Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Oscar isn’t ashamed to admit that the entire actual experience of being part of a new team—  and in F1 at all—   is something that made him want to throw up. 

A new team, combined with the explosive way that he had publicly slighted Alpine for McLaren; and the fact he had taken Daniel Riccardo’s seat; was a really brilliant way to set himself up for being a bit of a wreck about the whole thing. 

He spends an insane amount on the phone to Logan, whenever they could both carve out some time that wasn’t being occupied by his friend's own F1 debut. 

The two of them had basically run through each and every possible scenario that they could think of— and rehashing as much of the various things they had heard.

At least until Mark and Jenson had decided to put a stop to the borderline-catastrophising.

He’d been grateful for the Sakhir pre-season testing. For the tours and the way everything had been clearly laid out in front of him for him to work through.

He’s glad they had given him physical copies of almost everything because he definitely wouldn’t have remembered half of it otherwise.

The cars, the team structure, the policies and procedures and various implemented rules. The team dynamics, the grid dynamics. 

It was all a lot.


He soaked up the information as much as he could, because if he was going to debut in F1, he had to do it right, he had to make sure that it was worth it. 

He’d spent more than one night messaging or on the phone to Mark, sorting through the information in his head until it was something concrete. 

His teammate, Lando Norris— somebody who Oscar had pretty much known about for most of his F2 and F3 career, was surprisingly nice about showing him the ropes- and generally being an all around decent guy.

He was a little bit surprised, all things considered. Especially the little fact that Oscar had essentially stolen his close friend's seat. 

Mark had laughed when Oscar had told him that particular tibid, stating that, 

“You can’t steal a seat Oscar, not like that. You are here through your own merit.” 

Which, well… there was a difference in being objectively aware of something and genuinely believing it. 

He’d been given the time to adjust, he’d gotten to know the way things worked, he had a decent ability to get on with the people he had to in the team, and he was gaining a steadier grasp on how to drive the McLaren cars.

Everyone was remarkably friendly, even with the way he knew all of them missed Daniel Riccardo like nothing else. 

Lando had been pretty adept at giving him the rundown on everybody—  or the ‘rookie’ intro to it all, as Logan had been informed it was called by his own teammate, Albon, who had apparently given him the same rundown.

He wasn’t sure whether the random tidbits of knowledge he’d gotten were better than the hearsay he’d had otherwise, but at least he had some ground to go off of beyond what he’d heard from within the other formulas.


And whatever his uncles had told him during dinners and whatnot. Although that mostly involved ambiguous jokes about how messy things used to be.

Not particularly helpful, if he was being honest. 

He needed to know more about how to navigate the seemingly endlessly changing grid dynamics, more than he needed to hear about some of the witnessed arguments in their time on track. 

________

He spends the week between Bahrain and Australia doing everything he possibly can to figure out how to make himself better— and spending half the time regressed and trying not to crawl out of his skin with anxiety.

The time seems to simultaneously fly, and drag out to ungodly levels. 

Nobody was forgetting the scandal that had followed his exit from Alpine and entrance into the F1 McLaren seat, and he needed to prove that he did belong here. 

Still, so far this season the only thing he had really gained was an even better ability to brush things off, with the humiliating things that were his first handful of races.


He knew it was teething problems. Everybody had told him about rookie years, and Mark had spent more than a few moments coaxing him into understanding that there was a very real chance that his rookie year was going to suck. 

It was a shitty conversation if he was being honest. Mark really knew how to make a guy feel great. 

He had all things considered done pretty well at just moving past those first few races, even if they did usually end with him curled up in his hotel bed feeling like he might throw up from disappointment. 

Or with him buried into Mark’s side trying not to feel like he was going to climb out of his skin. 

He had the solidarity of Logan also going through his rookie year- and Nyck, and he had found himself so thankful for the fact his best friend had moved up too, and was having a similar experience to him. 

The appearance of his home race was something that he was torn between not thinking about at all, and trying to think about so much that he could erase the potential of something going horribly wrong for him. 

He wakes up feeling all jumbled up on the Thursday morning after they fly in. He’s anxious, and he feels twitchy.

He had been up half the night trying not to feel like he was going to be sick from anxiety.

He hadn’t been regressed, because he’d honestly done a banger of a job at avoiding regressing for the week that Mark was attending to other duties; but he’d floated in that in-between state that left him feeling more tired. 

He forces himself into the shower pretty much as soon as he processes that he’s even awake again, having only properly fallen asleep a few hours earlier. 

He really did not enjoy the mornings. 

Mark rings him not long after he gets out of the shower, when he’s pulling on his jeans and his team shirt; and Oscar hastily rushes across the room to answer it in time.

“Hi Mark.” He greets, running a brush through his hair as they speak. 

“Hey Osc, how are you feeling? Everything going okay?”  Mark had been in contact whenever their timezones, and individual schedules allowed for it- at least once a day.

Oscar knew though that the minimal contact was not helping his caregiver feel any less uneasy about having left him.

He was fine, of course, but caregivers worried regardless of logic, as Jenson had informed him. 

Plans had been made for Oscar to stay with him at his house—  or really their house, on account of Oscar’s nursery and room—  for the rest of the weekend. 

Mark had said he’d swing around and pick up Oscar’s stuff and bring it around to his house, while Oscar was dealing with track nonsense— before he’d come to the track himself for whatever it was he was doing.

Oscar wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was excited to see Mark again, even if he was self aware enough to have that looming sense of dread that having resisted regressing for that period, and suddenly having Mark around again was going to absolutely send him crashing. 

It was different when he hadn’t been regressing semi-regularly, and his body had gotten used to the minimal amounts. 

Mark had firmly put a stop to that when he had found out— and now Oscar never really knew what to do with the after.

“I’m okay, everything is fine, I just woke up.” He doesn’t sound convincing, even to his own ears, let alone to his manager-turned-caregiver.

He wasn’t even actively stressed, because he knew how to handle press and conferences and interacting with other people. His nervous system was just apparently not getting the hint. 

“Of course. Sleep well?” And clearly by Mark's tone he didn’t believe him either. It was a bit insulting, even if he was apparently going to let him get away with it.

“Yeah, the same old sorta thing. I’m finishing getting ready.” He responds simply, rummaging around with his backpack to make sure that he had everything for the day.

God knows that neither Logan nor Lando would ever let him live it down if he forgot his paddock pass.

He was barely awake in any regard, and he was pretty sure it was reflected in his voice.

“Okay, there’s not heaps to do today, I don’t think, so you shouldn’t be caught up for too long.”

 Mark is right, there was pretty much just a total of the conference later on with a few of the other drivers, and the bits and pieces of team-related duties.

Set ups and rundowns and discussions, mostly. He’d hopefully be able to go home by the time late afternoon rolls around. 

“I know, I’m not worried.”

“Right,” Mark starts, and honestly Oscar feels like he should be offended at Mark apparently no longer even pretending to believe him, 

“Well, Nando and his boys will both be around if you need anything.”

Oscar feels himself flush, even though he knows there’s no real reason for it.

“I’m sure I won’t get done in by some press and interviews.”

“Uh huh? Well you can still let me worry about it then.”

Oscar laughs, stuffing his feet into his shoes and lacing them up quickly,

“Bye Mark. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Bye buddy,  you’ve got this.” 

He shoots off a message to Logan as he’s leaving, liking the three videos of the same version of a joke that Logan had sent to him in the middle of the night.

Apparently not sleeping was just in the air last night, and the message querying whether Oscar was even awake yet.

     osc you awake yet? 

     im being roped into more training         
     before 

     hi logan

     its too early for this but yeah omw       
     to 

     paddock now 

     would happily go back to sleep 

     thought so lol how long until someone    
     finds you  

     napping somewhere again 

     good luck btw see u down there 

    👍🖕

He has to resist the urge to call Logan a prick for his entirely true statement.

Logan and admittedly a fair few people had seen him having fallen asleep in various places— behind tires, in his driver's room, slumped on a couch or seat somewhere; even just sprawled on the floor sometimes if he was tired enough. 

It wasn’t because he was a child, it was not. He just… sometimes was not the strongest fighter against the urge to go back to sleep. 

It’s why Mark always tried to implement a nap rule during any sort of days where he was regressed, or close to it and able to nap.

The more tired he was, the more likely he was to get overwhelmed by everything around him and shut down a bit more. 

He wasn’t sure if that was more of a general regressor thing— because he knew that most littles ended up having a rest at some point during the day,  if they were small enough to need one— or just a him thing, because he really enjoyed sleeping.

Still, Logan was wrong this time, and he would not be getting caught napping somewhere- or napping at all for that matter. 

He thankfully runs  into Lando pretty much as soon as he gets through the paddock and into the McLaren hospitality. 

He’s not ashamed to say that he pretty much did his best to dodge the various people looming around that may want to talk to him this early. 

It was a modicum of success. He’d only been stopped twice to talk to somebody, content with just smiling awkwardly at people as he carried on otherwise. 

There weren’t many people here overall, this early in the morning specifically or in general, for the F1 and related personnel. 

Thursday wasn’t anything more than the token conferences, setup and the beginnings of beginning to prep for the weekend.

The real chaos would unfold from tomorrow onwards, everything evolving into an adrenaline filled haze.  

“Oscar! You ready to get these meetings out of the way?” Lando greets cheerfully, looking criminally awake this early.

Oscar genuinely had no idea how his teammate was so good at being functional in the mornings. He had to be on some sort of crack for it. 

“Hi Lando. Uh- yes, definitely.” He winces at the words and how they come out, even if Lando barks out a laugh at it.

“Really not one for the mornings are you?”

He really really wasn’t. Mark always teased him for it whenever he had to wake him up, whether he was big or little at the time. 

“I just don’t see the point in it. It feels like punishment. I don’t know how you do it.”

Lando snickers, guiding him down the hallway casually as he spoke,

“I just wake up easily, but going to sleep is a whole different story. I drive Carlos and Danny insane sometimes with it.”

That’s a sentiment Oscar could share. He’d definitely put Mark through the ringer more than a couple of times over the last year or so with some of little-hims tantrums upon having to wake up.

“Well, at least one of us is awake for these meetings.” 

They arrive at the meeting room before Oscar even realises, not until Lando is swinging the door open and ushering the both of them in.

“I found him! All is well everybody!” Lando calls teasingly to the room, pulling Oscar down into the seat next to him.

“What?” Oscar mock-gasps, “I was not even late thank-you.”

“No, but you could have been.”

“But I wasn’t.” Oscar can see half of the team watching the two of them like it was some sort of drama show, amusement lined in their faces as everyone fiddled with what they were currently doing.

“I know, you’re welcome” Lando sticks his tongue out at him, dodging out of the way of the childish elbow that Oscar aimed at his ribs.


Zak and Andrea get the meeting started pretty much as soon as they settle back down, and Oscar contents himself with focusing on absorbing everything that’s said and not on how badly he wanted to go back to bed still. 

It passes quickly enough, and before Oscar knows it, Lando was dragging him down to go and get food, having decided apparently that he was going to corral Oscar wherever they needed to go today. 

Oscar didn’t mind. Oscar may know Melbourne extremely well, but Lando was the expert at the track and everything around the weekend— Oscar was thankful he didn’t have to navigate it himself right now. 

He was starting to wake up now that he’d been involved in talking and discussions and taking periodic sips of his water bottle. 

They end up at the more communal eating area, where there were already a couple of drivers milling about. 

Oscar had been slowly figuring out who came early and who stayed away for as long as they could in the mornings. 

And who would be most willing to actually venture beyond their own hospitalities.

He couldn’t blame them. If he wasn’t being actively led around by Lando, he probably would have been hiding in his driver's room until he was needed again. 

“Stay here, I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab… food.” Lando informs Oscar, darting off across the area the minute he hustles Oscar into one of the chairs at a table.

Oscar lets him, trying not to show his amusement when he sees Lando launch himself into a similarly awake-looking Carlos Sainz.

It goes to show what a common occurrence this sort of thing was, because Carlos catches him flawlessly, before continuing on with his conversation with Charles- an arm thrown around Lando’s shoulder. 

Oscar is pretty sure Carlos and Lando had flown in together, and it had been less than a couple hours since they had last seen each other, but Oscar couldn’t really say anything. 

He felt a bit like he was going to vibrate out of his skin at the possibility of seeing Mark again this afternoon. 

He’s jolted out of that particular train of thought by somebody plonking themselves down on the chair next to him. 

He blinks at the sudden appearance of Fernando Alonso, who somehow managed to look as unbothered as usual.

“So, Norris dragged you out this early, huh? How did he manage that” The words are teasing, with that knowing edge that makes Oscar flush despite himself.

Fernando had been one of the few people that had babysat Oscar on more than one occasion. 

And someone who had been there for more than a couple wake-ups when he was small; he knew far more than Oscar wanted him to. 

“I woke up willingly, thank you.”

“Uh huh?”

“...Mostly willingly.” He reaffirms, lying straight through his teeth because it really wasn’t willingly at all, and had in fact involved the use of four alarms within a 15 minute period. 

Whatever Fernando goes to say right then is interrupted by Lando appearing at the edge of the table suddenly, thrusting a pot of the yogurts that Oscar liked into his hand before darting off again to Sainz.

At least Oscar had the comfort that apparently he wasn’t the only one who was feeling a bit small- loathe as he was to admit it, but if Lando was in a similar boat… then it was clearly semi-okay?

“Are you ready for this conference? It shouldn’t be anything beyond a bit tedious.” Fernando asks after a moment of letting Oscar start eating.

He wasn’t really hungry at all, but he knew Kim and Mark would both have more than a few things to say if it got back to them that he missed eating anything.

“Yeah, just ready for it to be out the way.” Thursdays when they were involved in a race weekend just always felt awkward, like everybody was on the edge of something and out of their minds with anticipation for the actual weekend to begin.

“Now that I’m familiar with.” Fernando laughed, taking a bite out of the breakfast wrap that he had gotten from… somewhere. Oscar didn’t actually question much of anything when it came to his uncle- he was just like that and it was much easier to just go with it. 

The two of them devolve into a state of silence for a moment, content with just focusing on eating and being a bit shamelessly nosy about what was going on around them.

Carlos had apparently succeeded in corralling Lando into sitting down to actually eat something at the same time, casually redirecting the boy each time he got distracted gesturing wildly to an amused looking Charles and Gasly. 

Valterri and Zhou were sitting quietly in the corner, drinking their respective drinks as they both looked like they were more than ready to get out of here and go back home.

“No Lance or Esteban today?” Oscar pipes up after noticing who was absent from the area entirely.

“Nah, they’re back in Lance’s driver's room. Didn’t feel up to venturing out yet.” Oscar knew that Esteban was one of the drivers that always took a bit to adjust to it being a race weekend.

Especially ones that started that day earlier than the others; even though his general unbothered attitude during the day led people to assume otherwise. 

Same with Lance actually, as Oscar was quickly figuring it out, and so it really didn’t come as a surprise to him that they were getting as much time as they could away from the bustle of it all.

He hadn’t spent much time with Lance, and had barely interacted with Esteban more than a fair few times within the Alpine garage- but they were Fernando’s littles, so they were basically like his cousins, according to Mark at least. 

Him and Lance had found a steady footing in their shared dislike of mornings, and apprehension with getting involved personally with the drivers and the media. Esteban was their token one who was really good at dealing with it. 

“They have the right idea I think.”

“Home-race jitters getting you?” Fernando questions, apparently reading something in Oscar’s voice.

“You’ll be fine, today will pass quickly enough. Mark is around here somewhere right?” Fernando finishes, swallowing the last of his food and gathering the rubbish into a little pile.

Oscar knows it will be fine. He’s had enough media training to last a lifetime, and he knows how to handle a conference. He was just… on edge, everything around him familiar enough and yet different enough that it made his head spin.

“Yeah, he has a list of whatever it is that he has to do, he said he’d be around later.” Mark had promised it actually last night, and re-c0nfirmed it this morning that he would be there to collect Oscar this afternoon as soon as he wasn’t needed. 

It made him feel embarrassingly childish, but there was a comfort in having his manager close enough should anything go wrong; even if he didn’t know exactly where he was around the track. 

It’s not long before Lando is bouncing back over to collect him, with a grin and a quick greeting to Fernando. 

Oscar feels a bit like he should be more indignant about Lando practically steering him where to go and what to do, but he’s pretty sure that Lando is just relishing in being the older teammate for once.

Oscar wasn’t exactly going to complain about not having to lead himself around right now. 

The time passes quickly between then and by the time the press conference rolls around.

He briefly runs into Logan once the other rookie gets there, but his best friend was being whisked off to go check some data out before they could properly talk. 

The conference is over before he knows it— and riddled with the usual pointed questions with the undertone of some sort of passive aggressive concern for the dynamics in the sport—  and he’s darting out of the room as quickly as can be considered appropriate, and not at all suspicious. 

He’d already been promised by his team that there weren’t any more required duties for today, and that he was pretty much free to get out of there when he wanted to.

He’s almost impressed with his own ability at avoiding having to speak to anybody again—  an even better attempt than his one that morning, and he’s arriving at the door to his driver's room before he knows it. 

He swings it open, pausing stock-still and blinking at the sight of Mark casually on the couch inside, typing away on his phone. 

Mark’s head is shooting up at the sound of the door opening, clicking his phone off and standing up,

“Oh- Mark? Hi? Why are you here?” Oscar blurts out before he can figure out a less surprised way to phrase it. 

It makes amusement bloom on Mark’s face, even as he opens his arms with a loose gesture,

“What am I doing here? What do you think?” He jokes as Oscar barely resists slamming him into the older man, instead stepping forward quietly. 

He sinks into the hug as soon as Mark tugs him across the last little bit of distance, the tension from having had to deal with the press— and other people,  almost draining out of him completely. 

“I thought you had more stuff to do today.” 

“Nah, I shuffled some things around. Nando told me that somebody was looking like he would much rather be anywhere else right now.”

Nando was a snitch. Oscar was totally complaining to Lance and Esteban next time he saw them that their caregiver sucked. 

“Nando is a liar.” Oscar shares solemnly, the fogginess that he had been pushing back for the better part of the week encroaching now that he was back with Mark.

Mark barks out a laugh, stepping backwards quickly to grab Oscar’s backpack, slinging it over his shoulder before throwing an arm around Oscar’s shoulders. 

“He sure is huh? So you do want to stay longer then?” Mark teases, giving Oscar's arm an affectionate squeeze  as the kid shakes his head rapidly in disagreement.

“No. Very happy to go, let’s go.” 

“Let’s go indeed then, come on.” 

_____

They make it back to the car with no issues, and Mark doesn’t say a word and lets Oscar slide into the front seat instead of corralling him into the backseat. 

Oscar does however feel like Mark is so clearly cheating in the silent game that Oscar’s been playing about not regressing. 

He had been so committed to not getting small, because after over that week of not— especially after Mark had so strictly established a routine, had left him simultaneously so close to it and so far away from it. 

The idea of anticipating the proper start of the race weekend combined with battling having put regressing off for so long was something that made him want to actually open the door to Mark’s car right now. 

Besides, despite what everybody around him had told him multiple times; Oscar personally didn’t need to regress that often. 

Still, Mark had been that just level of hovering enough that Oscar knew what he was doing, sending him the occasional sideeye. 

He knew that it didn't take this long to get back to Mark’s house. 

Mark was weaponising the very specific vibes that accompanied whenever Oscar was the passenger to Mark’s driving. 

Or anyone’s driving if he actually liked the person. 

It’s not long before the sleepy feeling is settling back into his bones 

He was thankful that Mark had apparently had the foresight to have gone to Oscar’s hotel room at some point during Oscar’s time in the track, and moved most of his stuff to the older man's house.

The idea of having to move and repack things right now was something that seemed like a monumental task to complete. 

As such, it’s not long before Mark is parking the car and swinging himself out of it. 

He walks around to the other side, opening the door and pulling Oscar out of the car- an arm out to balance him when Oscar nearly trips over his feet. 

“C’mon bud, we agreed on washing the day off,” Mark holds out a hand for Oscar to grab onto- which he does, begrudgingly, “That and some early dinner and a movie or something, hm?”

“I don’t need to go to bed.” Oscar insists, because he knew that particular train of action with Mark whenever he was trying to manage any sort of adrenaline comedown— which was just anytime Oscar had to do media-related or track-related things.

The bath or food, then settling down for a movie, and then next thing Oscar knows he’s half asleep before he can blink.

He knows these tricks.

“I didn’t say anything about bedtime, did I?”

“I could see you thinking about it.” 

“Right-o, shower or bath?” Mark says with amusement, shuffling them over in the direction of the bathroom now that they were inside. 

Oscar falters at the question. Because being big means he could just go have a quick shower and be fine and Mark wouldn’t even pretend he wasn’t hovering. 

But… there was something about the quiet comedown of baths. He didn’t usually tolerate them on race weekends when he could avoid it, especially if he was staying in a hotel. 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, weighing up the options in his brain carefully. 

Mark remains remarkably patient, just stepping back to gather up the things he’d need regardless; a towel, pajamas, a hairbrush— a couple other things he was pointedly not looking at. 

“Osc?” Mark gently prods, coming back over to stand in front of him, “Do you want daddy to pick for you?” 

Oscar knows he should be insisting he’s big, he promised himself he wouldn’t give him; but he still finds himself nodding frantically, trying to sniff away the tears he felt welling up. 

“Oh kiddo, no need to cry, daddy is happy to help you pick, yeah?” Mark tugs him into a hug, pressing a quick kiss to the top of his head before beginning to continue leading them towards the bathroom. 

“I think we should have a nice warm bath, and then we can get cozy in some pajamas first. Sound good, Osc?” 

“Yeah…” Oscar agrees quietly, chewing on his bottom lip as he fiddles with getting changed out of the post-race clothes.

Mark steps away to operate the taps for a moment, squeezing in some of the bubble soap into the water for a bit of extra fun. 

Oscar finds himself mesmerised by watching the bubbles form, waiting for the water to warm up and fill up the tub enough to get in. 

He can feel the regression settling in as he strips himself out of his clothes, climbing into the hot water and bubbles with a quiet noise. 

Mark knew the tricks by now. He simultaneously hated it, and was relieved by it. 

“How was the week, bud?” Mark questions as he settles down onto the floor next to the tub casually, resting up against the wall for the moment— just letting Oscar enjoy the heat. 

“It was… fine. Talked to Logan a bit.” Him and Logan had actually spent a copious amount of time not sleeping, and choosing to instead sneak their way into playing video games non-stop.

At least until Jenson caught a regressed-Logan three days into it after he’d sent him to bed, and Logan had to scramble to not give away Oscar’s part.

A truly loyal best friend that he had. Oscar totally owed him one. There would have been no chance that Jenson wouldn’t have told Mark immediately. 

“Yeah? That’s good. Jenson told me a bit about that. And you’re feeling okay?” 

Oscar is getting the growing feeling that Mark may entirely know that he hadn’t regressed in that entire week— and had instead exercised every legal method he knew to avoid it. 

And the growing feeling that Logan may in fact not be his loyal best friend. 

He shifts his eyes away from Mark’s eyes, poking at some of the bubbles in the water instead. 

“Osc,” There’s a hand carding through his hair suddenly, and a stinging behind his eyes.

He knows he’s not in trouble, Mark knows how this sort of thing tends to go. He tried for a bit at the beginning, but he’s always hated the sensation of realising he’s dropping. 

“I didn’t want- I’m sorry- I just got busy.” 

Mark makes a humming noise, shifting away from his position against the wall to tilt Oscar’s face towards him,

“I know bud, but we’ve talked about this, yeah? You have people you can contact now.” 

Mark’s voice isn’t anything but soothing, even as he grabs the washcloth nearest to them and begins to scrub away what feels like the anxiety of the whole week.

Even so, it has Oscar’s stomach clenching with anxiety— and maybe guilt, and irrationally he feels tears gather in the corners of his eyes. 

He knows he has people to call. Especially if he needs to regress and can’t, or just needs company. 

He has his Uncles Fernando and Jenson, and he has Logan, and Fernando’s boys, and he knows this.

He just… couldn’t.

“Hey bub, look at me,” Mark interrupts his thoughts, “I’m not mad at you, in the slightest, I just don’t like seeing you so upset by the time I come back.”

Mark doesn’t often leave for extended periods. Oscar got considerably lucky having his manager also be his caregiver, and usually he went with him when he was able. But sometimes things were unescapable.

Oscar had pleaded his case about not needing any sort of babysitter. And that he didn’t need to go and stay with his family for the week before. 

He loved his family, more than anything- but he just… couldn’t acknowledge the idea of being regressed around any of them, and he knew thats what the week would have entailed. 

“I lied.” He whispers, rubbing a hand across his eyes tiredly, blinking frantically to clear the water he accidentally wiped into them. 

“I know, I’m not mad about this, things can be a bit tricky, hm?”

Oscar just sits quietly. Running hand back and forth through the water and the bubbles in an effort to distract himself. 

Mark just quietly continues washing him off, forgoing washing his hair for tonight thankfully— because Oscar isn’t sure he could have actually held it together to tolerate the sensation of wet hair. 

He’s more than sleepy by the time that Mark is finished. Eyes drowsy and conversation having died off ages ago. 

“C’mon koala-bear, let's go get some pajamas, hm? And something yummy to eat”

Oscar makes a displeased whining noise before he can stifle it back down, wanting more than anything at this point to go to sleep. 

Even though he knows sleeping in the bath is a silly idea and he’d wake up all sore and gross. 

Mark corrals him into his towel— a soft blue one that Oscar tended to favour whenever he stayed here, and guiding him into his little room. 

He’d assumedly grabbed Roo and Puppy from where Oscar had placed them down in his usual room, because they were sitting carefully on the bed when they walked in. 

Mark goes over to rummage through the pajama drawer, while Oscar contented himself with drying off and pretending like he didn’t feel a bit like the world was ending on him. 

“What do we feel like for tonight, kid? Koalas or rockets?” Mark asks after a moment, turning back around to show Oscar the two different sets of pajamas. 

“Um- space?” 

“Alrighty,” 

It’s not a long process before Oscar is changed and letting Mark lead him downstairs again in the direction of the kitchen. 

His head feels remarkably fuzzy. Each time he went a while without being allowed to ignore it, he somehow ended up forgetting how heavy it hit afterwards. 

Mark can apparently sense the quietness, because he’s wrapping a gentle hand around Oscar’s wrist to guide him along.

“You hungry?” Mark questions, corralling Oscar into sitting down on one of the kitchen bench stools. 

He wasn’t really. Even though he hadn’t eaten anything beyond what Lando had shoved at him in the morning, and the chocolate bar that Fernando had snuck him right before the interview.

But he also knew there was no chance of Mark letting him just go on with the rest of the night without having eaten something. 

“I guess so—” He agrees, mostly for the sake of not being contrary right now, or cause any sort of problems. 

Mark just hums in response, busying himself with putting together something quick for them both to eat. 

Oscar finds himself sinking into the quiet, familiar noises of Mark moving around the kitchen, of the hum of the kettle and vague buzzing from the lights- letting himself sink into that familiar bit where he was fine.

Mark was here, it was all fine. 

Oscar occupies himself with balancing Puppy on the chair next to him- since Mark had pretty firm rules of no toys actively at the table, if only to avoid a meltdown if they needed to be washed for any reason - and folding himself up to sit cross-legged. 

“Eat as much as you can, okay? At least a few mouthfuls though please.” Mark reminds Oscar, placing the bowl down in front of him, and Oscar’s dark blue drink bottle next to it.

Oscar nods slowly, reaching forward to take a sip of the juice first- tropical, as he had been hoping- before moving to start eating. 

He didn’t overly care about what he ate right now, considering that the anticipation for the actual race tomorrow was pretty much overriding everything else; but he knew Mark and Kim both worried when he didn’t eat much. 

Mark makes absentminded conversation as they talk- although it is largely him talking and Oscar periodically responding when he can find the words for it. 

He makes it through about half of his bowl before his body starts feeling like it’s about to revolt if he ate anymore, and he was pushing it away quietly.

He shifts in the seat, staring down at the table as he grabs Puppy off of the chair again. He kind of wished he had agreed to let Mark clip his dummy to his pajamas, even if he didn’t want it. 

“Oscar, you done?” Mark prompts, and Oscar flicks his gaze up before staring at the wall behind him,

“Yeah, sorry.”

Mark makes a comforting shushing noise, standing up to grab their bowls and place them on the kitchen bench for later tonight,

“You ate as much as you could, yeah? I’d never be mad at you for that.” Oscar knows this, but also right now his emotions feel like a bit of frayed twine, like they were on a hairline trigger to not burst into tears. . 

“Alright love, let’s get you a bottle and we can watch some of the movie, yeah?” Mark murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of Oscar’s forehead as he moved to get it ready. 

“M’kay.” Oscar just shuffles off of his seat, trying to orient himself to stand balanced so that he didn’t immediately tip over— something that Mark was apparently fully expecting by the way he was eyeing him off. 

“You wanna go grab your stuffies, brush your teeth, and jump in my bed? We can watch a movie on that tv.” 

Oscar nods, as excited as he really got when he was this close to falling asleep, and this full of that anticipatory dread, before darting off upstairs to go and carry out his tasks. 

It was enough time that Mark was able to get everything sorted out downstairs— loading up the dishwasher, responding to a few of Jenson and Fernando’s messages, and heating up the vanilla milk for Oscar. 

Oscar is curled up on the ‘his-side’ of the bed when Mark gets upstairs, having gone to collect Roo and Puppy off his cot and tucked them into the blankets next to him. 

He feels like he could drift off at any point laying there, and he’s sure that he looks it too. 

Mark's bed always had that effect. It made that heaviness in his head multiply by a thousand— it’s why it was one of Mark’s favoured solutions on the occasions that Oscar was being defiant about needing to rest.

Mark shuffles onto the side next to him, pulling the blankets up and tucking them around Oscar.

He places the bottle on the bedside table next to him- it would be fine to cool down for a couple minutes while he sorted out what they were going to watch.

Oscar just rubs the material of Puppy between his fingers, self-soothing at reaching that point of tiredness- and regression.

“What do we want to watch, Oscar? Any preferences?” Mark questions, and Oscar just shakes his head noncommittably, burying his head into Mark’s shoulder to avoid answering.

Mark strokes a hand over his hair, before pressing a kiss to the top of it,

“Daddy will make the decisions, hm? I’ll pick something.”

Oscar doesn’t really pay attention to the sound of Mark going through the menu, deciding on whatever it was that they were going to watch for tonight, not until he hears the specific sounds of the land before time opening noises.

He turns his head away from being buried against Mark’s shoulder, moving around until he could lay with both Roo and Puppy in his arms, and suck his thumb.

Mark lets him watch for a few moments interrupted, before he’s shifting Oscar to prop him up against him a bit better, making sure to keep his stuffies in place next to him. 

“No thumb, baby, here,” Mark reminds gently, tugging Oscar’s hand away from his mouth and guiding the bottle into it instead.

Oscar reflexively sucks on it, testing it before deeming it as something good for tonight, and he begins drinking it- eyes locked onto the movie playing out.

“Good boy,” Mark whispers into the quietness of the room, carding a soothing hand through Oscar’s hair, keeping an eye on the growing sleepy state of the boy next to him.

Oscar knew he wasn’t making it through the entire movie, not with how sleepy he was, and how comfortable, and the fact he had daddy next to him again. 

He focused on the the rest of the movie that was playing out on the screen still, watching as Littlefoot and Cera continued exploring. 

His eyes drifted open and closed as he tried to focus— the warm milk combined with the soothing motions, and his daddy being back again making him feel comfortably warm again. 

He was not thinking about the practices, or the races, or any of it for once.

It didn’t matter, it was tomorrow's problem, right now he had daddy and Roo, and Puppy, and it was all good. 

Chapter Text

The first practice passes quickly enough that Oscar doesn’t even have any real time to be anxious about the anticipation.

He wakes up big, thankfully, and then it’s easy to get lost into the bustle of the race weekend properly kicking off; quick goodbyes to Mark before he had to tackle the various obligations and setups. 

Him and Lando are getting really good at being able to convey a lot in a single message during these things. 

PR obligations are certainly never going to be something he’ll particularly enjoy.

He feels like he’s barely spent any time in the car, before he’s hauling himself out of it afterwards, his body still dialled up to a hundred with the adrenaline of finally being on the track again. 

The car still doesn’t feel great, he hasn’t quite adjusted to it completely yet and it showed in how he steered it, and how the drive went and just everything. 

He’s frustrated by the time he’s out, and it’s a sort of frustration that he can’t quite shift, even after he splashes his face with some water and does his best to ignore it through all the conversations, and the various cameras being everywhere. 

It’s just free practice, and it’s his rookie year, and nobody is exactly expecting him to even manage points in the actual races at this point in time— loathe as he is to focus on that little titbit. 

Still, the fact he can’t just get the car to work how he wants it to makes something grind inside of him, and he’s ducking off to his drivers room as soon as he’s been released from media obligations— entirely forgoing any of the food areas. 

Lando corners him in his driver's room not long after Oscar has folded himself into his couch. 

Soon, he’s carving out his own spot in the token break between duties that Oscar has managed to find as they wait for the second practice. 

“Oscar!” He calls out as he swings the door open, only barely waiting for the sound of Oscar answering his knocking, “I bring you food!” 

“Oh, hi Lando.” Oscar blinks, genuinely not having expected to see his teammate right now, especially with how he had been buzzing around between talking to people earlier and then had disappeared not long before Oscar had. 

Lando must hear something in his tone, because he’s pausing where he was about to say something to squint at Oscar’s face. He has to resist the urge to shift under the sudden scrutiny.

“You alright?” He asks, closing the door behind him and placing the assumedly chicken caesar salads on the little table near them.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? Thanks for bringing food, you didn’t need to.” 

“Hmm, okay. And yeah, I didn’t need to, but I also got the feeling you were not going to be braving leaving the room at the moment.”

Which… yeah, that was pretty accurate.

“I would have eventually, but thank you.” Oscar responds, shifting over to make room for Lando to sit himself down next to him.

Oscar cracks open the lid on the salad, hunger making itself known as soon as he actually smelt food again. 

“Sorry for just disappearing from it all.” Oscar pipes up again after a few minutes of them eating in almost-silence, the only real noise being the tapping of Lando’s fingers on his phone screen. 

Lando blinks up at him for a second, eyes softening as he swallowed his mouthful before responding,

“Don’t even worry about it. I’ve certainly dipped away from enough things. Besides, I’m pretty sure at least half the grid is hiding right now.” 

Oscar lets out a weak laugh at that, prompting Lando to keep going,

“No I’m serious, everything is weirdly still out there.” 

“At least the stillness means no weird PR videos.” Oscar drily responds, prompting a laugh out of Lando,

“What? You don’t like the weird challenges? It beats a press conference at least.” 

Oscar can’t help the face he involuntary makes at that. No matter how hard he had tried, he just did not enjoy the conferences. 

Him and half the grid, he’s pretty sure.

“Crashing into the barriers beats a press conference.” 

“Well, okay I can’t argue with that one. Don’t let Charlotte hear me agree.” Lando teases, nudging his foot against Oscar in a silent prompt to continue eating his food.

Lando launches into another ramble about whatever harmless little piece of gossip that he had heard from around the paddock, and Oscar finds it easy enough to slip into just listening to him talk, taking the periodic bites when he remembered to—  just taking a moment to breathe away from it all. 

_____

The second free practice passes pretty much the same, despite Oscar’s forced attempts at trying to hype himself up for a better practice round. 

There's a growing feeling of being irritated and tired, and coming up and down from the adrenaline. He was rapidly starting to feel a lot like he wanted to go home and get tomorrow over with already

He briefly talks to Lando again before he leaves—  the other driver looking more than tired by the time the practice and following responsibilities were over — and the general members of his engineering team, before Zak had sent him off in the direction of Mark, and that was that. 

He spends the rest of the trip back to Mark’s house in that specific horrible haze of being between regression and being entirely big, and it leaves him quiet and unsettled in a way that he knows Mark can see. 

He refuses both Roo, and Puppy when they’re offered to him, instead making sure that they were zipped up in his backpack and in the backseat where he couldn’t see them. 

He feels a bit mean to them for it, but his absolute unwillingness to give into it was a bit more important.

He didn’t hate being regressed, he genuinely didn’t. 

He just… could not stand the actual process of feeling himself regress, especially when he couldn’t occupy his mind with anything other than running over every possibility of what could happen on Saturday and Sunday. 

Mark hovers on the edge of it all, just enough that Oscar knows what he knows, but he also won’t push it for the moment. 

He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse. 

They get out the car easy enough, moving to stand in the doorway of Mark’s house as Mark locks the door behind him, moving to put the bags down on the nearby table. 

“I think we both know what’s going on right now buddy,” Mark starts, combing a hand through Oscar’s probably still sweaty hair as he tugs him in for a hug.

Oscar makes a quiet sniffling sound, shifting on his feet like he couldn’t quite settle properly,

“I’m fine Mark . And properly big. I promise . ” The words destroy his argument as soon as they come out, the tone just a pitch too whiney and petulant. 

Mark huffs out a laugh, clearly trying to play it off as a cough when it makes Oscar shoot him a glare immediately. 

“It’s not funny.” He huffs, and he watches Mark scramble to pull his face back in order,

“I know it’s not funny, I’m not laughing at you.” He reaffirms, pulling Oscar into a quick hug before stepping back and continuing, 

“So, my super big boy, how about I go and sort out dinner, and you can go have a shower and get changed? Yeah?” 

Oscar squints at Mark, searching his face for some sort of trap in his words. 

“Okay… no silly plates for dinner though.” That was his condition, because he’s pretty sure if his eyes locked onto the sight of any of his pokemon plates; he was gone. 

“Sure pup, no silly plates.” 

_____

Mark heats him up some tomato soup and a toastie while he contends with resisting the urge to drown himself in the shower. 

It’s one of the healthier options that could be within acceptable levels with his diet plan, and easy enough to eat that Oscar won’t consider it a chore. 

He does anyway. He doesn’t want to do anything, bar maybe combing over data and reviewing everything about the practice matches, but Mark had had choice words about him doing that on a night where he should be getting ready for a good night of sleep.

He considered just going to bed early and sneaking back up again to go and make some plans or review what had happened; but he also knew that Mark would be less than impressed if he did that.

“Osc, eat up please. I know you didn’t eat much today.” Mark gently reminds him, forcing Oscar to take some more obligatory spoonful's of soup. 

The two of them — thankfully — aren’t having much conversation, because Mark did know how to read a mood and pick his moments and had sensed that Oscar really really did not want to talk currently. 

Oscar’s mostly just scrolling through his phone, periodically pausing to text Logan— and Arthur —  back whenever they responded to his message.

 It’s mindless nonsense, and he’s very consciously aware of trying to avoid whatever the public is currently saying online at the moment. 

“I’m not that hungry. I ate a salad with Lando.”

“I know but that was around lunchtime, and it’s been hours. You still need something proper in your stomach before bed.” Mark sounded so damn fatherly sometimes, even without meaning to. 

As much as Oscar found it a comfort most of the time; right now it was making him want to… genuinely throw his toasted sandwich at the wall or something. 

It was something he would never do, of course. Because that was rude, and juvenile and would very much not help his quiet quest to prove to Mark that he wasn’t going to regress. 

“I’ve eaten plenty.” He had really, half the soup and half the toasted sandwich, and considering how badly the anticipation for tomorrow was twisting up his stomach, that was a miracle in itself.

“Finish your toastie, and then you can go and do something before bed.” Mark says after a moment, apparently deciding that this was not one of the moments that he was picking, and looking back at whatever notification had just dinged his phone. 

Oscar moves to take a bite out of one of his remaining triangles. This was his out from Mark’s quiet hovering, and from the temptations of his smaller headspace.

He could just… go and play some video games or something for a bit— and resist the urge to go over reruns from practices and previous races.

He’d risk the temptation to just do it anyway— but he also knew that whilst Mark admittedly spoiled him way too much, he knew not to push that too far.

He focuses on finishing the rest of his toastie, taking quick bites and trying not to eat so fast that he gives himself heartburn later on. 

He could pull himself away from thinking about the qualifier for an hour, and then he would focus on it again when Mark had gone to bed— and then he could be prepped for tomorrow properly.  

_____

He doesn’t get a chance to even look at race stuff, as it turns out, because he gets himself caught up in trying to torment Logan with Mario Kart, until Mark was popping his head in with a gentle reminder of needing to sleep— at the same time that he could hear Jensons voice through the call reminding Logan of the same thing.

Damn caregivers and their united solidarity.  

The final practice passes, and Oscar feels a bit like he can breathe easier knowing that they’re out the way, and that it’s just the qualifier and the race left. 

Even as he reminds himself that it’s the qualifier and the race left. 

He does regret not asking Mark to help him regress last night, and regret not letting himself give into any of it at the time, now that he felt like he was teetering on the edge of a really big slope. 

It was well known that high-stress and high-adrenaline situations absolutely tanked hormone levels in regressors— and in any designation really — and it was why a lot of the regressor drivers spent at least a couple of the nights during the weekend regressed.

It was one of the easier ways to avoid needing to regress when actually at the track or when they had other duties, without the use of the godawful dropstop medications. 

“You know Mark is going to know something is up, right?” Logan questions, the Williams driver having invaded Oscars drivers room in the time between practice and the qualifier— which… how did Logan keep getting into other teams' hospitalities 

“Thanks. I’m feeling super good about myself, Logan.” Oscar responds dryly, scrolling through the most recent collection of tiktok links from Arthur.

He knew Logan had a point. It did not mean that it wasn’t incredibly rude to point out. 

“Hey, I gotta be honest. I don’t know how more people haven’t seen past the whole… unbothered nonchalant thing.”

“I think you’ve got an unfair advantage in all this to be saying that.” 

There were certain joys in having been friends since they were fifteen— and tribulations about it. Logan had been the first person who knew about Oscar’s regression, and vice versa; it had led to Logan having an uncanny ability to know things. 

“Eh, probably. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” 

He wasn’t. But he definitely was not telling his insufferable best friend that. 

He settles for throwing a few of the peanuts he’d been snacking on at his face— in a truly childish move that he would later deny at all. 

Logan just laughs at him.

Prick.

_______

The qualifier goes awfully, in such a way that it leaves Oscar feeling ill before the race had even been fully over.

He hauls himself out of the car, hands sweaty and tense and his knuckles hurt from how tightly they’ve been clutching the steering wheel. 

He's not sure how he gets from there back to his driver's room, but somehow he does. The entire process is a blur that he just can’t remember the more he tries. 

It didn’t help the situation in the slightest.  

He’s half stripped out of his race suit, it left bundled around his hips and his fireproof similarly half pulled off where he had abandoned the entire process in favour of trying not to burst into tears. 

He’s scrubbing a rough hand over his face, trying to shift away the oncoming tears and tiredness, when there’s a quiet knock at his door. 

It cracks open just slightly in the wake of Oscar absolutely freezing in silence, and he just blinks at the sight of the appearance of Lando in the doorway. 

“Oscar! I was wondering where you ended up, you alright?” Lando sounds so relaxed, easy-going with it all even after a tumultuous qualifier.

“Oh uh- Hi, I’m fine. What’s up?” He scrambles back into a more upright position on the small couch, trying to appear a bit less like he felt like he was going to burst into tears right now. 

“I was just checking on you, a few of us are going out for a bit later, if you wanted to come? Unless you’re seeing your family or anything?”

He wasn’t seeing anybody in his family yet, having instead chosen to avoid dealing with those particular emotions until he was finished with the tension of a race weekend. 

But he was planning to entirely go back to Mark’s and pretend the day hadn’t happened. And try to weasel his way into Mark letting him rewatch the race enough times that he could pick it apart. 

He knew he wouldn’t be great company, and he’s pretty sure he might throw up if he has to try and navigate the grid dynamics at the moment.

“I’m probably going to just sleep when I get back, have fun though, yeah?” He feels bad declining the invitation. 

Him and Lando hadn’t quite figured out their footing entirely yet, both of them dealing with the new and strange experience of being teammates— and Lando adjusting to being the older teammate for once.

Considering the multiple horror stories that Oscar had heard—  and seen, about teammates and all the ways things could devolve, he was thankful that Lando had been nice to him since he had arrived. 

He just… really couldn’t fathom socialising with anyone right now.

“Yeah no worries! That’s all good, next time I’ll get you out with us for sure.” Lando agrees easily, shooting him a spin as he spun back around, practically bouncing on his feet as he left again. 

Oscar definitely does not exhale a small sigh of relief at the resumed silence in the room again.

He isn’t sure what he does for the next however-long it actually is, because he’s mostly focused on not bursting into tears in the middle of his driver's room suddenly. 

He works on focusing on literally anything around the blank-room, trying find a fixture between the looming feeling of dropping. 

He barely notices when there’s the familiar sharp knocks on the door, only looking up and blinking at the sudden appearance of Mark in the doorway.

He’d been so sure he was still working on whatever media duties he had been called here for.

“Hey Oscar, we were looking for you, Lando mentioned seeing you here.” Mark asks when he steps through the door, his tone far too knowing as he takes in the sight of Oscar curled up against the couch.

He doesn’t even want to know what sort of state he’s presenting to Mark right now, considering he’s spent the better past however long scrubbing at his eyes as he tried to will away the urge to bawl.

“Oh- they said they didn’t need me for anything anymore.” He responds quietly, wincing as the soft tone is practically a dead giveaway for the internal monologue right now.

“They don’t, just wanted to check in.” Mark confirms, moving forward with the gesture to the race suit, quietly prompting whether Oscar wanted out of it.

He really really did. It was so uncomfortable sometimes. 

Mark helps him step out of the his racesuit and fireproofs, messily folding them and sticking them on one of the tables as he instead reached for the trackpants and hoodie that Oscar had been convinced to keep there as a spare this weekend.

He’s thankful for it now, even if he knows he’ll be generally overheating until they get properly back to the hotel and he can strip back to his sleep shorts and a tshirt— but it means he’ll feel less uncomfortably exposed when they eventually make their way back to Mark’s car. 

“We’ll get back to the house, and you can take a shower and wash the day off, yeah?” Mark murmurs softly, in that particular tone that does nothing to help Oscar’s resolve against not properly giving in to his headspace.

He feels like he’s going to cry once he finally gets away from the bustle of the paddock and the media, and Mark is ushering him over to the car, standing strategically to block Oscar from any stray cameras that may be looming around.

He’s never done well with the transition between noise and people and the sudden silence; it left him feeling scooped out and hollow and like he needed to bury himself in the nearest blankets.

“Osc? How small are you feeling?” Mark probes, glancing between the front seat of the car and the carseat he had in the backseat.

“I’m not.” Oscar snaps, tone suddenly petulant before he can think of any better, reaching for the handle to the front seat immediately. 

His general dislike of the carseat mixing with the fact he was feeling smaller by the minute and he wanted to be back at the house already.

“Alrighty,” Mark agreed, with only a minor sigh. He knew when to pick his battles, and this was apparently one that he wasn’t willing to push when Oscar was on such a hairline trigger to a meltdown. 

Oscar thankfully doesn’t say anything when Mark immediately reaches across to buckle in his seatbelt, just sliding down lower into the seat silently. 

Mark heads around to the drivers side, hopping in and getting the car started immediately— tossing their bags in the backseat. 

It’s a situation to familiar that Oscar can’t help the shaky exhale he lets out, sinking into the seat despite himself,, leaning against the window quietly. 

Which… he's not. He really really isn’t, because he’s fine. He’s just sleepy, and sore and over it all by now. 

He could see Mark throwing him the occasional glance as he drove, but he seemed as content as Oscar was to just let him collect his thoughts. 

He was always tired during a race weekend, even the good ones— even when being absolutely pumped full of adrenaline.

 Mark had on more than one occasion taken to driving them around for a little bit on some of the worse ones of his junior career— or just during the season-break whenever it was an off sort of time. 

He appreciated it at the time, mostly at least, but right now it was making it harder and harder to not just give in to that sleepy feeling. 

He feels a bit like he was watching everything through some sort of lens; the drive sort of blurring together into a mix of steady driving, and Mark’s quiet occasional comments about other people's driving abilities. 

He freezes in the middle of the entrance way once they get there, the door clicking closed behind them and being locked with a quiet noise. 

Mark is gathering him into a tight hug before Oscar can really think about anything else, seemingly realising that he was — shamefully, to himself — starting to unravel before Oscar had even realised. 

“You’re okay, you did great, Oscar. You got points, despite what a challenging race that was.” Mark reaffirms, rubbing a hand up and down Oscars back calmly, “and we’re back here now. 

Oscar just inhales shakily, trying to steady his breathing and to collect his thoughts so that they don't end up in an embarrassing mess on the floor. 

“I could have done better.” He breathes out quietly, but Mark just hums, brushing some stray curls away from his forehead. 

“Oscar, it was the practices, I promise it will be fine.” 

“But-” 

“ Oscar.” Mark cuts him off, a hand bracing his face as he gets him to pause for a moment, “You did well, bud. I promise.” 

Oscar doesn’t say anything, just pressing his face back into Mark’s shoulder. 

“Okay, here’s what I reckon’ we are going to do,” Mark starts, swinging them around to walk closer in the direction of the bathroom, “You’re going to go jump in a shower, wash the day off you, and I’m going to go and organise something for dinner.”

Oscar isn’t ashamed to admit that sometimes he is so relieved that Mark had figured out about his designation that year or so ago, and hadn’t allowed him to just talk his way out of it.

Half the time he was so thankful that he didn’t have to plan everything out himself.

The idea of a shower is almost as enticing as it makes him want to refuse outright. It seems like so much effort to go through it all, and he was tired—  almost too tired to eat by now and he didn’t want to. 

Mark must read something in the silence however, because he’s tilting Oscar’s eyes up to meet his,

“Osc, you know you’ll feel better afterwards, yeah? Trust me.” And Oscar does, so he just nods, letting Mark lead him over to the bathroom door.

“Are you okay to do it by yourself?” He asks before he goes to leave, hanging up a clean towel over the railing for Oscar to grab.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Oscar feels a rush of childish, indigent frustration at the questioning, because he said he was fine, he wasn’t a baby and he didn’t need Mark’s help. 

Mark must read something in his face, because he’s raising his hands up placantly, and allowing Oscar to step past him. 

The shower does help, as much as Oscar does not want to ever give Mark the benefit of being right , with  the warm water doing wonders on the muscle aches that were already setting in after everything, and for the buzzing that had taken up residence underneath his skin. 

He spends longer in the heat than he thought he would — just staring at the streams of water — considering that the idea of the effort it takes to shower, and dry off, and dry his hair, and get dressed seemed utterly unfeasible. 

Mark knocks carefully to check he’s doing alright on a couple of occasions, presumably after having put the food order in; and Oscar has to beat back the urge to get him to wash his hair instead. 

That familiar creeping feeling of regression is something that the shower does nothing to ease away, instead only working to increase it. 

He does get out after only a couple more minutes, deciding that he really couldn’t justify spending more time in the shower; especially when he can feel himself getting unsteady with his feet. 

It takes him a minute to dry himself off, and then to begin orientating himself enough to put his pajamas on that Mark had announced he’d put on the counter earlier. 

Mark pops in after a little bit, making quick work of drying as much of the water out of Oscar’s hair, leaving it damp and ruffled. 

“Feeling better now, kid?” Mark questions as he guides Oscar out of the bathroom, throwing the used towel back over the railing now that he wasn’t using it to torture Oscar while drying his hair. 

“I guess so.”

Oscar doesn’t say anything as Mark leads him over to the couch, letting him settle himself down against one arm of it— wrapping an arm loosely around his knees. 

Mark doesn’t say anything for the moment, and Oscar finds himself breathing in the silence that almost seemed to ring in the aftermath of all of the weekends noise.

He curls into himself a little as Mark ducks off to do whatever it was that he was doing, his back turned in Oscars direction. 

Irrationally, it’s like everything seems to hit him in the brief silence of neither of them really doing anything, the qualifier, the race, the everything. 

And he’s suddenly remembering that he never texted his mum or his sisters back today. And then suddenly he’s crying before he even really knows it. 

It’s only when he goes to inhale and nearly chokes that he realises he is crying, and he’s hurriedly moving to wipe the tears away. 

He was fine, it was all fine. 

He almost jumps when Mark appears in front of him suddenly, having stopped tracking his every movement like he was basically doing before, and he blinks up at him through increasingly tired eyes. 

“I thought these two might be welcomed right now.” He says in lieu of addressing the current round of tears for the minute, as he offers Oscar Roo and Puppy to him. 

Oscar takes it with only a split second of hesitation, pressing them close to his chest as Mark drops down on the cushion next to him with a soft noise. 

He had forgotten that Mark had even grabbed them earlier, but he couldn’t shake the relief he felt at seeing them— even with the way they seemed to tip him further into the headspace that he had been determinedly avoiding falling into properly. 

He draws Oscar into another hug, folding him tightly against his chest and not saying a word at the way Oscar is almost definitely getting his jumper all wet from his ongoing tears. 

He just rubs a hand across his back, and uses a hand to brush out some of the tangles that had begun to form from the drying session earlier. 

“You need to breathe Osc, I need you to take a deep breath.” He murmurs after a moment, shifting Oscar back so he could look at him properly, even with the way Oscar was pointedly avoiding the direct eye contact.

“I’m sorry.” He breathes out, almost hiccupping on the still-going tears as he says it . 

He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. He’s so tired, and everything has that dull ache that came with the night-time after a day of racing, and he wanted it to go better; and now he’s crying all over Mark instead of being good. 

“No, hey, there’s no need for sorries, you haven’t done anything wrong, “ Mark starts again, brushing some of the wetness away from under Oscars eyes with a thumb, “You never have to be sorry for crying.” 

“I know, I just-” He cuts himself off, the words escaping in him in how to form them properly, the tiredness and everything from it all making him want to just bury himself away again.

“I know, I know that you’re probably hungry by now, and you’re probably so, so tired, and the practices were a bit of a nightmare—  it’s no wonder you’re upset, yeah? 

Oscar squeezes Roo reflexively, using the fluffy material to try and ground himself. He buried his face back into Marks shoulder to try and avoid responding.

Mark lets him, just continues holding him for the minute as Oscar hiccups into his shoulder and tries to slow his breathing down. 

Oscar fiddles with the material on his puppy as he sits there, inhaling and exhaling shakily as he focused on… not focusing. 

He can feel himself sinking into being little, and he shuffles himself with a brief whine at the realisation, trying to dislodge the incoming feelings.

He’d been up and down for most of the weekend, not quite giving in to it enough to satisfy the biological need for it, and he was really starting to feel it now. 

But he  didn’t need to be little, nothing happened and he should be fine. 

Mark doesn't let him move around too much, just draws him closer into his lap— an action that should feel awkward considering their heights, but instead only serves to make Oscar feel smaller — and makes a soothing, humming sound. 

“I know buddy, it’s okay.” 

He almost chokes around another noise, bringing Roo up to his face to muffle his mouth where his cheek was still pressed into Mark’s shoulder. 

“-not fair.” He forces out, trying not to burst into frustrated tears all over again. Everything always seemed to magnetised in times like this and he hated it.

“I know, but you did so good , and you’ll continue to do better, you didn’t fail, Osc, and you didn’t let anybody down.” 

Oscar doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t think that Mark really expects him to. He just lets himself soak in the freely offered comfort for a moment. 

Mark just lets him sit there, rocking them ever so slightly whenever Oscar starting getting uneasy.

By the time there’s the sudden, quiet knock on their door, Oscar is half asleep on Mark’s shoulder, cheek pillowed on the sweatshirt, stuffed toys tucked against his chest and his thumb inching closer and closer to his mouth. 

Ordinarily Mark would have tugged it out— citing germs and all sorts—  before sliding his dummy into his mouth instead, even though Oscar still found himself fighting the urge to fight the dummy at all times.

 The only times he really ever got away with it, was necessity, or if he was particularly upset.

Mark shuffles him off his lap after a moment, murmuring about going to go and get him something to eat. 

Oscar just buries himself into the corner of the couch as Mark runs a hand gently across Oscar’s cheek as he stands up. 

He occupies himself with thumbing the material of his stuffies, still half asleep and lightly dozing off. 

Mark returns after a few minutes of Oscar hearing him cluttering around the kitchen, a bowl in his hand and a bottle of water. 

Oscar blinks at him through bleary eyes where he had curled himself back up into the couch, 

“Come on koala-bear, I promise you can properly go to sleep once you’ve got something in your tummy.” Mark coaxes, lips twitching at the vague sound Oscar makes at being moved. 

“ Daddy,”  he whines, more grumpy than he knows he should be at the entire ordeal; but he was tired, and the tiredness had vastly outweighed the hunger, and his face was sticky from crying and he wanted to sleep. 

“I know, I’m awful, but you need to have something to eat before you sleep.” 

It’s entirely true, and Oscar seethes quietly at the fact that Mark  is fully aware of that, even as he sluggishly moves to do exactly as he’d said. 

He lets Mark help him sit up, resting half against the couch cushions and half just against Mark himself. 

Oscar takes a few obligatory spoonfuls of the yogurt and cereal combination in the bowl, pretty easily settling back into that sleepy feeling. 

He must fall asleep between reaching the halfway mark and the rest of it, because Mark is shifting the bowl onto the coffee table in front of them, before shifting to stand and shift Oscar into his arms— knees bracing to make sure he was able to pick him up properly. 

“Shhh, sh, you’re okay.” Mark coos, rubbing a hand across his back as they made their may to the main bedroom. 

Mark had thankfully pulled the covers back earlier in the night, making it easy enough to deposit Oscar into the soft sheets with his stuffies and blanket

He shifts himself to a comfortable position as Mark pulls the blankets back up, walking around the other side of the bed to slide onto it. 

He fiddled with Puppy’s ear as he laid there, blinking lazily at the wall as he dozed. 

He couldn’t really bring himself to focus on anything, not when Mark was a grounding, solid presence next to him and he had his stuffies with him.

The last of the lingering tension drained out of him after just a bit, the rest of the anxiety from the day seeming to fall away as he relaxed into the warm by his side and the stillness of the room. 

He buried himself against Mark as he drifted off, head pillowed on his shoulder and stuffies tucked between them both— he didn’t even register when Mark slipped the weight of his dummy in instead of his thumb. 

______

The race is as much of a disaster that he thought it would be. 

For pretty much each and every person on the grid, it’s just one continuous incident after another. There’s what feels like an accident, and a red flag or a safety car every other lap, every single time he manages to get into the swing of it all.

He feels horribly guilty for the frustration he feels bubbling everytime that he hears the call be made over the radio, because he should just be glad that everybody was as okay as they could be— but fuck he wanted to get this race over with at this point. 

He’s always felt comfortable in almost every car he’s driven, he’s good at finding the best out of the cars he’s driving.

Yet the longer he’s having to spend in this race, the more he was starting to feel like he was being held hostage. 

It was hot, and it was sweating, and the presence of everybody around and on the track only seemed to make it hotter. He’s pretty sure he was sweating in places he didn’t even know he could sweat. 

“We’re alright, Oscar, resuming shortly.” Tom’s voice comes through his radio, the crackling only serving to make that gradually growing ache in his head shift from a consistent background pressure, into something that he was forced to be actively aware of. 

They were resuming on essentially the last lap, there was only a bit left to go and he just had t get through it, and his media duties and he could find Mark and forget this entire race weekend. 

He’s pretty sure he blacks out between the sound of the race resuming, and the actual outcome of crossing the finish line, because he does not remember a single thing for that last lap.

It all blurs out until he’s getting ready to pull himself out of the car to go get weighed. 

He ends up in eighth. He scores points! He has no idea how he manages to pull it off honestly. Some sort of pure luck and coincidence. 

With the way some of his previous races had been going, he would consider not utterly crashing out in the final bit as being a win. 

The entirety of the qualifying incidents, and the constant drama of the race hadn’t exactly left him with very high hopes for the actual race. 

He's standing around afterwards, debating the options of ducking off to his drivers room and waiting for a more acceptable time to leave, and braving interacting with everybody, when Charles Leclerc is popping up next to him suddenly.

“Oscar? Are you alright?” Charles asks after a moment, a look of concern etched onto his expression at Oscar’s apparent lack of response.

“Yeah. Yes, I’m fine, sorry. Why?” Oscar rushes out, uncharacteristically flustered in the face of conversation. 

He had spoken to some of the other drivers before. He would be hard pressed to get through the amount of races he had so far — and have Lando as his teammate — and not end up talking to some people. 

He’d make small talk with Albon and Russell, he’d spoken to Sainz and Leclerc and a few others. He wasn’t unsocialised, despite what Mark liked to tease him.

He just… didn’t really know how to talk to them. Or how to fit into the self-dubbed ‘grid family’ that had formed; a result of how much time the drivers ended up spending around their teams and each other. 

So he just… stuck with passing greetings or the occasional well wishes for the race and his debut, or the occasional conversation in the in-between. 

“I was just coming to ask what your plans were tonight. It is your first home race, no? And your first points? You looked lost.” 

“Oh um— yeah it is. Uh, not really anything planned. I’m staying here for a few more days after, so… plenty of time for things. You?” He hastily tacks on at the end, wanting to bash his head into the nearest wall at the way he was so clearly fumbling this. 

He wasn’t upset about his lack of interactions with the grid, if he was being honest. This was why. He was awful at it. 

The idea of talking to people he didn’t really know put him horribly on edge on his best days, and he wasn’t really keen to seek it out on multiple occasions. 

And especially not when he could feel that familiar haze creeping through him now that he had taken a second to pause, and the adrenaline from being actively racing was starting to have a chance to actually stop. 

He wasn’t sure who even knew about his status as a regressor. 

It wasn’t something he had actively hidden — he did know better than to hide it all together, potential legal repercussions aside — but he also hadn’t advertised it in any way. 

He had been thankful that Zak and Andrea hadn’t pushed him to say anything to the public, or anything similar. He’s pretty sure he would have keeled over from embarrassment from the act alone.

“Nothing much, Ferrari has us on an early flight in the morning, because of course they do.” Charles says lightly, sending a conspiratorial look Oscar's way as if they were the only two in on the joke. 

Oscar laughs despite himself, nodding along,

“Yeah. I’m glad McLaren has been taking pity on me I guess. I haven’t copped one of those super early flights yet.” 

And thank god for that, because Oscar had to legitimately work to be any shade of a functioning person before like… 10am, and the idea of navigating an airport that early sounded tortuous.

“Oh give it time, I swear Fred uses it as punishment sometimes.”

“No thanks, I’ll take our midday flights.” Or the night flights, because they at least meant that Oscar could acceptably half doze his way through them. 

The conversation continues casually, and Oscar is very passively pretending like this isn’t one of the most anxiety inducing moments of his life— as it was anytime he interacted with most of the grid

Eventually, Charles pauses in what they had been currently discussing - mostly just the latest nonsense that the most recent interviewer had asked them - to angle a look Oscar’s way. 

Oscar does not immediately almost break out in a physical sweat about it. Definitely not. 

“I think some of the other drivers are mingling in the quiet area, if you would like to come? Mark should be there by now, no?” 

Oscar blinks at the sudden change in topic,

“Er, yeah I think so?”

“Perfect! Pierre should be there to, we can go together,” Charles declares, and Oscar barely has time to process it before his arms being hooked and they’re off. 

Well, that answered the debate about whether he was going to sneak off to his drivers room or not.

They end up finding Mark pretty easily, after a short period of wandering around trying to avoid any of the lingering cameras that were still around.

It wasn’t unheard of for regressors to end up pictured in the media, especially with the way the general public adored that sort of thing- with the notable exception of the fans that seemed to make it their personal mission to hate everything that the drivers did.

Still, Oscar felt that familiar brick of anxiety start forming at the idea of being caught on video looking as unsure as he’s sure he was now, with Charles having his arm hooked with his, dragging him along. 

God knows what twitter would have to say about that. 

“Webber!” Charles calls out, not a trace of discontent in his voice as they make their way closer. 

Oscar tries to avoid dragging his feet at the sight of Lewis and Mark being stood talking, and at the sight of the other drivers mingling around still. Most of them had gone back to their hotels by now, but there were still the few. 

“Hey Osc, you all good?” Mark asked quietly, once Charles had essentially parked him next to his manager, before ducking off to go talk to a still lingering Pierre. 

“Yeah.” Oscar replied blandly, trying not to lean into the hand coming to brush his probably-still-sweaty curls out of his face. 

“You sure?” He asks again, making pointed eye-contact with Oscar, and he feels himself shift away from the eye-contact instinctively.

Mark doesn’t say anything else, thankfully, and Oscar is so grateful for it, because he’s pretty sure he would die of humiliation if Mark had outright asked if he was regressing, in front of Lewis Hamilton.

He instead just throws an arm around Oscar’s shoulders, resuming whatever it was that he was conversing about without skipping a beat. 

Oscar can’t help the way he sinks into the warmth at his side, even with the way he was now becoming increasingly aware of how uncomfortable his race suit was, and how badly he wanted to curl up in his hotel and forget about everything for a bit. 

He’s occupied himself with just observing what was going on around the area, of the drivers and various team members around, of the quiet bustle that came with the post-actual race. 

He can feel the adrenaline fading out of him now that he’s stopped, the temporarily forgotten ache in the back of his head, and the looming feeling of not having done enough disrupting the quiet haze he’d fallen into while listening to Mark and Lewis. 

“-but you did really well Oscar, especially scoring points for your first home race, how’s it feel?” Lewis asks suddenly, and Oscar barely resists physically jumping at being addressed suddenly. 

He doesn’t think he does a very good job of it, considering the amused look that he can see in Lewis’s eyes, and the way Mark squeezes his shoulder soothingly; he feels his face flush instinctively,

“Oh. Thank you, yeah it feels good, even if it was a bit of an… interesting race.” He responds tentatively, “Congrats on third, I wasn’t sure if we were going to get to finish for a bit there.”

 The words take some effort to form properly, and to get to sound like he wasn’t feeling gradually more and more unsteady. 

“I think we’ve all had our fair share of races that have ended up like this, it’ll get easier to work with.” The words have a knowing edge to them, and it’s one that makes Oscar flush red, even as Mark snickers lightly,

“I think we’ve all been the cause of that before.” Mark adds, to which Lewis just shoots him a grin, “So, how are you celebrating tonight?’ 

Oscar mostly loses track of the conversation after that, everything sort of blurring together as he let the conversation go on around him. He keeps just enough of an ear out to know if he’s being spoken to directly. 

Everything feels remarkably open now that the race had finished, once things had begun to be packed away and moved and all the nervous tension in the air had dissapated.  

“I suspect most of the grid will be spending quiet nights in their hotel,” Lewis says in response to a comment of Marks that Oscar misses, with a sort of knowing tone, and Oscar finds himself agreeing silently. 

Everybody tended to go either two ways after a race; consuming more alcohol than is reasonably responsible, and going back to their hotel to pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened for the night. 

He could already see everybody's energy beginning to drop off now that things were starting to quiet down, and the telltale signs of how everybody was going to be spending their night. 

Lando — who had made his reappearance from wherever he had gone off to, and had steadily gone from bouncing around the paddock area, slipping between talking to Carlos and George, to being half slouched into Carlos’ back quietly. 

Lance had slowly slid down until he was sitting backed against the wall Fernando was leaning against, one headphone firmly in his ear and watching something on his phone with Esteban, who upon a closer look, had the other earbud. 

He shifted closer to Mark, minutely, little enough that he hoped it wasn’t noticeable to Lewis, or anybody else.

 He was really wishing he was dressed in anything but the remainders of his racesuit—  on account of having basically bypassed his drivers room and running into Charles almost immediately. 

The sweat was starting to cool on his skin by now, the contrast between temperatures of that, and the heat, and the breeze was making his skin itch. 

He shifted slightly, trying to shake off the lingering feeling without alerting Mark to anything. 

He does of course, predictably, not succeed very well— because Mark gives a familiar squeeze to the side of his arm and shifts like he’s getting ready to move. 

“Well, I think we’ve had enough lingering around here for today, we’ll catch up later, yeah?” Mark is saying suddenly, dragging Oscar’s attention back to the conversation. 

“Yeah definitely, I think George and I should be getting back to the hotel soon anyway. Take care, you too Oscar. Good job again today.” Lewis responds cheerily, sending Oscar a soft look at the way he had definitely flushed at the compliment. 

Fernando waves as they turn to leave- Esteban too, and Oscar just quietly waves back. 

“We’ll go back home, have a shower and something to eat, and sleep, yeah?” Mark asks as he leads them back in the direction of his driver's room— to gather the last of his stuff he had left,

Oscar doesn’t say anything for a minute, just humming non-committedly as they walk. 

“But- I could… review some data and see where I went wrong.” Oscar speaks up, internally cringing away currently from the idea of the bedtime routine, even as it made his heart lurch a little bit. 

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say when Mark pauses in the part of the hallway they’ve gotten to, just out of sight from most of the other members of the team and any potential eavesdroppers on things Oscar would almost definitely prefer that people didn’t hear.

“Oscar, you didn’t do anything wrong, it was a hard race for everyone,” Mark starts, hands coming up to tilt Oscar’s head back to look at him when he turns away, “There will be time to go over the data, that time isn’t now, bubs.” 

Oscar whines, despite himself, the everything from this entire weekend, and the slow, gradual loss of the battle against his headspace serving to make him kinda want to start bawling in the middle of this corridor. 

Mark presses a kiss to the top of his head, rubbing a thumb across his cheekbone soothingly before turning to keep leading him to Oscar’s drivers room, one hand coming to grasp Oscar’s hand— steadying him as he felt himself stumble in his steps. 

Oscar doesn’t say anything for the last few minutes before they arrive at the room—  not something entirely uncommon, and he was sure that Mark was more than used to the frequent quiet moments, and he doesn’t say anything as Mark gathers the last bits and pieces. 

Almost all of his little gear was generally kept with Mark—  if he was around that weekend, or squirreled away in his hotel room.

 At most he’d have Roo, or Puppy tucked up into a backpack and stored away in his driver's room. 

He was thankful for that suddenly because it meant that Oscar didn’t have to wait long for Mark to gather the last few things that they needed to take with him. He puts the few bits and pieces into the bag, before spinning around to face Oscar.

“So, I know we’ll get you to have a nice shower when we’re back home, but how do you feel about getting out of that racesuit properly?” Mark asks, one of Oscar’s Mclaren hoodies in his hand and a spare pair of trackpants in the other. 

Oscar nods hastily, as if suddenly remembering how uncomfortable he was feeling again, even more so now than he was earlier. 

Mark helps him strip out of it, pulling the hoodie over his head before Oscar can do much more than blink, and helping him shift the pants over his hips as Oscar did his best not to unbalance himself and trip over. 

“That’s better now, hm?” He says, pressing another kiss to the side of Oscar’s forehead, and throwing the straps of the backpack over his shoulder.

“Alright, let’s get out of here koala-bear.” Mark takes Oscars hand again, letting him press against his side as he can reasonably get away with without looking too clingy. 

They end up running into Andrea as they’re leaving the hospitality, Oscar feeling gradually more and more tired, and unsteady and wanting to go back to the hotel already. 

He barely resists the urge to stamp his feet at the delay in their escape from the paddock, and another barrier between him being able to cozy up in his bed and pretend that this whole stupid race had never happened.

Mark brushes a hand over Oscar’s hair, running his fingers through the loose tangles that had formed there as he took up the lead with the conversation with Andrea, 

“Are you both heading out now?” He asks, smiling softly at Oscar who quickly averts his shy gaze to tuck himself closer against Mark.

“Yeah, finally, I figured it was a good time for it, thought I had better get this one back.”

“Definitely, I was coming to find him to suggest that the two of you get out of here.” Andrea laughs, before turning to speak to Oscar directly, “I just wanted to come pass on from Zak and I that you did great, buddy, and not to worry about anything for the next couple of days.”

Oscar stares at him with wide-eyes, before nodding slowly at Andrea, even as everything in him tells him that he did fuck it all up,

“Okay…”

“Good boy, you go and have a good night, yeah? We’ll take care of everything on our end.”

There’s a few more exchanged words of pleasantry, and a general brief catch up of everything between Mark and Andrea before Oscar can feel himself start to lose it— shifting restlessly and rocking on his feet softly.

“Alrighty, I think someone is hitting the wall about now, I’ll be in contact later, yeah?” Mark says, shifting the positioning of the bags on his shoulder. 

“Yes, all good, take care. Bye Oscar, good job again today kiddo.” Andrea finishes, sending a fond smile Oscar’s way before continuing on his way. 

_______

“Any thoughts on dinner when we get back?” Mark pipes up, breaking the steady silence that had fallen between them.

Oscar hums vaguely, wetting his lips to try and get them to form a sentence around the sleepiness in his head,

“Um— dunno, don’t really mind.” He really doesn’t, he usually would, when he was feeling… better— he’s a professional sometimes at making meal times difficult— but right now he couldn’t think of anything outside of wanting to go to bed. 

“Yeah? I think we have some chicken pesto in the fridge. How about that and some juice?” Oscar knows Mark is talking to him like he’s already regressed, and he knows on some level he should feel more frustrated.

Instead he just has to resist the urge to launch himself over the cars console for a cuddle. 

“Yeah. Okay.” Mark brushes a hand over Oscar’s curls as he pulled into his driveway— the two of them having arrived back at the house way faster than Oscar had noticed. 

He just sort of blinks, feeling like he was moving through molasses at this point. The familiar anxiety at the feeling of dropping was creeping its way back up.

Mark is leaning over to undo his seatbelt— main bags thrown over his shoulder again—  and reaching gently to pull Oscar out the car. 

“So, I’m thinking a warm shower, some pajamas, and you can pick a story to read.” Mark states as they approach the front door, his mentor dropping an arm away from around Oscar to fumble with his keys. 

Oscar hums in agreement. He pretty much knew how race weekend nights went, the two of them sticking to as close of a routine as they could— but he was thankful for the confirmation nonetheless.

Oscar fiddles with his fingers, making aborted movements to bite at the fingernail. 

“I can get you a dummy once I pop these down, alright?” Mark says softly, noticing the movements nonetheless. 

Oscar felt himself flush, the action only really serving to compound the floaty feeling in his head, 

“Not a baby,” He half-heartedly argues, even as he lets himself be guided along by Mark. 

“Of course not, but you’re my baby.” Mark teases, pressing a kiss to the top of Oscar’s head as he pushes open the door to the nursery. 

Mark places the bag down onto the flat of his chest of drawers, pausing to unpack some of its contents back into their respective places.

He’s turning back around to give Oscar one of his stuffed toys, when Oscar feels everything hit him all at once now that they had stopped.

“Oh, kiddo,” Mark breathes, hurrying back over to Oscar and tugging him into a firm hug.

Oscar scrapes a hand across his eyes, trying to wipe away the burning sense that came with being about to cry.

This was why he hated it, the regressing and being regressed and acknowledging it, especially after the adrenaline crash that came after any sort of racing; he always got so teary and emotional and he despised it. 

He’d done so well at ignoring it for the last week, what with being caught up with his family and his sisters and avoiding Mark’s probing questions from halfway across the globe; and it had been fine. 

“Osc, look at me,” Mark prompts, tilting Oscar’s head up to face him, “This isn’t your screw-up, it happens. It happens to everyone.”

Oscar knew that, he knew that well, but it still didn’t stop the sick feeling in his stomach about it all.

“I could have done better, I should have.” He breaths out, and Mark thumbs away some of the tears with a gentle sigh.

“Osc, this is your rookie year, you still haven’t done more than a few races overall. You’ll have time to stun everybody in qualifying.” 

Oscar buries his head back down into Mark’s shoulder to avoid looking at him. 

Mark just rocks them gently, swaying from side to side as Oscar did his best to stop hiccuping tears into his shirt. 

“I think we’ll have a super quick shower, bubs, this time, and then we can settle down.” Mark murmurs softly, moving them both further in the direction of the bathroom. 

Mark’s phone rings just as he’s guiding Oscar back into the nursery, towel bundled up around him to try and ward off the shivers. 

He hits accept and speakerphone in the same moment, placing it on the top of the drawers. 

Oscar’s eyes flick up at the sound of his Uncle Jenson’s voice ringing through, even while he continues to try and get all the water droplets off himself— Mark turning to root through his pajama drawer. 

“Mark! Hey, how’s your night going?” 

“Hey Jense’, it’s going alright, you’ve got a little listener on the line.” Mark answers, sending a little grin Oscar’s way at the comment.

He holds up too options of pajamas to Oscar in the meanwhile— his simple black star set, or just one of the various shirts Oscar had slowly pilfered away from Mark, and some sleep shorts.

Oscar just gestures at the shirt and sleep shorts, not really overly bothered by what he was wearing.

“Hey Oscie! You okay, love?” Jenson calls out, his voice soft.

“Yeah. Daddy getting pajamas.” 

“Ohh, just had shower time then? Did Daddy make the water super warm?— Logan, sit around on your chair properly please.” Oscar can hear quiet murmuring through the call, only half paying attention as Mark helps him step through the pant leg. 

“Uh huh.”

“That’s so good, buddy. I’m sure Daddy had a much easier time with the shower than we did here.” The words are teasing in their nature, and Mark sends Oscar an amused smirk before responding,

“Logan give you a bit of trouble?” 

“Eh, nothing that couldn’t be handled. Qualifying  is always a bit of an ordeal.”

Mark tugs the shirt over Oscar’s head, making sure his arms didn’t get tangled up before they got into the sleeves— before grabbing the towel and quickly rubbing at Oscar’s damp strands. 

“It’s a bit like that. I’m sure half the grid is feeling it. Fernando had to basically walk Lance and Esteban out of the paddock.”

Oscar hadn’t seen those three as they were leaving, but he also hadn’t really tried to focus on anything but getting to the car.

Jenson and Mark lead into a conversation about something that Oscar can’t really be bothered trying to follow. 

He contends himself with fiddling with the softness of Puppy under his hands, as Mark finished getting him ready and ready to head back out the nursery. 

Mark has him settled into one of the dining chairs as soon as they come back to the kitchen, before he’s darting around the benches to fish out the chicken pesto out of the fridge— having hung up on Jenson at some point in the journey.

He’s sliding into the seat across from him after placing Oscar’s down in front of him, with his token spill-cup before grabbing his own food, angling another soft look at Oscar, who hadn’t made any movement to eat yet.

“Osc, you’ll feel better once you’ve got something in your stomach.”

He just nods in response, focusing on not spilling any of the pasta on his fork, careful to try his best not to make any mess. 

“So, Fernando and Jenson both said they’d be able to stick around for a few days post-race, and their boys,” Mark starts, once Oscar had dutifully taken a few more bites of his food, and was taking a sip of his water, “If you wanted, we could have a pool-day here, either with or after you’ve had some time with your family.”

Oscar wipes the water away from his mouth with his hand, movements suddenly much more alert than before- moving to sit up straight in his seat.

“Really?”

“Yeah! They have a couple days before anything, and I know Logan was planning on sticking around anyway. You could invite your family over, or we can plan it for when you’ve had some time with them?”

Oscar paused to think about it for a moment, taking the moment to have a few more bites of his pasta after noticing Mark’s pointed look.

He had a day and a half or so planned to spend with them, mostly just catching up and soaking in the presence of his childhood house- but he wasn’t sure he wanted to merge to the two worlds like that. 

Regression and his status as a Regressor was something that had always been touchy in his house, less so with Hattie who had shared his fate, but he’d always felt awkward around Mae and Edie about it. 

And he knew full well that the fact Logan would probably be regressed, would shotput him into it immediately. 

Mark must read something on his face, because he’s piping up again,

“You don’t have to decide anything now, bud, I was just telling you. We have some time to decide, yeah? But there’s no wrong decision.” 

Oscar just nods a few times, not really feeling the urge to push himself into forming the right words in the right order to respond. 

The burst of energy had left him pretty much immediately after it had come, and he’d quickly settled back into that sleepy hazy feeling. The cleanliness feeling from the shower had left him feeling like he could honestly fall asleep where he was sitting now. 

He must have checked out of what was going on around him for a moment, because he’s blinking suddenly at the presence of Mark standing next to him.

Mark tugs him into a hug, the angle half-awkward from where Oscar was still sitting.

Oscar breathes out a sot noise as Mark runs his fingers through the little tangles that had formed in his curls. Oscar finds himself sinking into it, going almost boneless.

“I think we should find a movie to watch, or a story to read, hm? You look like you’re shattered, bubs.” Oscar always hit a point of overly tired by the time this part of the race weekend rolled around- even if he had been sleeping a proper amount. 

“Story?”

“We can do a story, did you want the couch or up in my bed?” Mark pulls away after he asks the question, moving back over to the kitchen to fill one of the spare sippy cups with some water, bringing their bowls with them. 

Oscar pauses as he thinks, weighing up the benefits of both before deciding,

“Your bed.”

“Alrighty, bud, let’s get settled then.” Mark has the sippy in one hand, and he wraps a gentle hand around Oscar’s wrist to guide him along.

“Toilet and teeth please, Osc, then we can get tucked up.” Mark reminds him as they enter the bedroom, and Oscar dutifully goes through the motions of the bathroom routine— mostly trying to avoid getting toothpaste on his pajamas.

Roo and Puppy are waiting for him when he ventures back out, sitting against his side of the pillows.

“All done?” Mark questions, sitting on the edge of his bed and typing away on his phone.

“Yeah,” Oscar scrubs a hand over his eyes, coming forward when Mark gestures for him.  

“Good boy, thank you. Are you all ready for bed now?” Oscar just nods, moving to slide into the soft sheets and the blankets. 

Oscar curls up on his side once Mark tugs the blanket over him, Puppy and Roo tucked tightly under his face. 

He curls up tighter once Mark drapes his dark blue fluffy blanket over him, not tightly enough that he risks overheating— but enough that Oscar can twist the corner of it in his grip. 

Mark slides into the other side, their big multi-storybook of Winnie the Pooh tales in one hand. 

He starts reading soon after, making sure to keep his voice level as he did. 

Oscar fiddled with the fabric of his blanket, and the material of Puppy as he laid there listening. 

He’s not overly worried about tomorrow for the first time probably all day, even with the lingering anxiety in the background— it’s so overtaken by the layer of fog in this head, and the security of laying next to Mark. 

Mark doesn’t pause in his reading even as he reaches over to fumble with the bedside table for a second. 

Oscar blinks at the sudden appearance of his rocketship dummy being pressed against his lips— not even realising that he had begun to nibble on the end of his thumb.

He accepts it wordlessly, letting the combination of the rhythmic sucking motions, and the comfort of Mark pulling him flush against his side, and the soothing sound of the story wash over him. 

He breathes out a quiet noise, going boneless into the bed, eyes blinking hazily as the tiredness from the day made itself known again. 

Mark just carded a hand through his hair, stroking it repetitively until Oscar was slumped entirely in his side, dummy bobbing periodically as the final bits of sleep won the battle.

He kept reading for a bit longer, finishing up the chapter they’d been reading before placing it carefully on the bedside table. 

He tucked the blankets tighter around Oscar, doing his best to slide out from underneath him as quietly as he could.

“Shh shh, settle down koala bear, it’s alright.” Mark cooed, rubbing a hand across Oscar’s pillowed cheek as he made sure he had his stuffies tucked up with him; before making a move to go back to attend to the kitchen and bathroom cleanup. 

Oscar just buried back into the pillows, looking every bit the little boy he was in his sleep. Mark couldn’t help the rush of fondness— pressing a gentle kiss to Oscar’s forehead before making a move to leave. 

He flicks on the star nightlight in the corner of the room as he flicks off the lamp —  knowing that Oscar potentially waking up to a pitch black room was a recipe for disaster— , before pulling the door across and ducking out.