Chapter Text
He doesn’t know how and when it started.
There is a deity that sits at the foot of Oscar’s bed, the edges of its silhouette warping against the light. Oscar doesn’t say anything, simply gets up and runs his fingers through his sleep-matted hair. It opens its mouth, and he can taste the barest sliver of sea on the air, and something metallic, almost like blood.
“Are you ready?” it asks. A glimpse of sharp teeth and darkness leading down to a winding oesophagus.
It has asked that every day, since the FIA hearing determining his contract with Alpine. It has been here every day since, haunting his waking hours and toeing the fine line between his dreams and reality.
It’s all throwing Oscar off.
But he doesn’t have time, not today.
He tugs a shirt on, swings a bag over his shoulders, double checks he has his driver pass. Then he leaves, out the front door for the track, and he doesn’t look back once.
The MCL60 is a shitbox.
Oscar had never been warned about the sheer amount of media duties that suddenly materialised when he made the jump from F2 to F1. Of course, Prema had stood him in front of a camera more than enough times, but that was different. That was comfortable, domestic almost; sat around a table with Fred or Logan or Robert.
And yes, while he had been filmed while he was reserve driver for Alpine, it was nothing like Thursday media, where the onslaught of reporters and journalists and cameras seemed to block out the air around him to the point he was inhaling second-hand oxygen.
He understood why; he was a rookie, exciting and fresh, especially after his curt message on Twitter, and most of all, his replacing of Daniel Riccardo. But he has limits, and those limits are about to be breached.
Which is why, sat in the car on Friday, Oscar cannot wait to make his first official debut as a McLaren Formula 1 driver for FP1.
It’s not even a minute later when he feels it.
The car is awful.
Oscar drags it to P12, two whole seconds behind Max Verstappen, graphics blinking hard at him.
Surely it’ll get better.
Free Practise 2. P15.
Free Practise 3. P9.
Qualifying. P18.
Oscar goes out with Logan that evening to wallow in their ever-growing puddle of self-pity.
He stares at Logan too much. Gapes. Grabs.
Was he always that bright?
Oscar has barely drunk, but when he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll blame anything he can remember on the half-bottle of beer.
The deity stands outside his hotel room when he gets back. “Are you ready?” it asks.
Oscar slams his door as hard as he can.
He pulls at his hair. His clothes. His face.
He lies in bed, eyes forced open, counting down the seconds to the race.
The world keeps on spinning.
It’s hours later when he finally comes to his senses, jolted upright with the blare of his alarm. The deity is at the foot of his bed.
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Oscar’s in such a rush to rid himself of this entity, to place himself far, far away from the question, he spills his morning coffee down his shirt. He barely registers it though; he is already gone, both footsteps echoing off the corridor – it was easier to pretend that everything was fine, that nothing was falling apart, than to return to that accursed room and dig out a new shirt.
He bumps into Logan when he enters the track. A quick up-down, and Logan pulls off his jacket, offers it to Oscar wordlessly.
They are both anxious, Oscar can tell, not yet prepared to make their Grand Prix debut. He worries at his lip; so does Logan, and the latter is running his thumbs over his knuckles, a nervous habit that Oscar has learned after years of familiarity.
“Good luck,” Logan says, before he turns on his heel for the Williams garage.
They don’t talk about the fact that he was a replacement for Oscar after his defection from Alpine, just like how they don’t talk about the hasty contracts, McLaren’s tyre strategy for the race, the F3 championship result, kissing each other behind the motorhomes.
He watches Logan leave, light glinting gently off his blond hair. It’s suddenly like looking right at the sun, all too blinding, leaving his vision spotted with black. Oscar swallows his words before he does the same, the orange of the team kit far too bright for his sensitive eyes, and he wonders which imbecile had approved of the colour. He squints, before realising that there’s a person standing in front of him, and that person is his new teammate.
There were a few words Oscar could use to describe Lando Norris – perhaps the most accurate would be charismatic.
But he wasn’t charismatic in the way that was compelling; instead, Lando Norris was charismatic in a childlike, boyish way. If anything, Oscar would have found him slightly immature.
But that was no way to describe a new teammate, especially one that he has hopes to befriend, and so he reluctantly allows Lando to swing an arm around his shoulders and jostle him towards the cars.
He lets Zak Brown wax on about tenacity, lets Tom give him a quick debrief, burns a hole while staring into the back of the technical director’s head.
He climbs into his seat – they’re about to go racing.
Oscar should’ve known that the car wouldn’t have held up for the entirety of the race.
He’s thirteen laps in when he hears Tom’s voice in his ear telling him to retire, to return to the garage. He does so, bitterly disappointed, though no one would ever have to know with his helmet masking the dismay written out across his face.
He watches Lando’s onboard, stares at the screen with a faked nonchalance while his teammate struggles with the car, glances half-heartedly at the driver graphics. Logan isn’t doing awful, Oscar notices, despite the FW45 being almost as atrocious as the MCL60.
It’s late at night when they bump into each other leaving the track, and in a terribly brief, fleeting moment of weakness, Oscar finds himself inviting Logan back to his hotel room, not thinking much of it until the two are in the elevator, Oscar unable to speak.
He wishes it were strange, uncomfortable, but they are all too close with each other.
Too close, but still not enough.
It’s horribly intimate, the way Logan busies himself in the makeshift kitchen. He’s making tea – swirling the bags into boiled water, rummaging through the drawers for additives. And when he passes Oscar a steaming mug, Oscar doesn’t have to look down to know it’s exactly how he likes it – black, with a dash of honey.
“You alright?” he asks, and Oscar can do nothing but nod jerkily.
There’s not a single word exchanged for the rest of the night. Logan takes to the shower, and Oscar’s left on the bed to pick at his fingernails. When he finally returns, Oscar is smoothing out rumpled sheets, readying himself to sleep. He feels Logan’s weight on the bed next to him, gives a low hum as a “good night”, before gently pressing his lips to Oscar’s forehead.
Oscar blinks, exhaling slowly, then curls up and around Logan.
They fit so well together, have fit so well together since – well, forever – limbs interlocking, movements mellow and placid against their shared breathing.
He’s about to fall asleep when something glints in the corner of his eye. Sharp teeth and darkness beyond that. A trace of seafoam and iron.
“Are you ready?” it asks, constant as ever, soft as rain.
Oscar stares at it until it leaves the room, but its absence doesn’t remove the copper tang staining the air.