handshake that lasted 0.2 seconds too long.”
“It was a tense moment!”
“You whispered ‘it lives in my bones now.’”
“IT DID,” Ollie said, almost reverent.
Lando flung himself dramatically against the arm of the couch like a fallen French aristocrat. “This is it. This is how it ends. In betrayal and breadcrumbs. The ducks are coming and no one is ready.”
Oscar stood. “Okay. Enough. You’re spiraling. This has officially gone from funny to terrifying. You haven’t eaten in six hours. Ollie has consumed three separate substances that might be illegal in Switzerland. And Charles is not the Emperor of Europe. He’s not.”
He paused. Looked at the balcony.
Then whispered, “Right?”
They all turned slowly.
Outside, on the next building’s rooftop, a flag had unfurled.
A white background. A single duck silhouette in gold. A crown balanced on its head.
Ollie squinted. “Is that—”
“Yes,” Lando breathed. “It’s begun.”
Oscar screamed.
The duck flag fluttered. A French accordion played somewhere in the distance.
And far, far below, in the alley behind their building, a single envelope fluttered up on the breeze. It landed delicately on their windowsill.
Ollie picked it up. “Oh. It’s scented.”
Oscar snatched it from him and opened it with the hesitation of a man defusing a bomb.
Inside:
A hand-drawn sketch of Charles Leclerc in full royal regalia.
Charles on a throne made of steering wheels.
Charles surrounded by cats, ducks, Leo, Max (looking distressed), and Ollie (wearing a duck costume).
Across the bottom in glitter pen:
Vive l’Empire. See you at brunch. – CL
Lando passed out cold.
Oscar caught him.
Ollie saluted the flag. “Long live the Duck King.”
Oscar threw the envelope out the window.
A duck flew past and caught it midair.
Oscar screamed again.
Not the casual kind. Not even the startled, someone-jumped-out-of-a-closet kind. No. This was a deep, existential, soul-curdling scream that vibrated down to his DNA and made Larry bark at the walls like an exorcism was underway.
Ollie winced and muttered, “Bit dramatic, innit?”
But Oscar wasn’t listening. He was having the Big Realisation. The full, Eureka in the bathtub moment. Except instead of water, he was submerged in glitter, betrayal, duck flags, and a bizarrely well-planned coup that may or may not be orchestrated by Charles Leclerc.
It all made sense. The duck sightings. The toast deliveries with “Don’t Trust Monaco” written in jam. The time Lando woke up crying because he dreamt Charles had replaced all his clothes with outfits that screamed “subtly inferior to Ferrari teamwear.”
Oscar gasped.
“He’s not just annoying you,” he said, voice trembling with revelation. “He’s breaking you . Emotionally. Psychologically. He’s got you by the brainstem , Lando.”
Lando, still semi-conscious and lying dramatically across the coffee table, moaned softly. “I told you. He whispers things when no one else is around. Things like ‘don’t bother, your telemetry’s never been unique’ and ‘I saw your Spotify Wrapped’.” He rolled his head to look at Oscar with haunted eyes. “He knows things. Private things .”
“He called me a rookie soup once,” Ollie added cheerfully. “I still don’t know what it means, but I haven’t slept properly since.”
Oscar stood suddenly, fists clenched. Glitter dust puffed off his hoodie like war smoke.
“No. This ends now. I am not watching my boyfriend be psychologically filleted by a man who uses ducks as weapons and smells like artisanal anxiety.” He turned to Ollie, who was eating the corner of the duck sketch. “We fight back. You in?”
Ollie blinked. “Do I still get to drive his sim if I help you overthrow him?”
“No. You’re banned from Charles’ sim and foie gras for life. Pick a side.”
Ollie wiped glitter from his eyebrows and whispered, “Liberté, égalité, no more pâté,” before saluting.
Oscar paced.
“We need a plan. He’s cunning. He’s charming. He has Max under his spell, and for some reason every animal instinctively respects him. Even the squirrels.”
“He does do squirrel noises really well,” Lando murmured.
“We hit him where it hurts,” Oscar continued. “His power base . The brunches. The baked goods. The perfectly ironed shirts. The cryptic multilingual threats.”
Ollie perked up. “We could replace all his sourdough starters with instant pancake mix. He’ll crack . He’ll weep in four dialects.”
Oscar nodded. “Good. Psychological sabotage. I like it.” He turned to Lando, gently brushing duck glitter from his curls. “Babe, I need you to be strong. For all of us. For the grid. For your own mental health.”
Lando coughed weakly. “He once sent me a birthday card that just said ‘Not impressed, but trying.’ ”
Oscar’s voice went full military general. “Then we give him something to really not be impressed by. Operation Featherfall begins now.”
Ollie clapped. “Ooh! Can we have uniforms? I want a hat with a raccoon on it.”
“No. Focus. Ollie, I want you to infiltrate Charles’ pantry. Replace his oat milk with full-fat cow’s milk. He won’t notice until it’s too late, and his entire brand will collapse. ”
“I’ll need a ladder. And a fake moustache.”
Oscar nodded solemnly. “Granted. Lando, you’re on psychological warfare. The next time Charles says something slightly smug, you respond in Dutch . Confuse him. Disorient him. Make him question his influence over Max.”
“I barely speak Dutch.”
“That’s the point. It’ll unnerve him.”
Lando sat up slowly, like a warrior reborn. “Oscar,” he said, voice hoarse. “If we die doing this…”
Oscar grabbed his hand. “We’ll haunt him. Together.”
Ollie sniffled. “You guys are so brave.”
Oscar glanced out the window. The duck flag was gone. But a new one had taken its place.
This time, it showed Charles photoshopped as Napoleon, standing atop a golden goose, holding the Treaty of Maastricht.
Oscar’s eye twitched. “He escalated. He escalated while we were still planning. ”
Ollie gasped. “He’s running a live operation.”
Lando stood fully, brushed glitter off his shirt, and took Oscar’s other hand. “Let’s burn the empire down.”
Oscar nodded. “No more brunch tyranny.”
They turned to Ollie. He had a raccoon plush strapped to his head.
“You ready, soldier?” Oscar asked.
Ollie smirked. “Born ready.”
Oscar didn’t trust that smirk, but then again, he also didn’t trust Charles Leclerc’s ability to make muffins that tasted suspiciously like emotional trauma, and here they all were—traumatised. Together.
The three-man rebel cell convened in the living room of Oscar and Lando’s apartment, which Lando had converted into a semi-operational war bunker using various IKEA boxes, ten thousand LEGO bricks (mostly unassembled and painful), and one unopened Monza Grand Prix trophy still in its box because Lando said the feng shui was wrong.
Lando unrolled a hand-drawn map of Charles’ apartment complex across the coffee table.
Oscar frowned. “Why does it look like a breadstick?”
“Because that’s the shape of the street,” Lando muttered. “Or maybe I was hungry when I drew it. Shut up.”
“I’ve been to Charles’ building. That’s not what it looks like.”
“I said shut up, Oscar.”
Ollie plopped down beside them, holding a glitter pen and two juice boxes.
“Alright, gentlemen,” Oscar said, full strategy mode, eyes glowing with the slow-burning vengeance of a man whose boyfriend had been psychologically tortured by a 5’10’’ duck-wielding menace with cheekbones sharper than EU economic policy. “Operation Featherfall is a go. Objectives?”
Lando held up a glittery whiteboard that read:
- DESTROY THE SOURDOUGH STARTER
- SWAP THE OAT MILK
- LEAVE A THREATENING NOTE WRITTEN IN DUTCH
- POISON THE BRUNCH (not like, poison, just…emotionally)
- MAKE CHARLES CRY WITHOUT VIOLENCE (Oscar’s edit)
“Question,” Ollie said, chewing on his straw. “Why are we writing the note in Dutch? Charles doesn’t speak Dutch.”
“Exactly,” Lando said, eyes haunted. “Now he’ll know how I feel.”
Oscar nodded grimly. “Let’s do a gear check.”
Lando pulled out:
- A box of decoy sourdough starters
- One tub of full-fat milk disguised as oat milk
- A glittery threat note that read ‘Dit is voor Zandvoort.’
- A Bluetooth speaker pre-loaded with goose honks
- A pair of novelty sunglasses shaped like croissants (for disguise)
Ollie produced from his backpack:
- A squirrel costume
- A jar of Dijon mustard labelled ‘Plan B’
- Four cupcakes
- A child’s grappling hook
- A map of every cheese shop in Monaco
- A novelty Charles Leclerc fan club badge
Oscar stared at the badge.
Ollie blinked. “I carry it for irony.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.
“Alright,” Lando said, pulling a ski mask over his curls. “Let’s roll out.”
The infiltration was... chaotic.
They parked Lando’s McLaren-branded bicycle one block away from Charles’ high-security apartment complex—which had a doorman, two pigeons that Charles had allegedly trained to recognise enemies of the state, and a biometric ice cream cone scanner (Oscar didn’t ask).
Lando wore an oversized hoodie and pretended to be a lost TikToker. Ollie, dressed as a squirrel, scaled the fire escape with the grace of a rabid toddler on Red Bull. Oscar manned the van. The van was, unfortunately, just Lando’s car with a cardboard sign that said “Secret Ops Van – Definitely Not Oscar Piastri Inside.”
Inside the apartment, Ollie dropped into Charles’ pantry with a thud.
“I’m in,” he whispered into the walkie-talkie.
“Copy that, Squirrel One,” Oscar replied from the car, chewing nervously on a Babybel.
Lando was on hallway distraction duty.
He peeked around the corner and gasped, “Mon dieu, is that a cat wearing Gucci?”
That bought them twenty seconds.
Ollie replaced the oat milk with a dramatic flourish and held up the sourdough starter like it was Simba from The Lion King.
“Replacing the starter,” he whispered, dumping the old one into a Ziploc bag and carefully replacing it with a new one labelled ‘Yeastie Bois’.
Oscar was nearly vibrating with anticipation in the car.
“You guys. We’re doing it. We’re actually doing it. This is like Mission Impossible but with more gluten and spite.”
Then Lando’s voice crackled through. “He’s coming. He’s COMING. I HEAR THE CROCS. HE’S IN SPORT MODE.”
Oscar screamed, “ABORT! ABORT!”
But Ollie didn’t abort.
Ollie pulled out a backup muffin from his hoodie, took a solemn bite, and whispered, “For Leo,” before tossing the threat note onto Charles’ espresso machine and diving out the window with a grappling hook and a level of training that Oscar found suspicious.
They regrouped in the car, panting, exhilarated, half-covered in flour, mustard, and fear.
“That was the most alive I’ve ever felt,” Lando wheezed. “I peed a little. Just a bit.”
“I think Charles’ curtains are flame-retardant,” Ollie added, licking Dijon off his cheek. “Which makes sense, honestly.”
Oscar grinned. “Mission accomplished. Charles Leclerc will wake up to oat milk and existential dread.”
They fist-bumped in victory. It was glorious. It was unhinged. It was—
Oscar’s phone buzzed.
Charles Leclerc [8:34 PM]: I’m keeping the oat milk. Thank you. The starter’s name is Jean-Michel now. Also, tell Lando I am impressed.
Oscar froze.
Lando read over his shoulder and screamed so loud a passing pigeon exploded mid-flight.
Ollie blinked. “Huh.”
Oscar turned slowly to him.
“Why does that sound like Charles knew what we were doing?”
“Maybe he’s psychic?” Ollie offered.
“Or maybe—” Oscar narrowed his eyes—“we’ve got a mole.”
Ollie was already chewing on another cupcake.
“Why do you carry so many baked goods on missions?”
“I’m growing. I need snacks.”
Oscar squinted. “You’re twenty.”
Ollie shrugged. “Still counts.”
But Oscar wasn’t convinced.
He stared at the raccoon hat on Ollie’s lap.
Then at the Charles Leclerc fan club badge peeking from his backpack.
Then back at Ollie’s unnaturally good grappling form, and the muffin with perfectly fluffed crumb structure that no rookie should be able to bake without either divine intervention or a Leclerc-family recipe.
Something was wrong.
But not tonight.
Tonight, they had won.
Oscar grinned, slightly unhinged, and whispered, “We’ll get him next time.”
Lando, still glittery, nodded like a war veteran.
And Ollie?
Ollie just bit into another muffin and smiled with frosting-stained lips.
Oh yes. The game was still on.
Oscar hadn’t slept in 36 hours. Not because of stress or nerves, but because he’d drunk three Red Bulls and spent the entire night sketching elaborate revenge plans with Lando on the kitchen floor using scented gel pens and highlighters that were definitely meant for primary school. Lando had googled “ways to destabilize a small European nation” and insisted they could translate that into psychological warfare against Charles Leclerc.
Ollie had slept peacefully on their couch, like a large, morally grey catboy who may or may not have sold them out for the promise of foie gras and simulator time.
Oscar was starting to suspect.
But right now, vengeance was the priority.
“Alright,” Lando said, slapping a whiteboard that had been stolen from the McLaren engineering office. “Phase Two. Operation Quackmare. Mission objective: make Charles doubt his own sanity. ”
Oscar nodded solemnly, chewing on a strawberry Pocky like it was a cigar. “Psychological. Symbolic. Avian.”
Ollie was upside down on the sofa, kicking his legs like a bored toddler, but he muttered, “I think we should go full surrealism. We need to deconstruct his reality. Confuse him so deeply he forgets how door handles work.”
Lando snapped his fingers. “YES. I want him opening a jar of jam and questioning the fabric of space-time.”
They high-fived so hard Larry the dachshund fell off the couch in protest.
Oscar picked him up and whispered, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
The Plan:
- Fill Charles’ wardrobe with exclusively duck-themed clothing.
- Replace his doorbell with a quack.
- Mail him a rubber duck every hour on the hour for 36 hours.
- Install a hidden speaker in his wall that plays duck mating calls at 3:14 AM every night.
- Send postcards from various locations signed only: “They’re watching, quack.”
Lando had already ordered 200 rubber ducks in bulk. Ollie had drawn duck stickers by hand and was now licking the backs of them and slapping them on Oscar’s neck like temporary tattoos. Oscar allowed it, because he was a soldier in a war now. Sacrifices had to be made.
Execution: Day One.
Oscar and Lando arrived at Charles’ Monaco apartment dressed as mild-mannered Amazon delivery drivers. The disguise worked for exactly ten seconds, until Charles opened the door and narrowed his eyes like a calculating Bond villain in a Patagonia hoodie.
“Why are you both wearing orange?”
“We work for… Amapost,” Oscar blurted.
“New service,” Lando added. “Very exclusive.”
Charles took one look at the massive box labeled ‘WEDDING DUCKS – URGENT’ and blinked.
“Is this… for me?”
Oscar grinned too wide. “Special delivery for a very special boy.”
Charles squinted harder. His eyes darted. He saw the duck sticker on Oscar’s neck. Then looked at Lando. Then back at the box.
Then he just said, “Tell Ollie to pick up his scarf from my bidet,” and closed the door.
Oscar’s mouth dropped open. “That bastard left evidence?!”
Lando was vibrating. “He KNEW. HE KNEW BEFORE WE KNEW HE KNEW.”
It didn’t matter.
Because the inside of that box? It was filled with two hundred identical rubber ducks, each wearing tiny Charles Leclerc wigs that Oscar had painstakingly crafted using hair he definitely didn’t steal from Charles’ helmet liner three weeks ago in Canada.
Lando had recorded a message on each duck. When squeezed, they played a heavily distorted voice saying, “Bonjour, I am Charles, I fear the geese,” followed by a demonic quack.
Ollie had wanted to include yodeling but was outvoted.
Phase Two, Part Deux:
That night, Oscar broke into Charles’ apartment building by distracting the doorman with an autographed photo of Max Verstappen holding a flower. Charles’ apartment had a keypad lock, but Oscar had hacked it with a complex algorithm.
By which he meant he guessed “164” because that was Charles’ Monaco qualifying position that one time he crashed in Q3.
Inside, he tiptoed to the speaker hidden inside the wall, previously installed by Ollie who had claimed to be doing “structural enrichment.”
At exactly 3:14 AM, a chorus of duck mating calls echoed through the Monaco hills.
Charles sat bolt upright in bed, sheets tangled around his legs, hair disheveled, eyes wild.
“NO. NOT AGAIN. NOT THE HORNY DUCKS.”
He sprinted out onto the balcony and screamed into the night.
“I KNOW IT’S YOU, PIASTRI! I WILL FEED YOU TO A PEACOCK!”
Oscar, perched in a bush across the street with binoculars and a walkie-talkie, whispered, “The trap is working. We’ve reached egg-cracking point.”
Lando’s voice crackled in: “Proceed to Phase Duckception.”
Phase Duckception:
Ollie wheeled in a massive box labeled ‘New Race Suit’ and left it in front of Charles’ Ferrari garage locker. Inside the box? Another box. Inside that box? A third box, but it quacked.
Inside the third box?
A single, terrifyingly lifelike duck plushie with glowing red LED eyes and a tiny Ferrari visor.
It played Frère Jacques backwards and oozed lavender oil from its mouth.
Charles opened it, stared, and then immediately called the Pope.
Oscar was beginning to think they were going too far.
Then Lando texted: New objective: gaslight him into thinking ducks were never real.
Oscar nodded grimly.
He swapped every duck-related Wikipedia article to a 404 error. Ollie posted Instagram stories about “how ducks are a government simulation.” Lando changed Charles’ autocorrect to replace “quack” with “Max Verstappen.”
Day 5.
Charles cracked.
They knew it the moment he arrived at the paddock wearing sunglasses, and a trench coat. He walked straight up to Lando and hissed, “Tell your boyfriend the ducks aren’t real. Tell him I see them. Tell him I dream in bread and feathers. I KNOW WHAT HE DID TO THE CHEESE DRAWER.”
Then he turned, whispered something to Max Verstappen, and dramatically fainted into a pile of tire blankets.
Oscar watched from behind a hospitality palm tree.
He was shaking.
With laughter.
Lando leaned into his shoulder and whispered, “We did it.”
And for one blissful, duckless second, Oscar believed him.
The sun was shining. Charles had fainted into a pile of tire blankets like a 19th-century debutante succumbing to a scandalous cough. The mechanics were screaming. Max Verstappen was fanning him with a data sheet while muttering, “This is why I don’t do Monaco.” Ollie was somewhere, sipping a Red Bull and eating a suspiciously shaped bread, probably drawing cartoons of ducks with flamethrowers in his notebook.
Victory. Sweet, feathery, emotionally destabilising victory.
Until—
A sound.
Faint. Insidious. Wet.
Quack.
Oscar blinked. “Did you hear that?”
Lando tilted his head. “No…?”
Quack.
Oscar turned slowly.
A duck. In the McLaren hospitality suite. Real. Feathers. Beady eyes. Webbed feet. It looked at Oscar with the dead-eyed intensity of someone who knew his browser history.
Then a second duck waddled out from under the cappuccino machine.
Then a third. Wearing—Oscar’s jaw dropped—a tiny orange jumpsuit with a papaya logo stitched on the back.
“Lando,” he whispered, eyes wide, “the ducks are in the walls.”
Quack.
Quackquackquack.
The flood began.
They emerged from everywhere. From under the catering table. From behind the faux modern art sculpture Zak Brown bought in a tequila-fuelled NFT phase. From inside the espresso machine. There were ducks in the drawers. Ducks in the ceiling vents. Ducks on the McLaren simulator doing a perfect recreation of Lando’s Silverstone lap.
One duck pecked at Oscar’s ankle with the clinical precision of a trained assassin.
Lando screamed and threw a protein bar like it was a grenade.
From across the paddock, past the chaos and the feathers, stood Charles Leclerc. Resplendent in his fireproofs. Hair glinting in the sun like a L’Oréal ad with violent intentions. He was holding a leash. Attached to a massive Muscovy duck with a gold chain around its neck and a Ferrari logo shaved into its chest feathers.
Charles smirked. Smiled. Waved.
And Oscar knew.
He fucking knew.
CHARLES LECLERC KNEW EVERYTHING.
The postcards? The reverse Frère Jacques ? The haunted ducks with LED eyes and demonic quacks? The mating calls at 3:14 AM?
HE KNEW.
Because Charles Leclerc didn’t sleep. He waited.
Oscar grabbed Lando by the hoodie. “We’ve been played.”
Lando looked like a broken man. “We tried to gaslight him. But we’re the ones who’ve been gaslit. This is gaslighting squared.”
“He infiltrated our minds,” Oscar whispered.
“He ducklit us,” Lando croaked.
From somewhere, a duck honked like a trumpet of the apocalypse.
A Ferrari intern was filming the chaos. The video was already on TikTok, titled “McLaren Executives Versus Duck Army 🧍🏻🧍🏼♂️🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆💥💥💥💥 #FerrariSupremacy.”
The caption underneath said: “Charles’ revenge era. We ride at dawn.”
Oscar backed away. Hit the floor with a noise that sounded like betrayal and arthritis.
“Where’s Ollie?” he hissed.
Lando was standing in the corner trying to fight off three ducklings with a spork. “I DON’T KNOW, HE WAS HERE TWO SECONDS AGO—”
A loudspeaker crackled.
All heads turned.
Every driver. Every engineer. Every duck.
The jumbotron in the room flickered, then bloomed into an image.
Charles Leclerc.
Sitting on a gilded throne made entirely out of rubber duckies and Ferrari carbon fibre.
Leo the dachshund perched like a little goblin beside him, chewing on a Red Bull can.
And there—beside him—was Ollie Bearman.
Wearing Ferrari red.
Smiling.
Holding a sword made of foam and vengeance.
Charles leaned into the mic and said, “Bonjour, McLaren. I believe this is what you call… a skill issue.”
Oscar screamed. Again.
Lando fell to his knees. “He’s got Ollie. He took my child. He took my fucking child—”
“You were never his father,” Oscar sobbed. “You were just the emotional babysitter.”
Ollie appeared on screen, wearing a crown made of duck feathers and flower petals.
He waved. “This is my true form. Charles gave me a bidet, foie gras, and a personal room in Maranello with a race seat that has neck support and a snack drawer. McLaren offered me gluten-free waffles and depression.”
Oscar’s eye twitched. “You… absolute duck bastard.”
Charles smiled again. The smile of a man who has overthrown democracies and perfected a carbonara recipe in the same afternoon.
The ducks began doing formation laps around the McLaren table. One pooped on Lando’s race boots. Another played the French national anthem on a kazoo.
Oscar looked up at the ceiling.
Just another duck.
Wearing sunglasses.
Charles’ voice rang out from the speaker again. “I leave you now. I have a dinner appointment with Max. But remember, the next time you plan psychological warfare—make sure your accomplice isn’t also my son.”
The screen went dark.
Ollie's TikTok was updated two seconds later with the caption: “Exposing my gaslighter babysitters 🤪🧍🏻🧍🏼♂️🦆🦆🦆🦆 #Ferrari4Life #OllieOut.”
Oscar lay back against the duck-covered floor.
Lando curled beside him, whispering “quack” in his sleep.
The ducks waddled in circles around them.
And somewhere, Charles Leclerc laughed.
Softly.
Like a boy who had never, ever, ever lost a game of Duck Duck Goose.