Chapter Text
The 2025 season wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It wasn’t supposed to feel like a countdown. It was a countdown not to a championship, but to the inevitable. Something that had once been soft, and warm, and easy, but had turned into something cold, shady, and so very difficult. By the time the European rounds rolled around, Lando could feel it in the way Oscar didn’t look at him the same. Or, maybe it was the way he didn’t look at Oscar the same, he wasn’t sure anymore. He wasn’t sure of anything except the points table, the gap between them, the way every session felt like another failure.
Oscar was ahead. By seven points. Seven. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. McLaren had finally built a monster of a car, and the world was watching a more than seasoned driver fumble the win every weekend. The world was watching the “dream team” teammates tear each other apart.
Media day in Barcelona was the first time anyone else had noticed. Oscar and Lando had sat side by side, with their crisp orange shirts, hair still damp from the heat. Camera’s flashed, questions flew, and for the first time in their two years of being teammates, the year and a half of being something more, they didn’t share a single glance. Not one.
Oscar answered questions with a polite smile, hands folded neatly in his lap. Lando leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, jaw tight. They looked like strangers who happened to be wearing the same uniform.
“Do you think the rivalry is heating up between you two?” A reporter asked, voice too eager.
Oscar gave a thin laugh, “We are just doing our jobs.”
Lando didn’t laugh, “We’re competitive, it's normal. Comes with the territory.”
Oscar’s eyes flicked towards him, searching for something, anything. Lando didn’t give him anything. He didn’t give Oscar any type of reassurance that he normally would. He sounded and looked cold, like Oscar being close repulsed him. Something in Oscar’s soul fell.
Back at the hotel, they kissed. They always did, but it was muscle memory by now. Oscar’s hands cupped Lando’s jaw, thumbs brushing his cheeks like he was memorizing the shape of him. Lando kissed back, because he always did, because this is what they did. It felt different to both of them. Like Oscar was trying to pull him closer while Lando refused to be pulled.
They ended up on the bed, legs tangled, breaths uneven. Oscar pressed his forehead to Landos, whispering, “I missed you today,” Lando didn’t respond. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to explain the knot in his chest, the reminder that every point Oscar scored against him was a reminder that he wasn’t good enough. That Oscar’s presence made him feel like a failure, like he couldn’t escape the reality that Oscar was above him in the championship.
Lando kissed him instead, slower this time, trying to coax Oscar back into the moment. Oscar gave in a little more but hesitated. Lando pulled away, just enough for Oscar to feel the rejection.
“Are you okay?” Oscar whispered, scared for the answer.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
Oscar waited, he always waited. He was patient in a way Lando had never been. But tonight, patience wasn’t enough. Tonight, Oscar had needed something more, and Lando didn’t have it to give. Not when Oscar was beating him, when the world was watching. Oscar pressed a kiss on his cheek instead, and Lando still turned his head away, “I said I am tired.”
“Yeah… I just wanted to… nevermind.” Oscar rolled over quickly, eyes going glossy, hurt flooding his chest. He got up and headed to the bathroom, needing a quiet place to cry, to let it out. Lando watched him, guilt twisting in his stomach, but he didn’t reach out. He didn’t know how anymore. When Oscar came back, Lando was on his phone, facing away. Upon getting into the bed, Lando instinctively put the phone down, rolling over, snuggling into Oscar’s chest. Muscle memory, a fake grasp at normalcy, going through the motions.
The next morning, they barely spoke. Oscar handed Lando his coffee without meeting his eyes. Lando mumbled a quiet thank you that sounded more like it was supposed to be an apology, but Oscar didn’t react. He just sipped his own and stared out of the window.
They walked into the garage together, like always, but they weren’t smiling. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t talking about the newest gossip or celebrity drama. Mechanics greeted them, Engineers briefed them, cameras followed them. But through all of it they stayed on opposite sides of the room, orbiting each other without ever crossing paths. Andrea watched with a frown, Zak with concern, fans watched with confusion. Because everyone knew Lando and Oscar, everyone knew what they used to be, inseparable, laughing, teasing, supporting, celebrating. Everyone knew the way they used to look at each other. But now? Now they looked like two drivers fighting for a championship, and nothing else.
Still the season marched on, and each race chipped away at them slowly. They flip flopped who won each weekend, staying close to each other, but Lando surpassed him, and the gap grew. So did the silence. They still curled up together in hotel rooms, still held each other, but they didn’t talk. Not about the championship, not about the pressure, not about the way Lando’s insecurities were eating him alive, not about the way Oscar was trying, desperately, to hold onto something that was slipping through his fingers. Oscar tried, he really did. He tried to reach Lando, tried to joke with him, tried to pull him into conversations, to pull him back into them. But Lando kept drifting away. Every time Oscar smiled at him, Lando felt undeserving. Every time Oscar touched him, Lando felt like he was being held together by hands he didn’t deserve. And every time Oscar beat him, Lando felt more resentment grow.
Oscar felt it. Oscar felt all of it. He felt every inch of distance growing between them. He tried desperately to close the gap, he really tried so hard. But Lando kept stepping back.
The turning point came in Belgium. They were in Lando’s hotel room, like always. Oscar had stopped even going into his own room, bringing all of his belongings to Lando’s instead. They were both exhausted from the race, and the endless media questions about their “friendly rivalry.” Oscar sat beside him on the bed, knees brushing, eyes soft in the dim light.
The issue is that Oscar had won. Lando second. “You were amazing today,” Oscar offered.
Lando shrugged, staring off into space, “You were better.”
“That's not- Lando that’s not what I meant.” Oscar already felt defeated. Lando didn’t answer. Oscar reached out, fingers brushing Lando’s wrist, “Can you look at me?” He begged. Lando didn’t, “Please?”
Finally, slowly, reluctantly, Lando lifted his gaze. Oscar leaned in, kissing him gently, like he was afraid Lando might break. Lando kissed him back, but it was hollow, empty, a reflex instead of a feeling. Oscar deepened the kiss, trying to find his Lando in there somewhere, trying to pull him back into the moment, and for a second it felt like it was working, and maybe it was, but Lando snapped out of it. He pulled away, again.
Oscar just stared at him, “Lan… what’s wrong?”
Lando winced, “nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.” Lando said with a twinge of attitude.
Oscar let it go, a part of him was scared of what would happen if he kept pushing, the inevitable would come, he knew that. So, he left it, he let himself live in the delusion that things would get better, at least for one more night, right? He would talk to him again in the morning.
They didn’t talk in the morning. By the time the summer break hit, they were barely hanging on. They still spent the summer in Monaco, visiting each other’s apartments frequently. Things kind of returned to normal, a new kind of normal anyway. They didn’t talk, but the break brought a relief from work, and Oscar had hoped that this was the turning point. But the truth was there, heavy and suffocating, sitting between them every time they sat side by side. Every time they thought about the summer break ending. Every time they lay in bed together, with no space between their bodies. Oscar felt it more than Lando, he felt the way Lando’s hand didn’t reach out to him anymore, the way Lando’s smile never reached his eyes, the way Lando’s kisses were fading, softening, disappearing. He felt the way he was losing him, slowly, quietly, painfully. And there was nothing Oscar could do about it other than watch.
One night, after a long, silent evening in Oscar’s apartment, Oscar sat on the couch, staring at the show on the TV, but not actually watching, just listening to Lando breathe beside him, trying to memorize the sound. He thought about the way things used to be. The way Lando used to laugh with him. The way they used to celebrate together. The way they used to talk for hours about everything and nothing. The way Lando looked at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. He thought about the promises they had made. The love they had shared. The future they had imagined. And he felt something inside him crack.
He turned his head, looking at Lando’s sleeping face, head leaning back on the couch, no longer choosing to sleep with his head safely on Oscar’s shoulder. His chest ached, his throat tightened, and in the quiet of the room, with the weight of the season and his failing relationship crashing down on him, he let out a few tears, and whispered to himself, barely audible, “It wasn’t always like this.”