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The suit jacket was on the bed. Shirt still half-buttoned. He couldn’t find the cufflinks, but the champagne was still sticky in his hair, and that felt more important. Why was he dressing up this much? Well, as of today, he was the motorsport king of England.
Or that was what he would like to think, even if it is for one day. One day of no worries, no overthinking, no being in the shadow of his teammate or great, amazing, spectacular Hamilton.
Today was his day.
And celebrating Silverstone required dressing up.
Lando was digging through a drawer when the knock came. Two quick, one sharp. Not delivery. Not a friend.
Definitely not expected.
He glanced at his phone. Nothing.
He padded barefoot through the flat, still damp from the post-race shower he hadn’t bothered to finish properly, shirt hanging open and collar askew. The hallway light caught on the silver chain at his neck as he reached the door, thinking maybe it was a delivery or someone from the team.
It wasn’t.
When he opened the door, he froze.
Oscar stood there, damp around the collar like he’d walked through too much night air too quickly. His hoodie clung to his shoulders, chest rising and falling a touch too fast. And for a second, just a second, he didn’t speak. His gaze caught on Lando’s open shirt, lingered on the skin beneath it. Not long enough to mean anything out loud. Just long enough to mean everything in silence, or that’s what Lando would like to think.
Lando blinked, caught somewhere between confusion and something slower, something warm twisting behind his ribs.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Lando said, “…You look like you’re about to punch me or confess something.”
Oscar pushed past him.
“Cool. Come in. Mi casa, su meltdown.” Lando shut the door, locked it out of habit. Oscar stood in the centre of the living room like he didn’t quite believe he was here. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, jaw tight. Lando leaned against the wall by the entrance, arms crossed. “How’d you get my address?”
Oscar didn’t look at him. “Max gave it to me.”
Lando tilted his head. “No, he didn’t.”
“I just said he did.”
“And I said bullshit.” Lando’s voice didn’t rise, but it firmed at the edges. “Try again.”
Oscar’s jaw twitched. He inhaled, sharp and quick, like it hurt. “Fine,” he snapped. “I looked it up on the McLaren database.”
There it was. Flat. Unapologetic.
Lando’s eyebrows lifted. “Wow. Corporate breach of trust and stalking. Feeling festive, are we?”
Oscar’s head whipped around. His eyes found Lando’s, and this time they stayed there. “Don’t joke.”
“Not joking. Just…processing. Little surprised, that’s all.” Oscar stared at him like the words weren’t enough. Like they hadn’t been enough for a long time. Lando lifted a brow. “So why are you here, then?”
Oscar’s answer came fast, too fast. “Why were you in my hotel room in Montreal?”
Lando opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again, like maybe he could cough up a lie in the shape of a joke. But no sound came out.
Didn’t matter. Oscar wasn’t looking at him anymore. He walked straight to the couch and picked up a cushion with the air of someone selecting a weapon. “Ten seconds,” Oscar muttered, like he was speaking to some invisible judge standing behind the TV. “Ten seconds for what? For being near a safety car with the audacity to exist?”
The cushion sailed across the room and landed against the wall with a quiet thud. Lando didn’t move. He leaned back against the counter and watched. Oscar picked up another. “Did I gain an advantage? No. Did I put anyone in danger? Maybe. But fuck Max, he try to kill George two races ago. More importantly, did I win that race before they stole it from me?” He hurled it like it had personally betrayed him. “Yes.”
A candle holder was next. Ceramic. McLaren Orange. It shattered against the far wall in a delicate little gasp of glass and wax. Lando flinched, barely. “Right. Okay. So… not a fan of FIA. Got it.”
Oscar didn’t stop. He was pacing now, back and forth in the small open space between the sofa and the coffee table like he could wear a trench in Lando’s floorboards. “I followed every fucking rule. Every delta. Every stupid piece of radio instruction. And they still-” He snatched the remote off the armrest and flung it toward the bookcase. It bounced off the edge and landed somewhere under the radiator.
Lando’s lips twitched. He folded his arms. “Bold move, turning against technology.” It was a bad joke, yet Lando had to say something.
Oscar spun on him as if he had just remembered something. “You smiled.”
Lando tilted his head. “You’re gonna have to narrow that down. I do that sometimes.”
“On the podium,” Oscar snapped. “You smiled. Like everything was well in the world.”
Lando didn’t know what Oscar was going on about, and frankly, he didn’t care. He was just intrigued. Seeing a side of Oscar that was concealed from the world was just… a privilege.
Oscar groaned with uncontained anger and grabbed the last throw cushion and lobbed it at the kitchen counter. It bounced off and flopped to the floor with a humiliating little sigh. Then Oscar reached for the second remote, why did he have two remotes and looked like he was considering whether it deserved life.
“Okay,” Lando said, pushing off the counter slowly, “before you throw the one that actually turns on the TV, maybe take a breath.”
Oscar didn’t throw it.
He stood there, fists clenched around plastic and heartbreak, chest rising and falling too fast. His hoodie had slipped off one shoulder. His hair was a mess. His eyes were glassy with something unspeakable. And he looked...Jesus, he looked so angry.
And so unbelievably beautiful.
It was unfair, honestly. Lando had never seen someone so furious look so stupidly soft. Like a kicked puppy who’d learned how to bare its teeth. He wanted to grab him by the hoodie and shake him and kiss him all at once.
Instead, he just stood there and watched him destroy his living room.
And maybe, weirdly, he liked it.
The mess. The fury. The way Oscar filled the room without even trying. No performance, no caution, no polish for the cameras. Just raw frustration spilling out onto Lando’s rug like it didn’t matter if it stained.
There was something almost sacred about it. The sheer unfiltered honesty of it.
And Lando, he knew what this was. He recognised it, not because Oscar had ever shown it to him before, but because he’d lived it. In Montreal, in that lame hotel room with the door locked and the curtains drawn, when Lando had said too much with his eyes and not enough with his mouth. When he had asked Oscar for help, and had been denied.
That night had been Lando’s version of giving something away. He always lost control quietly, curled at the edges, unspectacular, impossible to recognise unless someone pressed hard enough to bruise.
He always let loose after making sure he could blame alcohol for it.
But this?
This was Oscar’s version. Fury, not silence. Movement, not stillness. Throwing things instead of curling inward. Being as sober as one can be to make the bad choices his and his only.
And he was letting Lando in.
No one else.
He hadn’t gone to a friend, or his engineer, or his parents. He hadn’t sat in the motorhome until the lights turned off. He’d found Lando’s flat, hacked his way in, practically, and walked through the door like he didn’t know what he needed, only who he needed to need it from.
That had to count for something.
Maybe everything.
Lando’s chest ached with it. That stupid, inconvenient ache he only got around Oscar. The one that made him want to laugh and touch and confess things he wasn’t ready to say. The one that made him feel like something in the world might finally be tilting in the right direction. Oscar dropped the remote onto the couch with a dull clatter. His hands were shaking, barely, but Lando saw it. Saw it and stayed silent, because he knew better than to point it out. Instead, he shifted his weight, watching the curve of Oscar’s back as he stood amid the chaos he’d made.
He took a breath, slow and quiet. It didn’t help. The air still felt thick in his chest.
Oscar’s eyes locked on him, less furious now, but no softer. If anything, more focused. Like the rage had refined itself into something clearer. Sharper. Dangerous in a different way. “You’re playing a game,” Oscar said.
Lando blinked. “What?”
“You do this… thing,” Oscar continued, stepping over a pillow like it wasn’t even there. “You show up… like it means something. You smile, you say the right things, you touch my arm in the garage like it matters, like I matter, and then you leave.”
Lando tried to keep his expression neutral, but something behind his ribs shifted. “Oscar, I…”
“That hotel room in Montreal?” Oscar cut in. “That was a stunt. A headfuck. You wanted me off my rhythm, you wanted me thinking about you instead of the races, and it worked.”
Lando’s face dropped. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve won two races since then,” Oscar said. “Two. I’ve been putting together weekends like a lunatic, and I am now coming second to you. And all this time I’ve been-” He broke off, jaw tight. “I thought you were struggling. I thought you needed someone. I thought you needed me.”
“I did.” The words slipped out too fast. Too true.
Oscar shook his head. “No. You’re just better at the game than I am. Like Rosberg was with Lewis. Like Vettel with Mark. But at least they were honest about it.”
Lando tried to laugh. It came out dry and crooked. “Wow. Comparing me to Rosberg? That’s cold.”
“You fucking accused me of being Nico first,” Oscar shriked.
Lando swallowed. He didn’t remember that. “I wasn’t playing you,” he said, and his voice dropped, flat now, no quip behind it. “I wouldn’t… fuck, Oscar.” Oscar stared at him like he didn’t believe a word. Like maybe he’d never believed him, and that hurt more than anything.
Lando inhaled through his nose, then stepped back. Quietly. Like it physically cost him. He reached for his left sleeve, fingers trembling slightly as he tugged it up past his elbow. The marks were faint now. Pale, uneven lines. Just skin, mostly. But they were still there, visible. And Oscar had looked once, when it had still been fresh and silent and unspoken in that hotel room, neither of them had really known what to do with.
“Did you forget this? So, for you, I am a fucking maniac that just to fuck with you I… I did this to myself.”
Oscar’s eyes dropped to his arm. He didn’t say anything.
Lando let the silence stretch. Let it ache. “I didn’t come to that hotel to fuck with you,” he said quietly. “I came because I didn’t know what else to do. And because I thought if anyone might understand… and forgive… it’d be you.”
Oscar didn’t speak. His face didn’t change. But something in him stilled. Too still.
Lando’s throat tightened. “Guess I was wrong.”
Oscar stepped back like the room had tilted. Then almost gently, “I didn’t remember, I didn’t-”
Lando gave a tight smile. “Yeah. You were busy rewriting me into a villain.”
Oscar’s lips parted, then closed again. He looked at the mess on the floor, then at Lando’s bare arm. Then back at the door. “I’m sorry,” he said. Voice soft. Fragile in a way that didn’t match the wreckage around him.
And then he turned and left.
No drama. No slammed door. Just absence.
The kind that left the air colder.
Lando didn’t move. Didn’t chase him. Didn’t even reach for the sleeve.
He just stood there, surrounded by cushions and broken ceramics, the hum of his unanswered phone still blinking on the counter. Somewhere downtown, champagne was waiting. Flashbulbs. Laughter.
He didn’t want any of it.
He didn’t feel like celebrating.