Work Text:
It started in Abu Dhabi, in the cooldown room. Lando, still high on his win, had finally escaped the oppressive crush of people outside, only to find himself in a people aquarium, with Oscar, Max, and himself as the stars. He’d immediately been latched onto by Sulayem, who had very excitedly greeted him, inexplicably proceeding to reach into Lando’s hair to tug at it.
Lando had desperately tried to ignore the urge to shake off the other man, very aware of how bad it would look. Yet he still inwardly cringed at the feeling. He could see Max in his peripheral making a face at the movement, he seemed to be mirroring exactly what Lando had been feeling at the time, so Lando chose to just live his disgust vicariously through Max in that moment.
Thankfully, it hadn’t lasted long, Sulayem losing his grip of Lando’s head as they were called up for the podium.
And then, for some cursed, cursed reason, he’d done the damn thing again at the prize giving gala. He’d reached up to Lando’s head, on stage, and pulled at his hair again. Lando had once again managed to avoid immediately ducking away from him, hoping that the camera didn’t catch how his smile became brittle for a minute.
Later in the night, while making his speech, he’d spun around to Oscar, making brief eye contact while speaking. Oscar had grinned at him, flicking his eyes between him and Sulayem, who had been hovering off to the side, eyes bright with mirth. Lando had fought the urge to roll his eyes back at the other man.
On the plane on the way back from the gala they’d sat in the back seats together, a quiet bubble away from the rest of the team, away from where Zak was holding court around the trophies set at the front of the plane like he thought someone was going to appear out of thin air and take them away from him like some kind of trophy specialising robin hood.
“What’s with the” Oscar gestured vaguely to his own hair, pulling it slightly between his fingers, tragically messing up his swoop.
Lando cringed at the reminder, entire body tensing up before he released, stretching his legs out as much as he could before hitting the seat in front of him, slouching down into his own seat like it would make him stop remembering the unwanted feeling of someone grabbing at his hair.
“Fuckin' hell – I don’t even” he shook his head against the seat as if he could shake away the memory “Why’d he even do that” he whined.
Oscar laughed brightly, throwing his head back against the headrest. Lando tried to ignore how it highlighted his jaw in the light.
“He did it in Abu Dhabi and now-“ he tried to sink further into his seat
Oscar snickered “I think Max might’ve slapped him if he’d tried that with him”.
Lando was suddenly hit with a vision of Sulayem attempting to grip at Max’s hair like he’d done to Lando twice now and couldn’t help his own snicker from slipping through his lips.
“With how Max looked at him after he did it to me in the cooldown room, he probably would’ve pushed him off the stage”
Lando chanced a look back up at Oscar, who now had his head tilted down towards Lando, they made eye contact before Oscar dissolved into giggles.
“Reckon that would have made a highlight reel or two” he got out, eyes bright, before losing it again.
That caused Lando to give into the smile on his own lips, both of them now laughing openly in the back of the plane, hidden from the others from the team.
It was a joke, it was funny, Right?
That’s why when Oscar had reached over and ruffled Lando’s hair at the Christmas party, let his curls slide through the webbing of his fingers, pushing his fingers ever so slightly into his scalp, Lando hadn’t gotten that same disgusted feeling he’d gotten at Abu Dhabi, at the gala. Because Oscar had done it to make fun of it, because it was a joke.
He’d caught Lando’s eye after he’d done it, matching grins on both their faces, Lando hoped he’d missed the flush sitting at the tops of Lando’s cheeks, as he squinted his eyes up to make room for his smile.
Lando had tried to brush it off, hunching his head down slightly as he brought his own hand up to his hair to attempt to fix it, trying to play off Oscar’s move.
He also desperately tried to push away the sparks that had made their way up his spine at the movement. So different to the immediate rejection and disgust he’d felt when Sulayem had done it. Lando almost felt like leaning into it, thinking he’d be perfectly happy to let his teammate rest his hands in his hair forever, scratching lightly at his scalp, before he got the ice-cold reality check that was opening his eyes and remembering that they were in front of the entire team.
But acknowledging that he maybe liked when Oscar did it, would mean acknowledging the pesky little feelings that had been making themselves known more and more over the last couple months. Which was, objectively the worst time for them to pop up, with the whole championship… thing. And Lando was definitely not acknowledging that, in fact he was actively in denial. Because those feelings? They didn’t exist.
And then it became a thing.
The hair pulling thing became some kind of inside joke between the two of them, which was great for the little voice in Lando’s head that wanted Oscar near him at all times, and terrible for the only slightly quieter voice on the other side of his head telling him to get it the fuck together for gods sake that is your teammate.
It followed them into pre-season testing, Oscar reaching down to ruffle his hair as he passed Lando after an engineering meeting, a familiar glint in his eye as he passed. Lando had rolled his eyes in recognition of the joke, ignoring the way his heart had done a little stutter step in his chest.
And then after an exhilarating final 15 laps of the Suzuka circuit where Oscar had barely squeezed past him at the line to make the team’s first one-two of the season, he’d reached over in parc fermé to pat the top of Lando’s helmet, a mock hair ruffle accompanied, as always by an eternally amused look in Oscar’s eye.
Lando had, as always, rolled his eyes at the action, before reaching over and returning the gesture with as much sarcasm as he could convey through only his body language and the sliver of eyes visible through the helmet. He saw the laugh shake through Oscar’s shoulders, even if he couldn’t fully see his face. He chalked the little rush that ran through him to the good team result, a reaction to the celebrating mechanics on the other side of the fencing.
Their little interaction had obviously done the rounds on social media, causing the wider paddock to become aware of it.
Alex had come up to him at one point, reaching over to give Lando a ruffle on the head as he passed behind him in the media pen. Lando had cringed slightly at the move, somehow realising that it wasn’t his teammate who had made contact with him. Not that he minded Alex doing it, he liked Alex… he just wasn’t Oscar.
That had also done the rounds on social media, people being embarrassingly quick to point out that Lando only seemed to tolerate it if it was Oscar. Which, while correct, didn’t do a whole lot for his very unstable relationship with his dignity.
Unfortunately, his reaction meant that they had to talk about it or Lando couldn’t keep getting random hair ruffles throughout the day, because if Oscar thought that Lando didn’t like it he would stop, because he was just nice like that, and Lando really, really didn’t want him to stop.
Although ‘talking about it’ actually ended up being Oscar turning to him from the chair he’d curled up on in Lando’s drivers’ room after they’d both escaped media duties for the day. A video of Alex ruffling Lando’s hair playing quietly on loop on his phone.
“I can stop the hair thing if you want” Oscar sounded slightly hesitant as he said it, disturbing the silent scrolling thing they had going.
“No, no” Lando blurted out, head whipping up from where he’d been lying on his massage table, before wincing as he realised how desperate that sounded. “I mean, it’s fine, it doesn’t bother me” he tried to play it off.
Oscar paused, eyebrow raising up his forehead as his mouth ticked up ever so slightly, “it doesn’t?” He asked
Lando shook his head, fast, before forcing himself to do it slower, to act normal.
“Nope” he popped the p, hoping that Oscar wouldn’t read too much into his preferences.
“I mean-“ Oscar gestured at his phone, where the video was still playing, chewing at his lip.
“It doesn’t bother me when you do it” Lando amended, trying to evade Oscar’s gaze, eyes darting around the room.
Oscar just squinted at him, clearly evaluating something before shrugging, standing up and heading towards the door. As Lando was about to let out a relieved breath that Oscar had let it go, Oscar’s hand darted out towards him, pulling at his curls before he disappeared through the doorway.
Bastard.
***
Because the thing was. After a while it was difficult to push away those annoying little feelings that told him he had a crush on his teammate. A teammate that he had had going on four years at this point. A teammate he had gone through a championship battle with even.
So, realising it now was just kind of embarrassing to be honest. Oscar was just so easy to be around, so much so that the championship last year hadn’t ended in a great big bomb with their teammate relationship laying in the rubble but had stayed inexplicably the same.
Sure, there had been those tense couple weeks at the end there, a culmination of frustration at the team after some truly horrendous strategy choices on top of the end of season tiredness. But after, it had been like nothing had happened. Lando had almost been waiting for Oscar to pull away a bit, to let his own frustrations take over before he had to kick himself for even considering that Oscar would even do something like that.
So yeah, maybe Lando didn’t mind when Oscar played into their joke, maybe he was actually very happy about the fact that this particular gesture had become an inside joke. And yeah, maybe a part of him shrivelled up and died at the prospect of anyone else doing it. It was really no big deal. He could deal with it.
The only part of it which scared him were all the ‘heart-eyes’ allegations that flooded his social media every so often. Because he never actually saw the ‘heart-eyes’ everyone claimed that Oscar had, only ever maybe seeing them in the very early photos of them. But realising that meant realising that Lando might’ve missed his chance by quite a margin. Which is a thought that only made him feel slightly nauseous when he thought about it too hard. So, he didn’t think about it. Much.
***
In Canada he’d snuck into Oscar’s hotel room to play video games, Oscar having brought the console with him. Lando was leant against the footboard of the bed, while Oscar sat above him.
After a particularly competitive round of Mario Kart where Lando had unapologetically shoved Oscar off of rainbow road at the last turn, Oscar had reached over to tug playfully at Lando’s hair, before leaving his hand there for an extra beat, just running his fingers over Lando’s head, letting his fingernails scrape gently over his scalp.
Lando tried his best not to melt completely into the bed, but he could feel every muscle slowly releasing tension as Oscar kept up his impromptu head massage. His mind had gone blank, eyes fluttering as he looked upwards to find Oscar looking back at him with an indecipherable expression on his face. Oscar eventually let go of his hair, now looking down at him with that cute little close-lipped smile, tapping at his shoulder. Lando tried his best not to let out an embarrassing sound at the loss.
“c’mon mate, got an early start tomorrow morning” Oscar jostled at his shoulder as he placed his control onto a side table.
Lando just grumbled something indiscernible, letting his head fall back onto the mattress before pushing himself up, making himself stumble loose limbed back into his room. He dropped into the mattress before he proceeded to have the best sleep he’d had in months.
So yeah, Canada.
***
Canada seemed to be a bit of a turning point in their little inside joke. Sure, Oscar still ruffled his hair, and they gave each other reciprocal helmet taps after good races, but now there was an undercurrent behind it all. A line Lando wanted to cross almost more than anything else.
The perfect opportunity came during the summer break. They had both settled down in Monaco for the first half of the shutdown, occasionally meeting up with other drivers for padel. It was after one game, which they’d both been roped into by Carlos and Alex, who were much, much more competitive at the game than he and Oscar were, and it showed.
Lando had tagged Oscar after the game as Oscar was grabbing his water bottle
“Hey, come back to mine after?” he’d asked, still catching his breath from the game
Oscar had flicked his eyes down Lando for a half second, a slight flush appearing under his eyes before shrugging noncommittally “yeah, sure”. He’d turned back to his bag, just missing the triumphant grin Lando was now shamelessly sporting.
He’d shown up at Lando’s flat about an hour later, clearly freshly showered and wearing a hoodie that Lando would 100% definitely be stealing from him if everything went to plan. Lando had set up the game console in the living room, chucking a remote at Oscar from where he was crouched in front of the TV as Oscar settled into the couch. Lando then padded over to the couch before unceremoniously dropping down next to Oscar on the floor, a direct parallel to how they’d been sitting in Canada, perfect placement for any more head massages. He looked up at Oscar, who had raised an eyebrow at Lando’s choice of seating.
“Comfy down there?” Oscar asked, amusement colouring his tone.
“Mhmm” Lando hummed, moving his gaze to the TV as he booted up the game.
Over the course of the game, Lando slowly shifted closer to Oscar until his side was basically plastered to his teammates leg.
After a while, they’d switched to a movie, some random Netflix original Lando had let Oscar pick. As they watched the movie, Lando felt a hand slowly drop onto his head, curls catching between Oscar’s fingers as he started running his fingers through Lando’s head again. Lando hummed contentedly at the contact, letting his head lean fully into Oscar’s palm.
“You like this, don’t you?”
It took a second for Oscar’s words to register, his fingers still running rhythmically over his head. Lando looked up, meeting Oscar’s gaze before letting out a breathless little “yeah”.
Oscar’s gaze turned sharp above him, and in a second his hand had closed over the handful of hair he’d been holding onto. Lando’s eyes rolled back into his head at the pressure.
When Lando managed to get more than two braincells together, he was moving upwards, aided by the gentle tugging of Oscar’s hand against his scalp until he was fully up on the couch, straddling Oscar’s lap.
He leant his head into Oscar’s hand again, before opening his eyes and meeting Oscar’s eyes “I like this, I like you” he whispered. The movie was still playing in the background, casting low light onto Oscar’s face.
He raised a hand to run his thumb over Oscar’s jaw, their faces now impossibly close together, before he let his hand wander back into Oscar’s own tangle of hair.
Lando wasn’t quite sure who had made the first move, but Oscar was now devouring him, biting gently at his bottom lip as he continued to tug at Lando’s hair. Lando let out an embarrassing noise at the dual sensations, a moan that was dutifully swallowed by Oscar.
He was jostled out of the hazy headspace he was slowly descending into as Oscar grabbed at the backs of his thighs and stood up, now lifting Lando. Lando dutifully hooked his ankles behind Oscar’s back as he slowly led them both to Lando’s bedroom, dropping Lando gently onto the sheets before crawling back on top of him and continuing to kiss him senseless.
***
The next morning, Lando had woken up comfortable, sated and sore in the best way as he rolled over into the warm spot Oscar had left.
Wait.
His eyes flew open as he reached out at the empty space, heart dropping into his stomach before he heard a clatter coming from the kitchen.
Lando emerged from the bedroom in the hoodie Oscar had worn to his apartment yesterday, valiantly rescued from the floor, to find Oscar rummaging through his fridge.
“Morning” he mumbled at him, wrapping his hands around Oscar as he closed the fridge
Oscar turned around in his grip, returning the greeting as he pressed a quick kiss onto Lando’s lips.
“Thought you left” Lando said, flicking his eyes up to Oscars before Oscar drew him into another kiss, hand sliding up the back of his neck into his hair.
“You’re not getting rid of me that quick” Oscar murmured into his mouth, tightening his grip ever so slightly on Lando’s curls
Lando moved his head down, so he was resting his forehead on oscars shoulder, leaving a kiss on the side of his neck, just to the side of those two freckles he loved so much.
“I’m not letting you go that quick, you mean” he mumbled into the space between Oscar’s neck and shoulder.
He was rewarded with a bright laugh from Oscar, who had lowered his hands to rest lightly on his hips.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant”.