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The Miami sun had barely started to dip beyond the paddock when the victory celebrations wrapped up. The noise was still ringing in Oscar’s ears, the roars of the crowd, the spray of champagne, the rush of reporters, flashes of cameras, a hundred hands clapping his back. It should have felt perfect. Three wins in a row. Another pole converted. The championship lead extended.
But something wasn’t right.
Lando had smiled for the podium, like he always did. He’d even splashed Oscar with champagne, a half-hearted but affectionate gesture. They’d stood side by side for photos, and if Oscar hadn’t known him so well, he might’ve believed the grin plastered on his boyfriend’s face. But he did know him. He saw the way Lando’s shoulders sat too high, too stiff. How his fingers curled a little too tightly around the water bottle he clutched during interviews. How he answered media questions like he was on autopilot, not really hearing his own words. Not really there.
By the time they reached the McLaren hospitality for debriefs, Lando was silent. He’d kept his eyes on the floor mostly, nodding along, giving short, sharp answers. When he and Oscar were left alone in the driver room for a brief second, Oscar reached out, tried to touch the small of Lando’s back, whisper something soft and grounding. But Lando stepped away.
“I’m fine love,” he’d said.
He wasn’t.
Oscar didn’t see him after that.
He assumed Lando had gone to the hotel ahead of him, skipping out on the rest of the after-race chaos. That wasn’t unusual. Lando hated lingering in the paddock when he wasn’t in the mood. Oscar had taken care of the last obligations, smiled for the cameras, nodded through sponsor photos. All the while, he counted the minutes until he could get back to their suite. Hold him. Say something dumb to make him laugh. Just be there and quietly celebrate.
But when Oscar swiped into their hotel room nearly an hour later, the lights were off.
The bed was made.
The shower hadn’t been used.
No shoes by the door. No damp towel slung over a chair. No signs of Lando at all.
Oscar’s heart kicked against his ribs.
“Lando?” he called out, hopeful. Maybe he was just—at the gym? Somewhere downstairs?
Silence answered.
Oscar checked his phone again. No messages. No missed calls. The last text Lando had sent was hours ago, before the race.
“Good luck. Go get it.”
Oscar moved quickly, calling the front desk to ask if they’d seen him. Nothing. He tried the PR manager who said Lando left immediately after the final debrief, no security escort, no word. He’d looked pale, was the only comment he had. And Jon wasn't answering so he had to be with Lando.
That was it. No one had seen him since.
Oscar stared at his phone, a hollow weight in his chest. Lando hadn’t even told him. He always told him.
He opened their location-sharing app, the one they kept on for travel safety and “just in case” moments.
Lando’s dot wasn’t in Miami anymore.
It was over the Atlantic.
Flying home.
Oscar sat down hard on the edge of the bed, the room suddenly too quiet. He ran both hands through his hair, heart pounding as the realisation sank in fully: Lando had left. Without him. Without a word. That wasn’t routine, or normal, or just needing space.
That was something else.
Something was wrong.
Oscar stayed frozen for a moment, still perched on the edge of the bed like if he moved too fast, something might shatter. His fingers tightened around the phone, nails digging into the silicone case, eyes locked on the little airplane icon hovering somewhere between Miami and Europe.
He swallowed hard. There was a faint tremor in his chest now, part fear, part ache.
Lando never left like this.
Sure, he needed space sometimes. Sure, race weekends could be hard, brutal even. But they always told each other. Even if it was a clipped “need a minute” or a simple text, there was always a thread between them. A line that never snapped.
Until now.
Oscar stood abruptly. He paced once, then twice, then pulled out his phone again. He texted:
osc:
Are you okay?
No reply.
He typed again:
osc:
You left. Just tell me you’re safe, please baby.
He waited.
Still nothing.
Oscar forced himself to breathe through his nose, slow and steady like his trainer taught him for tense moments. But this wasn’t a race. This wasn’t about tactics. This was Lando. His Lando. Who had congratulated him with a smile. Who hadn’t made eye contact during the whole debrief.
He turned and grabbed his hoodie, tugging it over his still-damp hair from the post-race shower. His hand shook slightly as he reached for his phone again.
He called.
Voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said quickly, trying to keep his voice level. “I just—just let me know you’re okay, alright? I don’t care about anything else. You left without saying anything, and I just want to know you’re safe. Please, Lan. Text me. Call me. Something. When you land. I'm worried.”
He hung up, staring at the wall.
The silence pressed in again, louder now. More suffocating.
He thought about everything that had happened in the past few weeks. The media cycle twisting everything into narratives that didn’t reflect reality. Lando’s crash in qualifying, the brutal headlines that followed, how the paddock buzzed with backhanded compliments,praise for recovery mixed with subtle daggers about failure to deliver. Again.
And then Oscar had won. Again.
Even though Lando finished second today, P2, after a hard fight from sixth because of a tricky encounter with Max at turn 1, the weight in Oscar’s chest told him it hadn’t felt like a victory to the man he loved. Not with the online vitriol. Not with the creeping voice Oscar knew too well, You’re not enough. You’ll never be enough.
And now he was flying home. Alone.
Oscar sat back down on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands laced tight between them. The same question echoed in his mind like a drumbeat.
Why didn’t he tell me?
Not anger. Not even frustration. Just quiet heartbreak.
Oscar didn’t know how to reach across the silence this time. But he would. He had to.
He stayed there for a long time.
He didn’t know how long, long enough that the Miami sunset bled through the half-closed curtains, long enough that the cheers and celebration noises from the team suite upstairs faded into silence, long enough that the ache in his chest hardened into something deeper, sharper. Not panic now. Just… hurt.
Lando was in the air. And Oscar wasn’t on that plane.
He should have noticed sooner. He had noticed something was off. Lando had barely said a word after the podium. Gave his answers to the media with a practiced smile that never reached his eyes. Had kept glancing at Oscar in a way that didn’t ask for attention, it begged not to be seen. Like he’d already begun folding himself away.
And Oscar had still smiled on the podium. Still let champagne spray in his hair and played along for the cameras and let himself believe for five minutes that things were okay. That they could go back to the hotel, decompress, order something awful from room service, and pretend the world wasn’t always so cruel.
But now he was here. Alone.
And Lando had left.
Without telling him.
Oscar got up. Restless. He tugged open the minibar and took out a bottle of water, opened it, didn’t drink. Walked into the bathroom. Came back out. Picked up his phone again. Looked at the messages. Replayed his voicemail.
Still no reply.
The familiar script started to unspool in his mind, one Oscar had memorized over the last few months of trying to hold Lando up when the world kept pushing him down.
You’re too much.
You’ll always be second best.
They only like you until someone better shows up.
You’re lucky to even be here.
Lando never said them out loud. But Oscar knew them. He saw them behind Lando’s eyes every time a qualifying went wrong, every time he was called arrogant, or immature, or inconsistent, or somehow never enough.
And lately, Oscar had been winning.
Three wins in a row. Clean. Sharp. Fast. The kind of form that made headlines, and comparisons.
Oscar dropped the water bottle onto the table and sat down on the carpet, knees pulled up, back against the side of the bed. He stared at the floor.
He thought of the way Lando looked at him yesterday, just before bed, curled up under the sheets, fingers tucked against Oscar’s chest like they always did when he needed grounding.
“You’re gonna win again,” he’d said quietly.
Oscar had frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you’re better than me.”
He had laughed at the time. Told Lando to shut up. Pulled him close and kissed his forehead.
But now, sitting alone in their empty hotel room with champagne still drying on his race suit and his chest hollowed out, Oscar realized it hadn’t been a joke. Not even close.
And Lando had still congratulated him after the race. Had still clapped when he crossed the finish line. Had given him that soft smile. Had meant it. Of course he did.
Oscar’s throat tightened. He rubbed a hand over his face.
He should’ve known.
He should’ve noticed Lando disappearing before he ever got on that plane.
—
He shouldn’t have opened Twitter.
He knew that. Every part of him knew better, especially after days like this, race Sundays when emotions ran high, tempers flared, and the world seemed to forget there were people behind the visors and the branding and the numbers on the leaderboard.
But the hotel room was too quiet without Lando.
He’d paced, he’d showered, he’d checked his messages again, still no answer. And then, against all better judgement, he tapped the app open and let the storm in.
The first tweet was a photo of him on the podium. Grinning. Trophy held high. The caption said something like CHAMPIONSHIP MENTALITY with fire emojis and “#OscarPiastriWorldChamp2025” trending underneath. The replies were flooded with phrases like the real golden boy, McLaren has a new king, no mistakes, no drama, just pace.
Oscar stared at it for a second. Then scrolled.
The next one was harsher. A screenshot of race stats. Lando’s drop in qualifying, Oscar’s overtakes, pit stop deltas, clinical numbers turned into ammunition.
"Piastri started P4 and won clean. Norris couldn’t get it done. Again. He’s not championship material. Just vibes and fake confidence."
“Washed.”
“Oscar’s the one bringing results. Lando just brings TikTok clout.”
“Not McLaren’s golden boy anymore.”
Oscar’s stomach twisted.
He kept scrolling. Couldn’t help it. Each swipe felt like digging a deeper hole in the pit of his chest.
"Lando complaining about Max was peak deflection. Man can’t handle pressure."
"Imagine being outclassed three races in a row by your own teammate and still acting like a team leader."
"Oscar’s the future. Lando’s a joke."
Oscar let his phone fall beside him on the bed, screen going dark.
He didn’t want this.
He never wanted this, this narrative of him rising at the cost of tearing Lando down. He knew the numbers. He knew the race. Lando hadn’t made a single mistake today. He’d been smart, calm, consistent. He’d managed tyres better than half the grid.
But none of that mattered online.
Because Lando hadn’t won. And Oscar had.
And now the vultures were circling. Again. Picking apart everything Lando did wrong, imagined or not, like he wasn’t a person, like he wasn’t Oscar’s person.
The worst part wasn’t even what they said. It was knowing Lando had probably read it too. Alone. On that flight.
Oscar could picture it, Lando in a hoodie with his knees pulled up in some first-class window seat, trying not to cry while reading tweets like knives.
Because Lando cared. He cared more than he let on.
And right now, Oscar knew Lando probably believed every single one of those words despite how truly proud of Oscar he was.
He shoved the phone off the bed entirely and sat forward, elbows on his knees, heart pounding in his chest.
This wasn’t about him winning. It wasn’t about Lando losing. This never mattered between them because they wanted to fight for this championship.
This was about the person he loved hurting, quietly and completely, a thousand miles away.
He stood abruptly, the silence in the hotel room pressing in like a vacuum. He felt too big for the space, too charged with anxious, desperate energy. He hadn’t taken off his shoes.
He’d tried calling again before opening Twitter, three times now. All unanswered. The last message he’d sent, “Lando, just let me know you’re safe, please,” still sat unread. The read receipt was off, but he knew. He knew when Lando read messages. There was always a subtle shift, a quiet follow-up. This wasn’t silence.
This was avoidance.
And Oscar knew what that meant.
Lando was spiraling. And he was spiraling alone.
Oscar crossed the room in two quick strides, picking his phone up off the floor again, unlocking it with a twitch of his thumb.
He scrolled again, not through Twitter this time, but through his camera roll, desperate for something to ground himself. There was a photo from just two nights ago. Lando sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed, hair still damp from the shower, nose scrunched as he held up a spoonful of some weird hotel dessert Oscar had dared him to try.
There was another, Lando curled around him, half asleep, face smushed into Oscar’s shoulder, wearing one of Oscar’s shirts that hung just a little too long on his frame. His lips were parted, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. Unfiltered affection.
That’s real, Oscar told himself. That’s the truth.
Not tweets. Not headlines. Not whatever tension had been brewing inside the team since Australia, tight smiles in debriefs, odd tone shifts in strategy calls, a little less warmth than before. Lando felt it too. Oscar could see it in the way he held himself lately, more upright, more careful, like a boy waiting to be told he was in the way.
And no matter how good he was at pretending, how bright he smiled on the podium, how playful he sounded in interviews, Oscar knew the cracks were starting to show.
They had both worked so hard to keep this part of them untouched by racing. To separate the sport from the softness between them.
But right now, Oscar wasn’t Lando’s teammate.
He was the person who should’ve known better.
The person who should’ve noticed that Lando wasn’t just tired. He was unravelling. Had been for a while, since he realized the car was tricky for him to drive.
Oscar ran a hand through his own hair, shorter still from the Bahrain cut Lando had mourned so dramatically, and exhaled shakily.
He reached for his suitcase.
—
The apartment was dark when Lando stepped inside.
Not dramatically dark, just the soft sort of evening dim that settled over London. He didn’t bother flicking on the lights. He didn’t want brightness. Didn’t want to see his reflection in the glass or the stillness of the home they shared like it was a question he didn’t want to answer.
He dropped his bag just inside the door, keys hitting the little dish on the sideboard with a quiet clatter. His limbs felt heavy. His body ached,not from the race, not really. From tension. From restraint. From holding it together for hours.
He had smiled through the entire podium.
Clapped politely when Oscar lifted the trophy.
Listened to his own engineer tell him, again, that he’d done well. Not amazing. Not brilliant. But “well.” Like a student who didn’t quite meet expectations but deserved a pat on the back anyway.
P2 wasn’t bad. Everyone said so. It just wasn’t enough.
Especially not when Oscar had taken another win. Three in a row. And Lando, Lando had started second and finished second and somehow that was a failure. Again.
He didn’t even take his shoes off before he wandered to the sofa and dropped onto it, arms limp at his sides. The silence felt too big. Normally Luna would come barreling around the corner. Normally Oscar would already be here, complaining about how the airport was the slowest in the world or asking if Lando had remembered to restock the cereal before leaving.
But Lando had taken the first plane out. No message. No goodbye. Just... left.
It had been selfish. He knew that.
Oscar didn’t deserve that. Not after the win. Not after everything.
But Lando didn’t trust himself not to fall apart if he stayed. The effort it took to keep smiling, to answer every question about how it felt to lose from the front again, it had drained him bone dry. And maybe that was his fault too.
He curled one hand into the soft fabric of the couch, his jaw clenched hard enough to hurt.
He hadn’t looked at his phone in hours. Hadn’t dared. He could already picture what it would say. People talking about how McLaren had chosen their real number one. How Lando Norris couldn’t win even with clean air. How Oscar Piastri was the future, and Lando was just the mistake of the past.
He knew it wasn’t all true. Rationally. Somewhere under the bruised mess of his thoughts, he knew.
But knowing didn’t mean he didn’t feel it. Like rust spreading through his confidence. Like failure digging in under his skin.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and slouched lower on the couch, the fabric cold beneath him. The apartment felt foreign. Too quiet. Too still. Like Oscar’s absence echoed through the walls, even though Lando was the one who’d created it.
He probably was still in Miami. Probably furious.
He should be. Lando hadn’t answered the calls. Hadn’t texted. Hadn't informed. Had left like it could have made Oscar free enough to celebrate his win.
Guilt twisted in his chest like a screw turned too tight. He wanted to go to the bedroom, to crawl under the duvet and disappear. But some part of him, raw and knotted, couldn’t move. Couldn’t summon the energy.
So he stayed there, in the dark jaw clenched and eyes dry, trying not to sink any deeper into that hollow ache in his chest.
The one that told him, quietly, insistently, that no matter how good he was, it would never be good enough.
The silence wrapped tighter around Lando as the minutes dragged. He didn’t know how long he sat there, maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour, his thoughts blurring into each other like a reel on fast forward. Every second ticked like a drumbeat under his skin, but nothing around him moved. No Oscar key in the lock. No soft footsteps. No voice calling his name.
It made sense. Of course Oscar wouldn’t be here. Not after what Lando did.
He curled in on himself, knees drawn up as his back slouched against the armrest of the couch. The city lights blinked lazily outside the window, casting faint ripples on the ceiling, like reflections off water. It was beautiful, but Lando didn’t feel it. It felt fake. Like a stage backdrop. And he felt like a failure left behind in the wings.
He reached for his phone without thinking, unlocking it like muscle memory.
Big mistake.
The first thing that greeted him was a trending tag: #PiastriMasterclass.
Lando didn’t need to click it. He didn’t want to. But his thumb moved anyway, hovering, then tapping. Just once.
“Piastri showed today what real talent looks like.”
“Three wins in a row. McLaren’s true golden boy.”
“Norris crumbles under pressure. Again.”
“No wonder the team’s focus is shifting.”
He stopped reading. But the words stuck. Crawled inside his ribs like spiders.
Lando's chest tightened, eyes burning with the weight of it. His throat clenched like he might cry, but nothing came. His body was too tired, too hollow. His fingers hovered over the power button, hesitated, then locked the screen with a dull click.
You did this to yourself, he thought bitterly. Left without a word. Didn’t even congratulate him properly.
He’d said it on the podium. Smiled, clapped, patted Oscar’s back. But it hadn’t been enough. It had been empty. Oscar had deserved better.
The thought of Oscar walking into their hotel room, expecting to find him, only to be met with cold silence—it made something crumble in Lando’s chest. He’d seen the confusion on Oscar’s face earlier, even through the layers of media bravado. He’d watched Oscar look for him, probably thinking Lando was just running late. And then realizing—slowly, maybe angrily—that he was gone.
Oscar didn’t like games. Didn’t like mind-reading or emotional hide and seek. And Lando… Lando had left him to guess.
He leaned his head back against the couch and shut his eyes.
The darkness behind his lids wasn’t any more comforting. His brain was still running, screaming really, and every thought was a mirror reflecting something ugly back at him.
You’re second best.
You’re never enough.
Oscar will figure it out soon. He’ll realise you’re not worth all this effort.
The lump in his throat grew, but he swallowed it down.
He could’ve stayed. Could’ve asked Oscar for five minutes, for a hug, for something steady to ground him. But instead, he’d boarded a plane like a coward. Ran. Because the thought of seeing pride in Oscar’s eyes, and ruining it, had cracked something he hadn’t been able to tape back together.
A soft, startled sound escaped his throat, a breath caught between a sigh and something too close to a sob. He buried his face in the crook of his arm, hiding from the room, from the skyline, from himself.
—
The door creaked open softly just after 4 a.m., the sound faint beneath the ever-present hum of London’s quiet night and the muffled pressure of Lando’s own spiraling thoughts. It shouldn’t have been loud enough to rattle him, but it did.
Lando flinched upright from the couch like he'd been burned, heart jackknifing in his chest, blanket tangled around his legs. His breath hitched before he could even think, before his brain could process anything except the unmistakable, familiar rhythm of footsteps on the hardwood. His eyes snapped toward the door, wide and red-rimmed, chest already squeezing.
And there Oscar was, shoulders heavy with travel fatigue, eyes glassy from jet lag, curls flattened by the plane, backpack slung low, jaw clenched. His gaze immediately landed on Lando sitting frozen on the couch, half-lit by the dim lamp he’d left on. The silence between them stretched, taut, painful, screaming with the things Lando had done and the things he hadn’t said.
“Oscar,” Lando breathed, voice cracking mid-syllable.
Oscar didn’t say anything right away. He just stood there, expression unreadable, like he was trying to figure out whether to be angry or worried, or just heartbroken. And Lando, Lando panicked.
“I’m sorry,” he said, instantly, voice rising too fast, too loud, like a dam breaking. “I—I didn’t mean to. I just—I thought I was doing the right thing, okay? I thought—fuck—”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, the sudden hot burn of tears making his chest cave in.
“I thought I’d ruin it for you. You won, and you deserved to be happy and celebrated and I—every time I open my mouth lately it’s like I make it about me, and I didn’t want to do that to you again, not after everything.”
Oscar dropped his backpack slowly. “Lando—”
“I always ruin it,” Lando kept going, voice splintering. “You win and people love you and the team believes in you and I’m just there like some fucking, some self-centered ghost and I knew I’d mess it up, okay? So I thought, if I left, at least you’d get to enjoy it without me weighing it all down.”
Oscar stepped forward. “You think—wait, Lando, hold on.”
But Lando’s breathing had gone too fast, too shallow, hands trembling now as he gripped the edge of the couch like it could ground him, like it could stop the storm behind his ribs. “I just wanted you to have one night without me being the problem. And then I came home and I—I kept thinking about how I made it worse anyway because now you had to worry and I always—always—do that to you and—”
He broke.
The tears came hard and sudden, ripping through his throat with a quiet, hopeless sob as he buried his face in his hands.
Oscar crossed the room in two strides.
“Hey—hey, no, come here,” he whispered, voice instantly softer, already dropping his weight to kneel in front of Lando. “Lan—baby, stop, you didn’t ruin anything. You didn’t ruin anything.”
But Lando just shook his head, shoulders curled in, overwhelmed and unraveling and too ashamed to even look at him. “I didn’t even say congrats properly. I didn’t even hug you or kissed you after, Oscar, I just left like a selfish—”
Oscar’s hands found his wrists, gentle but firm, prying them away from his face just enough to see his eyes.
“You didn’t ruin it,” he said again, slower this time, more steady. “You never ruin anything, Lando. You’re allowed to feel things. You’re allowed to be upset. But running from me—that’s what hurts, not your feelings. Not you.”
Lando looked at him then, finally. His eyes were shining, cheeks wet, mouth trembling like a child caught doing something wrong.
“I didn’t want to drag you down.”
“You don’t drag me down,” Oscar said, hands cradling either side of his face now, thumbs brushing away the worst of the tears even as more fell. “You are the reason I get through any of this. Do you even know how hard it is to win without you next to me to celebrate after? Even when it’s just eating ice cream in front of a stupid rom-com. It didn’t feel right not having you.”
Lando blinked at him, and Oscar could see it, that small, aching flicker of disbelief behind his eyes.
“You’re not just the guy who finished second,” Oscar continued, voice low and sure. “You’re the guy I love. The guy I race with. The one who makes it worth it. So when you disappear without a word? Yeah, I panic. Because I know that means you're hurting. And I don’t want to be standing on podiums while you’re curled up in the dark blaming yourself for existing. I want to fight you for that first place.”
Lando hiccupped on a breath. His hands slowly reached up, hesitating, then clutching the front of Oscar’s hoodie like he was scared Oscar might still vanish.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, broken and small.
Oscar leaned forward until their foreheads touched, breath mingling.
“I don’t want apologies,” he said. “I just want you to come home. To me. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
Lando nodded slowly, breath shuddering out of him. He didn’t have the words. He wasn’t sure he ever would. But he leaned forward and wrapped himself around Oscar like a child clinging to a lighthouse in a storm, arms tight, face buried in his shoulder, heart aching with love and regret and quiet, messy relief.
And Oscar held him there on the floor, unmoving, solid and steady, as if the whole world could stop spinning for a while.
Lando didn’t let go.
Even after the tears stopped, after the ragged, breathless sobs gave way to silent shudders and a hollow kind of quiet, he stayed wrapped around Oscar like he needed him to stay upright, to breathe, to exist. Kneeling there together in the dim, cold light of their quiet flat, time felt suspended, as if even the clocks didn’t dare tick too loud and break the moment.
Oscar didn’t move either. He just held Lando close, arms banded firm around his waist, one hand splayed protectively between his shoulder blades, the other gently curled in the back of his hoodie. His cheek rested on Lando’s temple, eyes closed like he could will his warmth into the places Lando kept locked too tight.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. The weight of exhaustion seeped in slowly, travel fatigue, adrenaline crash, the emotional burn of the night catching up with them both. Lando’s breathing finally evened out, but his grip didn’t loosen. Not even a little.
“I really thought,” he rasped eventually, voice hoarse from crying and so quiet it almost got lost in the fabric of Oscar’s hoodie, “that leaving was the right thing.”
Oscar shifted slightly, just enough to brush his hand through Lando’s curls, thumb trailing gently across the damp hair sticking to his forehead. “I know you did.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t care.”
“I know,” Oscar said again, soft but resolute. “But you still did. It still hurt.”
That made Lando wince. He pulled back just a little, enough to look at Oscar with wide, swollen eyes and a guilt so heavy it practically clung to his skin.
“I didn’t want to be a burden,” he murmured. “I saw the way everyone looked at you after the race. Like you were unstoppable. Like you’re the real shot at the title this year. You are! And then me, just stuck in P2, again, with the same mistakes, same, same weight. I couldn’t even celebrate for you properly. I didn’t know how.”
Oscar reached up and cupped his jaw, fingers trembling slightly now that the adrenaline had worn off. “You think I need celebration from you when you’re barely holding yourself together?”
Lando blinked.
Oscar exhaled. “You don’t owe me performative happiness, Lan. I know when it’s real. And I’d rather have you be quiet and hurting with me than vanish so you can cry alone.”
Lando’s throat bobbed. “I didn’t want you to think I was jealous.”
“Are you?”
Lando hesitated, shoulders tense. Then, in the smallest voice imaginable: “A little. But mostly just... ashamed.”
Oscar didn’t flinch. “Thank you for saying that. But you don’t need to be ashamed. You work just as hard as me. It’s okay to want more. That doesn’t make you selfish. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean I love you any less.”
Lando looked down, voice shaking. “I hate that people think I’m the weak link. That I’m dragging the team down. That you’re winning in spite of me.”
Oscar shook his head. “No. No, don’t you dare start thinking that. I win because we push each other. You think I’d be where I am without you? You think I didn’t need to chase you every week last season to learn how to get here?”
“But now they don’t see that,” Lando said, finally peeling his hands off Oscar’s chest to wrap around himself instead. “Now it’s just ‘ Oscar’s the number one, Lando’s washed ’, like all of it’s erased.”
Oscar’s heart cracked a little more at that. “People online don’t know us. They don’t see the hours you put in, or the way you keep the team grounded. They don’t see you waking up first to debrief, staying last to try something new in the sim. I see it, Lando. I see you.”
Lando was shaking again, this time from the fragility in those words, like he didn’t think he deserved them.
“I left because I thought I was giving you space to breathe. I didn’t think you’d follow me home.”
Oscar’s brow creased. “There’s no version of this where I don’t follow you home.”
Lando let out a wet, broken sound—half sob, half laugh. He leaned forward again, pressing his forehead into Oscar’s collarbone, hands bunching the fabric tight.
Oscar wrapped himself around him again, pressing his lips to the top of his head. “Next time, you tell me. Even if you feel like shit. Even if you’re embarrassed. I want to be there. I need to be there.”
“I was scared,” Lando admitted. “Scared you’d see me like they do.”
Oscar’s voice went low, deadly soft, but honest. “I’ll never see you like they do.”
Another beat passed. The air between them shifted, thick with unspoken things still lingering. The lights were still low, the room cold, their limbs aching. But Oscar didn’t move.
And Lando didn’t let go.
He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, curled into each other on the living room floor, hearts still raw and bones aching with everything they hadn’t said for weeks. But eventually, his muscles began to protest. His fingers, clutched so tightly into Oscar’s hoodie, trembled from fatigue. The post-race comedown, the cross-Atlantic emotional turbulence, the pain he’d shoved down since the race, all of it swirled in his chest like a storm still half-brewing.
Oscar felt the tension shift before Lando even moved. Gently, without saying anything, he ran a hand down Lando’s back and murmured, “Come on. Let’s get off the floor, yeah?”
Lando didn’t answer, but he nodded faintly against Oscar’s neck. Letting go felt impossible, but he allowed Oscar to coax him upright, guiding them both with surprising tenderness to the couch nearby. Lando flopped onto it with zero grace, curling in on himself instinctively, like the soft cushions might shield him from everything outside this flat, everything waiting to swallow him whole.
Oscar sat beside him, close enough their knees brushed, but didn’t crowd him. He waited.
After a long stretch of silence, Lando finally whispered, “You really should be mad at me.”
Oscar glanced at him. “I was worried. Angry for a moment. But mostly just, scared, Lando. You weren’t answering. You disappeared. I thought something had happened. And then when I landed and the flat was dark and cold and you were just… sitting here, like—like you’d been frozen in time—I think my heart actually stopped.”
Lando turned his face away, hiding behind his curls. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I know,” Oscar said, quietly. “But this thing we’re doing, us, it doesn’t work if we start deciding what the other person can or can’t handle. I want to celebrate with you. But I also want to hurt with you. It’s not just about the wins, Lando.”
Lando’s voice was hoarse, frayed around the edges. “But you deserve the wins. The spotlight. Everything’s working for you right now. I didn’t want to be the raincloud over that.”
Oscar’s throat tightened again. “You’re not a raincloud. You’re the reason I survived the worst part of last season. You are the light, Lando. Even when you can’t feel it.”
That made Lando flinch. His hand twitched at his side, as though reaching for something, or maybe wanting to push the words away. “You don’t have to say that.”
“But it’s true,” Oscar insisted, quieter now. “You’ve been carrying so much on your shoulders, expectations, pressure, the media, the team dynamic, and you’ve been alone in it. I should’ve seen it earlier. I should’ve pushed harder when I noticed the way your hands shook after Bahrain. The way you didn’t even smile after Jeddah, not really. And this weekend, God, Lan, you were breaking and I was too busy juggling champagne bottles and interviews to really see you falling apart.”
Lando shook his head, tearful again, but not crying yet. “That’s not your fault, you should have noticed the happiness and celebration, you deserved that.”
“I know. But I still wish I had noticed you. I can’t fix the team politics, or the media narratives. But I can be here. I want to be here.”
A beat. Then, softer: “Do you still want me to be?”
That question split Lando open in a way no race result ever could.
He whipped his head around so fast he nearly knocked into Oscar’s shoulder, panic blooming across his face like wildfire. “Yes. Yes, of course I do. Don’t even, don’t ask that. I left because I thought it would help you, not because I didn’t want, you’re the only thing that feels safe right now.”
Oscar’s heart cracked again.
He reached out, this time threading their fingers together. Lando didn’t resist.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Oscar said simply. “But we need to talk more. Because this... this pressure you’re under—it’s not sustainable. Not for anyone.”
Lando squeezed his hand, trembling slightly. “I don’t even know what I’d say.”
“We’ll figure it out together,” Oscar replied, eyes steady. “But not tonight. Tonight, we recover.”
Lando let out a breath that stuttered halfway through, like it couldn’t quite decide whether to fall into a sob or finally, finally let him rest. “Can we just... go to bed?”
Oscar stood first, tugging Lando up with him. “Only if you let me hold you all night.”
Lando didn’t answer. He just leaned into Oscar’s chest, arms winding around his waist, and nodded against the soft cotton of his jumper.
—
Lando settled into the bed beside Oscar, pulling the covers up around their shoulders. The familiar weight of exhaustion pressed down on him, but his mind was still racing, unwilling to let go of everything that had happened today, the race, the distance, the pressure.
Oscar shifted slightly, adjusting the pillow under his head, and then turned to face Lando, his eyes searching his expression. He could feel the tension still lingering in Lando’s posture, even in the dimly lit room. The day had been long, and while they’d shared a few moments of quiet, the unspoken things still hung between them.
“Did you… look at Twitter?” Oscar asked gently, his voice low and careful, as if testing the waters. He wasn’t asking to scold Lando, but he needed to know how to approach him in the next few hours. How much did Lando know? How much had he absorbed? He could sense the weight of it in Lando’s body, and he wanted to know just how tightly he needed to hold him, how to ease him back into the quiet safety of their space.
Lando didn’t answer immediately, his gaze flickering down at the sheets as if trying to avoid the question. It was always easier to pretend, to shut things out. But with Oscar’s question, he realized he couldn’t hide from it. The stress, the pressure, Oscar had seen all of it in real-time, but the aftermath… The way Lando’s mind spiraled when everything went quiet, when he was alone with his thoughts, that was something Oscar needed to understand.
“I looked,” Lando finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t even look up, focusing on the edge of the blanket instead. “Not too much. But enough to know that... yeah, I’m a joke to most of them. A washed-up failure who can't even pass Max.”
Oscar’s chest tightened at the vulnerability in Lando’s words. He reached out, gently brushing his hand across Lando’s back, just a light touch, a way of grounding him.
“I’m sorry,” Oscar said softly, his voice firm in its quiet sincerity. “But you’re not a failure, Lando. You know that, right? You’ve been doing your best through a lot of shit. We both have.”
“I know.” Lando’s voice wavered, and he finally lifted his gaze, but there was no fire, no anger, just the tired resignation of someone who had been fighting for too long, against forces too powerful to see.
Oscar could feel the difference in him. The way he wasn’t fighting it anymore, wasn’t bristling with defiance as he usually did. He was… small. Vulnerable. And that hit Oscar harder than any scathing comment on Twitter ever could. Lando had taken so much, for so long, without anyone truly seeing it. And now, here he was, the weight of it all pressing in, too heavy to ignore.
His hand tightened on Lando’s back. “You don’t need to read the comments, you know. I don’t want you to feel like you have to know what they’re saying about you.”
Lando chuckled softly, but it was hollow, empty. “I can’t avoid it, Oscar. It’s everywhere.”
Oscar sighed, the frustration mixing with concern, but he didn’t push it. “I don’t want you to carry it alone, though. I’m here. Always.”
Lando turned his head slightly, enough to meet Oscar’s eyes in the dark. “I know you are. And that’s why… that’s why I don’t want to ruin this for you. I don’t want to be the reason you get dragged into the mess too. You don’t deserve that.”
Oscar’s heart clenched painfully in his chest, and he was quiet for a moment, processing. When he spoke again, his voice was soft but unyielding. “Lando, I’m already in it. I’m in this with you, whether you like it or not. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you to fight your battles by yourself. That’s what we do, yeah? We face the shit together.”
Lando’s breath hitched slightly, the fight in him ebbing just enough for him to lean in, resting his forehead against Oscar’s. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Oscar brushed his fingers through Lando’s messy curls, smiling despite the heaviness still in the air. “You don’t have to think about that. I’m right here, Lan.”
They both let the silence stretch, both of them settling deeper into the bed, the room filled only with the soft rustling of the sheets and the low hum of the city outside their window. But then, Lando spoke again, his voice a little quieter, almost tentative.
“Hey, Osc… Do you think… maybe we could fetch Luna tomorrow?”
Oscar blinked, surprised by the shift in topic. He didn’t say anything right away, his fingers stilling on Lando’s hair as he processed the request.
“Of course baby, do you want to bring her with us for the triple-header?”
Lando nodded, a soft, almost wistful expression crossing his face. “Yeah. I think having her around could help me—help us.”
Oscar’s heart swelled, a warmth flooding through him. He knew how much Luna meant to Lando, how much having her with them grounded him, brought him back to himself in ways nothing else could.
“That sounds like a great idea,” Oscar said softly, brushing his thumb over Lando’s temple. “Luna’s the best at reminding us how simple life can be. I think it’d be good for both of us.”
Lando’s lips curled up in a small, relieved smile. “I just want to feel like I’m whole again, you know? And I think having her with us... It could help.”
Oscar nodded, agreeing silently.
“I’ll make it happen,” Oscar said firmly, leaning down to kiss Lando’s forehead gently. “We’ll go to your parent’s place and we will also spend time with them, it’ll be good for you baby.”
Lando nodded, sinking further into the pillow, feeling the weight of the day lift just a little. “Thanks, Oscar.”
“For everything,” Oscar replied, his voice low and full of sincerity. He brushed his lips over Lando’s temple, staying close, not wanting to let go of the moment.
And for a while, they just stayed like that. In the quiet space of their room, in their small corner of the world where everything felt manageable, everything felt possible again.
—
The light filtered gently through the half-drawn curtains, golden and slow as it spilled across the sheets. The apartment was still, save for the soft hum of the city far below and the occasional creak of the building settling.
Lando blinked blearily at the ceiling. His body was aching in that strange, post-travel, post-emotional-rollercoaster way—jetlagged, heavy, but unable to fully rest. The digital clock on the bedside table read 6:12 PM. Great time for a jet-lagged morning apparently.
Oscar was still fast asleep beside him.
The Brit turned his head carefully, eyes tracing the slow rise and fall of Oscar’s chest. He looked so peaceful when he slept, his face relaxed in a way Lando almost never got to see during a race weekend. His heart ached a little at the sight. It reminded him of all the things he hadn’t said last night. All the ways he’d been trying to disappear, even when Oscar had done everything in his power to pull him back.
And Lando had ruined it. He knew he had.
Even now, curled up beside Oscar in the comfort of their shared bed, Lando felt the weight of it all pressing down on his chest again. He’d meant to give Oscar space to celebrate, to bask in the glory of another win. Three in a row. Oscar had been incredible, measured, clinical, patient, fast. Everything Lando wasn’t on Sunday. And instead of letting that brilliance shine, Lando had fled. He’d ghosted him. He’d taken the one person he cared about more than anything and left him scrambling to fix it.
Oscar had told him it was okay. He’d held him, kissed the panic out of his shaking hands, whispered promises under the duvet that they were still okay. But it didn’t mean Lando believed him. Not fully. Not yet.
He moved slowly, untangling himself from Oscar’s arms with a kind of reverence, careful not to wake him. Oscar stirred slightly, murmured something unintelligible, but didn’t wake. Lando froze until his breathing evened again, then finally slid out of bed.
The air in the flat was cool against his skin as he padded quietly down the hall toward the kitchen, tugging on one of Oscar’s oversized t-shirts from a laundry chair on the way. It hung low on him, the hem brushing mid-thigh. It still smelled faintly like Miami airport, but underneath that was the familiar scent of Oscar himself, warm cotton and something just slightly citrusy. Lando swallowed the lump in his throat.
He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, only that he needed to do something.
Breakfast.
He could do breakfast.
Lando opened the fridge and stared at the contents like they might suddenly whisper a solution to his guilt. Eggs. Bread. Some cheese. Avocado that wasn’t brown yet, thank god. He could work with this.
He moved quietly, grabbing what he needed, pulling down a pan with slow, measured movements. The silence of the apartment settled around him like a warm blanket. For once, there were no screaming engines, no cameras pointed at his face. Just a quiet afternoon and the thought of Oscar waking up to something that was for him.
He mashed the avocado with practiced ease, added lemon, salt, pepper, he’d watched Oscar do this a thousand times. He scrambled the eggs carefully, stirring low and slow like a proper amateur chef. Toast went down. He didn’t even burn it. Miracles were real.
He plated it all on one of their nicer dishes, added a few raspberries from the container in the fridge, and brewed some coffee, Oscar’s favorite kind, the one that smelled rich and sweet and a little nutty. Lando hated it. But he made it perfectly anyway.
By the time everything was arranged on a tray, Lando stood still for a second and looked down at it, biting the inside of his cheek. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t a trophy or champagne or even an “I’m sorry” that could make up for all the mess he’d created.
But it was something.
He carried it carefully back to the bedroom, the warmth of the plates heating his fingertips through the tray. The door creaked softly as he nudged it open with his shoulder. Oscar was still there, curled on his side now, his face turned toward Lando’s empty pillow.
Lando’s chest clenched at the sight.
He placed the tray gently down on the bedside table and perched on the edge of the mattress. For a moment, he just sat there and watched him. Oscar’s lashes fluttered slightly, as if he was on the edge of waking, but not quite there yet.
The Brit leaned down, brushing his fingers lightly through Oscar’s hair.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
Oscar groaned softly, eyebrows pulling together. His voice was raspy, heavy with sleep. “Mm. ‘S too early.”
Lando smiled faintly. “Yeah, four in the afternoon, I know. But I made you breakfast.”
That got a twitch of an eye open. “You… what?”
“I didn’t burn anything,” Lando said quickly, as if defending his honor. “It’s real food. Toast and eggs and… whatever else you like.”
Oscar’s eyes blinked open slowly, adjusting to the light. His gaze softened when it found Lando, hair messy, sitting in his shirt with a hopeful little smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“You made me breakfast in bed,” Oscar said, incredulous but already pushing himself up on one elbow.
“I just… I know we didn’t really celebrate,” Lando said, eyes flicking away. “Last night wasn’t what it should’ve been. And I don’t want you to think I don’t care about what you did. You won, Oscar. You’ve been amazing and I just—” He stopped himself, the emotion catching in his throat. “I didn’t want it to go unacknowledged. Even if I feel like shit about everything else.”
Oscar didn’t say anything for a moment. He just looked at Lando, really looked at him, and Lando could see the understanding in his eyes, the way he always seemed to know without Lando needing to say it all.
He reached out, tugging Lando gently toward him until Lando gave in and let himself be pulled under the covers, curling into Oscar’s chest while Oscar reached for the tray with his free hand.
“Thanks, baby,” Oscar said softly, kissing the top of his head. “We can celebrate now. Just us.”
Lando didn’t respond with words. He just let himself be held, breathing in Oscar’s warmth and the smell of coffee, letting the tight knot in his chest loosen just a little.
It wasn’t fixed.
But it was something.