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(2023) YOU HAD A BONER.
They’re in Lando’s driver’s room; Oscar’s shuffling his racesuit every so often and Lando wants to tell him to stop because they have a stupid car unveiling in five minutes and the rustling of the fireproofs is making his head spin.
Then he looks back and there’s a prominent rise in Oscar’s suit and he’s pushing it down with the heel of his palm. Lando wonders what exactly got him worked up, the anxiety of being the center of attention or something on his phone in Oscar’s hand that he gazes at with glassy eyes.
Lando blinks; They go on in three minutes and he’s pretty sure Oscar’s looking at nudes. And yet Oscar still stands, readjusting himself in his fireproofs and looking at Lando guilty as they stand together at the door waiting to be called on; Lando’s eyes circulate Oscar’s face, forming a triangle going from each eye to Oscar’s spit slick lips where he pauses, takes in a breath and then presses his own lips to the younger’s with a grin, Lando’s hand darting downward to the Aussie’s crotch to press forward.
A grunt sounds off along with Oscar kissing back harshly before—“Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are here to help us unveil this year’s newest edition—!” And Lando shoots a smile back at a flushed Oscar who walks awkwardly behind Lando as they do their MTC duties for the beginning of the season.
It’s gonna be an awkward year.
—
“What the fuck was that I have a fuckin’ girlfriend why did you kiss me?!”
Lando never said he had higher than thou morals; He didn’t care for or know this girl so, he shrugged, and told the truth.
“You had a boner.”
Oscar stares at him with wide eyes; In the short months they’ve known each other he never expected this of all things to happen.
He walks out, Lando goes back to the paperwork he was reading.
Another Tuesday.
(2023 INTO 2024 NEW YEARS) YOU WERE THE ONLY PERSON AROUND.
They didn’t talk about the first kiss after it happened. Mostly they just stared at each other and counted the minutes until tension built up in the room; until someone was uncomfortable and got up and left or made a face to get the other to stop looking at them.
But, it’s New Years, Lando’s tipsy; Oscar’s drunk, they’ve been tolerating each other for over two hours as Oscar keeps handing his half empty drinks to Lando to finish off because the younger is starting to feel shit-faced instead of just drunk. The strobe lights from whatever mutual friend’s house they’re in are straining Lando’s eyes as he watches Oscar sway slightly to the loud music.
The Aussie’s girlfriend is nowhere to be seen when the ball starts counting down to zero; Lando raises an eyebrow to himself when Oscar starts inching forward, grabbing Lando’s white button-up like a safety blanket. Everyone is giddy and loud and gathered around the television while they’re crammed into a corner because Lando doesn’t quite trust a drunk Oscar Piastri yet.
There’s a loud countdown;
“Three, two, one, Happy New Year!”
And then shouting and people kissing and suddenly Lando registers Oscar has turned to him and gripped his jaw to press a lingering kiss there, gasping into the older’s mouth when Lando nips at his bottom lip only for Oscar to pull away with a gag.
“Oh shit! Are you about to throw up?!”
Lando pushes the Australian to the bathroom and watches him wretch over the toilet; lightly rubs his back as he waits.
“Your girlfriend was here, not around but here, why did you kiss me tonight?”
Oscar gags, more bile hits the surface of toilet water.
“You—ugh—you were the only person around who I know can tolerate me enough to kiss me.”
Lando appreciates the truthfulness, albeit sad and lonely sounding when Oscar says it, his head now laying atop his arm as he rests on the toilet seat.
“You didn’t want to find her?”
Lando doesn’t understand their relationship.
“She wouldn’t have wanted to do it with me so drunk anyways. You like me all the time.” A beat. “Even when I’m chunning into random people’s toilets.”
They laugh together then; That’s the first moment Lando feels a bit more for Oscar than him just being his teammate—The flutter of a butterflies wing in his stomach that he wants to crush. Warmth on his cheeks he wants to cool.
He’s fucked.
(2024 LATE SPRING) NO ONE DID.
Oscar’s girlfriend didn’t kiss him after their first race back on track, not with all the cameras on them, not with all the eyes around, she goes back to the hotel early when Oscar is tugged aside and asked to look over racing stats, Lando furrows his brow; She usually stays.
He doesn’t understand the nature of their relationship, doesn’t think he ever will.
Oscar got P4, which is good for how their year is starting, and celebrated with the team and then went over data; Oscar is staring at Lando in the backseat of their uber and Lando is making the same half-awkward eye contact, this has been their reality for months. Balleting around each other like they’ve studied the art of dance for years at a time and yet; Nothing happens.
They arrive at the hotel that they have rooms next to each other in. Lando stares at the back of Oscar’s head as he walks to his own room, waits to shuffle past to his own until Oscar speaks, “Do you wanna come hang?” He never asks Lando to come be stupid with him like maybe Carlos or Charles; Still he’ll indulge him.
“Yea, sure.”
They order half the menu in food, Oscar hasn’t stopped laughing in five minutes, and Lando’s in a fit of giggles himself at a joke he told.
Everything feels light and airy for once.
And then there’s that eye contact again, as Oscar comes down from chuckles, he stares into Lando’s eyes like he might drown if he doesn’t find resolution there.
Lando pauses, grabs Oscar’s jaw, and waits.
Oscar doesn’t move; He goes pliant and his eyes close involuntarily.
Lando presses a gentle kiss to the younger’s lips, feels how his own body melts when Oscar kisses back and pushes hard against him, hands tangling in curls and pressing Lando close; It’s some sort of sloppy makeout session until Oscar comes to his senses and pulls back, staring.
“Why did you kiss me?”
This question has become reoccurring, the why, the reason as to why either of them wanted the taste of the other in their mouths because it could never be so simple as to just wanting a kiss.
“Your girlfriend—When you got P4—Because no one did.”
“Stay out of my relationship.”
Oscar pats his cheek, they sit in silence for a few moments before Lando says quietly that he’s going to bed.
Really he’s probably going to jerk off at the feeling of Oscar’s tongue in his mouth.
(2024 LATE SUMMER) TOO MANY PEOPLE DID.
It’s summer break and Lando’s somehow convinced Oscar, Carlos, Alex, and George to come on a night out with him. Alex and George have created their own little bubble, Oscar and Carlos are chatting while Lando has been kissed and ground on by so many different people he might need to figure out when to schedule his next STD test because this club is classy but not classy enough.
Oscar’s been eyeing him all night; Lando’s made eye contact with him while making out with a guy who looks nothing like Oscar, still tall and broad but not blonde or smiley, just brunette with a deep voice.
Lando didn’t even like him much but he liked how Oscar shuffled in his seat at the sight.
By the fourth guy he goes and sits next to Oscar; Carlos has gone home and Alex and George still won’t let anyone pop that little environment they’ve created as they inch closer to each other. Oscar assesses Lando, asks gently “Do you usually make out with this many people?” Lando throws out a loud laugh, full of energy and something alcoholic.
“No!”
“Why are you?”
“I want someone warm to touch me, I’m just a mammal at the end of the day.”
Oscar laughs then, grips the back of curls and presses his mouth against Lando’s they both taste like the jager bombs George ordered the table, Oscar has something sweet lingering behind his teeth that Lando chases with his tongue only for it to entwine with Oscar’s, a piece of hard candy swapped between them when Lando pulls away.
He giggles half-drunkenly.
“Why’d you kiss me?”
And Oscar shrugs at him blinking tiredly.
“Too many people did.”
It makes something hot like a claim burn in Lando’s stomach; He’s going to forget this by tomorrow and he’s probably going to regret it.
The next day Lando texts the Australian
TO Oscar Piastri AT 9:34AM: we kissed right I didn’t make that up
Read at 9:36AM
FROM Oscar Piastri AT 9:37: Yes.
Again.
Read at 9:37AM
Lando finds that he doesn’t regret a thing, he’d do it again if he was in the same position during the same night.
(2025 NEW YEARS) HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?
“Have you been drinking?” is the first thing Oscar asks Lando when he sees him on New Years Day of the Two-Thousand-and-Twenty-Fifth year.
Lando just nods dopily, the endorphins in his brain happy-go-lucky and not benefiting him in any way because Oscar looks really pretty under the lighting Charles has set up and Lando wants to kiss him but Oscar is fresh out of a relationship and it’s really confusing.
Oscar holds his face; Lando initiates it.
They kiss on and off in a corner of the living room for what seems like hours until Oscar says sweetly; “We’ll get you some water and then get you home.”
“But wait, we didn't do the tradition…”
Oscar smiles, “Why did you kiss me, Lando?”
“I’ve been drinking and you look pretty.”
(2025 MID-SPRING) "LOVE."
They’re on a private jet, somewhere to another country to another race for another midfield contender's performance and neither of them are excited.
Oscar is the first to ask “Why do you keep kissing me at inconvenient times?” Like it’s been running rampant on his brain like a hamster in a wheel.
“Love.” Lando tells the truth. He came to terms with it a few months back when he realized he couldn’t look at Oscar without his ears going hot anymore; or without his heartbeat picking up and his brain feeling fried, without his pulse quickening and his brain yelling ‘kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.’, and he’s not a dancer. He’s tired of tiptoeing around it.
“You don’t know anything about that.”
Even with the hurtful words, they’re the only ones in the jet so Oscar plants a chaste kiss to the older’s lips, watches him chase the feeling and sighs as he recuddles back into the seat.
For the first time since meeting this man Lando is nervous.
(2025 SUMMER) IT HURTS NOT TO.
Summer break of Twenty-Twenty-Five, Oscar comes over Lando’s for a break, to leave his flat, to not stare at the wall for hours until all he can think about is the paint chipping.
That same visit Lando stares him dead in the eyes and says “We need to talk about this, whatever this is, I’m dying over here I want to kiss you so bad, it hurts not to, and my brain is on high drive whenever you’re not around it’s like—like I’m a rodent and there’s always a predator around.”
Oscar blinks at him, Lando blinks back.
“It hurts not to?”
Lando nods and circles his chest with his pointer finger, “Here, in my chest, whenever I’m around you.” And Oscar nods, solemnly.
“Fuck’s sake, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t supposed to love you.”
And Lando stares.
They’re two sides of the same shame filled coin.
(PRESENT) I'M SO FUCKING BORED.
Lando kisses all over Oscar’s face, cheek to nose, eyes to corners of his lips, ears to chin, and tells him softly;
“I am so fucking bored.”
They’ve been together for months now, Lando can kiss him whenever he likes, the ache in his chest has subsided and Oscar is holding him by his hips gently as Lando leans over him, finally planting a kiss on his mouth.
Through soft kisses Oscar speaks—“So, I get more kisses because you’re bored?”
Lando hums into the younger’s mouth before nodding. Oscar tastes like sleep and earl grey tea.
Oscar tastes like love and reasons why.