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It’s hot. Unbearably hot.
“-ando? Lan-...-ndo!” A voice within his helmet calls out.
He’s nauseous, like he’s been shaken thoroughly, multiple times.
Slowly, the pieces fit together. A crash. He’s been in a crash. One moment he’s on top of his game, racing against Oscar, battling fiercely for the second place, the next he’s a passenger of his car, headed for the barrier with uncontrollable speed.
Something had disturbed the car’s balance, had made it slide over the track like it was coated with soap.
A loud ringing in his head tells him that the braking he tried to do, was futile. The crash has been major, his car feels crumpled around him, beyond saving.
“Land-...Lando, are you ok?”
A gasping breath brings the air to his lungs, blood hums in his veins. His ribs creak. Oh, this won’t be fun tomorrow, he thinks. And then he fumbles for the steering wheel, trying to press a button, any button, to let Will know he’s still there. Still alive.
“”Lan-oh. Thank god. Okay, you need to get out of the car. You hear me, Lando? However hurt you are, get out.”
Those aren’t usual instructions, they’re supposed to stay in the car if they think there’s a risk of head or neck injury. And there might be, this was no minor crash. His body is burning hot, but a cold feeling spreads through his chest, and fast at that. He looks down at himself. Everything hurts. And he notices the smoke.
It fills his lungs until he chokes, clouds his vision, and finally he understands why he needs to get out as fast as he can.
The car is on freaking fire. And it’s only time before the fire reaches the fuel tank. Which means he’ll go ‘boom!’.
Holy fuck. Oh, shit, shit, shit!
Frantically, he tugs and pulls at his seatbelt and struggles himself loose from the deformed seat. His suit rips in several places as it catches on the razor sharp edges of the carbon of the car, but Lando barely notices. He needs to get out before it’s too late.
Lando crawls out of the car slowly, leaning on the wreck as much as he can bare, dragging himself out, his injuries weighing heavy, but he’s not giving up. Movement hurts badly and every breath comes out whistling. Broken ribs, he guesses.
In the background, he can hear the tribunes exhale and clap, relieved that he’s out and walking. If one can call the stumbling he does walking.
But he doesn’t care. Because now that he’s not stuck in the car anymore, he thinks back to the moment of impact. First impact, the one that had made him crash. It must have been another car, the one behind him. Oscar.
That harsh a tap means a DNF for both cars.
When he looks for it, it’s hard to believe that he’s missed it before. At a short distance from his own car, Oscar’s car has hit the barrier too, a crumpled mess of carbon half-hidden underneath the tires that have broken loose at the impact of the barrier. It looks even worse than Lando’s car.
And there’s smoke coming from Oscar’s car. A lot of smoke. Panic strikes.
Where are the medics? Where are the marshals?
Frantically, Lando looks around, but there’s no one. The track is empty, the crowd holds their breath, and everyone is watching Oscar’s car catch on fire.
With Oscar still inside.
Going against all instincts, Lando starts running. He runs as fast as he can towards the fire. No regard for self-preservation, no thoughts of being scared to die, there’s only fear. Fear of losing Oscar.
Oscar hasn’t climbed out of the car, isn’t even moving. Adrenaline makes Lando run faster than he’s ever done, feet hitting the gravel, heart racing. No. No, Oscar can’t be-
The heat of the carbon of Oscar’s car burns hot against Lando’s gloves and suit when he slowly clambers over the wreck, but he doesn’t care. Nothing matters more than getting Oscar out of that deathtrap of a car.
“Osc! Oscar!” he rasps out, smoke clinging to his words, “I-I’m here!”
He grabs at Oscar’s suit with shaking hands, desperate to find grip to hoist his teammate out of the smoking car.
“Shit!”
Old tires block the way out through the halo, and Lando lets go of Oscar to push the slowly melting rubber away. His fireproofs fizzle against his skin as the heat finally breaks through them. He doesn’t feel the aching of his ribs, nor the strain of his arms or the burns being added to his growing collection of injuries. His single-minded focus is on Oscar, who is sitting slumped over in the remnants that once was a car.
Without thinking about it, he smashes a fist into Oscar’s wheel, pressing as much buttons at once, to let Oscar’s engineer know that someone is here. That Oscar isn’t alone.
That someone is dragging him out of his car.
Lando shouldn’t, goes against all the rules of the FIA, but staying inside a burning car means death too. If Oscar isn’t already…
“He’s out! Lando Norris is out of the car! And not a second too late, the McLaren has caught fire! Does anyone know where the medics are?
…
Wait, what is Norris- He’s running towards his teammate Oscar Piastri’s car! What is he doing? He’s- I don’t know if he’s allowed to do tha-The car is on fire! Oscar Piastri’s car is on fire! Oh, oh dear. Both drivers are too close to the fire-we can’t-”
The camera’s turn away.
Oscar is heavy in his arms. It doesn’t matter, Lando lifts him up with ease anyway. Step by step, he walks away from the burning pile of scraps to safety. His legs tremble, his knees buckle, but he continues walking. Until he can’t no further, knees smacking against gravel, both bodies heading towards the ground. He blocks most of the impact with his arms, but still the track hits. There’s only silence, aside from his own heavy breathing.
That’s-that’s not good.
He rips off his gloves and presses his fingers in between Oscar’s helmet and shoulder, wiggling to get underneath the balaclava. Searching for a heartbeat.
Nothing yet.
He holds his breath, forces himself to feel. To count if possible.
Nothing.
A sob slips out, raw and unfiltered. No, he won’t accept this.
His jaw clenches and his hands ball up to fists. He will not lose Oscar.
Rushing, he places his hands over Oscar’s chest right where his heart sits. And he presses down, once, twice, doesn’t stop. A steady rhythm, firm, not holding back, just like he’s learned. Ah-ah-ah-ah, staying alive. The song rings in his head and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to listen to it again.
Tears come and go, soaking his balaclava and the inside of his helmet.
“Come on, Osc! Come. On!”
Again and again he presses down, until there’s a heat blooming under his hands. It’s his heart. Oscar’s heart. Something is happening to it.
A beat. Steady, firm, loud.
Lando freezes and his fingers curl into Oscar’s racesuit. His breath comes with gasps, an ice-cold feeling dawning on him. His shoulders start shaking, and even while they’re racing on a track that’s supposed to be very warm, he’s so, so cold.
Oscar’s chest expands.
He’s alive.
Lando nearly breaks at the sight, but he has no time, no time at all. Strong hands pull at him, tear him away from Oscar’s body and peel his fingers off when he refuses to let go.
“Norris, the medics are here. You did a good job, but they’ll take care of him.”
“No! No, I-” He tries to shield Oscar from everyone who might want to harm him, wraps his own body around Oscar’s, but can’t keep it up for long. The marshals, who finally have arrived, tug him off and hold him back. “Let me go! I have to-”
Arms wrap tightly around his torso and he whimpers loudly. Hot flashes of pain shoot through him and now that the adrenaline is fading, his injuries call out. Broken ribs, at least four, cuts all over his body from the scraps of his car, the twinging of burns on his hands and arms.
“Ah!” Tears spring to his eyes. Even though he wants to fight, he can’t. “Please,” he whimpers, not scared for his own life, but for Oscar’s. “Please help him.”
One of the marshals takes pity on him and moves out of his vision so that he can at least see Oscar. His teammate is not moving and his face is void of life, but the medics are on it, checking his breathing, his heartbeat. They don’t start compressions, they don’t stop tending to him. He must truly be alive.
Tears flood Lando’s vision at the realisation. He’s not losing Oscar, not right now.
Oscar doesn’t look injured. No bend body parts, it doesn’t even look like Oscar is bleeding anywhere, all though his suit is covered in rips and stains that could be blood. They look oddly old, dried up already.
There’s a stretcher ready to transport Oscar to the waiting ambulance. They must have red flagged the race if one is allowed on track.
They both almost died, of course the race is red-flagged.
The medics are quick and efficient, although Lando holds his breath when they move Oscar onto the stretcher.
Oscar lays limp, a fragile body. But at least he has a heartbeat. One that sounds like Lando’s.
The ambulance that brings Oscar to the hospital speeds off, sirens blaring, lights flashing. Lando’s ride takes it easy, follows the traffic rules by the book. While they ride, Lando gets checked thoroughly to confirm that there isn’t any internal bleeding that could need immediate care. There isn’t. They cut away the top of his racesuit and shirt to prod and poke at him. Three of his ribs have fractured under the force of the crash, a fourth is suspected to be majorly bruised, but they’ll get him an X-ray at the hospital to confirm that. His lungs aren’t punctured, he isn’t even concussed. And when he asks them why he feels so cold, they tell him it’s the shock.
It doesn’t feel like shock to him.
A part of him is hollowed out, filled with ice-cold air, and it screams to be held.
They give him a blanket when he starts shivering. The cold only gets worse.
At the hospital Lando gets a bed and they tell him that a doctor will check up on him soon. Hospitals being hospitals, that takes a while, even for a badly injured F1 Driver. Nothing life-threatening is happening to him and urgent cases come before him, such as Oscar’s.
He clutches his blanket tightly to his chest. He’s just so damn cold.
When the doctor finally enters the room, Lando is shivering so badly that the bed shakes with it. His teeth are chattering and he gets a concerned look from the doctor.
“What is going on here?” he asks.
And Lando has no answer. His world consists of cold and Oscar. Where is Oscar?
“Where is he? My teammate, where-”
He gets shushed. And gets told that Oscar is somewhere in the hospital, that they’re saving his life, that Lando should really think about himself right now. There’s nothing he can do.
While that should be true, everything inside him tells him it’s not.
Oscar is in pain, scared and alone. And Lando has to be there with him.
How does he know that? Lando shakes his head in confusion. “I don’t understand, I-”
“You’re in shock.”
Anger blazes through him. “No! I’m fucking not! I’m worried!” Not only that, he knows that he should be in the same room as Oscar, should hold his hand. Clarity comes upon him.
“You can’t keep me here, right? Legally I could leave.”
The doctor hesitates. “I would strongly advise against leaving. You need an X-ray.”
“Right.” Lando’s hands tingle with coldness. The same coldness that he felt after crashing, when Oscar died. He thinks back to Oscar’s heart, how fiercely it fought to keep beating. Something had happened in that moment. Something so important that he can feel the remnants of it in the fibres of his being. Of his soul.
Oh.
Wait.
If what he’s thinking of has happened, he needs to get to Oscar as fast as he can. Or Oscar will be at risk of dying all over.
They can’t confine him to the room and they know it. So Lando leaves, IV hung up on one of those metallic things with wheels, barefooted and shaking from the cold. No one stops him, no one helps. Lando hadn’t expected it anyway. This urge, it’s something only he understands. And maybe Oscar will too.
The hospital corridor is surprisingly empty, and Lando stumbles it down all the way, to the elevator. The doors close behind him with a ping, and suddenly there’s silence. No music in the elevator, he’s in a hospital after all, just the mechanical humming of going up. He’s presses the button with the number four on pure instinct.
Heavy hearted, he lets the wall carry half of his weight, too exhausted to stand up straight. He should be in bed, resting, but he can’t let the strange feeling of knowing that Oscar is suffering go. That he could be dying. It eats at him, tears apart his insides, ice-cold teeth biting at his soul.
The lifts pings and the doors open to another corridor, doors on each side. Lando doesn’t hesitate, certain that he’ll be led to the right door and the right person.
The IV rattles as he drags it along, his feet slapping against the slippery floor. With every step, he pants, lungs constricted by his broken ribs. It hurts.
But as he gets closer to what must be Oscar’s room, his teeth stop chattering. His fingers stop tingling. He stops shivering so badly.
Knowing he’s in front of the right door, he knocks.
“Oscar?”
He opens the door.
Darkness greets him, quiet, stifling.
A nurse taps at the thermometer and whistles with worry. “That’s a high fever. He didn’t come in with that, did he?”
The doctor next to him shakes her head. “A concussion and irregular heartbeat. They said his heart stopped and CPR was performed on site.” She grabs a pen from the front pocket of her uniform. “Lets put him on antibiotics, and see if that helps. Not sure if he could’ve gotten an infection that quickly, we need to keep an eye on him. If he gets worse or doesn’t wake up, we might need to move him to the ICU.” She writes something down on the bedside card.
The nurse nods along, fluffing up Oscar’s pillow. It’s not to any use, he knows, but it feels better to do something with his hands. The Formula 1 driver on the bed, clear lines of agony written on his face, looks so different to the athlete he’s see race on TV.
Lando gently flips the switch of the night-light on the bedside drawer. A soft glow coats the room and Oscar, revealing the alarming state he’s in.
Oscar looks feverish and small in the bed, sheets twisting around his twitching body. He’s drenched in sweat, breathing rapidly and still unconscious.
Lando’s breath catches. Never before has he seen his teammate in such distress. A high noise of worry escapes him, and he all but runs to the edge off the bed. There, he stops. Up close, Oscar looks even worse. He looks-he looks pained. Tears gather in Lando’s eyes and all he wants is to turn back time to avoid the crash. He’d even let Oscar pass if needed.
“Osc?”
A soft groan.
“Oh Osc, I’m so sorry.” Lando sits on the bed, careful to not touch Oscar. His fingers find the sheets, twist up in them. “Please. You have to wake up.”
The heat that radiates off of Oscar warms Lando’s skin, sets it alight with something he has yet to find words for. It burns in a good way. At least they’re alive.
Tears slide down his cheeks and he wipes them away with the sleeve of his hospital gown. “Please,” he sobs, overcome with the possibility of losing Oscar. His- Just his.
He can’t help himself, finds himself inching closer because he longs to feel Oscar’s skin against his. His hands reach, cold and trembling. Wanting.
Oscar’s skin is heated with fever, yet soft. And as Lando strokes a wisp of hair away from his face, the heat seems to go with it. “Wha-”
His theory might be true.
Fervently, he presses his full hand against Oscar’s head. His teammate groans and while it sounds like it hurts, he does lean into Lando’s touch. “Oh, oh fuck,” Lando mumbles, feeling his heart break. They-oh god.
Without a second thought, he cups Oscar’s face with his other hand too, cooing when Oscar sighs and then stops twisting in the sheets. The tears Lando cries are now those of happiness.
“Osc, Osc, please wake up. You’re fine, you’ll be fine.”
With trembling limbs, he crawls underneath the sheets and plasters himself to Oscar’s chest, careful to avoid jostling his own ribs too much. Hot skin flush against Lando, Oscar shifts in his sleep to get even closer to Lando. “Oh Osc,” he sighs when he feels the heat lower in the bed. This is not a silly hopeful theory anymore, this is real.
They are most probably soulmates.
Old tales, forgotten by many and cast out by more, speak about two souls, intertwined in every life. Soul that find each other no matter what. Through distance, fire, cold, they are drawn together fuelled by destiny and upon meeting something extraordinary happens. They mend. Not in the way one would expect, like clockwork and without seams, but without doubt. And when Lando thinks back to it, it counts up. Seeing Oscar that first time at the MTC, something had clicked instantly. Oscar’s quiet a perfect match to his noise, their friendship brittle and wavering under the expectations of the team, of the world, yet steady and understanding.
The tales, true to their word, mentioned all this. Instant connection, the unavoidable moment of lives colliding and sticking together as glue.
And then Oscar had died.
Lando searches between the sheets for a clammy, delicate hand. They’d lost each other. Only for a moment, but it had been enough to make something so old that almost never stirred, awaken. It pulled them to each other, forced Lando to find his way back to Oscar just in time. It lend him the knowledge how to save a life.
He can still feel the heat, Oscar’s heartbeat blooming under his hands. The severed connection broken, but held together with the force of will. Of unexpected love. It took the heat off Lando and hid it away inside Oscar’s body. It wrestled for Oscar’s cold and made Lando hold onto it. And now Lando is giving back what Oscar needs to come home to him.
Next to him, Oscar grips his hand tightly. He’s awakened.
“Lando?” His voice breaks, raspy from the smoke and the fever, and Lando blinks away tears born from the fear of never hearing Oscar again. “Osc,” he whispers fervently.
“Where am I?” Oscar mumbles. He sounds confused. And terrified.
The room changes, the dark shadows no longer providing comfort, the door a way out instead of a way in. It’s Oscar, Lando senses. It’s his fear.
“You are safe,” he says, pretending to not be scared of honesty, “We crashed, but we’re fine. We’re at the hospital.”
The shadows retreat slightly and Lando can breath again. His ribs don’t mind that.
Oscar stops looking for an escape and settles in the bed. “Oh,” he whispers, like he’s doubtful about being alright. Lando doesn’t blame him.
“Why am I not hurt? The crash wasn’t that bad?”
Lando gulps. “It-it was really bad. The car was on fire, both our cars were. And you-” The sharp sting of pain when he bites his lip reminds him that it is truly over. “You didn’t get out.”
“I was stuck?”
Lando shakes his head. “No. You weren’t breathing.”
Silence.
Then- “No, but- That can’t be, I’m not hurting anywhere.”
“I know.” That’s a lie, sort of, Lando hadn’t been sure of that. He is now. Lando hasn’t only healed his heart, he healed everything. Oscar’s shattered bones, his bloodied organs, his torn soul. Everything that was beyond repair.
“Oscar, something happened back there on the track.”
The heat within Lando raises, meaning that Oscar grows cold. “What happened, Lando?”
“You died. And I brought you back.”
Oscar stops breathing for a moment and that makes fear spike up inside Lando. “Deep breaths, Osc,” he hums low, addressing himself as well in the process. “We’re here, we’re alive. That’s what truly matters.”
Hiding his face in Lando's curls, Oscar nods. “Okay,” he says, “Okay.”
But Lando hasn’t even told him that they’ve gone somewhere they can’t return from.
“I tried CPR. But I-I knew it was too late already. When I was still in the car, I felt you d-die.” The tears that come, flow down undisturbed. They’re supposed to be there, a testament of the horrible thing that has occurred. That they fought to survive.
“Your heart, it wanted to keep beating. I swear, Osc, I only asked. Only pleaded. And then it grew hot under my hands and there was a beat. Then another. You weren’t dead anymore.”
Most people who would hear Lando talk like this would’ve told him he was crazy. That he shouldn’t mess with stuff like that, not in a time like this.
Oscar just listens, patient and focused on his every word. “So what are you saying?” He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t ridicule Lando like Lando would have done in his place.
Breaking the news isn’t as tough of a challenge when rejection is barely on the table.
“I think-I have a theory. We’ve clicked from the beginning, right? You felt that too?”
The doubt is there, they haven’t talked like this before, haven’t voiced these words out loud.
Oscar sighs. “Yeah. I did.”
Gone is the doubt, the shame, the fear of maybe being wrong. Not all in his head, it was no longer,
“We’ve-we’ve been soulmates for a bit. I think.” He blurts it out, like a well-kept secret that is finally allowed to be known. The words pain him, for they feel foreign in his mouth as he says them for the first time. “Like the tales. The old ones. You’ve heard of them?”
“Oh.” Oscar looks away, exhaustion draining his face of colour. “That was what it was. I tried to understand, but couldn’t.”
Neither could Lando, not until today. Not until Oscar had died.
“Is that-is that okay?”
Oscar laughs softly. “Lan. If I hadn’t been so tired I’d kiss you beyond words. It is very much okay.”
A hot flush has Lando blush so fiercely that he pats his own cheeks in wonder. Kiss, Oscar had said kiss. “Oh wow, Oh, I- we could do a low-energy kiss?” It’s not like his ribs can handle much more at the moment.
Oscar nods, glee at Lando’s eagerness and word choice bright in his eyes. Love houses there too, and it’s only now that Lando sees it for what it is. Oscar has always looked at him with heart-eyes.
Lando tries to sit up, but jostles his ribs in the process. The hiss he lets out sounds heavy in the quiet room.
“You are hurt.” Oscar’s eyes pin him down on the spot. “Where? How?”
Lando hesitates. He wouldn’t want Oscar to worry, not when he’s gone through almost dying, but Oscar will worry more if he shrugs it off as nothing. “Ribs. I crashed as well, remember? My seat folded inwards on one side and yeah. They think three or four ribs are fractured, I need an X-ray to check.”
Oscar gulps and his eyes fill with concern. “Then what are you doing here? You-You should get an X-ray. And rest, at least.”
Lando shuffles in the sheets, not looking at Oscar. “So, I sort of figured out that you could die if I didn’t get to you in time?” The fear still partly remains in his veins, lingers to remind him that he won’t ever lose Oscar again. Not on his watch.
“They let you go?”
“Nope. I just left. Against advise.”
“That’s stupid.” Oscar wraps a gentle arm around him, fingers gazing his broken ribs with care. “Thank you. I love you.”
The confession slams into Lando, steals his breath away and Lando’s heart starts beating so loud that the whole world must be able to hear it. “Same, mate,” he mutters, and presses himself closer to Oscar. It’s Oscar’s arms around his ribs that holds his heart where it should be. The air feels lighter somewhat, his ribs expanding without creaking. He takes a deep breath. Nothing. No pain.
“Osc, what-”
“Did it work?” Oscar taps his side pointedly. Underneath his fingers, Lando’s skin feels warm, his bones painless. Oh.
“You healed my ribs? Just like that? That’s insane.”
“Hmm. Least I could do. Pros of being soulmates.”
Lando smirks, a thought forming with lightning speed. “That means I can do-” He pushes the blankets out of the way and clambers up on Oscar’s lap, “This.”
Oscar gazes up at him, starstruck, brown eyes warm and soft. His mouth is relaxed, and so, so kissable. “Hi,” Lando mumbles.
One corner of Oscar’s mouth lifts up. “Hi,” he whispers back, “Still up for that kiss?”
Lando cups his face and marvels at the way his hands frame Oscar’s features. “Yeah,” he hums, and closes the distance between them.
The TV in the break-room chatters annoyingly before it’s shut off with an angry push at a button. “I just don’t understand it,” the nurse mutters shortly. “The patient’s bones weren’t even broken, which the impact would suggest happening. And we have no idea why the patient’s heart stopped, he’s not injured at all aside from the presumed concussion and burns.”
The doctor, the same who is in charge of the patient that’s being discussed and who was with him when they visited the patient just now, walks over to the tap. She fills an instant noodle cup with water, puts it in the microwave and turns it on. “Some things we cannot explain, you just have to live with that.”
The nurse rolls his eyes. “It just doesn’t add up. This sounds like magic, unreal. There’s got to be an explanation.”
Frozen upon the spot, the doctor curses. “Shit. Magic. How have I missed that? The stories are old, but-” The microwave beeps, but no one reacts.
“Missed what?” Already on his feet moving, the nurse asks.
“Soulmates. They could be soulmates.” They both start running.
When the door of Oscar’s room slams open and a frantic doctor and worried nurse stumble in, Lando and Oscar do anything but spring apart. They are entangled both bodies and souls, not about to part anytime soon. Finally, they found each other. And they are never letting go.