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Lando wouldn't dare call it love. Simply because they didn't say it. Instead, they shared touches and kisses and they fucked and fought. Maybe it was love for everybody else.
Truth was, finding that Oscar could be more than Oscar, just a teammate, then a lover, surprised Lando. The possibility of their lips touching seemed so small, so very finite and overall, actually impossible. But it did happen. Once, twice, they fucked and moaned and Lando might have cried, once or thrice. Then, one day, just like that, Lando had started seeing Oscar differently.
Oscar was rough and cold on track. He would climb in his car ever-so delicately but with the confidence of a driver who knew he would win. And he won. God he won, so much it scared Lando. He watched the boy who he wanted to consider an apprentice win more than him. Truth was, Oscar had never been an apprentice. Oscar was the tornado and Lando was simply the thunderstorm—they would work perfectly together and need the other, yet, one was always the winner. Oscar was magnificent when he won a race. Polite, thanking everybody in a clipped Australian accent that meant mumbling all the words together, like a language only him the people closest to him could understand. He held his head high, proud chin and a thin line on his lips meaning he didn't want to smile too much, didn't want to gloat yet. Maybe Lando had started loving Oscar when he started winning. But again, love wasn't a thing there.
Oscar was soft and warm everywhere else. This was only a façade of Oscar that Lando discovered later. Outside of wins. In-between post-race hugs and conversations that would last too long to be normal. Later, when they had started being a thing without naming it, Oscar was everything. The opposite of the person he was racing, yet the exact same determination in his gaze.
They had started this around Singapore, although it had probably began before. They talked and talked and kissed and pretended everything was alright. No one ever mentioned it. As if it was normal to have sex with your teammate turned championship rival. And caress his hair, the day after one won a race and the other didn't. But it somehow kept going.
The thing was, Lando had been used to getting everything he wanted in life. Not by simply snapping his fingers, of course, but by fighting and making sure everything made sense. That things were lined up, his OCD nagging in the worst moments. Counting to 100 before a race. Checking three times if the door of his driver's room was properly closed. That his sock was as high as the other, the laces of his shoes in a perfect 8 shape. It became embarrassing, the day that Oscar caught him in his routine, but the other didn't say anything. That was before. Now, Oscar was used to it, helping Lando through the process.
Lando wanted a championship so he got it. Fucking fought for it for twenty-four races. For twenty-six years. He qualified, crashed, cried, caved in, laughed and won. He never got angry. Well, at himself, sure, but never at Oscar. Because Oscar was here. Oscar was fucking everywhere.
Even now, Oscar was still there. A teammate, sure, the one you didn't have to face anymore because the car wouldn't win any championship just yet. A teammate that would help you overtake and pit and that was it. But yet, Oscar became everything else. Oscar was here.
Oscar was in Lando's apartment a lot, in Monaco. Supposedly because it was bigger and better decorated. Oscar was in the bathroom, taking an evening shower, rolling a towel around his hips, a towel that wasn't even his. Oscar was in the kitchen, making breakfast, finding eggs that hadn't expired just yet, and trying to gather everything to cook passable pancakes. He cooked in the morning and at night. On off-days, he would open a beer with a flick of his wrist, give it to Lando, and show him a recipe. Something with something and something else that Lando would somehow end up liking. Oscar was in the living room, sitting on the sofa with a leg over the other, scrolling on his phone patiently whenever he needed to wait for Lando. He liked the sofa. He liked the sofa a lot. For many things apparently. Oscar was in the bedroom too, obviously. Fucking Lando, watching him sleep, saying words he shouldn't tell and promising him things that couldn't even exist in their world.
Oscar was good at watching Lando, keeping an eye on him for every want and need. But truly, Lando deemed he was the obsessed one. Sure, Lando wasn't one to, unlike Oscar, summon a god he didn't believe in during sex, or to whisper half-truths, or make stupid marriage proposals when one morning was soft and the bed warm enough. But Lando wanted Oscar so much and couldn't tell exactly how much he had him already.
Everything was. Normal. They had such a normal life if you removed everything that wasn't. It was actually ridiculous, how racing meant close to nothing when they were together in bed. When Oscar would hold Lando's hips so gently, caress his face ever-so preciously when he fucked him deep. When Oscar would card his fingers in Lando's curls as if he just could. Dip his thumb in Lando's mouth during sex, or against his back dimples. Oscar would talk him to sleep, purposefully rambling about childhood stories so that Lando could find slumber easily. Lando loved Oscar's body, so he would request Oscar to just show him. To just lay down here so that Lando could trace everything, thin veins under pale skin, constellations of moles and freckles, scars from stupid toddler falls. Oscar had thick muscles ever since he discovered that Formula 1, and specifically G-Force, could take a toll on him. So off-season, Oscar had trained and trained and one day came back at the McLaren Technology Centre making Lando choke on his morning tea. Now, Oscar was gracious enough to lend his body to science, let Lando touch him, curl his bicep around the other boy's so he could feel.
Well. Maybe that was what Lando wanted. To feel. And did he feel with Oscar! In almost a painful way, really. Maybe that, sometimes, he felt too much.
Sometimes, even months later, when Lando closed his eyes, he would see Oscar's face when Lando won the championship. Oscar had already removed his helmet, he had race lines against his cheeks and maybe, somewhere under the collar of his fireproofs, faint bruises that Lando might have kissed a while back. They hadn't dare be too close to each other by the end of the season. Lando had never missed something he never had more. But that day, Oscar had hugged him and smiled. Lando understood he was obsessed when he couldn't stop pronouncing his name. Os-cah, a sound becoming so natural. There were two full minutes in the club where, Lando had cried in Max's arms, drunk off his ass. Max probably thought it was the relief, finally winning a championship when it's your dream, as it had been ever since you were a kid. But those two minutes were for Oscar. Could have been more if Lando let himself.
Max didn't know about Oscar. Nobody did. It was a secret that started shameful and now was just… Just. Fuck. Lando couldn't tell. Months of sneaking around to yell at each other and fuck to forget about it. To steal kisses and jokes. To spend full days at Lando's place as if they were something and maybe, maybe, just maybe, they were.
Lando had started dreaming about Oscar. But those weren't fantasies because they were so close to reality. Just two creatures circling each other in a way that was so them, that when he woke up, Lando understood that maybe, they were something, and maybe, love was here, somewhere. Three words more impactful than any other promise in this sport. Three words that could undermine them. Three words that could be nothing or forever.
In-between two races, two DNFs and two podiums, Oscar had knocked on Lando's door with a bag of groceries, kissed his cheek as a greeting, and simply walked to the kitchen. He was talking about the latest team results, and how his own mother had congratulated Lando, and how he had found this chicken roast recipe. Oscar wasn’t a talker up until he was in a comfortable place. Maybe this was one.
Lando had put up music, introducing a new release of a house album to Oscar, that he knew he would eventually steal to blast in his driver's room and post on his latest Instagram post. The traitor. Oscar insisted on cooking everything by himself. He sliced lemon, Lando had sucked the juice out of his fingers. Oscar peeled garlic and preheated the oven. He made a comment on how clean the oven was, which was a given, considering Lando was never home. He explained how he would cook potatoes with the chicken and it was the first time that Lando had to look away. Too much. Way too much.
They didn't talk much afterwards. They didn't need to. Oscar was comfortable living when Lando would be quiet next to him, mindlessly scrolling, doing everything but looking at Oscar right now.
Lando set the table, making sure the patterns on the plates were straight, that the forks and knives were aligned, a chill running down his spine. He wasn't even hungry. Oscar put down the steaming chicken on the table, a half-hidden grin in the corner of his lips, as if he was trying to hide his pride. Lando didn't compliment anything. He stayed quiet, as Oscar was cutting the chicken like his mother had once taught him, sticking the knife in-between muscles and cartilage. Another chill. Lando was still quiet when the chicken, full of lemon and garlic flavour, melted on his tongue. It was maybe when he tasted the potatoes, or when Oscar asked him if he wanted some wine, that Lando had started crying.
“God, is it really that bad?”
Trust Oscar to turn every situation into sarcasm. That made Lando's tears fall harder. He let his fork down, painfully chewed the remnants of food in his mouth, and pushed himself away from the table.
“Lando— Baby.”
No, everything was ridiculous. Not the tears specifically, because of course, Oscar had seen him cry. Exhibit one, Miami 2024, Exhibit two, when they had sex, Exhibit three, when Lando became a champion and Oscar didn't. But never in a way that felt honest, so raw. So real. Eating a chicken roast on a Friday night as if that was their lives.
Lando had blinked once, twice, chasing tears from his eyes as Oscar kneeled next to him. Lando tried to open his mouth but couldn't.
“It's okay, you don't have to talk. Just nod if you're alright.”
Lando nodded.
“Have I accidentally poisoned you with my cooking?”
Lando shook his head. Oscar's hand was somehow in Lando's curls, on this one sensitive parcel of skin against his nape. Fingerprints coming back home. Oscar let out a soft smile, the one that slightly curled on the left, shy, so, devastatingly, him, and therefore, Lando's.
“Are you in love with me?”
Somewhere against his tongue, the lemon zest was still stinging. Lando was shaking from the acidity. From the feelings. He nodded.
Oscar nodded too, although playfully, and got up, cupping Lando's jaw for an instant, reverent.
“Well, I reckon it wasn't worth crying in my chicken.”
Later that night, when Lando was faking being asleep, he let Oscar watch him for a while. He could tell from the other boy's breathing that he wasn't sleeping yet, just appreciating the quiet, the very essence of this being only theirs. Then after a few minutes, Lando turned completely to Oscar.
“God,” Lando sighed, although he wasn't a devout man.
Oscar bit his lip.
“Oscar, Oscar, Oscar,” Lando whined, although he didn't believe in prayers.
But it meant enough and they knew it. Lando kissed Oscar enough to make sure he would fall asleep first, and when he was sure he was deep in slumber, Lando stayed a long time, minutes, hours maybe, watching Oscar's face, making sure he would always know the shape of his nose, his straight brows, his parted lips, his strong jaw, and never see that face go.